Notes for Gemelo 33

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 33

This puzzle is available at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/7b3d245b-44b6-4bba-8ba6-cc540efac214/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. Gemelo 32 saw a plunge in your difficulty rating from the 4.8 for the two-faced G31 to a trifling 1.8. I can’t argue with that – G32 was probably the easiest Gemelo to date, while G31 was probably the hardest.

I thought that today’s puzzle was nicely pitched and very enjoyable. It featured a good mix of clues, with a decent helping of straightforward ones to get the solver started, and some clever but fair misdirection, particularly of the Ernie Wise variety, where you can’t see the join between definition and wordplay.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 26a, “Kinks, Clash and Pixies releasing content (5)”. A three-letter word for a clash or conflict is followed by the word ‘Pixies’ missing all but the first and last letters. Humpty Dumpty said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean”; I don’t think that any crossword setter would presume to have so blanche a carte, but there is a tendency to interpret the often brief definitions given by Chambers in a way that suits the setter’s particular purposes without looking too deeply at them. To my way of thinking, the noun ‘content’ is a common example: Chambers gives the singular as ‘that which is contained’ and the plural as ‘the things contained’. Ostensibly, those are pretty much the same. But the actual meanings (since the sixteenth century or thereabouts, at least) are significantly different. The ‘contents’ of a box or a barrel are indeed the totality of everything contained within it, while ‘content’ refers to the amount of a specific substance contained, such as alcohol or sugar; it can also refer to a quality which forms part of a concept, as in the ‘intellectual content’ of a work, but it is never used to describe everything that is within. Will ‘Pixies releasing content’ have discomfited any solvers? I very much doubt it, but ‘content’ remains an indicator which I would never use myself.

Across

1a Little flower’s losing head over alcohol (6)
The sort of little flower that might also be part of a head of broccoli, complete with its apostrophe-s but deprived of its first letter (‘losing head’), is reversed (‘over’).

6a Japanese writing absorbing German native doctor (6)
My first though was that the ‘Japanese writing’ which contains (‘absorbing’) the single-letter abbreviation for ‘German’ was going to be ‘kanji’. I should have realized thar Gemelo, hip sort that he is, would be referring to something more up-to-date, specifically the generic term for a type of Japanese comic book usually printed in black and white, and intended to be read from right to left. Although it has a long history, the medium experienced a boom in popularity during the latter half of the twentieth century, with the books often being adapted into animated films, known as ‘anime’. Together they are often termed ‘ani?????’; the equivalent media group in China is known as ‘dongman’ (who knew?).

11a Ringtail lemur initially following source of chocolate, except a Hobnob (8)
The first letter (‘initially’) of ‘lemur’ follows the five-letter name of the seeds from which chocolate is made, lacking one instance of the letter A (‘except a’), and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] hobnob’ or ‘mingle’. 

13a Shake up someone doing well with other half of EU (7)
A seven-letter word for ‘someone doing well’ has the first half of ‘EU’ replaced with the other half.

24a Cast off broadcast having stopped working for host (8)
A crafty construction, where a four-letter word for ‘broadcast’ or ‘disseminated’ is contained by a word meaning ‘stopped working’ (‘having stopped working for host’, ie contained by ‘stopped working’)

29a Italian woman against wearing make-up? (5)
A two-letter preposition meaning (among many other things) ‘against’ is contained by (‘wearing’) three capital letters representing something which is intrinsically linked to the ‘make-up’ of all organisms.

30a Bones continue to swell (7)
A (5,2) phrase which could mean ‘continue to swell’ delivers an answer which, despite what the surface reading might suggest, is singular. Some readers may associate the term with Leonard McCoy, born in Georgia in 2227. He never actually said, “It’s worse than that, he’s dead Jim” or “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it” (both inventions of The Firm in Star Trekkin’), though he employed many variations on the theme of “I’m a doctor, not a …” (coal miner, mechanic, engineer, physicist, torpedo technician, escalator (!), bricklayer), and he did say, “I don’t need a doctor, damn it, I am a doctor!”

31a Lifting tool that’s not used for mushrooms (4)
A seven-letter tool ‘with two blades, for holding, lifting or removing’ loses the consecutive letters FOR (‘that has not used for’). 

Down

2d Stylish institute covering up Asian condiment (6)
A two-letter word meaning ‘stylish’ or ‘fashionable’, the single-letter abbreviation for ‘institute, and a three-letter covering for the head are reversed (‘up’)

3d Pass over main points after latest from little green men? (10)
The three-letter ‘pass’ or ‘depression’ much favoured by crossword setters, the cricketing abbreviation for ‘over’, and a five-letter word for ‘main points’ (a plural form which is more theoretical than practical) follow (‘after’) the last letter (‘latest’) from ‘little’.

4d Was upwardly-mobile comrade a memorable feature of Citizen Kane? (7)
A charade of a four-letter word meaning ‘was upwardly mobile’ and a three-letter informal term of address for a friend or comrade produces the last word spoken by Charles Foster Kane, which launches reporter Jerry Thompson on a quest to discover the significance of the word by interviewing the people who knew him best. As Welles himself wrote, “None had ever heard of ‘???????.’ Actually, as it turns out, ‘???????’ is the trade name of a cheap little sled on which Kane was playing on the day he was taken away from his home and his mother. In his subconscious it represented the simplicity, the comfort, above all the lack of responsibility in his home, and also it stood for his mother’s love which Kane never lost.” Three of the ‘cheap little sleds’ from the film are known to have survived – a pine version, saved from destruction by Joe Dante in 1984, was sold for $14.75m in 2025.

5d Financial burden of old movie not opening ahead of Penelope (9)
A five-letter informal term for a cinema film, missing its first letter (‘not opening’), precedes a familiar five-letter diminutive form of the name ‘Penelope’.

8d Good dog doesn’t need lead (5)
The six-letter name for the sort of dog which was the subject of a long-running (and most entertaining) Daily Mail cartoon strip by Alex Graham loses its first letter (“doesn’t need lead”). The cunningly-disguised definition is a noun.

11d Get irritated with annual return for hot water bottle (6)
A five-letter word meaning ‘get irritated’ or ‘irritate by rubbing’ has the two-letter abbreviation for ‘annual return’ replacing the single-letter abbreviation for ‘hot’.

16d Programmes including Descartes, say, upset audience (9)
A five-letter word for ‘programmes’ or ‘catalogues’ contains (‘including’) a reversal (‘upset’) of the first name of the French polymath and of Monsieur Artois, the café owner in ‘Allo ‘Allo.

21d Scotsman’s prepared stones around entrance by breaking prominent upright (6)
The word ‘by’ (from the clue) is contained by (‘breaking’) a word meaning ‘prominent’ that might be applied to a leading light in a film, and the whole lot is reversed (‘upright’)

(definitions are underlined)