A tough but satisfying challenge this month from a setter whose name is new to me.
It may take Gaufrid an hour to do a Genius, but I need a lot more time, and particularly so this month. Matters were not helped by the fact that the version originally available had no indication that the answers at 27 and 31 across, and 5 and 22 down each have two words.
The special instructions explained that wordplay in 27 clues led to a superfluous letter, which in order spelled out a possibly apocryphal quotation attributable to a politician whose name appears in the completed grid. I was unfamiliar with the quotation, and it wasn’t until I had nearly completed the puzzle that I had enough of it to be able to google it and find out who the politician was. As it happened, the part of the grid where his name appears was the last part I completed so I didn’t even have that to help me. For technical reasons I am unable to include the completed grid but the name appeared horizontally just under half way down.
The other 8 clues were said to be “confused” by the quotation and their definitions referred to a different solution. There was no obvious way to distinguish the two types of clue, so progress was slow. I got the northwest quadrant reasonably quickly but then ground to a halt. Had I not been blogging the puzzle I might have given up at that point. Eventually the pattern started to emerge. Three of the 8 clues turned out to be anagrams of STRIPE; and three are anagrams of SPOT. One is an anagram of ZEBRA and the other of LEOPARD. This is all very clever, bearing in mind that the quotation (attributed to Al Gore) is this: “A zebra does not change his spots”.
In the blog I have shown the superfluous letter in capitals, other letters discarded by reason of the wordplay being shown in lower case, in brackets in both cases.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PRIEST | Rip pants by back of Lime Street station (6) |
| *RIP, (lim)E ST(reet). This is the first of the eight “confused” clues and the definition “station” applies to 28 down, where we find “minister” as the definition for this clue. | ||
| 5 | PAROLED | Solder part in home (7) |
| ROLE in PAD. This is another of the “confused” clues and the definition is “let out of jail early” which is to be found at 11 across. It is also an anagram of LEOPARD, which only becomes significant when you work out the quotation. | ||
| 10 | THWARTING | Frustration with a grant being wasted (9) |
| *(WITH (A) GRANT). This is the first of the clues with a superfluous letter, which in this case is A. The first clue in for me. | ||
| 11 | BRAZE | Cook reportedly let out of jail early (5) |
| Sounds like “braise”. The definition “solder” is at the linked clue 5 across. | ||
| 12 | PENANCE | Western town makes atonement (7) |
| PEN(Z)ANCE. A Z so early in the quote set me searching (vainly) for quotes starting with “lazy” or “jazz”. | ||
| 13 | ENTRAP | Catch secretary about to come in at start (6) |
| ENT(E)R PA(rev). For a while I assumed that the missing letter was Y from ENTRY, so couldn’t work out the beginning of the quote at all. | ||
| 15 | DISCO | Show no respect for club – extremely old music (5) |
| DIS C(lu)(B) O(ld). The letter to omit is B. I was unhappy with DIS but Chambers does give it as an alternative to DISS. | ||
| 16 | STRUMPETS | “Obliging ladies” grabbing rear – setter’s lacking energy unfortunately (9) |
| RUMP in *S(e)TTE(R)S. Tricky syntax here – it’s the unfortunate setter that is grabbing the rump, which is not at all how it reads. | ||
| 19 | TRANSIENT | Managed when one’s camping short-term (9) |
| [RAN (A)S 1] all inside TENT. Subtle word play here. | ||
| 23 | CLOUT | Obscure tenor’s influence (5) |
| CLOU(D) T(enor). | ||
| 25 | SPRITE | Chooses location to attract publicity (6) |
| PR in SITE. Another of the “confused” clues whose definition “screen icon” is to be found at 29 down. | ||
| 27 | PROPS UP | For work drink sustains (5,2) |
| PRO (O)P SUP. | ||
| 30 | PENCE | Coppers lock up City trader (the fifth) (5) |
| PEN (E?) C (trad)E(r). Although it is clear that E is the superfluous letter (as well as being the fifth letter of “trader”), I wasn’t happy with EC as meaning City, even if most of the City of London is in the EC postcode. Anyone have any better ideas? | ||
| 31 | TEE SHIRTS | Don’t change back, sir! She’s dressed in casual gear (3,6) |
| *((S)IR SHE) in STET(rev). | ||
| 32 | SUSPEND | Stay with paper while away (7) |
| SU(N) SPEND. Took me a long time to see that “while” was being used as a verb here. | ||
| 33 | RIPEST | Block and tackle no good – it’s annoying (6) |
| RI(g) PEST. The third “confused” clue to make use of an anagram of STRIPE. The definition “most developed” is at 9 down. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | REWINDS | Prepares again to watch English Royal Family cycling (7) |
| I think that this is E WINDS(O)R, with the final letter being put at the front, but I haven’t come across “cycling” used in this way before. | ||
| 3 | ERRONEOUS | One’s true or false? The latter (9) |
| *(ONES (T)RUE OR). | ||
| 4 | TRICEPS | Second policeman’s providing muscle (7) |
| TRICE P(C)S. | ||
| 5 | PIGS EAR | Has gripe about botched job (4,3) |
| *((H)AS GRIPE). | ||
| 6 | REBUT | Prove wrong time’s been put up merely (5) |
| ER(A) (rev), BUT. | ||
| 7 | LEAKAGE | Escape unproductive? Shut up, Kelvin! Not Charlie! (7) |
| LEA(N)(c)KAGE. This is the best parsing that I can come up with, although it means that CAGE does double duty, meaning both “shut up” and indicating the insertion of the K. | ||
| 8 | DEER | Strong desire to mount ruminant (4) |
| (G)REED (rev). | ||
| 9 | STOP | Most developed upsetting drug habits at the end (4) |
| POT (habit)S (all rev). The definition “block” is at 33 across. | ||
| 14 | PSST | I’ve just remembered telly’s over here! (4) |
| P.S. S(E)T. | ||
| 15 | DATA | Help turning up? I’m grateful for info (4) |
| A(I)D (rev), TA. | ||
| 17 | TIN | Idiot welcomes new money (3) |
| Presumably this must be TI(T), N, although Chambers defines it as meaning a contemptible person rather than an idiot. | ||
| 18 | MICROCHIP | Mike switched my vessel’s identification device (9) |
| MIC COR(rev) (S)HIP. Took me a while to see “COR” for “MY”. | ||
| 20 | ALPINES | High-up plants trees with little Sarah (7) |
| (S)AL PINES. | ||
| 21 | EGESTED | Discharged Speaker”s cracked joke at European Parliament (7) |
| I think this is E(uropean) (P)(arliament) with a homophone of “jested”. | ||
| 22 | TOP GEAR | Show trophy round and try to get attention (3,4) |
| POT (rev) G(O) EAR. | ||
| 24 | OESTRUS | Love is abroad (is sexually active in fertility period) (7) |
| O EST RU(T)S. | ||
| 26 | ISERE | French river is dry (5) |
| IS (S)ERE. | ||
| 28 | POST | Minister gets opponents making U-turn (not all) (4) |
| Hidden and reversed in “gets opponents”. Linked to 1 across. | ||
| 29 | OPTS | With no publicity takes on screen icon (4) |
| (AD)OPTS. Linked to 25 across. The third anagram of SPOT. | ||
*anagram
Thank you for the blog, bridgesong.
What an amazing construction, confirming, yet again, my belief that it is the setter who is the ‘Genius’. Like you, there were moments when I almost gave up and I completely missed the fact that the solutions to the mixed-up clues were anagrams of STRIPES and SPOTS. Now I’m even more in awe of Vlad’s grid of solutions.
I also enjoyed the composition of the clues with some lovely surface readings and witty mind-pictures.
A triumph, Vlad, thank you whoever you are.
Thanks bridgesong. What an amazing construction this was. The Z at 12ac threw me when I was looking for a quote, but I spotted (!) the A, L and G appearing and took a guess at the politician. The Z then made the quote easy enough to look up. Identifying the remaining extra letters did help quite a bit after that.
And I did need all tje help I could get. The printed version I was working off did not have explicit enumeration of the two-word answers – so 31ac was (8) rater than (3,5), without even an indication it was more than ohne word. (I see this was later corrected.)
This in no way spoilt my appreciation of a superb puzzle, more than worthy of the Genius slot. Thanks again Vlad – hope we don’t have to wait too long for your next offering.
Hi Bridgesong
I take my hat off to you, Jan and DuncT for completing this puzzle. I did not, and gave up after several days with only 6 or 7 clues done. I only fail to finish one in every 3 or 4 during the course of a year and even then I usually get most of the way through. This really had me stumped. Considering I won the £100 prize earlier this year, I feel a bit of a cheat as I am clearly not worthy of taking a prize if I can’t regularly finish them.
I do see the cleverness of the puzzle and did enjoy struggling with it for a few days until I realised that I had no chance of completing it, so as with Bridgesong [if he had not been the blogger] I gave up. Despite me living in USA and knowing a fair amount about Al Gore and supporting much of what he stands for [apart from his ludicrous claims that the film Love Story was written about Tipper Gore and him, and also separately stating that he invented the world wide web – better not tell Tim Berners-Lee!] I had never heard this quote from him.
I also made a mistake in the extra letter from 16A. I had it as ‘S’; based upon DIS(S) C O which fits the clue better than the actual construction I think [C = Club and O is an extremity of Old]. I have not seen Dis as an alternative to Diss.
Like others I had the earlier version of the puzzle without the four answers mentioned being revised to being two words each. As the Guardian has made a mistake of one sort or another with the Genius for each of the past 12 months at least then I should actually have expected something and checked it later. I’m not sure it would have helped me much though.
After the monthly e-mail from Hugh earlier this month, I e-mailed him back to ask whether he had been aware that the Guardian website had published the solution to Paul’s Genius puzzle 132 about 10 days before the close of the date for entries. I asked if the winner had posted their answers before or after that date. I got no reply which is not usual from him. I wish he was a little better at accepting problems with Guardian crosswords and doing something about it.
Thanks for the blog bridgesong and to Vlad for a very enjoyable Genius.
This took several sittings and three re-writings of my grid as I was struggling in the parsing department and had mismatched some of the 8 other clues. Fortunately, I’d spotted fairly early on that these were anagrams of each other but made the mistake of thinking all 8 were (not 3 of each). Which rather scuppered the quote for a while. Once I had the politician though a bit of googling saw me right. It wasn’t until after I’d finished that I saw the ZEBRA and LEOPARD anagrams. Very neat I thought.
Gordon @3 – I also emailed Hugh about the solution being posted too early on 3rd July, while the puzzle was still live. In the ensuing email chain (which I probably shouldn’t have been included on) it was confirmed that the winner would be chosen from someone who’d submitted their solution before 27th June (when the solution was inadvertently uploaded). The annotated solution was also taken down at that point.
Hi ClairS
Thanks for the feedback
Many thanks for blog and comments.
An impressive puzzle and blog, but having made the same mistake on 13A and not seeing the two word answers I gave up with it half complete. It would be great for the editor to realise that Genius puzzles are hard enough without adding to the difficulty with errors.
Vlad, thanks for dropping by. I think that the blog was insufficiently appreciative of the ingenuity of the construction of the grid, for which I apologise. A shame that your first puzzle for the Guardian should be afflicted by errors (on the part of the paper) which made it unnecessarily difficult to solve. I also now realise that I over-analysed 7 down, where the wordplay simply indicates K instead of C in CAGE.
A wonderfully inventive puzzle by Vlad. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I had never heard of The Genius crossword until July 24th so I took a look and printed it off. As a regulr Inquisitor solver and blogger, the thematic aspect appealed to me immediately. I took the best part of a week to finish and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I confused myself from quite early on when I put ARRESTERS for 16a – thinking that the definition was going to be COPPERS (from 30a). Thankfully I only put it in lightly.
Knowing that we were looking for a “dodgy” quote from a politician, I fully expected “Dubbya” to crop up somewhere. I noticed the SPOTs and STRIPEs fairly early and thought there was going to be a pool connection. Well done Vlad and Bridgesong and I’m left wondering how this one compares to others in the series but you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s now on my list of must dos.