Postmark (STAMP) is now a regular setter in the Indy. When the puzzle came in for blogging, I (Joyce) was next in line from the small team.
No complaints from us. I solved the puzzle with Bert and we were on the lookout for a theme, especially as it had the title ‘Sloggers and Betters’. It wasn’t until we had finished that we realised that we had PUNTERS (betters) and BOXERS (sloggers) hidden within the answers.
BETTERS – WILLIAM HILL, PADDY POWER and CORAL
BOXERS – Nicola ADAMS, Lennox LEWIS, Anthony JOSHUA and Henry COOPER
We needed to check on a few answers as we had never heard of HACKAMORE and I remembered EXIGENCE but not its meaning. Using EDDA in 25d felt like a bit of a stretch but it does come into crosswords – we solved the clue from the definition and then parsed it.
Thanks Postmark.
If you prefer moving this on a laptop – click HERE which will take you to his website.
PANT (suck in air) + AS (when) around or ‘sealing’ LOON (diving bird)
SPARtan (Ancient Greek) without or ‘casting’ ‘tan’ (bronze)
SAGE (herb) inside or ‘stocked by’ NEW (latest) NT (National Trust)
Double definition – Inspector Lewis from the Morse TV programmes and the later spin-off plus Lewis Hamilton the racing driver
Hidden (‘some’) and reversed (‘returned’) in ArabS TO YEmeni
DE (French for ‘of’) and an anagram (‘revival’) of ROMANCE
HE (male) BEE (worker) inside or ‘cracking open’ SN (chemical symbol for tin)
BOERS (trekkers) around X (cross)
U (university) inside or ‘intercepting’ JOSH (joke) A (answer)
WILL (determination) I AM
An anagram (‘butcher’) of CHOKEs missing last letter or ‘almost’, RAM and A
TIP (gratuity) reversed or ‘returned’ + TA (thanks)
V (very) ERSE (Gaelic)
An anagram (‘mixing up’) of NO YES DUMP
I (one) after or ‘on’ H (hard) L (left) around or accepting L (large)
BYTE (some bits – in IT) R (middle or ‘essential’ letter of worry) inside or ‘amongst’ PRESS (the papers)
An anagram (‘possibly’) of UP STERN
COME (appear) R (right) in NEWS (North, East, West, South, the 4 points of the compass)
Even letters (‘nothing that’s odd’) in cAn Do AlMoSt
O (over) + a homophone (‘reportedly’) of VERDUN (First World War battle)
If you are against one of the Reform UK MPs you may want NO (Richard) TICE
PO (jerry as in a gazunder – a chamber pot) W (with) ER (some hesitation). There we were thinking a ‘jerry’ may be a POW – despite being very familiar with gazunders as I volunteer at a local NT property – The Workhouse! In writing up the blog, I wondered why it was called a jerry. Apparently it comes from a wartime poster campaign about keeping your mouth shut which read “Beware the Jerry under the bed”.
pRESENTS (hosts) with ‘p’ (quietly) removed or ‘buried’
LIMasSOL (Cypriot city) missing the central letters or ‘disheartened’ inside or ‘limited by’ PetroL (first and last letters only or ’empty’). When I came up to the Midlands from the South-west to start college (I thought it was the North), I did not know what a ‘pump’ was. In Bristol we called them ‘daps’. When I mislaid one of mine in the changing room, no-one knew what I was talking about when I asked if anyone had seen a spare dap. I couldn’t even think of any other way of describing them!
An anagram (‘criminal’) of CUT DEAD around or ‘smuggling’ E (drug)
EXIgENCE (distress) with ST (saint) replacing or being ‘put down’ for ‘g’ (good)
WEE (little) inside or ‘sporting’ STENS (guns)
J E (first letters or ‘starts’ to just eating) + OVA (eggs) inside H H (hotels)
An anagram (‘concocted’) of MAMA and SIS
COOP (Supermarket) + a reversal (‘getting upset’) of RE (about)
COrRAL (pen) missing or ‘without’ ‘r’ (run)
eDDa (old Norse manuscript) missing first and last letters or ‘discovered’ inside PAY (settle)
Enjoyed this, ultimately beaten on the wordplay for PADDY as I couldn’t see or remember the Edda. Completely missed the theme despite it being in my face from the off. Cheers Stamp, good to chat a bit over the weekend.
What I would expect from you PostMark with some great surfaces and misdirection (EYOTS for one which had me checking the IVR code for Yemen). The theme as usual passed me by. Sorry I couldn’t make it this year as it would have been good to meet a few of just online names in person.
Thanks to B&J for a lovely blog. I know the S&B blogs don’t attract a lot of comment but my thanks to those who have posted for their kind words. flash @1, I did wonder if Edda was too obscure but, tbh, the two Eddas are the only ancient Scandinavian texts of which I am aware and are considered quite important in their genre so I thought it was fair game – and it offered a nice opportunity for the surface. jugular @2, and there was I thinking EYOTS would be a nice easy write-in!
It was nice to be able to make all the boxers British champions and I was delighted to be able to include Nicola!
I found this puzzle quite tough, more, I think, because of my fading GK than by any lack of clarity in the clues. I had forgotten Richard Tice of Reform UK, did not know loon the diving bird, forgot that LEWIS became an Inspector after his long stint as a Sergeant, have never heard of HACKAMORE and have not come across the word ‘exigence’ for a long time.
There were several very good clues here, such as JOSHUA, WILLIAM, PSEUDONYM and PUNTERS.
I solved a different clue for COOPER from the one shown above.
I’m afraid I failed to notice the two sets of thematic answers!
Thanks to PostMark and Bertandjoyce.