The preamble for Genius 142, when you can work your way through the hotch-potch of ‘temporary’ (?) workarounds the Grauniad have built around this ‘non-standard’ puzzle which has been there for 10-plus years, tells us that we are looking for seventeen partners of well-known pairings – a device which I am sure has been used before, but maybe not on a Genius(?)…
So … some cold solving may be required, if we can’t trust crossing letters that may be thematic substitutions for their partners.
My instinctive approach was/is to head for the bottom-right-hand corner – are setters tired/worn out when they get there, and desperate to close the puzzle out, having started top left? I don’t know, but it seems to work for me. So 29 as BATTERY and 25D as ALPHA didn’t fit, but ’ASSAULT’ and ‘OMEGA’ as their ‘well-known’ pairings did.
So far, so good, but a fair amount of work ensued, tracking down CAVALIERS and ROUNDHEADS, WALLACE and GROMIT, TROILUS and CRESSIDA, etc…until I was just left with the top left corner – damn those pesky setters and their enthusiastic focus on the top left!
All in all, after a burst of initial activity, this slowed down to requiring several re-visits over the next few days (and even weeks), until I eventually got ISAAC/ABRAHAM and (LOI) MARX/ENGELS:
Overall, a worthy ‘Genius’-themed puzzle – which, for me at least, needed a fair amount of the month’s worth of lead time – and a pleasure to (eventually) solve, and then blog.
During early solving, I noticed the use of ‘Times’ in several places, and wondered if this related to the theme, but it seems to have just been a diversionary tactic, with ‘times’ as ‘x’ and ’by’, in the mathematical sense, and referring to the newspaper, the ‘Thunderer’, in the other…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Thematic Solution | Entry | Definition (where relevant) | Clue / Logic/Parsing |
| 1A | ISAAC | ABRAHAM | n/a | One’s clubs include drivers (7) / IS (ones, I pluralised) + C (clubs), around AA (Automobile Association, drivers) |
| 5A | JETSAM | FLOTSAM | n/a | Novel set in mess (7) / J_AM (mess, predicament) around ETS (anag, i.e. in mess, of SET) |
| 10A | TRIO | Musicians | Musicians turn it on but not every second (4) / alternate letters (i.e. not every second) of ‘TuRn It On’ |
|
| 11A | TWEEDLEDUM | TWEEDLEDEE | n/a | Pretty terrible muddle (10) / TWEE (pretty) + DLEDUM (anag, i.e. terrible, of MUDDLE) |
| 12A | MARX | ENGELS | n/a | Stuff about Times (6) / MAR (ram, stuff, about) + X (times) |
| 13A | TROILUS | CRESSIDA | n/a | 10 mistakenly left the Guardian (8) / TROI (anag, i.e. mistakenly, of TRIO at 10A) + L(left) + US (The Guardian) |
| 14A | THUNDER | LIGHTNING | n/a | Times ignores margins of error (9) / THUNDER(ER) – nickname of The Times newspaper, less ER, outer letters, or margin, of ErroR |
| 16A | GROOM | BRIDE | n/a | General manager hires bouncer (5) / G_M (general manager) around (hiring) ROO (kangaroo, bouncer) |
| 17A | NOW | AGAIN | n/a | Men Only? (5) / NO + W (women) – i.e. ‘men only’ |
| 19A | DESPERATE | Serious | Serious change in speed, then another (9) / DESPE 9anag, i.e. change in, of SPEED) + RATE (another term for speed) |
|
| 23A | GILBERT | SULLIVAN | n/a | Daisy’s partner steals one pound (8) / G_ERT (Daisy’s partner, Gert & Daisy, 1940 UK radio show) around I (one) + LB (pound) |
| 24A | WALLACE | GROMIT | n/a | Expert bricklayer? (6) / &lit-ish cryptic definition(?) – an expert bricklayer might be a WALL ACE |
| 26A | CAVALIERS | ROUNDHEADS | n/a | Speleologists entertain boxer (10) / CAV_ERS (speleologists) around (entertaining) ALI (Muhammad Ali, boxer) |
| 27A | GOOD | EVIL | n/a | French composer bans his article (4) / GO(UN)OD – French composer, less UN – ‘his article’, ‘the’ in French) |
| 28A | SEESAWS | Yo-yos | Yo-yos used to be around in places like York (7) / SEE_S (sees, or dioceses, places like York) around SAW (was, used to be, around) |
|
| 29A | BATTERY | ASSAULT | n/a | Milliner in Bow appears in Times (7) / B_Y (times, multiplied by) around (H)ATTER (how a ‘hatter’, or milliner. might be pronounced by a Cockney in Bow/East End of London) |
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Thematic Solution | Entry | Definition (where relevant) | Clue / Logic/Parsing |
| 2D | RWANDA | BURUNDI | n/a | Right to film fish (7) / R (right) + WANDA (from the film ‘A Fish Called Wanda’) |
| 3D | BEYOND | ABOVE | n/a | The old revolutionary vow is binding (5) / B_OND (vow) around (binding) EY (ye, archaic version of ‘the’, revolved) |
| 4D | ARTISAN | Smith | Smith topped enthusiast (7) / (P)ARTISAN – enthusiast, topped, or first letter removed |
|
| 6D | GENTLEMEN | LADIES | n/a | Element worked into garden borders (6) / G_N (bordering letters of GardeN) around ENTLEME (anag, i.e. worked, of ELEMENT) |
| 7D | TREASURER | fund manager | Time to comfort half-hearted Republican fund manager (9) / T (time) + REAS(S)URE (comfort, half-‘heart’edly) + R (Republican) |
|
| 8D | AMENDED | made better | Made better finish – made different covers (7) / AM_ED (anag, i.e. different, of MADE) around END (finish) |
|
| 9D | TERCENTENNIAL | anniversary | Recent comic illustrator announced anniversary (13) / TERCEN (anag, i.e. comic, of RECENT) + TENNIAL (homophone, i.e. announced, of Sir John TENNIEL, illustrator of e.g. ‘Alice in Wonderland’) |
|
| 15D | HAIRLINES | shock margins | Heroin carriers’ shock margins? (9) / H (heroin) + AIRLINES (carriers) |
|
| 18D | GLUCOSE | energy supplier | Firms join banks to create energy supplier (7) / GLU_E (join) around (banking) COS (companies, firms) |
|
| 20D | PEGASUS | horse | Groom pauses, harnessing head of grey horse (7) / PE_ASUS (anag, i.e. groom, of PAUSES) around (harnessing) G (first letter, or head, of Grey) |
|
| 21D | TRIVIAL | lightweight | Lightweight rocket intercepts pilot (7) / TRI_AL (pilot) around (intercepting) VI (V1, German WW2 rocket/bomb) |
|
| 22D | TV SHOW | programme broadcast | Programme broadcast shot around very start of war (2,4) / T_SHO (anag, i.e. broadcast, of SHOT) around V (very), plus W (first letter of War) |
|
| 25D | ALPHA | OMEGA | n/a | Partridge’s call holds record (5) / A_HA (catch phrase of Alan Partridge, UK comedy TV character) around LP (Long Playing vinyl record) |
Thanks for the blog, McRapper – the animated solution is a tour-de-force!
Our route to the solution mirrored yours, starting with ALPHA/OMEGA and ending with ISAAC/ABRAHAM and MARX/ENGELS, spread over a couple of weeks.
I thought quite a few of the undefined clues had very tough wordplay, especially since the length of the answer was unknown (eg, “stuff about Times”, “Right to film fish” – yes, they’re fair, but blimey….).
I admit resorting to Word Wizard for several – and just combing through the list of admissible answers to find a likely looking member of a pair. Cheating, you say ? No, making good use of the resources available 😉
Many thanks for the blog. I thought this was a great puzzle and it took a lot of unravelling. Like you, I found that the NW corner was the most stubborn. My LOI was AGAIN, and I was held up for a while by trying to get 3D to mean BELOW!