Notes for Gemelo 39

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.

Gemelo 39

This puzzle is available at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/5405667c-a9a5-4173-a86a-5408f2d7ee92/file/puzzle.pdf.

Please give your own G-rating for this Gemelo puzzle by clicking on the relevant star above, with one star representing a very straightforward solve by your own standards (Gentle) and five stars indicating a seriously tough one (Gnarly). Note that hovering over the ‘graph’ icon will show you the full breakdown of votes for the current puzzle. You rated Gemelo 38 as being close to average difficulty at 2.7 (based on 37 votes), putting it well below G37 (3.6) and a little above G36 (2.4) – very similar to my own assessment of those three puzzles.

This puzzle was quite entertaining, although some of the surface readings seemed rather strained (eg 31a) and there were one or two indicators that I wasn’t particularly keen on (eg ‘barely’ in 8d, although I know that Gemelo is happy to use obsolete senses of words in this way).

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 23d, “Force unit to eat in earshot (4)”. The answer, the CGS unit of force, is a homophone (‘in earshot’) for a word meaning ‘to eat’. I’m all in favour of interesting ways of indicating homophones in advanced cryptics, with several indicators having been added to the Clinical Data list in recent times and a couple more waiting for the next update. However, I feel that there has to be some suggestion that the sound of a word or phrase is the key to the clue, either with reference to the speaker (eg ‘uttered’), the medium (eg ‘broadcast’), or the hearer (‘picked up’). The word ‘earshot’ means ‘the distance within which a sound can be heard’, and to be ‘in earshot’ means that you are within that distance; it seems to me significantly different from (say) ‘in audition’, which can describe an act of hearing. I think the indicator here really needs to be along the lines of ‘for those in earshot’.

Across

1a Short story ending happily, sealing deal if one’s squeezed (12)
A six-letter ‘story ending happily’ (hopefully with plenty of laughs along the way) missing its last letter (‘short’) contains (‘sealing’) a four-letter word for a deal or agreement, the letters IF (from the clue), and the Roman numeral representing ‘one’.

12a Play with a quill (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘[to] play’ is followed by the letter A (from the clue). The ‘play’ word originally referred to playing gramophone records, though I remember that when software installation packages started coming on CDs that you simply had to insert into your computer’s drive in order to initiate the set-up process, the term ‘plug and play’ was (albeit briefly) supplemented by ‘???? and grin’.

18a Amateur record going back as far as ancient thinker (5)
The usual abbreviations for ‘amateur’ and a particular type of gramophone record are reversed (‘going back’) ahead of a preposition meaning ‘as far as’.

22a Rare Chinese style of print mostly used by college (5)
A five-letter ‘style of print’ (the contrasting style being described as ‘sans ?????’) deprived of its last letter (‘mostly’) is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘college’.

24a Part of Iron Man originally taken from book (3)
The readers’ poll in the June Digest (coming out on Monday) concerns the false capitalization of words in clues. Here the noun ‘iron’ is given an unnecessary capital to make it look like part of the title of a book by Ted Hughes (or a song by Black Sabbath, if that’s more your kind of thing). The first letter (‘originally’) of ‘Man’ is removed from a four-letter word for a book, particularly a big ‘un.

27a Small window can jam (9)
A charade of a word used by ‘U’ speakers for what the non-U call the toilet (ie ‘can’) and a six-letter word for the sort of jam that one might find oneself in produces the (4-5) answer.

30a Odd highland lizard shedding skin (4)
The six-letter lizard which sheds its ‘skin’ (outermost letters) might put more mature solvers in mind of WE Johns’ WAAF Flight Officer, along with her trusty sidekick Betty ‘Frecks’ Lovell; her admirer and Spitfire pilot Bill Ashton, whose attentions were rejected on the grounds that there was a war to be won; and superiors like Squadron Leader McNavish, who were not kindly disposed towards free spirits such as Joan.

32a Cover for member‘s blunder over Solicitor at Law wearing incense (12, 2 words)
A four-letter piece of schoolboy slang for a blunder is followed by the usual abbreviation at Lord’s and elsewhere for ‘over’, together with the abbreviation for ‘Solicitor at Law’ contained by (‘wearing’) a word meaning ‘incense’, or at least ‘annoy’. The answer is (6,6).

Down

1d Bloodhound biting before (not after) rolling domestic animal that’s been chipped? (8)
A three-letter informal shortening of the nine-letter term for the sort of person who might also be described as a ‘bloodhound’ or a ‘gumshoe’, containing (‘biting’) an informal preposition meaning ‘before’ and a regular preposition meaning ‘not after’,  the whole lot being reversed (‘rolling’).

7d Quarter using e.g. ChatGPT instead of our trust (5)
A six-letter word for one quarter of something has a two-letter abbreviation answering to ‘e.g. ChatGPT’ replacing (‘instead of’) the consecutive letters OUR. I’m not convinced that ChatGPT is artificial intelligence, rather it is a product that is underpinned by or demonstrates it.

12d Restricting gear broke this government somehow (10)
A five-letter word meaning ‘broke’ (in the impecunious sense) is followed by an anagram (‘somehow’) of THIS and the single-letter abbreviation for ‘Government’.

14d Where pupils learn on snow is cold – stop in hail! (9, 2 words)
The letters IS (from the clue), the usual abbreviation for ‘cold’, and a two-letter interjection meaning ‘stop!’ are contained by a four-letter salutation of Nordic origin, often used interchangeably with ‘bottoms up!’. The answer is (3,6).

20d I don’t like this unfinished shower in remote part of New Zealand (6)
Just as “I’m in pain” can lead to OW, so “I don’t like this” yields a three-letter interjection expressing disapproval (repeatedly used by Yogi Bear’s small ursine chum). This precedes a four-letter word for a shower (of arrows, for instance) lacking its last letter (‘unfinished’).

23d 6 in King Lear perhaps warn about acting without a plan (6)
The answer to 6d is followed by a reversal (‘about’) of a word found in King Lear which probably means ‘warn’. It is used by Edgar in his peasant guise when speaking to Oswald (and immediately prior to smiting him). He says in his assumed south-western accent, “An chud ha’ bin zwagger’d out of my life, ‘twould not ha’ bin zo long as ’tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near th’ old man. Keep out, che ??? ye, or Ise try whether your costard or my ballow be the harder.” As a regular correspondent points out, the OED doesn’t include the word here, although Collins has it has a dialect word for ‘to warn’; anyway, it’s in Chambers, whether it deserves to be or not, so it’s ok.

25d Priest’s covering up husband’s age (5)
A reversal (‘up’) of a four-letter ‘vestment worn over the alb or surplice by priests at certain Christian ceremonies’ is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘husband’.

29d Siemens once deposing leader, briefly for me (3)
The four-letter abbreviation (‘briefly’) for ‘In my humble opinion’ (ie ‘for me’), used in electronic communications to suggest that your opinion is anything but humble, loses its first letter (‘deposing leader’). The answer is the word for a unit superseded by the the siemens (ie ‘siemens once’); here we have an example of a capital letter being deceptively included in a way that will satisfy the purists.

(definitions are underlined)