A fab puzzle, and not an easy one. Thank you Gaff.
The anniversary in the title is of Alfred Hitchcock’s death. See Stephen’s comment @4 for some pointers.

ACROSS | ||
1 | SESAME | Oil man – look out! (6) |
SAM (a man) inside (with…out) SEE (look) | ||
4 | DOWNHILL | Declining to have hot stuffed herb (8) |
OWN (to have) H (hot) inside (stuffed) DILL (herb) | ||
10 | BACILLI | Bugs depicted in Cyrillic abbreviations from the East (7) |
found inside cyrILLIC ABbreviations reversed (from the east, right-to-left on a map) | ||
11 | URGENCY | Press civic leader in state of emergency (7) |
URGE(press) then Civic (first letter, leader) inside NY (New York, state) | ||
12 | TIER | Drop sound level (4) |
sounds like “tear” (a drop) | ||
13 | ADVERTISER | She plugs electrical radio telephone leads into monitor (10) |
first letters (leads) of Electrical Radio Telephone inside ADVISER (monitor) | ||
15 | GRAINY | Coarse fish nets in Grangemouth first (6) |
RAY (fish) contains (nets) IN all following (with…first) Grange (first letter, mouth of) | ||
17 | ACHAEAN | Pain overwhelms a mid-rank ancient Greek (7) |
ACHE (pain) contains (overwhelms) A and rANk (middle of) | ||
20 | VERTIGO | Order to rig vote to create sense of instability (7) |
anagram (give order to) RIG VOTE | ||
21 | YEMENI | Arab soldiers between you and me (6) |
MEN (soldiers) between YE (you) and I (me) | ||
24 | SATURATION | Allotment after half a day’s soaking (10) |
RATION (allotment) follows SATUrday (half of) | ||
25, 26 | TRUE-BLUE | Loyal to the legitimate navy (4-4) |
TRUE (legitimate) and BLUE (navy) | ||
27 | CONFORM | Match against schoolchildren (7) |
CON (against) FORM (a group of schoolchildren) | ||
29 | ALLEGRO | Movement without its legislator is in chaos (7) |
anagram (in chaos) of LEGisSLAtOR missing ITS | ||
30 | OPPOSERS | They protest against work with models (8) |
OP (opus, work) with POSERS (models) | ||
31 | SEXTET | Knowing offensive group of musicians (6) |
SEX (knowing, in a biblical sense) and TET (the Tet Offensive, during the Vietnam war) | ||
DOWN | ||
1 | SABOTAGE | Damage from wear on bottom of shoe (8) |
AGE (wear) following (on bottom of) SABOT (shoe) | ||
2 | SECRET AGENT | Bond maybe broken centre stage (6,5) |
anagram (damaged) of CENTRE STAGE | ||
3 | MILE | Height at which club members need to score (4) |
cryptic definition – a member of the the Mile High Club | ||
5 | OPULENCE | Wealth but no money around mid-July (8) |
O PENCE (zero pence, no money) contains (around) jULy (middle of) | ||
6 | NIGHTMARE | Dream of arming the criminal (9) |
anagram (criminal) of ARMING THE | ||
7 | INN | For travellers to get around in? (3) |
cryptic definition – where travellers buy a round of drinks | ||
8 | LAYERS | Maybe ducks for cover (6) |
double definition | ||
9 | BIRDS | Exaltation perhaps from offers that are about right (5) |
BIDS (offers) contains R (right) – an exaltation of larks perhaps | ||
14 | STAGE FRIGHT | Problem with public address speakers (5,6) |
cryptic definition | ||
16 | NOTORIOUS | Well-known for number of rubbish raised notes (9) |
NO (number of) TOR (rubbish) reversed (raised) then IOUS (promissory notes) | ||
18 | EGG TIMER | 15 device that makes perfect soldiers’ companion (3,5) |
cryptic definition – boiled eggs are traditionally eaten with buttered strips of bread (soldiers), traditional egg timers use grains (15) of sand | ||
19 | LIFEBOAT | Main savers’ vehicle (8) |
cryptic definition – the main is the sea | ||
22 | PSYCHO | Crazy for tipsy chocolate filling (6) |
found inside (a filling for) tiPSY CHOcolate | ||
23 | TOPAZ | Gem of a high note at last (5) |
TOP A (a high note) then Z (the last) | ||
26 | BLUE | See 25 (4) |
28 | NIP | Stop hold-up (3) |
PIN (hold) reversed (up) – to arrest (informal), to stop |
The anniversary theme is clearly Hitchcock films.
Don’t think I have enjoyed a Gaff puzzle as much as this one.
Reckon 31a is HEPTET.
Interestingly, SABOTAGE is named after the shoe. At one stage I had EIDERS for 1d.
Thanks to Gaff and PeeDee.
Sorry, I meant 8d not 1d.
Thanks PeeDee, I had them all except 3D. Do you know what the “Anniversary Puzzle” referred to? I could hardly find any two clues that may have something in common.
Fourtieth anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock’s death with a number of references to his films. I found these but there may be more: 4a, 20a, 1d, 2d, 14d, 16d, 19d, 22d and 23d. Great fun.
Thanks for your list, Steven. Didn’t know some of these but you have clearly missed 9d.
I hadn’t spotted the Anniversary title. Thanks for pointing it out.
Didnt see mention of anniversary but it does seem to be a Gaff speciality and not being aware of it made it more fun to spot and they did seem to stand out
like dogs baI too went for HEPTET (Hovis @ 1) . Unfortunately, having settled for NAB to BAN for 28d could not finish SW corner. Thanks Gaff and Pee Dee
31A I was with PeeDee on this. Sextet seemed to fit. While Heptet is a group of seven I have only come across Septet in relation to musicians.
Thanks to Gaff and PeeDee. Great fun. I spotted the Hitchcock theme mid way (that helped getting SABOTAGE) but still needed help parsing EGG TIMER’s link to GRAINY and MILE.
I wasn’t sure about 31a, but ended up going for HEPTET, as the first meaning given for “hep” in Chambers is “knowing”.
Forgot about the theme until after I’d finished. Wouldn’t have helped – only knew a couple of them. I’ve got SEXTET for 31a. Last in was 3d.
Tom I,
My Chambers says HEP is obsolete slang, so this would have to be indicated in the clue.
Chambers app doesn’t say hep is obsolete, nor do I think that it is. I admit that septet is the normal word but heptet can be found.
No mention of obsolete for hep in Chambers (2014) paper edition.
I have never heard of heptet before. The word isn’t in Chambers that I can see, only heptad is there. I often miss stuff in the dictionary, so please correct me if it is there.
If heptet is used used in relation to musicians then there doesn’t seem to be many examples recordings. I had a quick search on Youtube and “septet” returns dozens of ensembles playing septets by Beethovenn, Stravinsky, Schnitke and many others. Searching for “heptet” returns the only a couple of examples, and there the word was only used in the the name of a group, a pun perhaps. Not nearly enough to suggest a term in general use.
HEPTET isn’t in the OED either.
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee. I’m sorry I didn’t get round to commenting on this very enjoyable puzzle – and now it’s all been said.
Re heptet: I had no doubt at all that the answer was SEXTET [it seemed more likely than SEPTET – but couldn’t parse it, so I welcomed your biblical / carnal knowledge explanation]. I’ve never met heptet but I’ve searched my dictionaries and can’t find it anywhere – I sometimes miss things, too. It’s odd, though, that ‘knowing’ is the first definition in Chambers, as if it were Gaff’s intention. Logically, I can’t defend it, using the analogy of duet, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet and nonet, all of which have Latin roots, while heptet is Greek. [Octet is derived from Greek, too.] [Interestingly, as I type this, spellcheck highlights ‘heptet.]
I can’t remember whether Gaff has ever visited this site – I’ve certainly met him at a York S and B. Failing his dropping in, we’ll just have to wait for tomorrow’s solution.
Many thanks for the puzzle, anyway, Gaff. 😉
Thanks Gaff for a crossword that had much to like — GRAINY, OPULENCE, SEXTET notably. Thanks PeeDee for parsing — I missed CONFORM, not knowing that a form is a group of schoolchildren; I got EGG TIMER by the crossings; I was not familiar with “soldiers” even as I was eating a boiled egg with buttered strips of bread while working this puzzle.
Thanks Gaff and PeeDee
Found this one quite challenging but very enjoyable. Didn’t spot the theme whilst doing it, but LIFEBOAT rang a bell of a film, seeing that it was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, noticed that his passing was on April 29 and a list of his films showed the cleverly hidden ones in the grid.
Back to the clues, thought that there was a good variety of devices and particularly enjoyed SESAME and SATURATION. Didn’t spot the lift and separate with ‘a-round’ in 7d and missed the ‘exaltation’ group of birds at 9d.
Finished with that SESAME, the humorous MILE (when the penny dropped) and TIER (took ages to see the homophone) the last one in.
About 60% done on the day and returned on Sunday to eventually complete. Eiders in the top right didn’t help, nor did putting a mis-spelled afluence rather than opulence. When I fixed those two errors I managed to complete the NE corner. Tricky and satisfying to complete.
Thanks to all and also the nice and helpful comments above.