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.

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 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, but also the odd misstep such as the use of what is effectively the same word as both the answer and the major element of the wordplay in 29a.

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 of 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, although there were something like 28,500,000 other examples 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)