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Another enjoyable themed puzzle from Gozo, but not one requiring specialist knowledge. Thank you Gozo.
The theme is names – B stands for Boy and G stands for Girl
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | GRAHAM | B from Armagh (6) |
| anagram (from, alluded to rather than explicitly indicated) of ARMAGH | ||
| 4 | SAMANTHA | G having an asthma attack (8) |
| anagram (attack) of AN ASTHMA | ||
| 9 | THOMAS | B getting zero in maths debacle (6) |
| O (zero) inside anagram (debacle) of MATHS | ||
| 10 | BEATRICE | G will live for a moment (8) |
| BE (live) A TRICE (moment) | ||
| 11 | HESTER | G from Deva, topless (6) |
| cHESTER (Deva, Roman name for Chester) missing first letter (topless) | ||
| 12 | REGINALD | B reading Latin badly (8) |
| anagram (badly) of READING and L (Latin) | ||
| 13 | See 25 across | |
| 14 | ALICIA | G removes head of government from autonomous Spanish area (6) |
| gALICIA (autonomous Spanish area) missing first letter (head) | ||
| 17 | CHARLES | B without a cleaner, almost (7) |
| CHARLESs (without a char, cleaner, almost) | ||
| 21 | TERESA | G in residence, having drink brought round (6) |
| res (residence) inside (having…brought round) TEA (drink) | ||
| 25, 13 | ISABEL | G – aka Blaise (6) |
| anagram (aka, also as) BLAISE | ||
| 26 | MARIANNE | G’s husband in Lille goes to bird’s heart (8) |
| MARI (husband in French, in Lille) with gANNEt (bird, heart of) | ||
| 27 | OSBERT | B with series of maps having live radio telegraphy in short (6) |
| OS (Ordnance Survey, series of maps) with BE (live) and RT (radio telegraphy, in short=abbreviated) | ||
| 28 | ALASTAIR | B giving his final performance as balladeer (8) |
| A LAST AIR (a final song, final performance of a balladeer) | ||
| 29 | ARNOLD | B could be Malcolm or Palmer (6) |
| Malcolm Arnold (composer) of Arnold Palmer (golfer) perhaps | ||
| 30 | SUSANNAH | G keeping quiet about American money (8) |
| SH (quiet) contains (about) US (american) ANNA (a coin, money) | ||
| 31 | JEREMY | B reduced sherry – goodness! (6) |
| JEREz (sherry) missing last letter (reduced) then MY (goodness!) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | GET A HEAD | Progress to appoint a new educationist (3,5) |
| GET A HEAD (to appoint new educationist, head teacher) | ||
| 2 | ACOUSTIC | A stroke of genius; staff spoke of hearing (8) |
| A COU STIC sounds like (spoke) “a coup stick” (a, stroke of genius, staff) | ||
| 3 | ACADEMIC | Lecturer of little importance (8) |
| double definition | ||
| 5 | A-LEVEL | Examination involving All about Eve (1- 5) |
| ALL contains (about) EVE | ||
| 6 | ANTRIM | County worker on edge (6) |
| ANT (worker) on RIM (edge) | ||
| 7 | TRIBAL | Initially Tony Blair distorted such family links (6) |
| anagram (distorted) of Tony (first letter, initially) and BLAIR – Tony Blair distorted such family/tribal links | ||
| 8 | AMENDS | Makes up for what happens at noon (6) |
| AM ENDS (what happens at noon, PM begins) | ||
| 12 | REPRISE | Once again travelling man receives pay increase (7) |
| REP (travelling man) with RISE (pay increase) | ||
| 15 | A-HA | Group topped ditch (1-2) |
| hA HA (ditch) missing first letter (topped) | ||
| 16 | BET | Little G’s better half (3) |
| BETter (half of) | ||
| 18 | SETS FREE | Discharge from TV costs nothing (4,4) |
| SET’S FREE (the TV is free, costs nothing) – a typo in the definition, should have been discharges? | ||
| 19 | PENELOPE | G – the bird with whom to run off (8) |
| PEN (swan) with ELOPE (to run off) | ||
| 20 | DAY TO DAY | Old characters in diary now revealing routine (3,2,3) |
| DiArY (odd characters in, old is a typo?) then TODAY (now) | ||
| 22 | SMEARS | Streaks, as a dirty campaigner does (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 23 | CROAKS | Laments from those on a lily-pad? (6) |
| cryptic definition – frogs sit on lily-pads | ||
| 24 | MARTIN | B from 6 (6) |
| anagram (the letters from) ANTRIM (6 down) | ||
| 25 | INDIRA | G in the middle of things, riding Mirage (6) |
| the middle letters of thINgs riDIng miRAge | ||
Enormous fun. Isn’t there another typo? — 20dn ODD characters. Thanks, Gozo & PD
Thanks Hornbeam, I hadn’t spotted that.
I know that this sort of themed crossword isn’t everyone’s cuppa but as a relative newcomer to cryptic crosswords, I don’t mind if the parameters are narrowed somewhat!
Anyway, the fun is in the chasing down of, in this case, names. I enjoyed 6 and 24 down, along with 14 and 26 across.
The theme was revealed quickly enough with 9ac my FOI and was an agreeably neat and speedy solve overall. A slight hiccup at 13/25 had me pencil in Pascal initially but that was soon rectified.
Thanks to Gozo for the entertainment and PeeDee for clearing up the few I didn’t fully parse.
B could be BLOKE
DNF for me, as I had INGRID at 25D (anag of riding, in grid)
Like Goujeers, I had INGRID but with a q-mark by it and that plus the 2 typos slowed things up a little. Well, all that and trying to convince myself that ‘Azbert’ was a chap’s name.
But I did like ‘char-less’, which we are today because she’s off with her back again.
Good fun. Thanks to Gozo & PeeDee.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee. Lots of fun. I started with SAMANTHA so that the northeast corner followed, then the rest, though the old-odd typo left me unsure about DAY TO DAY.
All good fun with the easily spotted theme. A bit of lateral thinking wes required for CROAKS and we left it pencilled in until confirmed by crossing letters. LOI was ACADEMIC aftwer consulting a thesaurus for synonyms of ‘unimportant’. Favourite was A-HA.
Thanks, Gozo and PeeDee.
Missed the NE corner as I had ATONES for 8D. Thought it was an unusual but fun clue/answer!
Thanks to Gozo and Peedee. We figured the theme fairly quickly but it took awhile to figure out all the names. JEREMY was my favorite name and AHA my favori
te clue. We finished but couldn’t parse HESTER as I had forgotten the Roman name for Chester, so thanks for the clarification. Good fun!
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
Immediately saw THOMAS and GRAHAM to reveal the theme and thought that it was going to be a stroll in the park. Not to be, taking nearly twice as long as my average time to get it finished. Some clever constructions and some general knowledge required (French word for ‘husband’ which I had to look up again), the Roman name for CHESTER, the two gentlemen at 29a, the old Indian coin and the Spanish region).
Enjoyed A-HA and DAY TO DAY. Finished in the SE corner with the tricky ARNOLD, SETS FREE (with the ? about the plurality) and OSBERT (after having to dismiss ROBERT, HUBERT and Grant’s AZBERT !)
A bit messy for me because, like Goujeers@5, I had INGRID and like Mynci@9, I had ATONES. The latter led to GERONIMO (1 mo at the end but grasping for the rest) for 10a until both ANTRIM and REGINALD conspired to put me right.
Despite guessing ARNOLD straight away, it took SAMANTHA and GRAHAM for me to figure out the boy/girl bit and things took off from there. Loved 15d (first answer) but my favourite had to be 27a.
Annoyed with myself for not remembering about Deva being Chester in 11a and for resorting to a word finder for 2d and 23d (couldn’t get beyond GROANS) but after a slow start, I really enjoyed this with the added B/G parameter.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee.