What an extraordinary grid: 38 answers, necessary perhaps to accommodate the theme. I thought this was quite hard, indeed was unable to finish because I wasn’t sure about 4dn (that’s my excuse anyway, although it isn’t a good one). 23ac simply defeated me. However, although hard, it was sound and there were some good clues.
Apologies again for slight lateness. The computer problems I referred to last time I blogged haven’t gone away, and some of this is being done by hand. Hope it’s going to work.
Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
1ac/3ac gives two words, flag and staff, synonyms and examples of which pervade the crossword.
| Across | ||
| 1/3 | FLAGSTAFF | Irises flower somewhere on Route 66 (9) |
| flags taff [the River Taff in Wales] — Flagstaff, Arizona, on Route 66 no doubt (I’m afraid I didn’t check, but trust Hob) | ||
| 6 | SCAR | Cliff Richard’s first No.1 in Australia? Going back, that’s on “Serious Charge” originally (4) |
| S{erious} C{harge} (R{ichard} A)rev. | ||
| 11 | TOSCANINI | Conductor of opera 9’s half-seen twice (9) |
| Tosca ni{ne} ni{ne} — 9 = nine, nothing to do with 9dn | ||
| 12 | OGLED | Made eyes at the French setter, perhaps, when cycling around (5) |
| og(le)d, the ogd being dog cycled, ie with its first letter cycling to the end | ||
| 13 | CROOK | 3 agreed on short cut (5) |
| cro{p} OK, 3 being staff | ||
| 14 | ORGANISTS | Arranges time to cover English musicians (9) |
| organises with its e replaced by t — but does cover = replace? I suppose in a way it does, if you imagine the e being covered by a little card on which is written t | ||
| 16 | ORDER | Make neat edges after trimming each side (5) |
| {b}order{s} | ||
| 18 | ORRIS | Type of 1A needed if old car doesn’t start (5) |
| {M}orris, 1A being flag, and this = orris (seems familiar: I think it occurred the other day) | ||
| 20 | AWL | As everyone said, it’s boring (3) |
| “all” | ||
| 21 | ICE | Reserve a regular supply of biccies (3) |
| {b}i{c}c{i}e{s} | ||
| 23 | CARDS | What those on 3 wouldn’t want? 9 might be one of them (5) |
| If you were on the staff you wouldn’t want to be given your cards. 9 being JACK, this is a card in a pack of cards. | ||
| 24 | NIMBI | Clouds of gas? Setter’s big end’s gone (5) |
| N[itrogen] I’m bi{g} | ||
| 26 | RED ENSIGN | Engineers plan involving new 1A (3,6) |
| RE de(n)sign — the Red Ensign is an example of a flag | ||
| 28 | CREWE | 3 with base in Cheshire town (5) |
| crew [= staff] e — e is the base of natural logarithms | ||
| 29 | MORAL | Good middle-of-the road album? Not bad (5) |
| mor [middle of the road] al{bum} | ||
| 30 | POSTNATAL | Model pants a lot before giving birth? On the contrary (9) |
| *(pants a lot) | ||
| 32 | NOEL | Characters in flat become 1D, having this for Christmas (4) |
| 1D being FAT, if the characters [letters] in flat become fat, the l is taken out, so it has no el | ||
| 33 | STONE | Content of some 1As? Small number, next to road (5) |
| st [road] one [small number] — some flags are flagstones, ie contain stone | ||
| 34 | POLE | Writer keeping large 3 (4) |
| Po(l)e, 3 being STAFF | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FAT | Substantial article in newspaper (3) |
| F(a)T | ||
| 2 | ABSCOND | A bishop’s caught on – daughter’s run away (7) |
| a B’s c on d | ||
| 4 | TRICOLOUR | 1A featuring small flower, some might say (9) |
| “Trickler” — 1A is FLAG, and the Tricolore is an example of a flag — Hob has used the English version of the word, |
||
| 5 | FLING | Affair with female swimmer (5) |
| f ling — the fish | ||
| 7 | CELESTA | Select a different instrument (7) |
| (Select a)* | ||
| 8 | ROD | King without male 3 (3) |
| {He}rod — a rod is an example of a staff | ||
| 9/29 | JACKMAN | Actor from 1A 3 (7) |
| Jack [a type of flag] man [staff] — referring to the actor Hugh Jackman | ||
| 10 | GOINGS-ON | Funny business, working with a relative (6-2) |
| going son | ||
| 13 | CROSIER | Clubs with more optimistic 3 (7) |
| C rosier — a crosier is a type of staff | ||
| 15 | SALTIRE | Cross after putting up city’s 1A (7) |
| (LA’s)rev. tire [flag] — a saltire is an example of a cross [thanks Dansar, got this wrong] | ||
| 17 | RECENTLY | Little money in bank of late (8) |
| re(cent)ly | ||
| 19 | RISING SUN | 1A representing student body? (6,3) |
| NUS reversed is SUN, so ‘rising sun’ is nus — the Rising Sun is one of Japan’s flags | ||
| 22 | ENDORSE | Back where witch came from, she’s lost heart (7) |
| Endor s{h}e — the Witch of Endor | ||
| 25 | MAESTRO | Missing ff section, more 3 must be ordered for eminent conductor (7) |
| (more sta{ff})*, 3 being STAFF | ||
| 27 | INPUT | One new place for contributions? (5) |
| 1 n put | ||
| 28 | CANE | 3 from boat, short of nothing (4) |
| can(0)e | ||
| 29 | See 9 | |
| 31 | LYE | Solution for washing inside oily ears (3) |
| Hidden in oiLY Ears | ||
*anagram
Thanks for the blog, John,
What a lovely puzzle! I really enjoyed it teasing it all out, especially TOSCANINI, NIMBI, NOEL and MAESTRO, with a [rueful] chuckle at the surface of POSTNATAL. I also enjoyed TRICOLOUR, which I read as a ‘homophone’ [some might say] of ‘trickle-er’ [small flower].
Many thanks to Hob for the fun.
Parsed TRICOLOUR as Eileen. Got CARDS before getting 9d, assuming 9 referred to the card rather than a cross reference. Guess it works either way but the reference to JACK is clearly better.
Great puzzle, plenty of fun and I’d agree with Eileen that “trickler” is the intended homophone – v good!
Thanks John & Hob
Thanks to John and Hob
A lot of work clearly went into this gem of a puzzle.
I’m sure you have parsed 15d correctly, but the def is CROSS while FLAG = TIRE
Thanks to all who pointed out that I’d forgotten “trickler” (which I did have but forgot to mention) — corrected now. Also thanks Dansar @4, again blog amended.
I liked the various uses of the theme words which weren’t all straightforward. Quite a few terms or uses I hadn’t come across including to ‘get one’s cards’, MOR for ‘middle-of-the-road’ and ‘where witch came from’. It’s not meant as an excuse for failing to parse the clue but I think ‘trickler’ or even ‘trickler-er’ are a bit of a stretch as homophones for 4d.
I liked the CROOK and CROSIER crossing duo. Favourite bit though was the ‘Serious Charge’ reference, something else I’d never heard of, but which I now see was a 1959 film in which Cliff made his debut as an actor and in which he sang a version of ‘Living Doll’ (hence the wordplay). Not the teen movie fare you might assume – sounds like quite an interesting film.
Thanks to John and Hob.
Another Tuesday, another theme day – but this one wasn’t too hard to crack. We weren’t too familiar with the actor’s name at 9/29 but crossing letters came to the rescue, and before we got POSTNATAL we thought 28dn could be ‘club’ – a club possibly being a b(0)at although we couldn’t explain the L; don’t know why we didn’t think of CANE first.
In 28ac we saw the definition simply as ‘town’ with the E as the base or last letter of ‘Cheshire’ and thought that Hob was just being kind by using ‘Cheshire’ rather than misdirecting us with another shire – but your parsing is obviously better.
Plenty to like, particularly TOSCANINI and ENDORSE.
Thanks, Hob and John.