Notes for Gemelo 7

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 7 Plain

Solver difficulty rating

3.5 based on 45 votes (voting is now closed)

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). If you accidentally select the wrong star, you can change your vote by simply clicking on a different one. Each solver will be using their own yardstick, but by reflecting the average solver rating for the preceding puzzles I hope to be able to give a good feel for the relative perceived difficulty of the latest offering. Note that hovering over the ‘graph’ icon will show you the full breakdown of votes for the current puzzle.

The consensus was that last week’s puzzle was of very similar difficulty to  the previous week’s ‘Oscars special’, its rating of 3.5 (based on 39 votes) being the same as that for G5. The scores comprised an equal number of 3’s and 4’s, with just a single 2. I couldn’t slide a cigarette paper between the two puzzles toughness-wise either, so that relative rating seems spot-on.

I thought that Gemelo 7 was both polished and entertaining. I suspect that, like me, those who have tackled all the puzzles in the series will be starting to get used to his style, including those definitions which are crafty but are also,  when combined with an accurate wordplay, sufficient to confirm that you have got the right answer. Just occasionally those definitions are a little too loose for my liking (and that of at least one regular correspondent), but I think that is something we will have to learn to live with.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 21d, “Not for the first time, violently pull tongue (6, 2 words)”. The wordplay involves a two-letter prefix denoting ‘again’ and a word meaning ‘to pull roughly and violently’ producing a (3,3) slang term for the tongue. However, the six-letter compound verb is not to be found in the dictionary and falls under the heading of ‘whimsical’. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that there is no indication in the clue either that the word does not exist or – in the alternative reading of the wordplay – that the setter is defining a prefix without any qualification (unlike the ‘opening for primitive’ in 32a). I do think that in this situation some indication of the setter’s fancy is required, eg “Conceivably not for the first time, violently pull tongue”.

Across

10a Where Douglas is turning against hard, venomous creature (6, 2 words)
The three-letter abbreviation for the island of which Douglas is the capital (‘where Douglas is’) is followed by the reversal (‘turning’) of a two-letter word which means (among many things) ‘against’, and the usual abbreviation for ‘hard’. The answer is (2,4).

12a Adult in trusted third party wearing Mussolini sticker? (8, 2 words)
The usual abbreviation for ‘adult’ is contained by the abbreviation for ‘trusted third party’, and the combination is itself contained by (‘wearing’) the four-letter title accorded by some to Benito Mussolini. The expression which answers to the minimalist definition is (4,4).

18a Use this to write good knock knock joke at last (8)
The usual abbreviation for ‘good’ is followed by two three-letter words meaning ‘knock’ (‘knock knock’) and the last letter of ‘joke’ (‘joke at last’).

19a “I’m barely going grey in retirement” I inanely suggest (6)
The reversal (‘in retirement’) of a three-letter word meaning ‘greyish brown’ is followed by I (from the clue) and the first and last letters (‘inanely’) of ‘suggest’.

23a Metal sent back by follower of LA rock (6)
A four-letter metallic element which has been reversed (‘sent back’) precedes a word which could be the ‘follower of LA’ when the ‘precursor of LA’ is SO. This reminds me of the bit in The Simpsons where Homer drives straight into a statue of a deer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxWKuntYFQ).

25a Did White River finally flood? Almost smart to go first (8)
A three-letter English river that lives largely in Devon and the last letter (‘finally’) of ‘flood’ follow a five-letter word meaning ‘smart’ in the ‘fashionable’ sense which has lost its last letter (‘almost smart to go first’). The word ‘do’ in the definition has the meaning that it would in “I’m planning to do the walls purple”. Interesting fact of the day: the strongest claim to be the inventor of correcting fluid is Bette Nesmith Graham, who worked as a typist and made enough mistakes to want a quick way to correct her errors without retyping whole pages. She first produced the fluid in her kitchen (using a blender), didn’t tell anyone else about it for several years (for fear of being thought to be ‘cheating’), gave a few bottles to friends, started selling it (initially with the help of her son and his friends) as ‘Mistake Out’, and eventually handed over her company (and the product, now called ‘Liquid Paper’) to Gillette in exchange for $47.5m. She was a single mother, and her son was Michael Nesmith, who became one of The Monkees.

30a Almost certainly past anger, consuming Peanuts? (8, 3 words)
A four-letter archaic (‘past’) term for ‘anger’ or ‘injury’ contains (‘consuming’) a slang word for the sort of thing of which Charles Schulz’s strip is an example and for which Walt Disney was famous. The answer is (3,2,3) and is a rather more prosaic version of the splendid expression ‘All Lombard Street to a China orange’.

31a People navigating princes, it could be said? (6))
The first three letters of the answer here are a homophone for a four-letter word beginning with ‘h’ which, when applied attributively to the last three letters of the answer, could be taken to describe princes, especially the eldest of their sibling groups. Based on the Chambers entry for the answer, the definition is by example (not all of them are navigators) and implication (they navigate something specific), although this is not indicated in any way.

32a Area containing opening for primitive lizard (6)
A four-letter word for an area contains the two-letter prefix signifying ‘original’ or ‘primitive’ (ie ‘opening for primitive’).

Down

4d Peeled agave makes you fit (4)
I could see that I needed a six-letter word for an agave to lose its first and last letters (‘peeled’), but I got the answer from the definition and was reduced to doing a search in the electronic version of Chambers for words with those four letters in the middle. There were only four, and the only one which showed any promise turned out to be the Spanish word for the American aloe, Agave Americana.

6d Cottage or hut, or temporary dwelling that is beneath the two (6)
The setter had to stretch out the definition here in order to include the three noun expressions required in the surface reading. The wordplay has the familiar two-letter abbreviation meaning ‘that is’ following (‘beneath’) a word meaning ‘the two’.

11d Protestant unionist aboard Titanic? That wasn’t true (8)
The usual abbreviation for ‘unionist’ is contained by (‘aboard’) a word meaning ‘titanic’, and the combination is followed by a word which is used in conversation to mean that what you’ve just said most definitely isn’t true, as in “I really think a full English breakfast should include baked beans, ???”.

13d Irrational figures race to drop e.g. Paul? (8)
The symbol for one irrational number and the two-letter name (although Chambers calls it a symbol) given to another (ie ‘irrational figures) are followed by the name of a (2,5) classic horse race run at Doncaster which has been deprived of (‘to drop’) the letters EG. The definition by example is indicated by the question mark, which should immediately suggest that the ‘e.g.’ is part of the wordplay.

24d Head of editorial previously called about French release of the first folio (6)
The first letter (‘head’) of ‘editorial’, plus a three-letter word of French origin meaning ‘previously called’ containing (‘about’) the two-letter abbreviation for ‘French’. Whilst I’m all in favour of setters making things interesting by using a variety of qualifications for words shown by Chambers as ‘obsolete’, ‘Scots’ etc, I think it’s possible to go a bit too far. I solved a clue recently where a Shakespearean word was described in the definition as “Bill’s”; since the diminutive ‘Bill’ didn’t come into use until the late 17th century, I’d be very surprised if this is how the bard was known to his chums such as Eddie Spenser and Chris Marlowe. I’m similarly a little doubtful about ‘of the first folio’ (the reference being to the first folio of Shakespeare’s works, published in 1623), particularly given that the six-letter word here doesn’t actually appear therein.

28d Custard apple, say, almost immediately out of fashion (4)
A five-letter word for the genus which includes the custard apple has its last letter deleted (‘almost’) to produce  an ‘archaic or literary’ word meaning ‘immediately’.

29d Battle to fire first round (4)
In 28d a five-letter word lost its last letter, and here a five-letter word for a battle (shown as being obsolete by OED, but – perhaps surprisingly – not by Chambers) has its first letter omitted (‘to fire first’), the result being a familiar word for a round or a period of service in a particular place.

(definitions are underlined)