Notes for Gemelo 37
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 37 Plain
This puzzle is available at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/7c169426-1fa0-4715-8bfe-239d89f704ea/file/puzzle.pdf.
Solver difficulty rating
3.6 based on 30 votes (voting is now closed)
Gemelo 36 received an average rating of 2.4, based on 33 votes, just a fraction below the halfway mark – I felt that it was towards the less challenging end of the Gemelo spectrum and would also have put it closer to 2 than 3.
I’ll be interested to hear what you made of this puzzle, and very surprised if the average difficulty rating is not significantly up from G36. As we’ve come to expect from Gemelo, there were generous dollops of innovation and intricate wordplay, along with a couple of references to the silver screen. I was a little disappointed by the use of words which seem to be closely related as the answer and main wordplay element in 29a, but overall the quality of the clueing seemed very high.
Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 23d, “Bottom might get this from palm in stormy affair! (6)”. The answer is an anagram (‘stormy’) of AFFAIR, but the question raised by this clue is how far a setter can stretch a definition in order to produce the surface meaning that they are aiming for. There is no doubt that the material here is used for weaving, and no doubt that “Weaver might get this from palm” would be a perfectly good definition. There is no doubt, either, that Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a weaver by trade, ‘cos Shakespeare tells us so. What is in doubt, though, is whether Nick B would have had knowledge of, or experience with, the material here; wool, linen and silk may have fallen within his areas of expertise, but this is something totally different. In order for the definition to work, therefore, the solver must first pre-process ‘Bottom’ into ‘Weaver [but not one such as Bottom]’, which cannot reasonably be expected. This is akin to using “Grace’s shortened game” for ODI – since WG Grace predated one-day cricket internationals by some 60 years, ‘Grace’ here would have to be translated to ‘Cricketer [though not WG Grace]’. I think the clue here represents a stretch too far; I also think that the link word ‘in’ is incompatible with the wording of the definition, and that the exclamation mark is unnecessary (it serves no purpose in either surface or cryptic reading).
Across
1a Overly romantic plant coming with Polish blessing (12)
Those who voted in this month’s poll for a change in the enumeration of hyphenated answers will I suspect have felt vindicated by this one (and those who haven’t yet voted may be moved to do so!). Four-letter words for ‘plant’ in the sense of a factory, ‘polish’ in the sense of ‘rub down with abrasive material’, and ‘blessing’ in the sense of ‘something to be thankful for’ combine to produce the (5-3-4) answer.
12a Sons memorably finish visit (7)
The single-letter abbreviation for ‘sons’ is followed by a (3,3) expression meaning ‘to finish decoratively or memorably’, as you might do to a pecan pie with whipped cream (just saying).
17a Prudent to start late on ring of limestone (7)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘prudent’ deprived of its first letter (‘starting late’) follows (‘on’) the letter of the alphabet which is shaped like a ring.
18a Diver from end of Titanic putting off leading couple when upset (5)
I found this one rather unconvincing. The term for the sort of thing that brought an end to the Titanic’s brief period of service (‘end of Titanic‘) without (‘putting off’) its first two letters (‘leading couple’) is reversed (‘upset’). There is no meaning given by Chambers for ‘end’ which seems to justify ‘end of Titanic‘ (something like ‘Titanic‘s undoing’ would be more appropriate), while ‘upset’ seems wrong to me for reversal in an across clue.
19a No longer help on board engaging S&P (7)
The two-letter abbreviation for ‘board’ contains (‘engaging’) the names of the letters S and P.
21a Vertebrae finally reduced, with less on the inside (7)
A (2,4) phrase meaning ‘finally’, missing its last letter (‘reduced’), precedes the word ‘less’ stripped of its outer letters (ie ‘less on the inside’).
25a Sycophant‘s previous answer confused queen (7)
The answer to 22a (‘previous answer’) is rearranged (‘confused’) ahead of the cipher of Queen Elizabeth (I or II).
32a Mahwa tree stimulated to shed bark (6)
You may be more familiar with the six-letter noun meaning ‘boost’ than the corresponding verb, but it is the past tense of the latter which must lose its first and last letters (‘to shed bark’).
Down
1d US court organisation featured in publication where personal items may be placed (6)
The ‘court’ in question is the basketball court, and the organisation’s three-letter acronym is contained by (‘featured in’) the short form of an eight-letter word for a periodical publication. The answer is a relatively new addition to Chambers.
2d Stone from Bible story surrounding Asian tent (6)
I’m not keen on clues like this – if you don’t know the ‘unknown precious stone, jacinth or amber according to the Revised Version (the New English Bible says turquoise)’ or the Mongolian tent, you’re basically stuffed. A three-letter word for a story of the tall variety contains (‘surrounding’) the three-letter tent, which could also be indicated by ‘floor covering taken up’.
3d Germanic tribesman‘s vowel sound used in Globe by Shakespeare? (9)
A (4,1) expression which describes the central vowel in the word ‘Globe’ from a pronunciation perspective is followed by the four-letter epithet often applied to Shakespeare.
11d Theatrical contrivance regularly seen at show, in exciting draw? (10, 2 words)
Three letters selected at regular intervals from ‘at show’ are contained by a (4,3) phrase giving the score of a game in which a bumper crop of goals has been equally shared by the two teams (the last such draw in the Premier League being Man U v Bournemouth on 15 December 2025). The answer is (6,4).
16d Retrograde way to include yellow bit of lemon, say, in perfume (9)
A reversal (‘retrograde’) of a word for a ‘way’ or ‘narrow passage’ containing (‘to include’) that familiar two-letter gold or yellow tincture, along with a three-letter word for a bit of a lemon (or an apple, an orange, or a playing card).
21d 60% German immigrant such as Eric Bana (6)
Kudos if you got this from the wordplay, although like me you will probably have worked out that you were looking for the first six letters of a ten-letter German word for an immigrant. The definition is the giveaway, Eric Bana being an example of the answer and (with due respect to some of our regular readers) more famous than most of the 28,500,000 others that Gemelo could have chosen.
24d Fairly upsetting joke that’s disgusting (6)
A reversal (‘upsetting’, used in an appropriate setting this time) of the word for a joke, as in ‘Have you heard the ??? about…”, is followed by a three-letter interjection meaning “That’s disgusting[!]”.
31d Chase dryness, leaving Manchester? (3)
A seven-letter word for ‘dryness’ loses (‘leaving’) the four-letter word for the sort of conurbation exemplified by Manchester.
(definitions are underlined)
I think it’s tricky making a definitive analysis of 23d, because the surface could bear several interpretations. The idea that Bottom was a reference to the Shakespeare character never crossed my mind while solving; I took bottom and palm to be body parts, and the clue to be referring to bathroom applications (Amazon sells eco-friendly toilet paper woven from 23d). For that matter, there are YouTube videos on how to make whips from bamboo and woven 23d, so “steamy affair!” might be a reference to consensual S&M practices. Hard to say what Gemelo had in mind, but I fear neither of these alternatives would win the Mrs Joyful Prize for 23d Work.
I think that in the surface reading ‘bottom’ and ‘palm’ are indeed body parts belonging to different people, and we are to imagine them coming into contact during the stormy affair (shades of Freda and Barry, but without the Woman’s Weekly). This interpretation is supported by the exclamation mark. In the cryptic reading, I have no doubt that Bottom is the Shakespearean character; the eco-friendly toilet paper is a nice idea but it involves an even greater mental leap from the solution.
Is anybody else uncomfortable about “Polish” in the middle of a sentence being used for “polish”?
I think we now have next month’s poll question!
Personally, I’m not keen on the practice of giving an unnecessary capital letter to a word – like deceptive punctuation, it doesn’t seem to me to be a desirable form of misdirection. But we know that it’s not something that troubles Gemelo (‘Spawn’ in 15a being another example), and it’s something one sees in many puzzles. The reverse, eg having ‘nice’ in a clue when the cryptic reading requires ‘Nice’, is not allowed (the theory behind this being that you might see a sentence like “Polish the silver before returning it to the cabinet” but you would never see “On our French holiday we went to nice”).
I read Venom and Spawn as personifications of a couple of vices, so saw no misdirection here.
In the surface reading the capital is no problem, but ‘Spawn’ in the cryptic reading leads to a transitive verb, the last meaning of which in Chambers is ‘to spawn’ – like ‘Polish’, this would not have a capital in a normal English sentence. It’s not as deceptive as Polish/polish, but the contrivance is the same.
PS I took Venom and Spawn in the surface reading to be the comic-book creations of Todd McFarlane.
Capital idea to have a poll about misleading capitalization in clues! Might I suggest, however, that such a poll be non-binary and include a third option for those who believe false capitalization is acceptable under certain circumstances? I’ve always felt that the capitalization of such as verbs and adjectives, as in the cases of ‘Polish’ and ‘Nice’, is both unfair and ugly, but on the other hand the idea of giving a noun the impression of being a proper noun seems to me to be more natural and acceptable. I think it would be OK therefore to ‘upcase’ eg the initial of the noun “trier” to make it look like the city in Germany. It’s worth noting that Azed himself was very libertarian on this matter – witness, for example, the VHC he gave to this Letters Latent clue to SELE(CT)ION in 1995, when Ray Illingworth was English cricket’s chairman of selectors: “The leading part in England’s lies on Illy.”
😃
Agreed – I would also propose to offer the option of “Don’t care about false addition or removal of capitals”.
I feel that Azed has in practice shown himself to be a little more liberal with regard to false capitalization than he suggested when he wrote, “I regard upgrading a lower-case initial to a capital as acceptable – just”. For instance “Foundling home giving many hours with pal for Twist (12)” for ORPHAN-ASYLUM (2,575) and “Is Holding about the ultimate in fast bowlers maybe? (4)” for HATS (2,543).
Two good examples there, although “Twist” in the first one is nounal, of course.
BTW I felt you were slightly harsh on the clues for 29ac and 21dn. For the first one, I’d argue that according to Chambers there’s no direct etymological link between “boff” (as defined) and “boffo” (although perhaps one could be inferred). And in the second clue, Eric Bana was very well chosen since his mother hailed from Germany. I’m not quite sure how that can equate to 60% German though, so perhaps Gemelo here ought to have replaced “60%” with eg “Largely”?
I’d forgotten the ‘Holding’ one, but I think it would lie very close to the border of acceptability for me. As you say, the ‘Twist’ would pass the (im)proper noun test.
Very fair points. Chambers doesn’t clearly support my observation regarding 29a, although the ‘boff’ referred to in the ‘boffo’ etymology would seem, based on a little further research, to be the same one that appears as a headword. It is not reasonable, though, to expect a setter to routinely conduct that sort of additional research. I have now moderated my own comment! The comment on 21d wasn’t meant to be critical, and has also been updated.
Are you happy with the cryptic grammar in 23d, specifically the ‘in’?
You make a fair point re Gemelo’s def in 23dn – perhaps “… might have got …” would have better indicated the fanciful nature of the idea. In any case, as you suggest, the linkword “in” here is problematic, necessitating a definition worded more along the lines of “What Bottom might get from palm” I feel. One can see why Gemelo would have preferred a front Bottom (so to speak), but it’s certainly harmful to the clue’s grammar.
Thanks – it reminded me of a couple of my own clues from days gone by where, try as I might, I just couldn’t satisfactorily get the proper noun to the start. Sometimes it’s best to give up and try something different!
On the 60%, the matching entries I could find in the online Langenscheidt German-English version were all based on Aussiedlung, which is said to be ‘resettlement’ or ‘evacuation’ — and all derivatives have the same sense, so an Aussiedler is an emigrant or evacuee. But then if you’re an emigrant, you’re likely to be an immigrant as well. Bana’s mother was German, he was born in Australia (says WikiP — I’d never heard of him); though I take it we don’t really need to concern ourselves with the biographical details.