We’re not giving anything away in the preamble when we state that there was an Olympian theme to the puzzle today.
We may be missing something but the chosen Olympians seem to be a rather disparate group which was ultimately somewhat disappointing. It also made some of the clues a lot tougher to crack – 22ac was a prime example. The use of MAN for a Queen on the chessboard completely defeated us until we had 23d. Joyce would not have solved this one alone despite guessing the ending and the possibility of COE. Also WELLS for an Olympian seemed unusual, although the answer was straightforward from the definition.
Having said all that, there were some good clues to be found. We both liked 21d in particular.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | See 5 Down | |
| 10 | Explain cryptic clue? I see! (9) | |
| ELUCIDATE | An anagram of CLUE (anagrind is “cryptic’) I DATE (see) | |
| 11 | See 24 Down | |
| 12 | Artistic movement, stage kept in check (7) | |
| DADAISM | DAIS (stage) in DAM (check) | |
| 13 | Old source of music like Punk almost beyond comparison, initially (8) | |
| CASSETTE | AS SETTE |
|
| 14 | Olympian lit up English town (6) | |
| BOLTON | BOLT (Olympian as in Usain Bolt) ON (lit up). Just as Pierre likes his bird references in the blog, we cannot pass up this opportunity to add THIS link. Every time one of us says Bolton, the other one says Notlob! | |
| 15 | I say, I say, I say? (5,8) | |
| ROMAN NUMERALS | I can be a Roman numeral – in this case we have 3 so we need the plural. We needed all the crossing letters for this one and we still put a box around the clue – our way of indicating that we are not that confident about the parsing! | |
| 20 | Olympian formerly taken by the ultimate in combat sport (6) | |
| TENNIS | ENNIS (Jessica Ennis – |
|
| 22 | Olympian queen perhaps in Olympian competition, invariably leads (8) | |
| COMANECI | MAN (‘Queen perhaps’ as used to describe the piece on a chess board) inside COE (Olympian – as in Lord Sebastian Coe) C I (first letters or ‘leads’ to competition invariably). This was our LOI after we had searched for possible answers to 23d. | |
| 25 | Shock, as first of runners hampered by loss of power (7) | |
| OUTRAGE | R (first letter in runners) inside or ‘hampered by’ OUTAGE (loss of power) | |
| 26 | Outdoor kit that is carried by Olympian (7) | |
| WELLIES | I E (that is) inside or ‘carried by’ WELLS (Olympian – as in ….. actually there were quite a few Olympians with that surname!) | |
| 27 | Illustrated issue primarily drowned by tropical storms (9) | |
| PICTORIAL | I (first or ‘primary’ letter of issue) inside or ‘drowned by’ an anagram of TROPICAL (anagrind is ‘storms’) | |
| 28 | Offence taken in wars only (5) | |
| ARSON | Hidden or ‘taken’ in wARS ONly | |
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | Confection best to keep cold (4,3) | |
| CHOC ICE | CHOICE (best) around or ‘keeping’ C (cold) | |
| 2 | Old English king and James VI both briefly having a picnic, perhaps? (8) | |
| ALFRESCO | ALFRE |
|
| 3 | Punk’s tender old Indian city (6) | |
| MYSORE | MY (Punk’s) SORE (tender). Mysore is now called Mysuru. | |
| 12 | Almost all went wrong in post-Renaissance language (3,5) | |
| NEW LATIN | An anagram of AL |
|
| 4 | One Olympian about two lengths behind another, last in relay – old performer (5,5) | |
| BUDDY HOLLY | HOY (Olympian – as in Sir Chris Hoy) around LL (lengths) after BUDD (Olympian – as in Zola Budd) Y (last letter in relay) | |
| 5/9 | Swine – one bold in action amid conflict (4,4) | |
| WILD BOAR | I (one) an anagram of BOLD (anagrind is ‘in action’) inside or ‘amid’ WAR (conflict) | |
| 7 | Rope in the end holding artist up (6) | |
| LARIAT | TAIL (the end) around or ‘holding’ RA (artist) all reversed or ‘up’ | |
| 8 | Continue to smile, as Olympian (6) | |
| BEAMON | A play on BEAM ON (continue to smile). The Olympian is Bob Beamon. | |
| 16 | Man has to air broadcast for artist (8) | |
| ANIMATOR | An anagram of MAN and TO AIR (anagrind is ‘broadcast’) | |
| 17 | Steps taken backwards, or one giant leap? (8) | |
| MOON WALK | You have to think of Michael Jackson’s MOONWALK here where he actually walks backwards whilst looking as if he’s walking forwards. We’re sure you will have seen this but if you haven’t click HERE. Actually it’s worth a look at anyway. The second part refers to Neil Armstrong’s words when he first landed on the moon. Listeners to PM on Radio 4 will have heard these words many, many times! | |
| 18 | General tries to regroup, most suspicious (8) | |
| LEERIEST | LEE (General) and an anagram of TRIES (anagrind is ‘regroup’) | |
| 19 | Olympian flag posted (7) | |
| PINSENT | PIN (flag, as on a golf course) SENT (posted). The Olympian is Matthew Pinsent. | |
| 20 | Olympian god exercises (6) | |
| THORPE | THOR (god) PE (exercises). The Olympian could be Ian or Jim Thorpe as far as we can see. | |
| 21 | See running water or vapour, then? (6) | |
| NOTICE | Running water or vapour are NOT ICE, the other form that water can take. | |
| 23 | Out of debt, a small sum of money used to give change (6) | |
| AFLOAT | We had ??L?A?. In desperation we searched Chambers on our iPad. Thank goodness the answer started with A! Once we had the solution we realized that it was A FLOAT (sum of money you use to give change). So easy really. | |
| 24/11 | Author, part almost stolen by rival of Johnson, Ben? (5,7) | |
| LEWIS CARROLL | ROL |
|
Thanks all three.
I did have a crack at this, but soon followed sidey’s advice from yesterday’s blog. Except I don’t have falling ash leaves to fascinate me, so had to make do with contemplating cobwebs coated with the early morning dew.
Quite a challenge; there are a fair few more Olympians than there are tube stations themed yesterday and I also finished up on Nadia COMANECI, where I was very grateful for the last letter being clearly indicated in the word-play; then it was a question of parsing it!
Thanks to Punk&B&J
Thanks, B and J.
My favourite clue – and first one in – was ELUCIDATE, before I got started on the theme, which I enjoyed more than I expected to at first. [That is, I knew more of the Olympians than I thought I did. I did hope at the beginning that it might be Greek gods and goddesses I was looking for 😉 . I enjoyed the wit of the clue for LEWIS CARROLL, too.
I took longer than I should have to parse ROMAN NUMERALS, when it finally turned out to be the only possible answer and COMANECI was my last one to parse, too, having failed to spot Queen = MAN.
A small point: in 10ac, I took the ‘formerly’ as applying to Jessica’s name [now Ennis-Hill] – some of the other answers go a lot further back than she does!
Thanks to Paul for a fun puzzle.
Good fun, if a bit of a struggle, especially for a start. Missed the parsing of 15 which was v. original and spent ages working out the intricate wordplay for COMANECI. Liked the mental image of Allan Wells racing down the 100m track in his WELLIES! Last in and favourite was BEAMON for the memories of that famous picture of his amazing jump at the Mexico Olympics.
Thanks to Punk for such an entertaining puzzle and to B&J for figuring it all out.
I’m with Eileen on this – I’m no sports fanatic, so the discovery that I knew all the Olympians bar one in this crossword was rather satisfying. The exception was BEAMON, but the parsing and the crossers meant that there could only really be one answer, so I learned something too on checking.
I too thought that we might see at least one or two Olympian gods or goddesses – a clever tactic by Punk to introduce a single god from a lot further north!
Quite a struggle today. Even leaving it for a few hours to get on with other tasks failed to produce much more inspiration so in the end it was wordfinder and Google to the rescue. My wordfinder even gave COMANECI as the (only) answer for *O*A*E*I! Several answers I couldn’t parse, though. My favourites were some of the non-themed ones, particularly CHOC ICE (surely an &lit) and ELUCIDATE.
Thanks to Punk for the challenge and to B&J for the elucidation.