A really neat themed puzzle from Gaff!! A lot of fun solving including the expected toughies (parsing more difficult than solving when it comes to Gaff). Thanks a lot Gaff for a winnieng puzzle.
The theme of course is Winnie The Pooh whose literal birthday falls today. We find a host of his friends as well making an appearance – and I do wonder if there is another layer of a theme/nina I have missed. With a little imagination, the central vertical sounds like “BEAR HUG” ..
FF:10 DD:9
| Across | ||
| 1 | MACAWS | Mother bird cries for parrots (6) |
| MA (mother) CAWS (bird cries) | ||
| 4 | BLOC VOTE | Group’s declaration of love to Clare Balding starts badly (4-4) |
| LOVE TO CB* (Clare Balding, starting characters) | ||
| 10 | FURIOSO | Four is roughly zero, roughly (7) |
| FOUR IS* O (zero) – related to music, played furiously / wildly | ||
| 11 | EASY LAY | One readily seduced by simple song (4,3) |
| EASY (simple) LAY (song) | ||
| 12 | LOST | Finished at the bottom, like 8’s tail (4) |
| cryptic clue – eeyore’s tail was lost, and used as a bellpull by owl as featured in one of the stories | ||
| 13 | AIR BLADDER | Blair messed up computer on subject of inflation (3,7) |
| BLAIR* followed by ADDER (computer) | ||
| 16 | ROOSTS | Occupies branch of friends’ shop opening after setback (6) |
| ROO’S (friend’s – roo is a friend of winnie) T (seT – back) S (Shop, opening) | ||
| 17, 26, 3 | HUNDRED ACRE WOOD | Where friends played wounded hero card (7,4,4) |
| WOUNDED HERO CARD* , played doing double duty (for anagrind), place where winnie the pooh lived and played with his friends | ||
| 20 | See 21 | |
| 21, 20 | WINNIE THE POOH | Bear negative Russian man with ridicule following success (6,3,4) |
| Charade of WIN (success) NIET (negative , no in russian) HE (man) POOH (ridicule) – the theme of this puzzle | ||
| 24 | IRRESOLUTE | Dubious lore is true? Nonsense! (10) |
| LORE IS TRUE* | ||
| 25 | ORCA | Main killer of poor calves (4) |
| hidden in “..poOR CAlves” | ||
| 27 | GRANOLA | Maybe bar elderly relative for vandalising day centres (7) |
| GRAN (elderly relative) OLA (centre letters of “..fOr vandaLising dAy..” | ||
| 29 | UNCIVIL | Military offensive (7) |
| cryptic clue – military could be viewed as un-civil | ||
| 30 | ROAST PIG | Spooner’s staff set up, of course, for banquet (5,3) |
| spoonerism of POST (staff) RIG (set up) | ||
| 31 | LET RIP | Over the channel, the expedition blew up (3,3) |
| LE (the, in french, over the channel) TRIP (expedition) – nice construction. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MUFFLERS | They make driving sound less exhausting (8) |
| cryptic clue, refering to sound from the exhaust | ||
| 2, 9 | CHRISTOPHER ROBIN | Issue of AA failing to birch prisoner with heroin (11,5) |
| TO BIRCH PRISONER H* (heroin) – character created by a.a.milne, and named after his son by the same name, featured in winnie the pooh stories | ||
| 3 | See 17 | |
| 5 | LIE ABOUT | Indication of Eli being idle (3,5) |
| ELI can be clued as LIE ABOUT | ||
| 6 | CUSTARD PIE | One may be thrown by in-your- face humour (7,3) |
| cryptic clue | ||
| 7 | OWL | Friend from low ground (3) |
| LOW* – one more friend of winnie. | ||
| 8 | EEYORE | Friend of mine’s product overseen by evil eye (6) |
| ORE (mine’s product) after EYE* – friend of winnie the pooh | ||
| 9 | See 2 | |
| 14 | DIE ENGRAVER | Near the end, partygoer reported as one having designs on stamps (3,8) |
| sounds like DYING (near the end) RAVER (partygoer) | ||
| 15 | STOPS SHORT | Doesn’t finish last of shirts and trousers at first (5,5) |
| TOPS (shirts) SHORTS (trousers) with the last ‘S’ in ‘SHORTS’ moving to the front | ||
| 18 | KOHLRABI | Chancellor and priest reduced by bishop to vegetables (8) |
| KOHL (chancellor) RABbI (priest, less a ‘B’ – bishop) | ||
| 19 | MEGAFLOP | Disastrous show of computer speed (8) |
| cryptic clue – a disastrous show could be termed MEGA FLOP, also equal to a million floating point operations per second in computer terminology | ||
| 22 | TIGGER | Set off without first rate friend (6) |
| TrIGGER (set off, without R – first Rate) – friend of winnie the pooh | ||
| 23 | STOUT | Hardy small hawk (5) |
| S (small) TOUT (hawk) | ||
| 26 | See 17 | |
| 28 | ALA | Wing inaugural address (3) |
| hidden in “augurAL Address..” | ||
*anagram
A lovely themed puzzle thank you Gaff. There is always a temptation with this theme to write 7d as ‘Wol’ but I resisted this time round.
Thanks too to Turbolegs for the explanations
A big thank you to Gaff for a delightful puzzle on one of my favourite topics and thanks to Turbolegs for the blog.
I think one could add MUFFLERS – bringing much needed warmth to Piglet – and STOUT – descriptive of Pooh’s figure – to the themed list (although EASY LAY sits somewhat uncomfortably in this charming grid!)
Thanks to Turbolegs, and to Gaff for a nice little something.
Another one of Pooh’s friends is lurking in the bottom row..
PS It’s a pity the cue for 15d didn’t use RABBIT, which I think would have given pretty much the full set (excluding Kanga, and some other minor characters)
What baerchen said – all of it!
I too loved this. The RHS was decently challenging and the LHS exquisitely tough, and the theme delightful.
@Andrew 3
Aargghh! How did I miss that? Honestly….
Nice puzzle.
First two in: WINNIE THE POOH and CHRISTOPHER ROBIN ….
But 16ac (my LOI, for that reason) should surely read friend’s and not friends’ ?
Thanks Gaff and Turbolegs
Enjoyable puzzle with a theme that surfaced with OWL strangely enough, as he was one of the less likely characters that I’d remembered from the WTP stories. It was one time when the theme just opened up the rest of the puzzle by making the long clues write-ins, leaving the parsing of them as the only challenge.
Surprisingly, TIGGER held out until near the end – being the second last entry before ROAST PIG.
Agree that as much as 11a brought a wry smile when I got it – it did seem somehow out of place with this innocent theme. Nice puzzle all the same.