Interesting theme and an entertaining solve. My first reaction was that there seemed an awful lot to keep track of in the extensive rubric!
There were three types of clues, and four unclued lights to fill in.
Type 1 – one extra letter in wordplay – yielding instructions about how to fill in type 2 clues.
Type 2 – wordplay only clues
Type 3 – contained two consecutive extra letters to be ignored, yielding themed words when read in clued order.
None of the clues was too abstruse, so solving proceded at a slow but steady rate. It became clear that two of the unclued lights were ENGLAND and AUSTRALIA, while the other two were FOOTBALL and CRICKET.
We were looking for sporting pairs in the England and Australian teams.
The next breakthrough was to find CHAPPELL from the type 3 clues. There are Chappell brothers who play cricket for Australia, so we are looking for sporting siblings. With this guide I quickly found CHARLTON, NEVILLE and WAUGH. So we had two pairs of Australian cricketing brothers, and two pairs of English footballing brothers. (Two sets of twins too, but I don’t think that is relevant!)
The type 1 clues now yielded “ENTER OTHER MEMBER OF PAIR”
As I had solved 6A as BOBBY very early on (but with no idea what to do with it), this instruction became clear – BOBBY was to be entered as JACK (the Charlton brothers), similarly GREG was to be entered as IAN (Chappell), PHILIP as GARY (Neville) and STEVE as MARK (Waugh).
The theme to be highlighted appears on the diagonal from top left to bottom right, and is BROTHERS.
Time to complete – 1.5 to 2 hours – I’m no Biddlecombe!
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue | Grid Entry | Extra(s) | Definition: Wordplay |
| 1 | ENGLAND | Unclued | |
| 6 | JACK | Charlton | BOBBY: Bobby pin is American for hairgrip |
| 10 | SORORIAL | CH | Family member’s: [S(CH)OOL AIR]* |
| 11 | BEAU | E | Dandy: BE(E) + A + U |
| 12 | TUBE | N | Railway: BUT reversed + (N)E |
| 13 | TROILUS | AP | Greek victim of old: [(c)R(AP)ULOSIT(y)]* |
| 16 | PROS | PE | Experts: RO(PE) in PS |
| 17 | BLAT | T | American for “make a lot of noise”: [(T)ABL(E)T]* |
| 18 | IAN | Chappell | GREG: ERG (sandy area) reversed + G(abon) |
| 19 | IODIDE | LL | Salt: I(LL) + DIDO reversed + (tabl)E |
| 20 | SLUE | E | Sudden change of position: [SE(q)(E)L]* |
| 22 | SIERRA | CH | High points: hidden in clasSI(C H)ER RAdio |
| 23 | INDABA | R | Conference: IN + D(R)AB + A |
| 25 | HULL | O | Port: HULL(O) |
| 28 | MAMMEE | AR | WI fruit: [M(AR)EMME]* |
| 29 | LEI | T | Wreath: LE(T) + I |
| 30 | MARK | Waugh | STEVE: STAVE (rod) with change of heart. |
| 32 | GARY | Neville | PHILIP: PHI + LIP |
| 33 | UTRILLO | H | French painter: [(H)ILL TOUR]* |
| 34 | OSSA | E | Bones: (M)OS(E)S + A |
| 36 | REEL | R | Dance: R(ule) + E(astern) + E(R)+ L(eft). |
| 37 | LIONIZER | LT | One greatly admiring: [LI(LT) ZERO IN]* |
| 38 | SNOB | ON | He thinks highly of class: [B(ON)N SO]* |
| CRICKET | Unclued | ||
| Down | |||
| 1 | EST | NE | Programme from Erhard (Erhard Seminars Training): (NE)(W)EST |
| 2 | NOUNAL | M | Name’s: NO + UN + (M)AL(asia) |
| 3 | LOERIE | VI | South African bird: (VI)OL reversed + ERIE |
| 4 | NITS | LL | Fools: [N STI(LL)]* |
| 5 | DARKISH | E | Not the brightest: [SAD HIK(E)R]* |
| 7 | ABIB | M | Month: A(M)BIT with B(arrell) for T(ime) |
| 8 | CELLAR | B | Wine store: CELL + (B)AR |
| 9 | KAUAI | E | Volcanic island: AUK reversed + b(E)Ar pIt |
| AUSTRALIA | Unclued | ||
| FOOTBALL | Unclued | ||
| 14 | OEDIPEAN | EW | Complex guy’s: [(h)OPE N(EW) IDEA]* |
| 15 | DISIMMURE | R | Liberate: [MUM DI(R)E SIR]* |
| 21 | TAMILIC | O | Language’s: [(d)I(p)L(O)MATIC]* |
| 24 | DARREN | F | Man: NERD reversed round A(F)R |
| 25 | HEROIC | AU | Larger-than-life: [CHOIR E(AU)]* |
| 26 | LESSEE | P | I deal with letter: LESS + (P)E + E |
| 27 | OATES | GH | Explorer: [(tal)E A (GH)OST]* |
| 31 | KILO | A | Weight: O(A)K reversed round IL |
| 32 | GOOR | I | Sugar: GOO + (I)R |
| 35 | ART | R | Practical skill: A Ra(R)iTy |
Hi Hi,
Thanks for clearing up 32a. I had the right answer but couldn’t justify PHIL at all. I never even considered PHILIP – d’uh!
An enjoyable puzzle which I did with my 21-year-old daughter. Although she probably feels she didn’t contribute much, it served as a great (geeky) learning experience.
Ken – That’s you and me both as far as 32a is concerned …
As a sportophobe (yes I know thats not a real word) I hate crosswords that rely on knowledge of boring ball games. However, a phone call to my adult children gave me the flip side of the ‘pair’. This is why I’m useless at general knowledge crosswords. I prefer to use my tricksy mind, which may explain why I’m so unsuccessful.
32 across foxed me at first, but the grid-entry was obviously correct, and I was able to check with Raich’s solution notes. Conclusion – dammit, I should have realised. Thanks for confirming that, Hihoba.
Liz – sorry about the temporary interruption of the moratorium on soccer themes after the World Cup. At least it wasn’t exclusively soccer. I doubt you are positively phobic about such subject matter, but like me, find its relentless encroachment on an otherwise intellectual pastime rather cloying.
Thanks for the comments. I have to say that Ba suffers from the same sportophobia – which certainly should be a word, even if it’s not in Chambers. I and Ho are sportophiles, however. It is very encouraging to find that I have solved a clue (32A) that the experts found tricky!
Many thanks, Hihoba, for the excellent blog and to all for their comments. Philip (Phil) Neville was the one instance among the eight where there were two versions of the first name in common use. In those circs, being cautious, I opted, after some thought, for the longer version. With the benefit of hindsight, I should perhaps have aimed for an easier clue in view of possible ambiguity tho my intention was that those four non-definition clues would be on the difficult side so the theme would not emerge too quickly.
I initially took 18a to be one of the clues with two consecutive extra letters to be ignored: Sandy area over by Gabon giving ERG, the wordplay being (OV)ER + G(abon). Until I realised my mistake, not only did this mess up parts of the top left grid, but also it gave me OV somewhere in the thematic surnames.
Re. ‘Sportophobe’
O.k if you mean ‘fear of sport’ but if you mean dislike/hatred of sport/games, I think ‘misopaignist’would be more fitting.