Egbert seems to specialise in providing fun and relatively gentle crosswords for the well established annual Sloggers and Betters do in York.
This year the title is 225 30 which clearly has a crypitcal element to it.
225 is a fairly common abbreviation for Fifteensquared so that’s that bit done. As it turns out, the 30 refers to 30a, the answer to which is BLOGGERS. Thus “Fifteensquared Bloggers“.
I took the helm of the good ship Fifteensquared earlier this year and I’m still not entirely au fait with all of the bloggers’ names, though I’m getting there.
There’s also a short instruction with this crossword, which tells us:
All across entries are thematic and are clued without definitions. Down clues are normal.
So, with exception of 30a, all across answers are bloggers (past and present) on this site. What a remarkable achievement. In addition, a great many clues contain bloggers’ names too.
This was a gentle puzzle but no less enjoyable for it. Thanks very much Egbert.
| Across | ||
| 1 Accepting the end for Johnson, rampant cakeism is abandoned (6) | KENMAC | CAKE[is]M (minus IS) around [johnso]N anag: rampant |
| 8 Pierre regularly follows Frenchman’s rubbish (1,1,6) | M C RAPPER | Monsieur (Frenchman)+CRAP (rubbish)+P[i]E[r]R[e] (regularly) |
| 10 Game warden (6) | ANDREW | WARDEN (anag: game) |
| 11 John’s choice not available in the interim (9) | LOONAPICK | LOO (john)+NA (not available)+PICK (choice) |
| 12 Greeting former Indy setter, the first to arrive (6) | HIHOBA | HI (greeting)+ HOB (former Indy setter)+A[rrive] (first letter) |
| 15 Whip features in brief affair (9) | FLASHLING | FLING (brief affair) around LASH (whip) |
| 18 Snitch gets old TV cop to take divinity lessons at university (11) | RATKOJARIKU | RAT (snitch)+KOJAK (old TV cop) around RI (divinity lessons)+University |
| 21 Gaufrid’s leadership troubles sorted out (by 1!) (9) | TURBOLEGS | G[aufrid] (first letter)+TROUBLES anag: sorted out. (by 1!) is a reference to Kenmac taking the helm from Gaufrid |
| 25 Initially Duncansheill follows PeterO’s lead (6) | PEEDEE | P[etero] (lead; spelt out PEE)+D[uncanshiell] (lead; spelt out DEE) |
| 28 Breaking late news about Conservative……. (9) | TWENCELAS | LATE NEWS Conservative (anag: breaking) |
| 29 ……bungling starts to cutting universal credit and social housing (6) | SCCHUA | C[utting] U[niversal] C[redit] A[nd] S[ocial] H[ousing] (starts to) anag: bungling |
| 30 Dressed in deceptive humbug, government energy record goes before king (8) | BLOGGERS | BS (bullshit: deceptive humbug) around LOG (record)+Government+Energy+Rex (king) |
| 31 Born to lean to the left (6) | EILEEN | NEE (born)+LIE (lean) rev: to the left |
| Down | ||
| 2 Weariness results from Pete Maclean at last having a short night in Paris (5) | ENNUI | [pet]E [maclea]N (last letters)+NUI[t] (French for night; shortened) |
| 3 Italian chap’s doctor looking after a follower of the Pope (5) | MARCO | MO (doctor) around A+RC (Roman Catholic: follower of the Pope) |
| 4 Intimidate one of the FT 30 going without afternoon refreshment (3) | COW | [tea]COW (minus TEA: afternoon refreshment) |
| 5 English Master’s black painting once used to irritate (6) | EMBOIL | English+Master+Black+OIL (painting) |
| 6 Performing art Bridgesong now and then presents (6) | BRINGS | [a]R[t] B[r]I[d]G[e]S[o]N[g] (now and then) anag: performing |
| 7 For each one of the FT30, missing start of Rossini operatic solo is rather fishy (7) | PERCINE | PER (for each)+CINE[raria] minus Rossini (start of)+ARIA (operatic solo) |
| 9 Backflip up-ended nursing student (5) | PUPIL | backfLIP UP-ended (hidden: nursing) I’m not sure if Egbert intended BACK or UP-ENDED to be the reversal indicator |
| 13 One of the Guardian 30’s no man to be confused by queen’s successor (4) | HEIR | [man]EHI (minus MAN)+R (queen) anag: to be confused |
| 14 In a small restaurant, discordant trios follow Beermagnet’s lead (6) | BISTRO | B[eermagnet] (first letter)+TRIOS (anag: discordant) |
| 15 Force reportedly rebelled and was rendered immobile (5) | FROZE | Force+ROZE (sounds like ROSE: rebelled) |
| 16 Accumulate some dream assets (5) | AMASS | dreAM ASSets (hidden: some) |
| 17 Openings for HolyGhost and Quirister to be involved with Iraqi leader and UAE manufacturing Arab cloth (6) | HAIQUE | H[olyghost]+Q[uirister] (openings)+I[raqi] (leader)+UAE anag: manufacturing |
| 19 American newspaper boss took drugs (4) | USED | US (American)+EDitor (newspaper boss) |
| 20 Short guy and Nealh endlessly tinkering around with part of a boat (7) | GUNWALE | GU[y] (short)+NEAL[h] (endlessly) around With (anag: tinkering) |
| 22 Favourable outcome when Grant Baynham initially mingles with 9 (6) | BENIGN | G[rant] B[aynham] (initially)+NINE (anag: mingles with) |
| 23 Briefly relieve doddery old dear (6) | LIEVER | RELIEV[e] (briefly; anag: doddery) |
| 24 Kitty ultimately pursues police informer to describe a knoll in Dallas (6) | GRASSY | GRASS (police informer)+[kitt]Y (ultimately) |
| 26 In Rome, forty characters reported to be outstanding (5) | EXCEL | sounds like XL (fort in Roman) |
| 27 In the end Bert and Joyce turn up with penniless cool guy for a piece of music (5) | ETUDE | [ber]T+[joyc]E (in the end; rev: turned up)+[d]UDE (cool guy; minus D – penny) |
| 29 Haggard woman (3) | SHE | (duble def) SHE is a book by H Rider Haggard |
Fun puzzle. As a recent addition to the “FT 30,” I am honored to be mentioned.
Thanks to Bert for this. Someone told me my pseudonym was a solution to one of the crosswords and I did wonder how it could possibly be defined. Undefined is probably the only way you could.
Luckily I got hold of a copy of this puzzle and throughly enjoyed solving it. It helped that I recognised all the bloggers’ names even though I don’t solve so many crosswords these days. Packing all those names in was some feat. I didn’t ‘get’ 6d and 7d, but all is clear now. Thanks to both Egbert and kenmac for their efforts.
PS
I think ‘thoroughly’ would be a modern way of spelling ‘throughly’ (!).
Impressive grid fill.
An entertaining puzzle, but one that would have been tricky for anyone not familiar with the bloggers.
I have enjoyed all of Egbert’s ‘occasional’ puzzles, so thought I was in for a treat – and I was.
Having ‘got’ the theme, I thought there was no way he could fit RATKOJARIKU in but, amazingly, he did – with an ingenious construction and a great surface, too. And for every one of the across solutions to be the name of a blogger and for all (I think) of the bloggers to have been included, in either clue or answer, was just brilliant.
My top favourite was the very clever TURBOLEGS. I failed to get LIEVER – I didn’t know the word – and I just can’t believe that ANDREW was my last entry!
Many thanks to Egbert for the fun and to Kenmac for making the puzzle available to a wider audience and for a fine blog.
EGBert here
Many thanks for the comments.
Apologies for LIEVER – I was one letter short of a pangram, and couldn’t resist using this word, previously unknown to me, as a means of including the missing V, when there are at least two other better known words that could have filled the unches.
Many thanks to Kenmac / 1ac for the blog – a great honour!
This was in York weekend handout puzzles which I just got to…this week being relatively unoccupied.
As hinted above this was too hard for me as half the bloggers were unknown to me. (I do Guardian only) and the pseudonyms are not really guessable. I got a few from those with biogs on 225.
I tried to equate FT30 with an old Stock/Share index!
The relevance of “FT30” must be obvious to the bloggers but not me..anyone still there to explain?
Apologies…I should have thanks the setter for an ingenious puzzle and kenmac for the blog.
Incidentally my first guess was kojak but I quickly dismissed it as impossible!
I think that Cineraria meant:
As a recent addition to the FT bloggers, having recently started blogging the Financial Times (FT) puzzles.