{"id":6988,"date":"2026-06-21T12:25:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T11:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/?p=6988"},"modified":"2026-06-21T14:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T13:19:14","slug":"notes-for-gemelo-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/21\/notes-for-gemelo-38\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes for Gemelo 38"},"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

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Gemelo 38<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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This puzzle is available at https:\/\/content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk\/api\/mobile\/v1\/puzzle-data\/4dcaac9a-2e93-4f12-b8eb-4813b85d9313\/file\/puzzle.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

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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. I wasn’t surprised that your average difficulty rating for Gemelo 37 (3.6 based on 30 votes) was over a point up on its predecessor, reflecting the fact that despite not reaching the acme of gnarliness it was still pretty tricky.<\/p>\r\n

As far as this puzzle was concerned, I suspect that other solvers were, like me, grateful for the three long anagrams which provided a foothold in each corner of the grid. Some of the wordplays were distinctly tricky and on more than one occasion I found myself working back from the answer to fully unravel the cryptic reading. It was an enjoyable solve, and I will be interested to see how you rate it in terms of overall difficulty.<\/p>\r\n

Setters’ Corner<\/em><\/strong>: This week I’m going to look at clue 20a, “Florida resort carrying almost no weight<\/span> (7)”. The wordplay here has the American (‘Florida’) spelling of a six-letter word for a resort containing (‘carrying’) the word NO (from the clue) without its last letter (‘almost’), the result being a unit of weight in various European countries. The point of interest is whether the first-letter of a two-letter word can reasonably be described as being ‘almost’ that word. I suppose it all depends if you are a word-half-full or a word-half-empty sort of person; if you start from NO, you only have to remove one letter to get N, but if you start with N you have to add as many letters again (one) to get NO. Were the ‘not quite complete’ word to be indicated indirectly, the construction would surely be unacceptable, eg in ‘almost like’ for A (‘as’ without its last letter), but since the target is in plain sight, I think it’s just about ok. The alternative ‘Florida resort carrying no little weight’ would be appealing, with ‘no little’ indicating an abbreviation of ‘no’, were it not that (for reasons best known to the editors) Chambers does not give Y and N for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ any more than it gives S and L for ‘small’ and ‘large’, despite the fact that understanding them is a necessity of everyday life.<\/p>\r\n

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

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1a<\/strong> Worn, say, after opening an American saloon<\/span> (5)<\/span>
A four-letter word meaning ‘[previously] worn’ missing its first letter (‘after opening’) is followed by the letters AN (from the clue). I don’t think many, if any, solvers would have batted an eyelid if Gemelo has left out the ‘say’ (I certainly wouldn’t), but since the word indicated could also describe something that had been played with, driven around etc then strictly speaking the indication is by example and the qualification should probably should be included.<\/p>\r\n

12a<\/strong> Inferior veneration<\/span> to confer at first upon princess far, far away (7)<\/span>
One day perhaps I’ll watch one of the Star Wars films. Until then, I will remain at a disadvantage with clues such as this, where a two-letter verb meaning ‘to confer’ is followed by the first letter (‘at first’) of ‘upon’ and the name of a princess from that very franchise.<\/p>\r\n

15a<\/strong> Idle<\/span> lump not starting on Latin (6)<\/span>
A six-letter word for a lump or small shapeless mass, deprived of its first letter (‘not starting’), follows (‘on’) the usual abbreviation for ‘Latin’. In my youth, my mother would on occasion serve up a pudding made from jelly (usually orange or raspberry) whipped up with cream. I think the ‘proper’ name for this sort of thing might be ‘flummery’, but in our family it was always known as d????? (the lump word here), and my father still used to serve it up to guests when he was in his 80s.<\/p>\r\n

16a<\/strong> Extremely sensual<\/span> daughter visiting county town ahead of time (7)<\/span>
The usual abbreviation for ‘daughter’ contained by (‘visiting’ – I’m not keen on this, but I’m getting used to it now) the county town of East Sussex is followed by (‘ahead of’) the usual abbreviation for ‘time’. My parenthesized comment puts me in mind of a classic sketch from At Last the 1948 Show<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

23a<\/strong> Short skirt with ebbing appeal when everyone has notes<\/span> (5)<\/span>
The sort of skirt worn by ballerinas, without its last letter (‘short’), precedes a reversal (‘ebbing’) of the sort of appeal particularly associated with Clara Bow. The definition is rather neat.<\/p>\r\n

27a<\/strong> What Buddhist students might use to take on language<\/span> (6)<\/span>
A four-letter word from Zen Buddhism for ‘a nonsensical, logically unanswerable question given to students as a subject for meditation’ contains (‘to take’) that cruciverbally ubiquitous piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’ or ‘about’.<\/p>\r\n

28a<\/strong> Whales’ food<\/span> caught by possible pollutant from the east (4)<\/span>
The usual abbreviation for ‘caught’ is followed by a reversal (‘from the east’) of a ‘possible pollutant’ which has proved over the years to be sadly adept in that role, the wreck of the Torrey Canyon<\/em> in 1967 being just one of several memorable examples.<\/p>\r\n

32a<\/strong> Scotsman’s wary<\/span> about leaving small amount of money in bond (6)<\/span>
The single-letter abbreviation of the Latin for ‘about’ is lost by (‘leaving’) a four-letter word for a small amount of money contained by a three-letter word for a bond.<\/p>\r\n

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

3d<\/strong> Ship<\/span> with a period under extreme pressure in valley (12)<\/span>
The usual abbreviation for ‘with’, the letter A (from the clue) and a four-letter word for a period, all following the abbreviation for ‘extreme pressure’, are contained by a word for a small valley.<\/p>\r\n

7d<\/strong> Fame<\/span> immediately following group of 11 men, not including me (6)<\/span>
A three-letter word meaning ‘immediately’ follows the two-letter abbreviation for the corps to which the answer to 11 belongs (ie ‘group of 11’) and precedes the word ‘men’ from which the letters ME have been removed (‘not including me’).<\/p>\r\n

11d<\/strong> Private<\/span> secretary wearing corded cloth in retirement (6)<\/span>
A reversal (‘in retirement’) of a two-letter abbreviation for someone who performs a secretarial function (although in their presence it would probably be unwise to refer to them as a secretary) contained by (‘wearing’) a four-letter word for a corded cloth.<\/p>\r\n

17d<\/strong> Tool<\/span> didn’t prove to be holding anybody up (8, 2 words)<\/span>
A five-letter word roughly equating to “didn’t prove to be”, containing (‘holding’) a word for ‘anybody’ or ‘somebody’, is reversed (‘up’).<\/p>\r\n

19d<\/strong> Sanction<\/span> worst competitor at East London racecourse? (7)<\/span>
The wordplay yields a (3,4) phrase, complete with Cockney aitch-dropping in the second word, that might refer to the ‘competitor’ bringing up the rear in a racecourse event.<\/p>\r\n

21d<\/strong> Sideways<\/span>, philosophically? (6)<\/span>
Here we have a (2,4) phrase which might mean ‘in the manner of a [specific] philosopher’ and thus (in a whimsical way) ‘philosophically’. Continuing the Pythonesque theme from 16a, according to the three sophisticates who comprise the philosophy department at the University of Woolloomooloo, the gentleman in question was ‘a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable’; however, as with (inter alios) the ‘boozy beggar’ Heidegger and the ‘beery swine’ Wittgenstein, little corroborating evidence seems to be available.<\/p>\r\n

25d<\/strong> Games affected by short winger<\/span> (5)<\/span>
The two-letter abbreviation for ‘games’ (or perhaps ‘gym’) at school is followed by a preposition meaning ‘affected by’ shorn of its last letter (‘short’, uncharacteristically repeated from 23a)<\/p>\r\n

29d<\/strong> Belgian reporter uncovered former capital of Peru<\/span> (4)<\/span>
The six-letter name of an intrepid young Belgian reporter, friend of the wonderful but ill-starred Captain Haddock (‘Blistering barnacles! Graduated gherkin!’), loses its first and last letters (‘uncovered’).<\/p>\r\n

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

\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/span> Post Views:<\/span> 74<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n

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

A plain puzzle that was tricky in places<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5717,"comment_status":"open","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-6988","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":12,"sum_votes":33},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988","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=6988"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7001,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6988\/revisions\/7001"}],"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=6988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}