Notes for Gemelo 19

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Observer barred puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Previous Puzzle – Gemelo 18

The general consensus was that Gemelo 18 was pitched at difficulty level 3 – which, indeed, was the rating that I gave it. I felt that if Gemelo could regularly produce crosswords of that quality and level of difficulty, he’d be hitting the sweet spot as far as plain Observer barred puzzles are concerned.

Gemelo 19 First Things First

This puzzle is available at https://cdn.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/media/documents/obs.GEMELO.20251228.pdf.

Solver difficulty rating

3.7 based on 36 votes (voting is now closed)

For me, this one is a matter less of ‘If’ and more of ‘So?’ It’s an exceptional achievement to produce a crossword where the initial letter of every word in every clue is predetermined (I can assure you of that!), but then so is building a working model of Tower Bridge out of matchsticks.  But after we’ve admired the feat, what’s in it for us? The preamble leaves nothing unsaid, and all that remains for the solver is to deal with a series of inevitably ‘stretched’ clues. Far too many times the same word featured in both parts of the wordplay (eg 18a) or in wordplay and answer (eg 8d), and soundness was occasionally sacrificed as well (eg 22d), but given the task which the setter had given himself I’m not going to focus on such aspects in these notes.

I certainly appreciated the puzzle more as a setter than as a solver. I’ll be interested to hear what you made of it, and of course whether you found it Rudyard Solving…

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 32a, “Fog whizz holds each (6, 2 words)”. The wordplay has a three-letter word for ‘confusion’ (‘fog’), originally the mishmash that resulted from breaking up a body of printing type, contained by a three-letter word for an expert or ‘whizz’ (ie ‘whizz holds’). The point of interest here, though, is the enumeration – the six letters to be entered in the grid can make either one word or two words (a 1,5 expression); both terms are in Chambers, and both mean ‘each’, but they would be used in subtly different ways – in a sentence such as “Chocolate éclairs cost a pound each”, the (1,5) version would be appropriate, but in “He gave his grandchildren a thousand pounds each” it would be the six-letter form. Hence the setter could legitimately have chosen to enumerate the answer as “(6)” or “(6, 2 words)”. Most unusually, he was faced with exactly the same options when it came to 23d – for some reason, he chose to show that one as a single word.

Across

1a Indian-born fabulist’s YHA offering unopened catapult (7)
A 3+4 charade of an informal word for a bed (more commonly a nap) and the sort of catapult that did for Goliath, without its first letter (‘unopened’).

7a Animal: nothing King Eugene’s ending (4)
The usual single-letter representation of ‘nothing’ is followed by the cypher of King George (particularly associated with versions V and VI, due to its appearance on postboxes) and the last letter (‘ending’) of ‘Eugene’.

14a Basis of uterine treatment: year off unwise, affected rake, essentially ludicrous (5, 3 words)
A five-letter word a ‘foppish, silly fellow’ (‘unwise, affected rake’) losing the usual abbreviation for ‘year’ (‘year off’) precedes the middle letter (‘essentially’) of ‘ludicrous’. The (1,3,1) answer is shown by Chambers as an abbreviation – the instructions in the newspaper version correctly state that ‘One entry is an abbreviation’, but this sentence is missing from the PDF available online.

17a “Only Shakespeare’s imprisoned, not gone” triumphantly howled (8)
A charade of a two-letter word which could be interpreted as ‘not gone’ (certainly as ‘not out’) and a six-letter word for ‘triumphantly howled’ which is more frequently spelt with a W tacked on the front.

24a Officers needing yarn overturned (4)
The ‘yarn’ which must be reversed (‘overturned’) is the sort that might be related at great length, perhaps by an ageing Norseman.

29a America nail timeless routine (5)
The three-letter abbreviation for America combines with a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] nail’ or ‘secure’ from which the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ has been omitted (‘timeless’).

31a Strokes embryonic laws (5)
A double definition clue, where the first word, meaning  ‘caresses’, is almost invariably seen in association with ‘coos’ (not the Hieland variety).

34a Matched effect – note – does occupy unruly boy (7)
The combination of a three-letter word meaning ‘achieve’ or ‘effect’ and the single-letter abbreviation for ‘note’ is contained by (‘does occupy’) the name originally given in the 1950s to an unruly adolescent – of either sex – who dressed in a way which evoked the Edwardian style.

Down

1d Thing Yale offers unintroduced, being under token major’s attestation? (12, 2 words)
The answer starts with a three-letter word for something Yale (the security firm) have ‘offered’ a heck of a lot of over the years. After that, a six-letter word for ‘being’ (or the qualities of something which make it what it is) lacking its initial letter (‘unintroduced’) follows a four-letter word for a token or indication. The (3,9) answer takes me well out of my comfort zone, but I’m willing to believe that it has something to do with major scales.

4d Retired things housing egg-laying? I refuse, dropping ordinary “uh-huh” (4)
A late contender for the accolade of ‘most convoluted clue of the year’. A two-letter adverb (often used as an interjection) meaning ‘I refuse’ is deprived of the abbreviation for ‘ordinary’ and followed by its exact opposite, an adverb or interjection meaning ‘I agree’ (ie ‘uh-huh’). The ‘retired’ in the definition is there because Chambers gives the answer as a variant spelling of a word shown as ‘archaic’.

6d Fertilise yams? Order! (9)
If this was your first one in, kudos! ‘Yams?’ is there to indicate a four-letter word which can describe a dish which is supplementary to a main course, but (i) neither Chambers nor Collins give this word in the required sense, and (ii) it’s a heck of a stretch. ‘Order’ yields a five-letter word meaning ‘to set in order’, and the answer is (4-5), simply being a combination of the two words produced by the wordplay.

8d All-embracing information to announce naked (7)
A three-letter slang word for ‘information’ (itself a contraction of the answer) is followed by a six-letter word meaning ‘announce’, which could describe the sort of angels that sing around this time of year, lacking its first and last letters (‘naked’).

13d Establishments’ decorated boards you’ll want, audibly, in trigonometric items (8, 2 words)
A homophone (‘audibly’) for ‘in’ plus a term for specific trigonometric functions (think opp over hyp) delivers a (3,5) answer.

15d Numb going over rabbit-chaser, but eccentricity’s inventive (8)
A four-letter word for ‘numb’ is reversed (‘going over’) ahead of the five-letter name of someone who rather rashly followed a waistcoated bunny down a rabbit hole, minus (‘but’) the abbreviation for ‘eccentricity’ (in a conic section). The answer may bring back memories of David EH Jones for New Scientist readers of a certain age (I remember going to see a talk that he gave).

19d Indonesian endless dish available (7, 3 words)
A five-letter word for ‘a member of a people inhabiting Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia’ without its first and last letters (‘endless’, although I can only accept this as indicating the loss of the last letter) goes before a four-letter ‘dish’ which might be accompanied by those yams in 6d (again, neither Chambers nor Collins give this sense). The answer is (1,2,4) and includes an accented vowel.

23d Noted technician developing etudes alongside Liszt – interrupt! (6)
A (4,2) phrasal verb meaning ‘interrupt’ provides the six-letter surname of a composer who is closely associated with Liszt – so closely, indeed, that when his surname is placed before that of Liszt, the result is something which even now is a must-have when making the weekly trip to the supermarket.

(definitions are underlined)