Gemelo marks his 50th puzzle with a new device.
The relevant part of the preamble (omitted from the pdf by The Observer) read as follows:
Anagram Act – In order to solve each clue, solvers must act to unscramble a word that has been anagrammed; first letters of the de-anagrammed words explain what must fill the unclued entries.
For the purposes of the blog I have inserted the unscrambled word [in square brackets] immediately following the anagrammed word. The first letters spelled out the following message: THE TITLE AND THEMATIC NAME OF A DOCUMENT. It transpired that “Anagram Act” is itself an anagram of Magna Carta, the document in question.
I didn’t find this puzzle much harder than a normal plain Gemelo puzzle; in most cases it was pretty obvious which word was the anagram, and once the hidden message became apparent, that helped to identify the initial letter. There is just one answer – at 34 across – which I cannot fully parse to my satisfaction, so I look forward to your explanations. Thanks as usual to Gemelo.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | KNICKER |
Player using foot strap [traps] beginning to nudge marble (7)
|
| N(udge) inside KICKER (player using foot). | ||
| 6 | SAPOR |
Trifle almost covering pistachio’s earth [heart] flavour (5)
|
| SPOR(t) (trifle, almost) outside (pist)A(chio). | ||
| 11 | TITMICE |
Birds from city changed with time, avoiding den [end] of iniquity (7)
|
| *(CIT(y)TIME). | ||
| 12 | SHEATH |
Maybe what [thaw] is put into empty sandwich case (6)
|
| HEAT (maybe thaw) inside S(andwic)H. | ||
| 13 | PICK |
Select nutriments [instrument] to go through ground (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 14 | HUMMING ALE |
Drink affecting head minutes before outburst on midterm [trimmed] projection (10, 2 words)
|
| HUM(p) ( trimmed projection), MIN(utes) GALE (outburst). | ||
| 16 | KNOP |
Pool [loop] for spinners to smell bad, rarely coming back (4)
|
| PONK (a rare variant of “pong”, rev). | ||
| 18 | BEE FLY |
Nectar consumer shortly dropping Royal Institute for real [earl] (6, 2 words)
|
| B(ri)EFLY with E replacing the letters in brackets. | ||
| 19 | ANAGRAM ACT |
See preamble (10, 2 words)
|
| The title of the puzzle…. | ||
| 21 | MAGNA CARTA |
See preamble (10, 2 words)
|
| … an anagram of the title. | ||
| 24 | TINNED |
Having learnt [antler], say, about nitrogen covered in metal (6)
|
| N(itrogen) inside TINED (e.g., having an antler). | ||
| 26 | NITE |
Informal thing [night], being together naked (4)
|
| (u)NITE(d) (being together). | ||
| 27 | METATHERIA |
Marsupials ride [dire] their tame Australian (10)
|
| *(THEIR TAME A(ustralian)). | ||
| 29 | NIPA |
Knocked back a beer, ignoring stale [tesla] drink from East Indies (4)
|
| A PIN(t) (rev). | ||
| 31 | GIDEON |
Old Testament prophet – sturdy one – Ruth [hurt] (6)
|
| GID (sturdy) *ONE. | ||
| 32 | ESCROLL |
Fantastic villain’s retreating into railroad and cowers [escrow] (7)
|
| ORC’S (fantastic villain’s) (rev) inside ELL (US elevated railroad). | ||
| 33 | SMEES |
Local fowl stream [master] into bishops’ offices (5)
|
| M(aster) inside SEES (bishops’ offices). | ||
| 34 | EASY-OSY |
Indifferent beans (groan! [argon]) eaten by you once the wrong way (7)
|
| SOY (beans) SA inside YE (you once) (all rev). I can’t adequately explain how SA (or AS) can mean argon, whose symbol is AR. There is no other anagram of organ which begins with an A (necessary to generate the hidden message). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | KISHKE |
Jewish food handouts [thousand] disturbed sheik (6)
|
| K(thousand) inside *SHEIK. | ||
| 2 | IDEM |
In the Senate, the same lies [isle] by Democrat (4)
|
| I(sle) DEM(ocrat). The Senate is the Ancient Roman one, of course. | ||
| 3 | CHAMPAGNE |
Doc [cod] suffering, we hear it’ll go down with glasses? (9)
|
| A homophone of “sham pain”. | ||
| 4 | KITING |
One ton [not] chosen by the people to pin the thing rising sharply (6)
|
| IT (the thing) inside KING (one not chosen by the people). | ||
| 5 | RING BACK |
Related [altered] big crank call after getting buzzed (8, 2 words)
|
| *(BIG CRANK). | ||
| 6 | STOAE |
Mayor[Moray]’s so taking to ancient porticos (5)
|
| TO inside SAE (so in Scots). Nothing to do with moray eels, Moray here is to indicate the Scottish terminology. | ||
| 7 | AMP |
Current measure – coteries [esoteric] with outsiders indulge it (3)
|
| (p)AMP(er) (indulge). | ||
| 8 | OCCULTATION |
Concealing, shortly, no [on] great admiration through small, positive thing (11)
|
| O (shortly “on”) CULT (great admiration) AT (through) ION (small positive particle). | ||
| 9 | REKEYS |
Reform [former] likewise gripped by Royal Yacht Squadron types again (6)
|
| EKE (formerly, likewise) inside RYS (Royal Yacht Squadron). | ||
| 10 | SHUNAMITISM |
Rejuvenation of old man by young woman stuns him; I’m worried about race [acre] (11)
|
| A(cre) inside *(STUNS HIM I’M). | ||
| 15 | LEARNEDLY |
Really end badly, like a nod [don]? (9)
|
| *(REALLY END). | ||
| 17 | TRADABLE |
Committee’s tedious [outside] rule after date on the market? (8)
|
| R(ule) AD (date) inside TABLE (committee). | ||
| 20 | ITUNES |
Apple product is scarier [carries] put in a cask with energy (6)
|
| TUN (cask) E(nergy) all inside IS. | ||
| 22 | APHIDS |
Little suckers regularly sued [used], with a plan arising (6)
|
| Alternate letters (“regularly”) from ” uSeD wItH a PlAn”, all rev. | ||
| 23 | MEANLY |
Poorly European dipped into mocha [macho]? (6)
|
| E(uropean) inside MANLY (macho). | ||
| 25 | ETHOS |
Earnest [eastern] presenter promoting last character in group? (5)
|
| E(astern) HOST (with last letter promoted). | ||
| 28 | REDO |
First Eton [note] supports concerning follow-up bid (4)
|
| DO (first note in the scale) under RE (concerning). | ||
| 30 | ARE |
Take place of item [time] sent back (3)
|
| ERA (time) (rev). |
34A: “beans” = SOYS, and A is an obsolete abbreviation for “argon.”
Thanks for the blog , I thought this was very cleverly done and an idea I have not seen before .
AMP – coteries= camps with outsiders [ eluding ] it .
APHIDS was my favourite construction but so many neat clues .
Only two seemed a bit forced , ESCROLL and REDO .
I have solved other puzzles where words in clues need to be unscrambled and I wish it was used more often, but I think makes the clues harder to write than other devices which is presumably why it isn’t. I agree that it often wasn’t too hard to guess which word had been scrambled, but sometimes it didn’t help e.g. I guessed ‘heart’ and ‘end’ in 6a and 11a when I first read them but was still unable to solve those clues at that time. I assume the definitions in 26a (‘informal night’ for NITE) and 32a (‘escrow’ for ESCROLL) would be too similar their the answers to be used in normal clues, but I think they’re find if a word needs to be modified to make them appear.
I usually try to solve Gemelo on the computer entering the answers in the grid and not making other notes, so I made this one hard for myself by not being able to easily keep track of the first letters of the unscrambled words. I noticed that 21a could be an anagram of the title and managed to work it out, but then I wasted time trying to find another anagram to fit a 20a.
I didn’t know either KISHKE or SHUNAMITISM but thought they were the likeliest anagrams give the checking letters. I don’t think I would have remembered that NIPA could be a drink if I hadn’t seen it the previous week.
I agree with Cineraria about 34a, but would note that Wikipedia says Ar has been the official symbol since 1957, and with Roz about 7d.
The blog’s explanation for 8d is missing a C. I had ‘through’ indicating containment and ‘small, positive thing’ being CATION.
If I can make some small quibbles about other explanations:
In 16a, the definition is ‘loop for spinners’.
In 26a, ‘together’ is UNITED and ‘being’ is just a linking word.
In 20d, ‘put in a cask’ is TUN.
Thanks, bridgesong and Gemelo.