The Instructions:
Eleven clues are identically deficient in their cryptic component, reflecting the passing of the solution to one of them.
We seem to have another gremlin in this month’s Genius. We printed out the puzzle and were very confused by 9ac and 25d. It wasn’t until we looked at the online form for submitting answers that we realised what had happened.
The first thematic clue that we guessed was 12 across which was actually the theme of the puzzle (MM is the middle of SUMMER and Midsummer is on 24th June). The rest of the thematic items which require MM to be added to the wordplay fell into place very quickly which meant that we completed the puzzle in almost record time for a Genius.
It’s funny the things you only notice when writing up the blog though. Pasquale has used ‘over’ three times in down clues (14, 16 and 21). This would often indicate ‘O’ or perhaps an indication of a ‘wrap-around’ as in 1 ac but in these three clues although it reinforces the order within the wordplay it is used to help with the surface reading. It’s not meant as a criticism by any means – we never noticed it during the solve at all!
| Across | ||||
| 1 | European fly spread across province (6) | |||
| DANISH | DASH (fly) around or ‘spread across’ NI (province) | |||
| 4 | Two male animals may be on front of book (7) | |||
| BUCKRAM | BUCK and RAM – two male animals | |||
| 9 | What’s brought up by Scottish island — a fish (9) | |||
| BARRACUDA | CUD (what’s brought up) after or ‘by’ BARRA (Scottish island) A | |||
| 10 | Joints in frameworks (5) | |||
| RACKS | Double definition | |||
| 11 | Element getting rid of leader, creating disgust (5) | |||
| ODIUM | ||||
| 12 | Return of having little light? Sure, unfortunately, after this! (9) | |||
| MM | MIDSUMMER | DIM (having little light) returned + anagram of SURE – anagrind is ‘unfortunately’. The clue makes reference to the fact that the days will be getting shorter from now on – something that Bert for some reason or other delights in reminding Joyce at this time of year! | ||
| 13 | Like label that shows boy collecting sign of approval (5-2) | |||
| STICK-ON | SON (boy) around or ‘collecting’ TICK (sign of approval) | |||
| 15 | Aggressive driver turning back (6) | |||
| MM | RAMMER | REAR (back) reversed or ‘turning’ | ||
| 17 | What one may smell or perhaps taste, by the sound of it (6) | |||
| SCENTS | Sounds like or ‘by the sound of it’ SENSE (taste, perhaps) | |||
| 19 | Fellow anatomy student associated with stand-up act? (7) | |||
| COMEDIC | A play on CO-MEDIC – perhaps a fellow anatomy student indicated by the ? | |||
| 22 | Firm and organised labour sharing amicably (9) | |||
| MM | COMMUNION | CO (firm) + UNION (organised labour) | ||
| 24 | Chief always getting behind in the morning (5) | |||
| AMEER | EER (always) after or ‘getting behind’ AM (in the morning) | |||
| 26 | Atmosphere of a capital city, in the language of its people (5) | |||
| AROMA | A ROMA (the Italian way of writing their capital city, Rome) | |||
| 27 | Individual eating one fruit (9) | |||
| MM | PERSIMMON | PERSON (individual) around or ‘eating’ I (one) | ||
| 28 | Give direction to someone stripping plant (7) | |||
| MM | STEMMER | STEER (give direction to) | ||
| 29 | Exploitative type certain to be found in ancient city (6) | |||
| USURER | SURE (certain) inside UR (ancient city) | |||
| Down | ||||
| 1 | Suspect note in contrived recordings (7) | |||
| DUBIOUS | IOU (note) in DUBS (contrived recordings) | |||
| 2 | See him running up — just some Olympic runner of yesteryear (5) | |||
| NURMI | Hidden in the clue and reversed or ‘up’ hIM RUNning. We’d never heard of this runner but it was an easy guess from the wordplay once we had a crossing letter. | |||
| 3 | Untidy woman alas disturbed relations (9) | |||
| MM | SLAMMAKIN | An anagram of ALAS – anagrind is ‘disturbed’ + KIN (relations) | ||
| 4 | What may make character in pub ultimately run? (7) | |||
| BLADDER | A cryptic definition – B (last letter in pub or ‘ultimately’) LADDER (run). | |||
| 5 | Island location in UK with castle mostly visible to all (5) | |||
| CORFU | CORF |
|||
| 6 | Leftie trapping Conservative, one surprisingly put forward (9) | |||
| MM | RECOMMEND | RED (leftie) around or ’trapping’ C + an anagram of ONE – anagrind is ‘surprisingly’ | ||
| 7 | Wretchedness of Scrooge before start of Yuletide (6) | |||
| MISERY | MISER (Scrooge) Y (start of Yuletide) | |||
| 8 | Mobilise elevated intelligence (6) | |||
| MM | SUMMON | NOUS (intelligence) reversed or ‘elevated’ as it is a down clue | ||
| 14 | Trouble at home over love discovered in secret writing (9) | |||
| MM | INCOMMODE | IN (at home) on top of or ‘over’ O (love) inside CODE (secret writing’) | ||
| 16 | A male upset over stars revealing breasts (9) | |||
| MM | MAMMARIES | A M (male) reversed or ‘upset’ over ARIES (stars) | ||
| 18 | Top sailor gets the fish (7) | |||
| SKIPPER | A cryptic definition – S (first letter or ‘top’ of sailor) KIPPER (fish) | |||
| 19 | Study revolutionary skill in guerrilla fighter (6) | |||
| CONTRA | CON (study) ART (skill) reversed or ‘revolutionary’ | |||
| 20 | One making enquiry — nothing found in difficult situation (7) | |||
| CORONER | O (nothing) inside CORNER (difficult situation) | |||
| 21 | Thin people beginning to scramble over rough rocks (6) | |||
| SCRAGS | S (first letter or ‘beginning’ of scramble) over CRAGS (rough rocks) | |||
| 23 | Remove weapons from woman leading jolly group (5) | |||
| UNARM | UNA (woman) RM (Royal Marines or a ‘jolly’ group) | |||
| 25 | Wheat we hear being cut regularly (5) | |||
| MM | EMMER | Alternate letters in wE hEaR or ‘cut regularly’ | ||
Thanks for the blog. Thanks to Pasquale as well of course.
Here is a general Genius question, not specific to this one or the new one just out: how should we enter answers in the current web form? I am worried that if it is being checked by a program then I may be using the wrong format. Some specific questions:
1. Upper case, lower case, or anyhow? ANSWER, answer, or Answer?
2. For multi-word answers, with or without a space: TWO WORDS, or TWOWORDS?
3. When there is a special instruction indicating non-standard entry, e.g. the dart board one a while ago, do we enter the answer in normal fashion or not?
A friend and I have been doing these for many years but have not won yet and we feel hard done by. We missed once and once, maybe twice, we got it wrong. I feel that we should have won by now. I fear that I am entering the answers in the wrong way, what other explanation could there be?
Thanks for the blog. We were also a little confused by the gremlinised-clues. With my IT background, I realised that ' is the HTML code for apostrophe which (sort of) made sense of 9a, but where the extra clue after 29d came from, I don’t know!
Anyway, we made quite quick progress on this and it didn’t take too long to guess the theme, just took a while to fill in the last few gaps (it didn’t help having put SCREES for 21d at first!)
To Bad John, my sympathies – we’re in a similar position (perhaps not such veteran geniuses as you), but I think statistics might be your enemy. If (say) 400 correct entries were received each month, you might expect to wait over 22 years before yours was pulled out. Sometimes the entry is far smaller, but maybe those are the more fiendish ones you didn’t finish ?
As for format, I can’t believe any auto-checker would be case-sensitive. I always enter multiple-word answers without spaces or hyphens, but I suspect it makes no difference – if the Grauniad haven’t got time to make a properly-working online Genius page, they probably haven’t got an auto-answer-checker. I guess they pull out an answer at random and eyeball it – if it’s right it gets the prize, if not pull out the next one. It would be a lot quicker…
I reckon I ought to have won the lottery by now. I fear that I am entering the numbers the wrong way. What other…..
Mr Beaver,
From what I have seen, 400 might be a bit high for an average. My memory is that it sometimes drops to 200 and occasionally reaches 400 or so but I thought that was more of a high point than an average. I am very happy to be corrected by anyone that has kept a record of the results. As an ex-mathematician, I have made the probability calculation and, indeed, it could be years before our turn is due. Of course, this does not stop me feeling hard done by. Once, there was an obscure theme that suited me particularly well and I think that the correct answers were at a low point. I thought: “This is our month” but it wasn’t.
I hope that you are right on the checking methods. Indeed, a case sensitive check seems unlikely but I have seen systems that are that unfriendly. The spaces between words and the special cases are of more concern. Your manual strategy is good if you just want to find the winner but if you want a count of correct entries, as we sometimes get, then you need to plough through the whole lot.
NormanLinFrance,
I used to do the lottery until I realised that I probably should not be entering my numbers in binary.
Bad John
Thanks all. This was one of those puzzles where the “Genius” element made it slightly easier in places, giving away some of the letters in the answers.
Bad John – we’ve only being given the total number of entries recently, not just correct ones. Surely nobody would have put effort into automating the checker for the “temporary” entry form?
DuncT,
Yes, I think that you are right. We don’t get much information these days. A shame since, I want to know when my turn to win is due.
Bad John
It gets better all of the time. The answer form has two spaces for 26A, one appears to be a clue from the previous month. Do I enter the answer from that? What if I got that one wrong?
Thanks Bertandjoyce for the blog.
I spent an idiotic amount of time trying to think why Corfu was the right answer for 5d, which was my last one in. I even had, in my mind, Castle = Rook = R, and U for for the film for anyone and possibly CO for County as a location in UK. Total madness in hindsight!
I had not heard of Corfe until I decided to look up Corfu castle as a possible folly in the UK. Up popped Corfe of course and I felt a total idiot.
On a separate note, I won about a year or so back [a Tramp puzzle; and Tramp confessed that he too had previously won – presumably not one of his own!], and think it should by rights be my turn to win again, so bad john will have to wait a bit longer!
I liked the puzzle and learned 2-3 new words which is always good fun.
Despite me having written in Usercode [virtually the same as Assembler] about 40 years ago I did not remember any codes for apostrophe, although there was no HTML around in those days. I do recall using paper tape machines though and punching 80 column cards by hand. I suspect Mr. Beaver may be a little younger than I am.
Gordon
Gordon,
I have been in the computing game long enough to also remember 80 column cards and punched tape. Code reuse had a different meaning then: we would literally take lines out of a previous program. In school, we wrote Fortran, later Algol, programs on paper forms. A secretary typed them onto paper tape. This was then transmitted over a very slow modem to a nearby technical college where the secretary’s husband worked. He would run the programs, bring the printout home, and his wife would bring it to us the next day. One trivial mistake cost you 24 hours. Very occasionally, we got to use the modem and teletype for a live connection. We played a moon lander program; no images, we entered simple, cryptic commands, it responded with some numerical data such as altitude, velocity, and fuel level. It was exciting at the time.
I am still in the game so I recognised the HTML escape but guessed, rather than remembered, that it was the code for apostrophe.
John