Notes for Gemelo 16

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 16 Plain

Solver difficulty rating

3.5 based on 38 votes (voting is now closed)

Your collective rating of G15’s versified challenge was  more than a full point down on its predecessor; the votes were distributed in a way that produced a near-symmetrical bell curve, there being a few 1s and 5s, a higher number of 2s and 4s, and a higher number still of 3s . I rated it as a 2, largely because the constraint on the setter limited the complexity of the clues, but at the same time it also led to some rather vague definitions, and I wasn’t sure whether to opt for 2 or 3. I think the solver ratings are very interesting, and I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who provide them.

This week’s puzzle seemed just a little flat to me, with a few clues that felt rather too convoluted for their own good, but perhaps I just wasn’t in the ideal frame of mind for it. Unusually, but in common with Gemelo 8, there were no seven-letter entries in the grid.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 25a, “King rejected honey dish (5)”. The chess-and cards abbreviation for ‘king’ is followed by a reversal of a term of endearment similar to ‘honey’, the result being “a dish of thin slices cut from a block of minced and seasoned lamb grilled on a spit”. The point of interest here is the reversal indicator, ‘rejected’. The word ‘reject’ derives from the Latin verb meaning ‘to throw back’, but Chambers doesn’t give any sense of it which suggests reversal, and neither does Collins, while the OED gives the ‘throw back’ meaning as ‘rare’. That said, I suspect that most solvers will have seen ‘rejected’, said to themselves “reversal indicator”, and moved on. I think it falls into the category of cryptic ‘codes’ which are hard to justify but are fixtures in the cruciverbal landscape – that doesn’t mean that I would ever use it myself, though.

Across

1a Type A struck by intelligence, hard to impress (12, 4 words)
This five-part charade involves a four-letter word for ‘type’ (as in ‘type of car’), the letter A (from the clue), a three-letter word meaning (‘struck’), a three-letter word for ‘intelligence’, and the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘hard’. The answer is (4,1,3,4).

10a S American plainsman’s brief ceremony cut short (6)
A four-letter word for ‘showy ceremony’ deprived of its last letter (‘brief’) is followed by a four-letter word for ‘cut’, similarly trimmed (‘short’).

12a Crisp potatoes to save you shouldn’t have eaten at the start (5)
A six-letter ‘informal’ form of ‘potatoes’ loses (‘to save’) a two-letter informal interjection meaning ‘thank you’ (ie “you shouldn’t have”) and is followed by the first letter (‘at the start’) of ‘eaten’.

17a Flash photography originally avoided by design (3)
The first letter (‘originally’) of ‘photography’ is dropped (‘avoided’) by a four-letter informal shortened form of a thirteen-letter word, this abbreviated version being used frequently in the context of the attributes of a particular car model or the design of a computer program.

25a Canadian channel from Hamilton then shifted centrally (4)
A four-letter Scots (‘Hamilton’) word meaning ‘then’ (or, when it comes to New Year’s Eve, ‘since’) has its central letters swapped over (‘shifted centrally’) to produce the answer.

27a Tree no longer living after losing bark (3)
A five-letter word with an archaic (‘no longer’) meaning of ‘living’ (but now typically used to mean ‘necessary to life’ or ‘essential’) is stripped of its first and last letters (‘after losing bark’).

29a Stop on the spot – and again, by god! (6, 2 words)
A two-letter adverb meaning (among many other things) ‘on the spot’ is followed by the same word (‘and again’), the pair being put after (‘by’) the alternative spelling (not the one with an A) of the two-letter name of the ancient Egyptian sun-god. The answer is divided (4,2).

33a One tending to flee after middle of test, repeatedly assuming your backing (12, 2 words)
A three-letter word meaning ‘to flee’ is put after the middle letters of ‘test’ , the combination being duplicated (‘repeatedly’) either side of (‘assuming’) the two-letter abbreviation for ‘your’; the whole shebang is then reversed (‘backing’). The solution is (7,5), but I have a problem with the definition – the only modern intransitive sense of ‘tend’ given by Chambers is ‘pay attention’, and I don’t think that fits with the answer.

Down

1d Social movement engulfing rector and priest, separately fired before an archbishop (12)
The name given to the “cultural movement that seeks to expose and eradicate predatory sexual behaviour, especially in the workplace”, containing (‘engulfing’) first the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘rector’ and then later on (ie ‘separately’) the single-letter abbreviation for ‘priest’, is followed by a three-letter word meaning ‘fired’ (or ‘set fire to’) and the letters AN (from the clue).

2d Currency arrangement formerly underpinning krona is fair for Brussels (6)
The three-letter abbreviation for “the mechanism formerly used in the European Monetary System in which participating governments committed themselves to maintain the values of their currencies in relation to the ECU” follows the single-letter abbreviation for ‘krona’, this combination preceding the letters IS (from the clue).

6d Wet bud in Gower (4)
The way into this double definition clue is the ‘chiefly North American slang’ – but now common in the UK – term for a ‘wet’ or a particularly timid person, which always puts me in mind of Homer Simpson and his shame at being thought of as a ‘chilli ????’ which drives him to coat his mouth with wax in order to consume the  Merciless Pepper of Quetzalacatenango, also known as the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOz2u0ptQoQ).

7d Chauffeur cycling to get cones? (4)
A four-letter Anglo-Indian word for a servant who attends to horses or (according to Chambers, anyway) a chauffeur has its first letter moved to the end (‘cycling’).

13d Swaying run adopted by somebody exhausted (6)
A four-letter word for ‘run’ in the sense of discharging a fluid is contained (‘adopted’) by the first and last letters (‘exhausted’) of ‘somebody’.

15d Self-evident fraud almost taking in group from the Outer Hebrides (8)
A five-letter word for a fraud or a deceit missing its last letter (‘almost’) contains (‘taking’) the four-letter name given to a group of islands in the Outer Hebrides.

24d Dutch city’s finally removed river levee (6)
Hands up if you first thought you were looking for a Dutch city. Yes, my hand is raised – you got me there, Gemelo. In reality, the single-letter abbreviation for ‘Dutch’ precedes a word meaning ‘of a city’ (ie “city’s”) without its last letter (‘finally removed’) and the usual abbreviation for ‘river’.

29d Orders from section of menu? (4)
I believe that the idea here is that a section of a menu devoted to a particular type of wine would have a heading that corresponds to the answer, but Chambers defines ‘menu’ as “in a restaurant, etc, a list of dishes that may be ordered”, so I don’t think this works.

(definitions are underlined)