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 you would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Gemelo 52

This puzzle is available at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/1ca1ff95-e020-461a-81c7-54bdb25915f9/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.

There were 37 difficulty ratings submitted for last week’s puzzle, with the average of 2.0 being the same as that for Gemelo 49 (they were separated by the ‘Anagram Act’ special which came in at 3.4). I found G51 significantly easier than G49, and rated it 1.4, but I may just have been on unusually good form for G51…or unusually poor form for G49.

Today’s puzzle was entertaining, and the clues seemed to have received a generous amount of ‘polishing’. There were plenty of well-disguised breaks between wordplay and definition, and some clever definitions that generally stayed within the bounds of fairness.

The welcome return of the Observer‘s clue writing competition in January 2027 has been announced, with a test event next month. We will also shortly be launching our own clue writing competition at the Clue Clinic; this will differ from the Observer comp in several respects (that isn’t just a roundabout way of saying that there won’t be any prizes!), so the two should coexist happily.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 16d, “Role of church baptism, say, probed by each new mum (8)”. A three-letter word for an act of immersion (‘baptism, say’) contains (‘probed by’) the usual abbreviations for ‘each’ and ‘new’, together with a two-letter interjection equivalent to ‘mum!’ or ‘keep quiet’. The point of interest is the definition, ‘role of church’. This is equivalent to, say, ‘role of theatre’ for PROMPTER. The ‘of’ in such instances cannot represent a true possessive, since “church’s role” and “theatre’s role” don’t carry the required meaning (the nouns would need to be applied attributively, eg ‘church role’). The preposition ‘of’ has several other senses, none of which really hits the necessary spot. But there is a ‘semi-possessive’ sense which suggests not ownership but association, as in eg ‘the fans of the club’, and while I don’t think that in real life anyone would describe the job of prompter as ‘[a] role of [the] theatre’, that is exactly what makes many ‘oblique’ definitions in crosswords interesting and amusing. The question that a setter has to ask themselves with a definition of this sort is, “When the solver works out the answer, will they understand how the definition works?” If the answer is ‘yes’, as I believe it is here, then there is no problem.

Across

1a These may go down well at Christmas to illustrate decoration reflecting saint (7)
The two-letter abbreviation of a Latin phrase meaning ‘for example’ or ‘to illustrate’ is followed by a reversal (‘reflecting’) of a slang term for a medal or decoration, with the single-letter abbreviation for ‘saint’ bringing up the rear. Incidentally, the ‘decoration’ word was a family nickname given to the young Jonathan Crowther (Azed), and was the pseudonym under which he set 16 Listener puzzles between 1965 and 1972.

11a Trousers better with slit, shortly, on edge? (10, 2 words)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] better’, a three-letter word meaning ‘slit’ or ‘tear’, and a five-letter word meaning ‘on edge’ (due to an intimate insectile infestation), missing its last letter (‘shortly’), combine to produce the (5,5) answer.

15a German and Swedish hit incorporates pop music (6)
A tricksy wordplay has the German word for ‘and’ being contained by (‘[that]…incorporates’) the title of a 1975 hit from Abba, notable as the only UK Top 40 single to date where both the song title and the name of the artist are palindromes.

20a Discovery of provincial runner bounding about in country (6)
A two-letter dialect (‘provincial’) word for a river (‘runner’), much admired by crossword setters, contains (‘bounding’) that two-letter bit of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’ or ‘about’, which is itself contained by the two-letter abbreviation for the country made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

21a Domesticated chap disregarding Parisian friend who’s learned the ropes by stages? (6)
A (6,3) term for a chap “dedicated to, and who enjoys sharing activities with, his wife and children” is deprived of the three-letter French word for a friend.

27a Oratory is dull from Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left, lacking range (9)
A five-letter word meaning ‘dull’ (more often seen in this sense as a seven-letter form ending ‘-aic’) is followed by the (1,6) French expression meaning ‘on the left’, lacking the three-letter name applied generically, Hoover-style, to a large stove.

30a Picture point of no return without difficulty (4)
The seven-letter ancient name of a stream in northern Italy, the crossing of which by Caesar in 49 BC signalled the start of the war with Pompey, loses (‘without’) a three-letter word for the sort of difficulty which Hamlet identified when pondering the question ‘To be or not to be?’

31a Keep record on Claude, say, returning 18th century instrument (10)
A four-letter word for a ‘keep’ or ‘citadel’ and a two-letter abbreviation for the sort of record that went round at 45rpm but had narrower grooves than a ‘single’ precede a reversal (‘returning’) of ON (from the clue) and the currently ubiquitous two-letter abbreviation for something which Anthropic’s Claude exemplifies.

Down

1d Harry, topless, hosting a celebration involving Rolling Stone (6)
A six-letter word meaning ‘harry’ or ‘annoy’ without its first letter (‘topless’) contains (‘hosting’) the letter A (from the clue). The definition puts me in mind of Mott the Hoople’s classic 1973 rocker (“There’s a rockabilly party on Saturday night / Are you gonna be there? / I’ve got my invite”).

4d Vehicle beside leader? (4)
An &lit, where a five-letter, two-wheeled, sub-51cc vehicle loses its first letter (‘leader’) to yield the (2-2) answer. I think that the use of ‘beside’ to indicate expulsion is probably a stretch too far.

5d Grand circle includes bar with exposed beams? (8)
The single-letter abbreviation for ‘Grand’ and a four-letter word for a circle are put around (‘includes’) a three-letter word for a bar or public house. The ‘exposed’ strikes me as benefiting the surface reading to the detriment of the definition.

8d Swimsuit that is, these days, below rock-bottom price? (8)
The two-letter abbreviation of the Latin phrase meaning ‘that is’ and the abbreviation for ‘Common Era’ follow (‘below’) a three-letter word and a single-letter abbreviation that together represent (since December 1984) the lowest price that could be charged in the UK for any item. The answer is hyphenated, (3-5).

10d Least fake shelled oysters (6)
A (4,4) phrase comprising the opposites of both ‘least’ and ‘fake’ (thus having a similar meaning to the combination) is stripped of its first and last letters (‘shelled’) to produce the answer.

21d Very loudly holding conferences about remote (6)
The two-letter musical abbreviation meaning ‘very loud’ contains (‘holding’) a reversal (‘about’) of the plural of a five-letter word for a situation or group in which people exchange ideas (‘conferences’).

22d Crush inside of each year’s bloom (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘crush’ in the sense of ‘destroy’ is contained by (‘inside’) the two-letter abbreviation for the Latin phrase meaning ‘of [or for] each year’.

27d Size of paper that’s uneven, having lost margins (4)
A six-letter word meaning ‘uneven’ or ‘patchy’ has lost its first and last letters (‘margins’). That ‘uneven’ word might take certain more mature readers back to the 1960s and a man named Muldoon with an unfortunate affliction which forced him to wear a paper bag over his head.

(definitions are underlined)