{"id":6276,"date":"2026-01-11T12:06:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T12:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/?p=6276"},"modified":"2026-01-25T11:55:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T11:55:53","slug":"notes-for-gemelo-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/11\/notes-for-gemelo-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes for Gemelo 20"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

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<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Previous Puzzle – Gemelo 19 First Things First<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

The necessarily unnatural phrasing of many clues clearly made things trickier for solvers; I did, though, feel that this was counterbalanced by a reduced misdirection factor, so my own rating for the puzzle was 3.<\/p>\r\n

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Gemelo 20 Plain<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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This puzzle is available at https:\/\/cdn.slowdownwiseup.co.uk\/media\/documents\/obs.GEMELO.20260111.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

Solver difficulty rating\r\n

3.1 based on 32 votes (voting is now closed)<\/p>\r\n

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 (Ghastly). Note that hovering over the ‘graph’ icon will show you the full breakdown of votes for the current puzzle.<\/p>\r\n

Good to see Gemelo ‘unconstrained’, albeit it would still be nice before too long to see a ‘special’ which provides us with a different challenge. That said, this was a puzzle of high quality with some very nice clues and an excellent level of soundness.<\/p>\r\n

Setters’ Corner<\/em><\/strong>: This week I’m going to look at clue 27d, “Difficulty with sailors below deck”. This is not a complex clue, the abbreviation for ‘Royal Navy’ following a familiar word for ‘difficulty’, but it highlights two key weapons in the setter’s armoury which Gemelo frequently uses to good effect. The first is disguising the break between the wordplay and the definition – the surface reading makes it appear that ‘below deck’ is a single phrase and the break is between ‘sailors’ and below’, when in fact it comes between ‘below’ and ‘deck’. The second is the deceptive use of different parts of speech in the surface and cryptic readings – here most obviously with reference to the role of ‘deck’, which is a noun in the former and a verb in the latter, but also that of ‘with’, which is a preposition in the surface reading (hence it appears to be ‘bound’ to deck) and an adverb in the cryptic reading. The clue “Dress sailors following difficulty” would come to much the same thing, but would be greatly inferior.<\/p>\r\n

Across<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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5a<\/strong> Latin adopted in smart joint<\/span> (6)<\/span>
The usual abbreviation for Latin is contained by (‘adopted in’) a dialect word for ‘smart’ or ‘spruce’, producing the sort of joint that would be smoked rather than roasted on a Sunday.<\/p>\r\n

10a<\/strong> Provider of fruit<\/span> course dropping one after argument (9, 2 words)<\/span>
I spent a minute trying to work out how ‘entre\u00e9’ fitted into the wordplay, before I twigged that it is the name of an English racecourse which must lose (‘dropping’) the Roman numeral representing ‘one’ and be placed after a three-letter word for an argument, the resulting answer being divided (5,4).<\/p>\r\n

11a<\/strong> It can represent college<\/span> experience<\/span> (3)<\/span>
The first part of this double definition clue relates to the name of the letter which is an abbreviation for ‘college’, ie ‘it can represent college’.<\/p>\r\n

13a<\/strong> New material abridged in wake of language tool<\/span> (7)<\/span>
The usual abbreviation for ‘new’ and the name of a fibre produced by moth larvae, when deprived of its last letter (‘abridged’), follow (‘in the wake of’) the three-letter language of a particular Native American people – or an antipodean pick-up truck.<\/p>\r\n

17a<\/strong> Drink<\/span> brought back general knowledge at first (5)<\/span>
A four-letter word for ‘general’ or ‘prevalent’ and the first letter of ‘knowledge’ are reversed (‘brought back’) to yield ‘a tangy, fermented milk drink, similar to thin yogurt but with a wider range of beneficial bacteria and yeasts, known for supporting gut health and immunity.’ Sounds yummy.<\/p>\r\n

20a<\/strong> Elon Musk\u2019s party<\/span> cups put on Grok? (5)<\/span>
The three-letter foundation garment often indicated in cryptics by ‘cups’ (with ‘at least four cups’ being an Azed favourite for the plural form) is joined by the abbreviated name for the technology exemplified by Grok. When used as a geographical qualifier, Elon Musk is pretty flexible, given that he holds South African, Canadian and American citizenship (unless of course Grok has recently stripped him of them), but it is the first of these which Gemelo is referencing here.<\/p>\r\n

23a<\/strong> Dead cat<\/span> bounce, ultimately with successes going west (4)<\/span>
Another cleverly-constructed clue, the last letter (‘ultimately’) of ‘bounce’ and a three-letter word for ‘successes’ being reversed (‘going west’) to deliver an archaic (‘dead’) spelling of a word meaning ‘vomit’ (‘cat’).<\/p>\r\n

31a<\/strong> Thick<\/span> noblemen eschewing books (7)<\/span>
A nine-letter word for noblemen who are a single rung down the aristocratic ladder from earls is shorn of one of that pair of two-letters abbreviations frequently indicated in cryptic clues by ‘books’; I can’t say that I much like this usage (the abbreviations seem far removed from ‘books’), but\u00a0 they are deeply rooted in the cruciverbal language.<\/p>\r\n

33a<\/strong> What might tempt better<\/span> class of people sounded harsh (9)<\/span>
A crafty definition of an answer which is produced from a four-letter word for a class of people (or a group of descendants of a common ancestor) followed by a homophone for a word meaning ‘harsh’ or ‘throaty’.<\/p>\r\n

35a<\/strong> Indian army planting northern and southern shrubs<\/span> (6)<\/span>
A four-letter Indian word for “an army, especially used of paramilitary political organizations representing various castes”, containing (‘planting’) the usual abbreviation for ‘northern’, precedes the usual abbreviation for ‘southern’. The shrubs in question produce pods which can bring relief to the costive.<\/p>\r\n

Down<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

1d<\/strong> Canned<\/span> salad, or…? (12, 4 words)<\/span>
A self-referencing answer where the first word of the (5, 2, 1, 4) solution, when interpreted as an anagram indicator, can turn the remaining words into SALAD OR. Given the number of synonyms for the state described, the setter was unlucky that nothing which fitted better with ‘salad’ than ‘canned’ was available (‘stewed’, ‘pickled’, ‘bottled’ being no better) – if I were him, I would have felt very disappointed.<\/p>\r\n

2d<\/strong> One bound to work around weak and faint in Holyrood<\/span> (5)<\/span>
A four-letter word for “a person in modified slavery, especially one bound to work on the land” contains (‘around’) the usual abbreviation for ‘weak’. The ‘Holyrood’ is there to indicate that the answer is Scottish.<\/p>\r\n

3d<\/strong> Brisk northern<\/span> language repeated<\/span> in auction<\/span> (4)<\/span>
Three definitions for the price of two, referring to the fourth, first and third headwords in Chambers for the entry. I wonder what the second one has done to upset Gemelo?<\/p>\r\n

4d<\/strong> At hail Mary, unwise people recalled sign of the cross?<\/span> (8)<\/span>
The letters AT (from the clue), the two-letter abbreviation of the Latin for ‘hail Mary’, and a four-letter word for people who are foolish (or just plain unpleasant) are reversed (‘recalled’). Since Gemelo also sets for the Church Times<\/em>, I feel confident that his definition is accurate.<\/p>\r\n

7d<\/strong> Short lesson about lake with extra craft<\/span> (7)<\/span>
An uncommon four-letter word (one of four available flavours) for a lesson, missing its last letter (‘short’), contains (‘about’) the four-letter name of a lake which could (see 20a) reasonably be described as “Elon Musk’s”. The particular craft here is cunning of the low variety.<\/p>\r\n

8d<\/strong> Badly directed Inside Man?<\/span> (4)<\/span>
A six-letter word for ‘badly directed’ is stripped of its outer letters (ie ‘inside’) to produce a term for the sort of thing whereof ‘Man’ is an example.<\/p>\r\n

21d<\/strong> About to embrace sinister member?<\/span> (7)<\/span>
That two-letter piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’ or ‘about’ is followed by a word meaning ‘to embrace’, the result being a (4-3) equestrian term.<\/p>\r\n

(definitions are underlined<\/span>)<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/span> Post Views:<\/span> 988<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n

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<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A nice plain puzzle with no evidence of exceedingly good cakes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":2.5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gemelo-notes"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":32,"sum_votes":99},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6276"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6297,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions\/6297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}