Reasonably easy theme to spot, the title referring to the colours of the rainbow arch (Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain). Most clues quite straightforward, but a bit muddling was the use of INDIGO both as the missing colour and as part of the blue sequence.
The colour triads were:
pillarbox red arrows
mock orange stick
crome yellow card (Crome Yellow is Aldous Huxley’s first novel)
village green goddess
indigo blue riband
shrinking violet Carson (Violet Carson OBE played Ena Sharples in Coronation Street)
The clues with superfluous words producing the rainbow mnemonic were all across clues 7,11,16,19,27,31 and 34. The extra words are indicated in square brackets [] below.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | AU + TO(GEN)Y. [Richard] |
| 8 | F + Philip ROTH |
| 10 | GAT for rod/gun round N(ew) |
| 11 | REAR – double meaning. [of] |
| 12 | Bob DYLAN – hidden |
| 13 | (r)ACHE – R(omeo) from phonetic alphabet removed |
| 16 | P(l)OY + I – A word I’d never heard of and didn’t believe could exist until I looked it up – such an unusual vowel combination! [York] |
| 17 | SOON round W(eak) |
| 18 | RAN (smuggled) + SACK (wine) |
| 19 | PERAEON – one pear* Another unlikely word with lots of vowels together! [Gave] |
| 23 | King LEAR + NED |
| 25 | AN + TIC |
| 27 | MEN+G is a couple. [battle] |
| 29 | Y(o)U + CA |
| 30 | SALEM witch trials, males* |
| 31 | BE (take place) + MA. [in] |
| 32 | (v)ERSE |
| 33 | O + RANT |
| 34 | Not such a hot clue. DIET is not Tied up!, + ETIC (cite backwards). [vain] |
| Down | |
| 1 | RUB+(t)YING |
| 2 | MORA (delay) + Y |
| 3 | E.G. + GNOG (gong reversed) |
| 4 | VENA + TOR |
| 5 | L(och) + YTHE – they* |
| 6 | (m)ET AL |
| 8 | FRES(h) + NO play |
| 9 | CLODPATE = cod plate with L moved up |
| 14 | CAR + A DOC |
| 15 | A bit rude this one! HO(ARSE for butt)LY |
| 20 | ENCYST – sent* round Cy |
| 21 | ECTASES – case set* |
| 22 | TON(EM)IC |
| 14 | AS+SETS |
| 26 | SUED+E |
| 27 | M(AM)ET – American Dramatist |
| 28 | BERG = most of grebe reversed |