Bluebird provides today’s challenge.
We found this to be something of a curate’s egg of a puzzle, with some good surfaces and ingenious wordplay, but also one or two easy write-ins, a very unusual word at 3d and at least one vague definition (eg 1ac – our last one in – ‘name’).
We only tumbled to the ‘name’ required at 1ac when we had finally teased out the theme at 19d. Having sorted out the theme, we enjoyed finding the other thematic entries – we reckon there are nine, as highlighted below – can anyone out there find any more?
A ‘wonder’ful puzzle – many thanks to Bluebird.
ST (street) + I (one) in (‘crossed by’) EVE (‘fruit thief’ – in the Garden of Eden)
PASS (‘I don’t know’ – in a quiz) + a reversal (‘on reflection’) of ELBA (‘where Napoleon went’)
An anagram (‘moving’) of BEING round (‘fencing’) H (last letter or ‘closer’ of breach) + OUR
A (one) R (runs) in (‘parting’) YES (‘of course’)
A homophone (‘caught’) of BUOY (‘something floating in the sea’)
END (kill) OS (outsize – ‘great’) COPIES (apes)
DIME (‘some money’) in (‘carried by’) RUNTS (little pigs)
First letters or ‘leaders; in Syria To Undertake Further Forays
S (square) EVEN (a number that’s ‘a multiple of two’)
An anagram (‘cooked’) of RECIPE and WOK
WES T (second letter or ‘no.2’ in Streeting) + MINiSTER (cabinet member) with ‘i’ ‘leaving’
A reversal (‘sent west’) of A B (first two letters) round (‘intercepted by’) R (Republican)
MOtORS (cars) missing (‘taking out’) ‘t’ (time)
ORATE (talk) after (‘by’) a reversal (‘revolutionary’) of BALE (Christian Bale, the actor)
An anagram (‘strange’) of NOISES in NunnerieS missing the middle letters or ’empty’
T (first letter or ‘heading’ of trattoria) after (‘on’) B AND I (first and last letters or ‘outskirts’ of Brindisi)
A clue-as-definition: An anagram (‘larks’) of D, G, S (first letters of dunnocks, goldfinches and siskins) and ROBINS
EDIson (Thomas Edison – ‘inventive American’) missing (‘dropping’) ‘son’ + F Y (first and last letters or ‘outside’ of fancy)
I C (see) + an anagram (‘ruffled’) of HEN + jUMp missing (‘saving’) the first and last letters or ‘skin’ + ON – a new word for us
ARmRESTS (‘sofa’s sides’) with the ‘m’ (Mike in the phonetic alphabet) ‘removed’
SAY (‘for example’) S (middle letter or ‘heart’ of narcissists) O (love)
EAT (have) IT (sex) in BUDE
Hidden (‘characters seen’) in MothercarE AS EScalator
A reversal (‘lifted’) of LOG (piece of wood) + DEN (‘foxhole’)
A reversal (‘raised’) of I’D (‘crossword setter had’) + VISIONS (ideas)
S U (first letters or ‘starts’ of soup up) PER (a) NOVA (Vauxhall Nova – ‘car’)
F (loud) + cREEp missing the first and last letters or ‘naked’ + A GENT (man)
A reversal (‘knocked up’) of SR (senior) ED (editor) NOW (immediately)
U (uniform in the phonetic alphabet) in an anagram (‘criminal’) of TRIAL
WO (without) MAN (‘boyfriend’)
MA (mother) SON (child)
A clue-as-definition: BEAR (‘furry thing’) D (first letter or ‘face’ of Dickens)
Another WONDERful Bluebird crossword. I do enjoy his (?) style of clueing. Forgot to look for any theme and so that provides the icing on the top.
Annoyingly the theme passed me by, I only seem to have a 50% success rate with themes. I’d only heard of the parasitic wasp at 3d, didn’t know it applied to some mongooses. Much to enjoy but a slower, two coffee, solve today.
Thank you B,J & B
Agree with Hovis in every respect. (And, yes, Bluebird is indeed a he). Beautiful, succinct, meaningful surfaces.
Thanks to setter and bloggers.
I am another who found this more of an Easter egg, stuffed with goodies, than the curate’s egg. ENDOSCOPIES made me smile (not often one can say that) and I liked the “aged megastar”
Really enjoyed this one. Like Doofs@3 only knew ICHNEUMON as the parasitic wasp but it couldn’t be anything else. Didn’t get the theme of course – how does WONDER go with STUFF BTW. Many thanks to Bluebird and to B&J for some parsing, especially 1d which was my first one in but I couldn’t see how it worked.
ele – Wonder Stuff is a rock band.
Excellent. Annoyed that I missed the theme but I usually do, and that I couldn’t solve 1a. Tricky def but EVE for ‘fruit thief’ is very good. Liked the clue for SONGBIRDS a lot, didn’t mind a few easy entry points and enjoyed the humourous tone Bluebird sets his puzzles with. Thanks for the blog and the challenge.
Thanks both. Entertaining in the main, let down for me by the awfully inadequate definition for STEVIE, when we have Nicks which may have worked alongside fruit thief, and the unfortunate but perhaps necessary mongoose. I do tend to miss themes unless there are more participating entries
One of our occasional forays into Indy territory (we usually do the FT these days) but it was worthwhile. We spotted STEVIE and WONDER[s) but didn’t make any further connection. We did know ICHNEUMON as both mongoose and parasitic wasp. However, although we’ve seen it before, we missed the ‘first AND last’ trick in 27ac and thought ‘outlaw’ was doing double duty – should have known better.
Thanks, Bluebird and B&J.
Wow. Started this at 6am, finished at 6pm,
but still quite proud of meself.
( I did spend the day at Haydock races in between, where I did better with the horses than Bluebird’s clues ).
Brilliant and challenging setting. Very tough, yet very fair. The theme, passed over my head, I wonder why?
Is Supernova a link to Wonderwall? I think there was an Oasis “mash-up”, as the young people say…apparently. And the artist “wonder” had a rap, ” bandits”.
I think I’ve lost the plot.
Eggsellent, albeit a tough egg to crack.
Yolking aside, Wonder Full Stuff, BB+B+J
Thanks as ever to Bert and Joyce for the blog and to those who’ve taken the time to comment – it’s much appreciated.
I thought that the curate’s egg was just plain bad but that he was too polite to say so. Hopefully that’s not the case here.
My intention was for there to be SEVEN WONDERS to find – STEVIE _ (sorry about the definition), BOY _, GOLDEN _, _ YEARS, _STUFF, _BRA, _ WOMAN.
Thanks Bluebird. That was slow going for me but I got there in the end except for ARRESTS. I missed the theme (didn’t look for one) but I enjoyed this nonetheless with ENDOSCOPIES, ELABORATE, EDIFY, SUPERNOVA, and RITUAL being favourites. Thanks B&J for the blog.
I’m another who greatly enjoyed this and yet who didn’t stop to consider a theme (which was silly because when an uncommon forename and a slightly non-crosswordy word such as WONDERS appear, it should be enough to trigger an a-ha moment. It rarely is with me though.)
I don’t disagree with our bloggers’ initial analysis but I didn’t feel that the puzzle was let down in any way. (OK one or two were very easy, but I found that helpful as the puzzle was quite chewy in places). I took longest in the NW, and I shared the faves others have mentioned, plus the amusing ARRESTS, while the joke in SEVEN (i.e. it not being the obvious “four”) particularly tickled me and makes it my top pick. [Here in Spain the equivalent of Royal Mail is Correos and their colour is yellow. Their delivery vans have recently gone electric, and there is a slogan on each eyecatchingly yellow vehicle, “This van is green”. Always makes me smile!]
Thanks both
Thanks AP – your comment made us laugh this morning!
Bluebird – we checked. Chambers defines ‘curate’s egg’ as anything of which some parts are excellent and some parts are bad. We apologise. Perhaps our comment was a bit strong as none of the clues were ‘bad’. Most were excellent and we liked the theme.
B&J@15, great! Yeah that’s the currently accepted meaning of Curate’s egg. The original was undoubtedly that which our setter@11 gives. I don’t think there was really any scope for confusion though!
No need to apologise, Bert and Joyce – it’s all good – I was just riffing on the changing meaning of that phrase.