Good morning all. A departure from the usual IoS fare this week, with a themed offering. The fact that we’d not encountered a themed IoS before meant that we were rather slow off the mark, and it was only once all the kings were in place that the significance of the number of the puzzle (1066) finally dawned, allowing 1ac to be filled. We found this a tougher, but altogether more satisfying, puzzle than usual, and will be interested to know whether other solvers also enjoyed the added penny-drop of the theme. We’d certainly like to see more puzzles like this in future.
ACROSS
1. AND ALL THAT ‘with what’s to follow after today’s date’. A reference to W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yateman’s wonderful, whimsical tour of history, ‘1066 and all that’.
7. COVE(r)
9. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR (henceforward tossed)*
10. NORM AN(D)Y some=any, as in ‘have you any/some bananas?’
13. HAR(m) OLD
15. WILLIAM THE CONQUERER (Quit hero Cromwellian)*
16. (P)RESUME
18. G RAMME(d)
25. BAYEUX TAPESTRY (Part sexy beauty)*
26. (h)EDGE
27. S A N(IT)ATION
DOWN
2. bED UNderstandably<
3. ADA P.T. OR
4. LEDGE(r)
5. HANSOM sounds like ‘handsome’
6. THRIFTIER (I fritter h)*
7. CLAUSAL anagram of ‘call’ around USA
8. VIDEOTAPES (a TV episode)*
12. CH UR CH YARD<
14. LAMINA< TES< our last one in
17. SOCKEYE dd
19. MARRY A T
20. BUN YAN(k)
22. RO(B.O.)T
23. JUD O not sure why ‘Jud’ is ‘gross’. Any ideas? SUM O – Thanks Barbara!
23. This should be Sumo, not Judo
Barbara
As a setter who uses themes sparingly, I was glad that you weren’t automatically on the lookout and finding everything a bit boring and predictable. If you ever find me doing football, you’ll be really surprised!
I enjoyed this, and having got 1a early on, .spent a fair part of solving time wondering when 1066 was going to appear – the penny only dropped once I’d finished 🙂
Do you realise Richard the Lionheart and William the Conquerer are the same length? I already had the Confessor, but assuming the theme was the book, I was looking further afield at first.
Thanks, Quixote, for a lot of fun. My only disappointment was not finding this blog once I’d finished. My memory is not so fresh four days later 🙁
conqueror by the way!
😆 I wondered, but couldn’t be bothered to check!
Very enjoyable, I did see the AND ALL THAT from the beginning but it still took quite a while to finish.