Notes for Gemelo 34

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 34

This puzzle is available at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/029a8e14-43f3-40bd-990b-ae67b53b5036/file/puzzle.pdf.

Solver difficulty rating

3.0 based on 33 votes (voting is now closed)

Last week’s puzzle set an excellent benchmark for an ‘average’ Gemelo, scoring 2.6 based on a near-equal mix of 2’s and 3’s. I wonder if this suggests that his plain puzzles are going to settle into a narrower range of chewiness, or whether that one just happened to land in the middle ground.

I didn’t find today’s puzzle quite as enjoyable as last week’s, although that may have been because Gemelo trod on a few of my cruciverbal ‘corns’ (eg ‘endless’ at 11a). But there was plenty of invention on display, and while I don’t think those solvers who enjoy a reasonably stern challenge will have been disappointed, there were several accessible clues to provide a ‘way in’. I’ll be interested to see how you rate it difficulty-wise in relation to its immediate predecessor.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 20a, “This is covering one in white powder (7)”. The wordplay has  the letters IS (from the clue) containing (‘covering’) a four-letter ‘white powder’ into which the Roman numeral representing one has been inserted; the answer is exemplified by T, h, i and s. From time to time an opportunity for a slightly unusual ‘definition’ of an answer will come along, for instance where the entry is the name of a typographical symbol (eg ‘ellipsis’, indicated by ‘…’) or a chemical element (eg ‘astatine’, indicated by ‘At’). It is a device which is almost impossible to overuse, given the relatively few answers which lend themselves to its deployment, and it can present the solver with a challenge which is fair but demands a bit of thought. If the chance comes up, I would always recommend at least trying to take advantage of it. Coming back to today’s clue, I used the word ‘exemplified’, because this is indeed a definition by example, and really ought to have some suitable qualification such as ‘perhaps’ or the question mark which would be required in “LONDON AND PARIS? (8)”.

Across

2a Dishonest Indian rejected fish dish, based on what comes next? (7)
I liked this clue, though unsurprisingly it wasn’t my first one in. A reversal (‘rejected’) of a three-letter flatfish of modest proportions is followed by a ‘dish’ which could be made from the entry at 7a after a deal of pummelling. My thanks to correspondent Kate for pointing out that in the printed and online-readable versions of the Observer the definition is ‘Poorly behaved Indian’.

10a Trifles, each piece on the counter (5)
The combination of the two-letter abbreviation for ‘each’ and a three-letter ‘piece’ of the sort that might be packed by a G-man is reversed (‘on the counter’). I’ve seen ‘on the counter’ used for reversal quite a lot recently, hence it is included in the list of reversal indicators on this site, although I can’t say that I’m entirely convinced by it – a football team which is ‘on the counter’ would be going forwards rather than backwards.

11a Social function sounded endless (6)
An eight-letter word meaning ‘sounded’ (ie ‘measured the depth of’) is deprived of both its first and last letters (‘endless’, though this is surely a fanciful interpretation of the word) to produce an answer which is hyphenated, 2-4.

18a Casually making foul Japanese wine (5)
Azed always signposted wordplays of this kind by analogy, as with “dressin'” for ROBIN, but Gemelo here uses the less specific ‘casually’ to indicate the G-dropping that affects a six-letter word meaning ‘making foul’ or ‘soiling with mud’.

23a Gull, probing bottom of lake, tried to catch fish (6)
A three-letter fool (‘gull’) is contained by (‘probing’) a three-letter word for the bottom of a lake, river or sea. The answer relates to a particular type of fish.

25a Con man‘s less blatant when leaving subway without marijuana (8)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘less blatant’, lacking (‘when leaving’) a three-letter informal contraction of ‘subway’, contains (‘without’) a four-letter term for marijuana. The Chambers definition of the answer shows ‘con man’ as two words, which is why Gemelo has presented it in this way, although the relevant subhead is conman.

29a More than one king said to peel food for Wellington (6)
The combination of the single-letter abbreviation for the sort of king that Magnus Carlsson might manoeuvre and the word SAID (from the clue) missing its first and last letters (‘to peel’) is repeated to produce the solution. Wellington is neither the Iron Duke nor the Womble, rather the city in New Zealand from which the latter got his name.

30a Tracts I forgot to mention about Abraham’s nephew (5)
The abbreviation used at the end of letters to the effect of ‘I forgot to mention’ contains the three-letter name of the nephew of Abraham whose wife is identified by rabbinic tradition as Idit. While fleeing the destruction of Sodom, she unwisely paused to look wistfully back at the city, whereupon she was turned into a pillar of salt.

Down

2d Who loves poetry from www.kindle.com, say? (8)
The ‘say?’ here is well deserved, the answer being a (4,4) description of how ‘www.kindle.com’ might be classified if its theme were the kindling of fires. The definition has an implied ‘One’ at the start.

3d One unwillingly kept apart from host for a long time (3)
A seven-letter word for someone who is held against their will is shorn of (‘apart from’) the consecutive letters HOST.

13d Possibly decisive, so drinking bitter up, say (9)
A three-letter Latin word meaning ‘so’ or “yes, that’s really what they said”, almost invariably – like the Irish in 1066 and All That – seen living in brackets, contains (‘drinking’) a reversal of a four-letter word meaning ‘bitter’ which is followed by the two-letter abbreviation typically indicated by ‘say’ or ‘for example’. The definition here seems a little on the loose side, although there’s no doubting that the adjective implies the taking of a decision.

14d Almost shut up dead wolf? (5)
A (3,2) informal expression meaning ‘shut up’ (often heard in the Heinz factory) missing its last letter (‘almost’) precedes the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘dead’.

17d Calm couple injecting another shot in retirement (8)
A four-letter word (another one from the Magnus Carlsson lexicon) meaning ‘[to] couple’ contains (‘injecting’) the reversal (‘in retirement’) of a rather unattractive word (well, it’s nothing special, is it?) for a further attempt.

19d Politically correct movement that’s not planned to support the Spanish language (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘politically correct’ is followed by a three-letter word for an involuntary movement preceded by the Spanish word for ‘the’ which is used with words of the masculine gender.

22d In general, people lengthen middle of candle for Ed (5)
A charade of a two-letter word for people in general and a three-letter word meaning ‘lengthen’, normally seen these days in combination with ‘out’.

24d What raises the pace of special pitch? (5)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘special’ is followed by a word meaning ‘pitch’, as a ship might do in rough seas. The definition is mildly oblique, and I wonder if ‘increases’ would have been more accurate than ‘raises’, although the latter does suggest the key feature of the answer.

(definitions are underlined)