Notes for Gemelo 10

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 10 Plain

Solver difficulty rating

3.9 based on 42 votes (voting is now closed)

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The overwhelming view was that last week’s ‘all words the same length’ puzzle was far less challenging than the previous week’s ‘plain’, its rating of 2.6 being way down on G8’s record high of  4.5. The great majority of scores were 2’s and 3’s, with the 2’s predominating. I think that the gimmick may have contributed to its accessibility, but whatever the reason it was probably the most straightforward of Gemelo’s puzzles thus far.

Those who were thinking that this might be the ‘new normal’ may have had to think again. I’ll be interested to hear what you made of this puzzle, but there may be some solvers who would like Gemelo to be  ‘constrained’ more often. I did think that in some instances here the setter sacrificed accuracy on the altar of surface readings. I marked a lot of clues as being potentially worthy of comment, but I have limited myself to the usual 16 – if there are any others that you would like me to cover, just let me know.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 32a, “Removes platforms from headland, shielding last bit of Alcatraz? (6)”. The wordplay here has that handy three letter word for a headland or an Ethiopian prince containing (‘shielding’) the name of the last letter in (‘last bit of’) ‘Alcatraz’, but it isn’t the name given to the letter in the British version of English, rather the American form (as in ‘ZZ Top’ or ‘Liza with a Z’); this is suggested by the choice of ‘Alcatraz’ to deliver the letter, and the question mark which follows. This is fine as far as it goes; however, it does raise a general issue, on which my views have changed in recent years: can the name of a letter, rather than just the letter itself, legitimately be indicated in this way? ‘Start of campaign’ is absolutely fine for C, but is it valid for SEE? At one time, I would have said “yes”, but now I don’t think so – the ‘start’ of ‘campaign’ is what appears at the beginning of the printed word, ie C. If the solver is expected to translate this into the name of the letter, they need to be given a steer in that direction, using words like ‘letter’ or ‘character’, so  ‘character starting campaign’ would be fine for SEE.

Across

5a Obama, unusually without date, reads (7)
An anagram (‘unusually’) of OBAMA is followed by the two-letter abbreviation of a Latin phrase having the sense of ‘without a date’. The crafty definition refers to read² in Chambers.

10a Brief note by side of gospel? (6)
An &lit, where the (4-2) brand name for a particular type of note (traditionally square and yellow) deprived of its last letter (‘brief’) precedes the final letter (‘side’) of ‘gospel’. The whole clue serves as a pretty good definition – one could even argue that the question mark is unnecessary.

13a Ultimately like Henry to come without first transforming need (8, 3 words)
The fat guy with the wives was the last English monarch who took the name Henry, so we must establish the ordinal attached to the next king (or queen, I suppose) with that name (ie ‘like Henry to come’), remove the first letter (‘without first’), and follow it with an anagram (‘transforming’) of NEED.

18a Piously goes without this gun for once (3)
I can see that I’m going to have to come to terms with Gemelo using the preposition ‘without’ to indicate containment, but I’m never going to accept it.  Here, when you put the string PIOUSLY around (‘without’) the answer (‘this gun’) you get a word meaning ‘once’ (ie ‘for once’). When it comes to the definition, ‘gun’ is a verb – I can’t give the Chambers definition here because it contains the answer, but it involves putting your foot down.

20a Greek poet unloading crates after second round (6)
There is undoubtedly something of Azed about this clue, where an eleven-letter Greek poet with the consecutive letters CRATES removed from his name (‘unloading crates’) goes after the usual abbreviation for ‘second’. I didn’t know the poet, but although his Wikipedia entry is pretty brief, he does get a mention in Chambers under the headword for the metre which he invented and which (I understand) frequently occurs in the choruses of Greek tragedies and in Horace.

30a Polish nobleman knocked back in very good blast (8)
Here we have a reversal (‘knocked back’) of a charade consisting of a two-letter word for ‘in’ (though you might have to think hard to come up with a sentence where they are interchangeable), a two-letter word meaning (according to Chambers, at least) ‘very good’, and an interjection along the lines of ‘blast!’ that you might associate with Snoopy.

34a Source of Thatcher’s limited amount of concentration (5)
The (2,4) name of a plant of the Cordyline genus, ‘whose sword-shaped leaves are used for thatching’, is shorn of its last letter (‘limited’) to produce a term for the strength of a solution (derived from the name of the process used to establish it)  or the concentration of an antibody, though surely not ‘amount of concentration’ (what even is that?). Suffice to say that there is very little about this clue that I like.

Down

2d Study old introduction to this book on style of living in Rugby? (12, 2 words)
This four-element charade starts with a three-letter word which has setters spoilt for choice – Gemelo has selected the archaic verb meaning ‘to study carefully’ (‘study old’). Then come the first letter of (‘introduction to’) ‘this’, the four-letter name by which a book of the Bible is usually known, and a four-letter string which has many familiar meanings (harbour, wine etc) but some unfamiliar ones as well, such as ‘style of living’. The answer is (7,5), the definition is by example, and the word ‘Rugby’ has been deceptively capitalized. I know the sequence of the first few books in the New Testament from a piece of ancient doggerel that involves wanting to establish where the Romans have gone, although I believe there’s another version where the Romans ‘carry on’ – and there may be others!

5d Trimmed whalebone on side of boat (4)
The six-letter word for whalebone is stripped of its first and last letters (‘trimmed’) to produce the answer; the definition seems rather vague.

6d Vulgar, boring songs perhaps lacking heart (8)
The combination of two five-letter words for ‘boring’ and ‘songs’ (or ‘commonplace instrumental performance’) loses the two letters in the middle (‘lacking heart’), the result being a word which was coined in 1845 by the politician George Smythe, MP for Canterbury. In an article for the Oxford and Cambridge Review about the late Earl Grey, he wrote “After 1812, and when the worse portion of the Tories got enthroned in the supremacy, when the ???????? principle (we must coin a word from the most expressive of languages to express all its intense vulgarity) began to obtain.” I can’t help feeling that the English language would have got on fine without it.” Smythe’s political career was abruptly derailed in 1846 when he was caught in a summerhouse with the 21-year-old Lady Dorothy Walpole the daughter of Horatio Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford. It probably didn’t help that he’d put in an expense claim for the summerhouse…

7d Rough and ready hair for Sikh, though getting in tangle (9)
The four-letter word for ‘the uncut hair and beard traditionally worn by Sikhs’ and a two-letter word which can mean ‘though’ (as in “He’s a good player, though a little slow”) are contained by (‘getting in’) a word for a tangle.

9d Confused lecturer with leaves of paper? (7, 2 words)
This is an anagram (‘confused’) of the usual abbreviation for ‘lecturer’ and LEAVES which can produce two rather similar results, one being (1,6) and the other (2,5)  – only the latter can be used adjectivally, however, and is thus the one which (roughly) answers the definition ‘of paper?’.

12d Technically spread support when heading for green rule (4)
A three-letter (‘support [used] when heading for the green’) and the usual abbreviation for ‘rule’ combine to produce a word meaning ‘to spread’ which is shown by Chambers as ‘technical or dialect’, hence the qualifier in the definition.

17d Close friend hugging male water carrier (8)
A six-letter modern slang term for one’s closest friend contains (‘hugging’) a two-letter word for a male.

19d Spirit almost keeps entertainers in Asia (7)
The sort of spirit associated with zeits and polters sheds its last letter (‘almost’) and is followed by a three-letter word meaning ‘keeps’.

25d Guts of Scottish fish and one from New Zealand (4)
The six-letter Scottish fish which appears without its first and last letters (ie ‘guts of’) is often associated with Arbroath; the ‘one’ in the definition refers back to the ‘fish’ in the wordplay.

(definitions are underlined)