Gemelo has settled nicely into his slot. I enjoyed this. No major criticisms and good surfaces, everything sound so far as I can see.
Definitions underlined, in crimson. anagram indicators in italics.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PORTCULLIS |
Keep bar
of wine and broth, unusually (10) |
| port cullis — cullis is an unusual word for broth | ||
| 10 | AMORINO |
Forward independent
abridged novel about Cupid (7) |
| (on I roma[n])rev. — in the Times the other day we had roman for novel, which occasioned some complaints on Times for the Times. I thought it was fine and certainly OK here as it’s in Chambers |
||
| 11 | LOTAH |
Unwilling to receive a pot
from Asia (5) |
| lot(a)h | ||
| 12 | CURE |
Odd person to make better
priest (4) |
| 3 defs — the third one of curé | ||
| 13 | ET CETERI |
Inventor of dish losing
face, admitting horror of main and the rest (8, 2 words) |
| [P]et(cete)ri — etcetera would also have fitted if it were not for the German bacteriologist and his dish |
||
| 14 | LIAR |
Make-up artist’s banter rejected (4)
|
| (rail)rev. — make-up in the lying sense | ||
| 17 | YOD |
“I’m here, Lord” in letter
tothe Hebrews (3) |
| Yo, D | ||
| 19 | ALBACORE |
Tuna
meat nearly all eaten by real deviant (8) |
| baco[n] in (real)* — deviant an adjective | ||
| 20 | DAILIES |
Newspapers barely used long story from the east (7)
|
| ([u]se[d] iliad)rev. — or Iliad if you like | ||
| 23 | PRORATE |
Are speakers backing
voting system to allocate fairly? (7) |
| PR with, at the back of this, orate — I suspect this is a back-formation from pro rata; Chanbers says it’s mainly an American usage |
||
| 25 | RAGTIMER |
Cat to
give up fish on reflection (8) |
| (remit gar)rev. — a cat as in ‘cool cat’, someone who likes ragtime |
||
| 26 | MEG |
Old bit,
or about eight million newer ones (3) |
| I’m a little vague here about the wordplay: I think it uses the (2 to the power 20) bits defintion of megabyte: meg has three letters and megabyte 8; 3/8 of (2 to the power 20) is 7.5 million, so there are about 8 million bits … |
||
| 29 | ALAS |
Diverse mixture mostly
rejected, regrettably (4) |
| (sala[d])rev. | ||
| 30 | OPOPANAX |
Scent
opportunity, primarily music with an American guitar? (8) |
| o[pportunity] pop an ax — ax is the American spelling of axe, a word for a guitar — I’m sure Gemelo is well aware that there are many other genres of music (there’s only recently been a reference to one of them) and he is not making the assumption that producers of quiz shows on television seem to make, that music = pop |
||
| 31 | OHIO |
Zoophysiology’s
regularly observed state (4) |
| [Z]o[op]h[ys]i[ol]o[gy] — a rare regular clue where they are every three letters |
||
| 32 | ULMUS |
Chunk taken from
beautiful mustard tree (5) |
| hidden in beautifUL MUStard — isn’t Ulmus more a collection of trees than a tree? |
||
| 33 | OILNUTS |
Producers of Grease painting that’s disappointing
(7) |
| oil nuts! | ||
| 34 | ENFANT
GATE |
Spoilt sort of English Heritage group with enthusiast in
attendance (10, 2 words) |
| E N(fan)T gate | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PACHYDERMOUS |
Thick-skinned muse struggling with hard copy
(12) |
| (muse hard copy)* | ||
| 2 | RORID |
Damp
men breaking free (5) |
| r(OR)id | ||
| 3 | TREACLE |
Ligament covered in e.g.
maple syrup (7) |
| tre(ACL)e — anterior cruciate ligament | ||
| 4 | UNTILE |
Nitrogen found in
profitable strip of baked clay? (6) |
| u(N)tile — strip as a verb, I think | ||
| 5 | LOCH |
Tap indicators after
initially letting out Katrine, say (4) |
| l[etting] o[ut] C H — ref. Loch Katrine in Scotland | ||
| 6 | IOTA |
Scrap
two-handled vase that’s missing lid (4) |
| [d]iota | ||
| 7 | STEP ON |
Crush
possible rule for letters getting written up (6, 2 words) |
| (no pets)rev. — the letters are those who are letting a property: the surface would be more accurate if it said ‘lessees’ but then it would give everything away |
||
| 8 | TARTRATE |
Salt
dish with value (8) |
| tart rate —the tart is an item of food, which is a dish — it doesn’t refer to any of the ‘offensive’ or ‘derogatory’ terms |
||
| 9 | CHINESE
GOOSE |
Egg taken from kiwi bird (12, 2 words)
|
| Chinese goose[berry], which is another name for a kiwi fruit |
||
| 15 | RAISIN |
Stewing skinless fruit (6)
|
| [b]raisin[g] | ||
| 16 | PAKORA |
Indian side of Pakistan right to ignore borders (6)
|
| pak [m]ora[l] — a side-dish for an Indian meal — I can’t see side = side dish in Chambers, but surely it’s a matter of Chambers catching up: this is common usage |
||
| 18 | OAK APPLE |
Gall of
a Greek character almost interrupting Spanish cheer (8, 2 words) |
| o(a kapp[a])lé | ||
| 21 | PROLONG |
Drag out
introduction to USA, touring north (7) |
| prolo(N)g — introduction, as Americans spell it | ||
| 22 | UGSOME |
‘Vile, formerly’? ‘Viol, |
| (gu)rev. some | ||
| 24 | REMAIN |
Continue to be popular after backing America (6)
|
| (Amer.)rev. in | ||
| 26 | MAHUA |
Heads of Medicine are
het up about alcohol (5) |
| M[edicine] a[re] h[et] u[p] a[bout] | ||
| 27 | SPUN |
Second ram sent
hurtling (4) |
| s pun | ||
| 28 | ANOA |
Anecdotes about duck and
wild ox (4) |
| an(0)a |
I’m afraid I can’t restore the comments, as such, Below is the best I can do:
Luciano Ward
August 31, 2025 at 2:06 am
Not sure about 31 across.
Matthew
August 31, 2025 at 2:17 am
I had tentatively entered ET CETERA without understanding what the dish was before I realised that the old name for a kiwifruit does have a GOOSE in it. As a New Zealander, it’s still hard for me to accept that ‘kiwi’ alone can refer to the fruit rather than the bird.
For 26a, I think you are supposed to use that a megabyte is 2^20 bytes which is approximately 1 million bytes and a byte is 8 bits, so a megabyte is approximately 8 million bits, and MEG is a short form of megabyte.
KVa
August 31, 2025 at 3:14 am
MEG
Agree with Matthew.
‘newer ones’=’newer bits’ (The ‘old bit’ is accounted for as the def).
In the binary system, a megabyte (a MEG)=8,388,608 bits, and that’s
about 8 million bits.
(In the decimal system, it’s exactly 8 m bits).
OHIO
Seems fine to me, though somewhat unconventional.
Layman
August 31, 2025 at 3:30 am
Like last time, about 15 unknown words for me here – almost half the grid. But this time I knew exactly what to do: start and finish with “the word finder”, et voilà – done in about a couple of hours, and almost all parsed (still got two items wrong though, PAKORA and put ALBICORE instead of ALBACORE thinking it was somehow related to albinos).
I’m not sure whether the setter expects people to use aids but I think yes. It’s fine to see a few unknown words in a grid and use search every once in a while – everyone’s GK is different; but it’s hard for me to imagine many people knowing OPOPANAX or UGSOME off the top of their heads. What I particularly like about cryptic crosswords is wordplay, and I can’t really appreciate the wordplay if I NHO the word; it’s like, ok, I got the result but where’s the satisfaction? It’s not exactly my cup of Oolong, I guess.
Anyway, thanks Gemelo for the puzzle and John for great explanations!
nonafi
August 31, 2025 at 7:47 am
Am I getting the hang of Gemelo or was this actually easier? I had little trouble with this, except for a hold-up with 9d, the result of leaping to the conclusions that 13a was etcetera and 23a was pro rata. The result was a collection of letters in 9d that sent me to bird identification sources before coming to the conclusion that there was no such goose. Moral, do not leap to conclusions.
Personally, Layman, I like obscure words. I am feeling the lack of the Scots and old English, particularly dialect words, that one got with AZED. He came up with some marvellous words, and I wish I had kept a note of some of them.
Thanks to Gemelo and to John for clarifying some uncertainties
MunroMaiden
August 31, 2025 at 10:36 am
Nonafi@5 – I found this one a bit easier, too. Layman@4: I can only say that the more of these crosswords you do, the more you will become familiar with words like OPOPANAX and GU (if not UGSOME).
I did think 31ac wasn’t quite right, as the first letter is only two in, not three. I was also not enamoured of 8dn – “Salt” is a pretty vague definition of TARTRATE and “dish” is also a vague definition for TART. On the other hand, I thought 9dn was clever and also 15dn. As for 5dn, I probably had a head start, living where I do, as the loch was my primary association with Katrine (which, incidentally, is pronounced KAT’-RIN and not to rhyme with latrine, as I once heard from an English BBC presenter!).
Brian-with-an-eye
August 31, 2025 at 11:01 am
Thanks for the blog, John. One of the many things I didn’t know about lobsters is that their eggs are known as berries, so 9d escaped me. I am finding Gemelo easier as time goes by; his range of references is quite different from Azed’s, and personally I’m glad to see the back of all those Spenserisms. But I know that many will disagree, like nonafi@5. De gustibus ‘n all that.
Babbler
August 31, 2025 at 11:10 am
With some regret I have decided to give up on Gemelo. I used to pride myself on completing an Azed in one or two sittings, but Gemelo’s puzzles are just so difficult that after three days I face a half-finished grid and get no pleasure in persevering; no real pleasure if I do then get an answer. Like Layman@4 I found there were too many obscure words this week, though to be fair Azed was sometimes liable to include that many. Unlike Layman I certainly do not agree with the use of any aid other than a dictionary. I feel it is cheating somehow.
So farewell to readers of this page. You may find me on others.
Tim C
August 31, 2025 at 11:27 am
I suspect that MEG is being overcomplicated. A meg is an archaic halfpenny (a coin or bit). 8 million new bits (electronic ones not coins) are ~= 1 million bytes or a meg for short.
Layman
August 31, 2025 at 4:29 pm
Babbler @8: to clarify myself a bit, while I do think (as an improving solver) that it’s better to search for something I don’t know than to give up completely, I don’t enjoy doing so and try to avoid it if I can. My point is that, for this setter, searching seems to be the only viable MO, for me at least. And for this reason I don’t think I’ll continue here, either…
Robert
September 1, 2025 at 1:50 am
Could someone please explain 23A? The definition is fine, but the rest…?
Tim C
September 1, 2025 at 3:53 am
Robert @11, the wordplay is ORATE (as in ‘they are speakers’ = ‘they orate’) at the back of (backing) PR, the abbreviation for Proportional Representation, the voting system.
Robert
September 1, 2025 at 4:26 am
Thanks Tim, but I would have been happier if “they” was in the clue.
hapdaniel
September 1, 2025 at 3:57 pm
I feel certain I’ve solved this crossword before. Could it have been published online and then withdrawn the same day?
Thanks to Gemelo and John.