A themed Cinephile for our entertainment today in which we were told that BP had the same meaning throughout. Once the theme had been determined (in my case from solving 7,8) the remaining clues became a lot easier than they appeared on the first read through. The theme was confirmed by 2d. A most enjoyable start to the day.
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Across
1 AMBUSH AM BUSH (he’s ex-president)
4 INTIFADA AD (publicity) A FIT (an appropriate) NI (Ulster) reversed
9 KIDNEY KID (child) NEY (soldier) – Michel Ney, Marshal of France
10 SCOTLAND COT (little house) in SLAND[er] (a lot of bad-mouthing)
12 APPARENT A (first) PP (two pages) AREN’T (seem not to be)
13 PRIMAL RIM (edge) in PAL (friend)
15,20 DARTMOOR ROOM (accommodation) TRAD (traditional) reversed
16 BEWITCHING WIT (intelligence) CHIN (BP) in BEG (ask)
19 WASTED AWAY WAS TED AWAY
23 CLOUDY C (cold) LOUD (noisy) [part]Y
25 FREE HAND FREE (without charge) HAND (BP)
27 HUGUENOT U (university) in HUGE (large) NOT
28 LIVERY dd
29 MINORITY dd
30 CHEEKS dd
Down
1 AWKWARD KW (little power) in AWARD (prize)
2 BODY PARTS *(DOPY) in BARTS (hospital)
3 SHEARS SH (don’t talk) EARS (BPs)
5 NECK dd
6 INTERACT ER (hesitation) in INTACT (without reduction)
7,8 AN ARM AND A LEG N[avy] in ARMADA (navy) in *(ANGLE)
11 KNEECAP EEC (forerunner of EU) in KNAP (that of sack)
14 BIZARRE I (first) Z (last) in BARRE[l] (bottomless container)
17 ISOGAMETE IS O (love) GAME (sport) T[h]E (the heartless)
18 HEADGEAR HEAD (BP) GEAR (transmitter)
19 WICKHAM homophone of ‘Wycombe’ – High Wycombe, a town in Buckinghamshire and George Wickham
21 RED EYES REDE (counsel) YES (that’s so)
22 PERISH hidden in ‘whimPER IS How’
24 ORGAN dd
26 FOOT dd
Hi Gaufrid. I solved this one at about eight this morning, so have just seen your blog. I too got the theme from 7,8 down, after trying Baden Powell, Brain Power and Blood Pressure!
It was a fun puzzle imho.
Thanks, Gaufrid. For me it was the CHIN in BEWITCHING that gave away the theme.
In 1 across, I wasn’t sure whether “saying” was meant as a homophone indicator, i.e., whether the setter might have been going for a Texas-accented homophone (“Ah’m Bush”).
Hi Agentzero
I’m sure you’re right about the homophone in 1a. I was never completely happy with the simple parsing given in the blog since to be grammatically correct it should be ‘I’m Bush’.