Notes for Gemelo 40

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 40 Two truths and a lie

This puzzle is available at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/47b448a1-3428-493e-abb3-8178d51c45ec/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. Thanks to everyone who gave their view on Gemelo 39 – the average of the 35 difficulty ratings was 2.5, right in the middle of the spectrum. I’ve started making a note of my own assessment as soon as I complete the solve: my rating for G39 was 2.4, so we are in agreement!

I must confess to being slightly underwhelmed by this ‘special’, the main problem I think being that the definitions in the ‘lie’ clues were sufficient to confirm the antonym without the need to solve the clues. The normal clues were easier than those in the average Gemelo ‘plain’, which meant that some of them lacked the craftiness which we have come to expect from the G-man. That said, it was a perfectly good crossword, and perhaps I’m being a little harsh on it because I didn’t get my eight hours last night due to a certain sporting event (clue: “Even Haaland couldn’t get them there – families devastated around Norway (9)”).  I’ll be interested to hear what you thought of it

At the end of these notes I have listed the ‘lie’ clues together with the lengths of their answers.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 8d, “Drunk soldiers shunning institute without a bar (7)”. The answer is an anagram (‘drunk’) of SOLDIERS without (‘shunning’) the usual abbreviation for ‘institute’. The point of interest is the word ‘shunning’, which belongs to a small group of indicators including ‘avoiding’, ‘snubbing’ and ‘spurning’. In the list of deletion indicators on this site, ‘avoiding’ is shown as being valid for either expulsion (‘X avoiding Y’ = X-Y) or departure (‘Y avoiding X’ = X-Y), while the others are shown as indicating departure only. Leaving aside obsolete senses of the words, this feels inconsistent, since they all mean pretty much the same thing. It seems to me that they should be treated similarly to ‘escaping’, ie  the thing doing the avoiding is staying away from the thing avoided, and they are therefore departure indicators. I’m not convinced that (in cruciverbal terms) a longer string can ‘avoid’ (‘shun’ etc) a shorter one, since the verb carries no suggestion of anything being cast out – one can avoid a particular pub, but the pub cannot avoid you. My current thinking is to tidy things up at the next round of data updates by changing ‘avoiding’ to be a departure-only indicator. Incidentally, while ‘rebuffing’ might on the face of it seem to belong to the same group, Chambers gives a meaning of ‘to repulse or reject’ to go along with ‘to snub’, so it is surely valid for both expulsion and departure.

Across

11a Predator in court immediately left (7, 2 words)
A charade of a three-letter word for a court (and for barristers or advocates collectively), a familiar three-letter word meaning ‘immediately’, and the usual abbreviation for ‘left’. The answer is (4,3).

12a Who’s not decent and not won over Colt? (7, 2 words)
A reversal of a three-letter word meaning ‘and not’ and the abbreviation for ‘won’ (the Korean monetary unit) is followed by a three-letter word for something exemplified by a Colt Peacemaker, Python, or M1911. The answer is (5,2) and contains an apostrophe.

14a What’s inserted internally, removing restrictions? (5)
In this &lit clue you can take your pick from two seven-letter words for something that is inserted internally; they differ only in the first letter, and the first and last letters must be deleted (‘removing restrictions’) in order to produce the (hyphenated) answer, loosely defined by the whole clue. I think it’s a fair bet that Gemelo had the P-word in mind.

24a Impassivity of Troy surrounded by strength (12)
The single-letter abbreviation for ‘troy’ is contained (‘surrounded’) by an eight-letter word for ‘strength’ or ‘firmness’.

26a Elite avoiding low-down venture (3)
I could equally well have chosen this as the example for Setters’ Corner, since a six-letter word for the elite (often of the landed variety) loses (‘avoiding’, here used to signal expulsion) a three-letter word for ‘low-down’ that often appears in cryptics indicated by ‘information’ or ‘dope’.

29a Mexican’s certainly taking to American colonnades (5)
A two-letter word of agreement that might be heard in Mexico (although I’m not sure that it’s used on its own there very often) contains (‘taking’) the letters TO (from the clue) and the single-letter abbreviation for ‘American’.

31a Fuss when someone at the table covers up American banquets (7)
The six-letter answer is produced when the designation of one of the players at the bridge table replaces (‘covers up’) the two characters representing ‘American’ in the word FUSS. 

33a Ringing tone‘s complex sound (5)
A double-definition clue, where Chambers gives one word as ‘ringing sound’ and the other as ‘complex tone’ – Gemelo has swapped them round just to confuse us.

Down

1d Welcome growth hormone frequently saving lean person looking for progress (9)
A two-letter informal word of greeting, often seen in emails, and the abbreviation for ‘growth hormone’ are followed by the two-letter abbreviation for ‘frequently’ containing (‘saving’) a three-letter word meaning ‘lean’ or ‘recline’. The answer is (4-5).

3d Where Italian might dip two fingers (5)
The three-letter informal name for the sea wherein an Italian might take a dip is followed by the Roman numerals representing ‘two’.

6d Winds may not, at first, impair a flowering plant (12)
A six-letter word for winds ‘blowing toward the thermal equator and deflected westward by the eastward rotation of the earth’ precedes a four-letter word meaning ‘may not’, the first letter (‘at first’) of ‘impair’, and the letter A (from the clue).

9d Pool clothing with one’s sons, socially acceptable during rides (9)
The usual abbreviation for ‘with’, a two-letter word meaning “one’s” (as in “One’s presently residing at Windsor Castle”) , the usual abbreviation for ‘sons’, and the single-letter term coined by Alan Ross to describe socially acceptable language are all contained by (‘during’) a four-letter word meaning ‘rides’ or ‘has a seat on’.

22d Get former convict to fall short (6)
An obsolete seven-letter word meaning ‘[to] convict’ loses its last letter (‘to fall short’), the result being a familiar word meaning ‘get’ or ‘reach’.

27d In the past, did pound certainly save Oxford University? (4)
A (3,3) phrase meaning ‘certainly’ without (‘save’) the two-letter abbreviation for ‘Oxford University’ yields a four-letter obsolete word. But this word is a past participle, not a past tense, so although it can mean ‘pounded’ (as in ‘was pounded’) it can’t mean ‘did pound’. The phrase here always makes me thing of the game show hosted at its peak by Matthew Kelly, where contestants were invited to demonstrate their somewhat unusual skills to the viewing public. The challenge I remember best was the two German lads who were blindfolded and had to identify the make and model of cars by hearing their doors being closed (they scored five out of five); I couldn’t find a clip of that one online, but I found another pair of Germans (no coincidence – the British show was based on the German original Wetten, Dass…?) whose talents were arguably even wackier.

28d Pair following cue in God of War (4)
A clever clue, where the wordplay yields the names of the two letters following Q (‘cue’) in the alphabet.

(definitions are underlined; definitions of opposites are shown in red)

The Lies

Across: 6 (7 letters); 12 (7, 2 words, apostrophe); 18 (13); 24 (9); 31 (6); 32 (6).
Down: 2 (4); 4 (4); 7 (5); 13 (3); 21 (6); 25 (8);