A late blog today because this one caused me some problems, particularly in the NE corner. All the across answers are Biblical Characters and most lived BC. A number of them are obscure to say the least, well in my opinion anyway, and some do not appear in the lists of biblical names that I have found on the web. A copy of the Bradford or Chambers crossword dictionary may have helped but unfortunately I don’t have a copy of either.
I have a query about the validity of 14a and perhaps someone with greater knowlege of the good book can clarify this issue.
Seasonal felicitations to all.
Across
1 BARUCH RU (game) in BACH (composer)
4 ELIADA ELIA (essayist) DA (teddy-boy hairstyle) – the pseudonym of Charles Lamb and the abbreviation of ‘duck’s arse’. Apparently Eliada was one of David’s sons
8 ABSALOM ABS (sailors) A LO (a look) M (maiden)
9 JAPHETH PH (pub) in JET (black) H (hospital)
11 METHUSELAH *(THE MULE HAS)
12 NOAH NO AH
13 AARON A [b]ARON (lord)
14 ISAACHAR I (one) SA (oomph) A CHAR (a cleaner) – I can find no reference which indicates that this is an alternative spelling of ‘Issachar’ so is there an error here?
16 THADDEUS *(DEAD) in THUS (so)
18 MOSES E (energy) in MOSS (plant)
20 JEHU HE reversed in JU[mp] (leap)
21 SIMON PETER *(ONE PERMITS)
23 MICHAEL MI (motorway) CHA (tea) [g]EL (set)
24 SOLOMON SOLO (sort of performance) MON (Monday)
25 GIDEON G (grand) IDE (fish) ON – ‘the menu’ seems to be superfluous
26 ELISHA hidden in ‘jezebEL IS HAted’
Down
1 BIBLE B (book) in BILE (anger)
2 REACHER CHE (revolutionary) in REAR (last)
3 CLOISONNE I SON (one boy) in CLONE (exact copy)
5 LOACH L (lake) [r]OACH (another {fish})
6 APHONIC A *(CHOPIN)
7 ASTRAGALS cd
10 ALTISSIMO *(AS LIMIT SO)
13 ACHIEVING IVE (I have) reversed in ACHING (longing)
15 ALMOND OIL *(NAOMI DOLL)
17 DOUCHED DOU[r] (mostly glum) C (cold) HED (he had)
19 STEROLS ST (holy fellow) *(LOSER)
21 STENO hidden in ‘almoST ENOugh’
22 EBOLA A BOLE (rounded lump) reversed
The Church Times crossword editor is blushing. Sorry about 14 A.
Bradman
Thanks for confirming my suspicion about 14a, and so quickly too!
I spent my Christmas at Chaung Thar beach, Myanmar, with no internet or dictionary access, but I did take a bible with me. So, Mr Bradman had me pretty perplexed about what edition of the bible he had been reading. Certainly 14 across had me tetchy but I also question the spelling of Thaddeus (Thaddaeus). I couldn’t see how he got the el for Michael and ide as a fish is in the dictionary but in a roundabout way and I agree that “the menu” made this clue very hard to justify the obvious biblical name. The hardest clue for me was astrogals but very clever.
Elia I remembered from my schooldays but I didn’t know the DA for duck’s tail and my bible had Beeliada as David’s son.
As far as I’m concerned Eliada, the duck’s arse, Isaachar (sic), the Vauxhall Astra and astragals are unknown to human knowledge! In the circumstances with three clues unsolved I did brilliantly.