An unusual challenge this morning. Thank you Gozo.
In the online edition the wrong grid has been used. The clue numbers don’t always match the clues and the wordcounts don’t always match the space available. Obviously a cock-up but I rather enjoyed the challenge of figuring it all out. A bit like getting a mini bank holiday special to brighten up a dull Wednesday.
The theme is battles.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MIDWAY | PM admitted “I had worries to start with” (6) |
| MAY (Theresa May, the PM) contains (admitted) I’D and Worries (first letter, to start with) | ||
| 4 | WATERLOO | Represented later in court (8) |
| anagram (represented) of LATER in WOO (court) | ||
| 10 | SALAMIS | Young girl with friends across the channel (7) |
| SAL (young girl, name of) and AMIS (friends, in French) | ||
| 11 | TOURNAI | Distracted auctioneer dropped EEC letters (7) |
| anagram (distracted) of AUcTIONeeR missing EEC | ||
| 12 | ALMA | Some exceptional majority (4) |
| found inside exceptionAL MAjority | ||
| 13 | RIVER PLATE | Flower’s withered petal (5,5) |
| RIVER (something that flows) then anagram (withered) of PETAL | ||
| 15 | LUTZEN | Ice-skating manoeuvre gets two points (6) |
| LUTZ (ice-skating maneouvre) with E and N (two points) | ||
| 16 | GALICIA | Start of Giselle with Markova (7) |
| Giselle (first letter, start of) with ALICIA (Alicia Markova, ballerina) | ||
| 20 | BRITAIN | Having sex in one’s mind? (7) |
| IT (sex) in BRAIN (one’s mind) | ||
| 21 | VERDUN | Some clever dunce! (6) |
| found inside cleVER DUnce | ||
| 24 | AUSTERLITZ | The south wind settled on top of the Zugspitze (10) |
| AUSTER (the south wind) LIT (settled) then the first letters (top) of The Zugspitze | ||
| 26 | ACRE | Returning from Dover-Calais (4) |
| found reversed (returning) in dovER CAlais | ||
| 28 | OKINAWA | It’s all right, getting somehow reduced (7) |
| OK (all right) with IN A WAy (somehow, reduced) | ||
| 29 | IWO JIMA | Young lad in a state, stomach turning (3,4) |
| JIM (young lad, name) in IOWA (state) with middle letters reversed (stomach turning) | ||
| 30 | EDGEHILL | Confused minds leaving Middle English review (8) |
| anagram (review) of midDLE EnGLIsH missing MINDS (confused in that the letters are not removed in order) | ||
| 31 | CANNAE | Church accepts old money (6) |
| CE (Church of England) contains ANNA (old money) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MISCALLS | Abuses young lady admitting summons (8) |
| MISS (young lady) contains (admitting) CALL (summons) | ||
| 2 | DELIMITER | Computing tag or “stag” round boundary (9) |
| DEER (stag) contains (round) LIMIT (boundary) | ||
| 3 | ARMY | Opening arts review, meet your host (4) |
| first letters (opening) of Arts Review Meet Your | ||
| 5 | AT THE BAR | Where to order beer in the Inns of Court (2,3,3) |
| double definition | ||
| 6 | EQUIPOISES | Balances supplies around French river (10) |
| EQUIPS (supplies) containing (around) OISE (French river) | ||
| 7 | LINDA | This girl could be another (5) |
| L (ell) in DA might give you DELLA, another girl’s name. I’m not 100% convinced about this. | ||
| 8 | OLIVES | Love is the making of fruit (6) |
| anagram (the making) of LOVE IS | ||
| 9 | ASPIC | Jelly,with a bit of avocado and most of the nutmeg, say (5) |
| Avocado (first letter, a bit of) and SPICe (the nutmeg say, most of) | ||
| 14 | NETTLE RASH | Hives affecting the antlers (6,4) |
| anagram (affecting) of THE ANTLERS | ||
| 17 | INDUCTION | Drawing in preliminary scene (9) |
| double definition | ||
| 18 | MILLWALL | Where work is a grind lining borough (8) |
| MILL (where work is grinding) then WALL (lining) | ||
| 19 | UNDERAGE | Not yet old enough performing nude at lively party (8) |
| anagram (performing) of NUDE with (at) RAGE (lively party) | ||
| 22 | MALONE | Mother by herself is Molly from Dublin (6) |
| MA (mother) ALONE (by herself) – Sweet Molly Malone, from popular song | ||
| 23 | STRIP | Take off football outfit (5) |
| double definition | ||
| 25 | SWING | The big band sound that’s in the playground (5) |
| double definition | ||
| 27 | TOGA | Apparently single item of clothing – a Roman one (4) |
| TOG (apparently single item of clothing, usually togs) then A – a Roman item of clothing | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
I think that 11a is Tournai which puts an n in the middle of 7d. Lynda, Linda? Still don’t know.
Oops, I’ve a typo in the grid at 11 across which explains why I can’t get 7 down. Will fix it all in a minute.
thank you teneriffemiller, we crossed there
Also a typo at 25d – should be SWING.
thanks again, fixed now
7 down is LINDA, I will update the grid in a minute
Right, hopefully that is everything solved and put in its right place. Please let me know if you spot anything else.
Never thought of 8d as being an anagram. I took it as O + LIVES (love + is). Think both parsings work.
Had Linda for 7d. Didn’t think of expanding L to ELL and DLA didn’t make much sense. Seems a poor clue since DELLA is not a common name (or is it?). Wondered if it was because LINDA could appear as BELINDA (BE ANOTHER) but this doesn’t really work.
To be honest, I don’t care for Gozo’s themed puzzles. Much prefer ghost themes.
Played, PeeDee!
I’d got most of it, struggled towards the end and then thought, blow it, I’ll go and get a pink ‘un and see what it shd really look like. Had a sneaky look in the newsagent (3 quid’s £3). Turns out it’s the same in the physical paper, so gave up.
Also, my on-line version doesn’t give the rubric, so I was double-handicapped at the start.
Jolly well blogged. FT not covering itself in glory this week, what with yesterady’s indignant response to 9a.
Hovis – I like your BELINDA idea, but as you say it doesn’t quite work. Perhaps this is what Gozo had in mind rather than the uncommon DELLA.
Hovis@7 Fans of writer Erle Stanley Gardner will remember the secretary Della Street.
I’ve had a look at the clues and can solve quite a lot of them, but as I’m not sure where to put them in the online grid and I’m not a fan of crossword jigsaws anyway, I’ve given up
Sorry Gozo – I’m normally a fan of your themed puzzles, but not today. Thanks to PeeDee
I think this would be best left for an Inky carte Blanche but on a Wednesday i really couldnt be bothered redrawing the grid.
Filled in what made sense and binned it, Who’s to blame.
I dont mind geranium instead of germanium but this is a bridge too far
And bravely blogged sir.
Apologies, will correct website grid on return from Germany tonight.
Thanks Gozo & PeeDee.
In 7 across I took another to mean someone of either sex. The obvious anagram is Danil, which is a male name in Russia it seems.
psmith – I had a brief foray along those lines too. For that to work “another” would have to be both indicator the anagram and indicate the anagram fodder. This seemed too much to ask. My pairing was LYNDA and DYLAN.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee. I lack the expertise of the commenters above but decided at breakfast to have a go and got further than expected. I did get almost all the battles (I failed with CANNAE and needed help from Google for a few others) but LINDA-INDUCTION and DELIMITER-SWING defeated me (though I did spot swing).
I prefer your pairing as less obscure. The anagrind is could be I thought.
psmith – yes of course “could be” is the more obvious anagrind, I don’t know why I overlooked that! Anyway it would be very unusual to have an anagram of something not present in the text of the clue.
In case it helps anyone still interested in solving this with the correct grid, it’s the same as that used by Chalmie #16,108 on March 5
Too bad about the cock up i had made enough progress on bottom right to get a couple of battle names which cd have got me going when 25D stopped me in my tracks. I will persevere helped immensely byFifteenSquareds elves. Trinafour
When l noticed wrong grid after downloading, decided not to bother with this one, bah!
Thanks to PeeDee and Gozo
Too late to this to attempt solving and I don’t think I would have tried anyway!
Top marks to PeeDee for unravelling the mess.
Having read the blog everything seems to be buttoned down except the LINDA conundrum.
Only the setter can really say, but if DELLA was the “ANOTHER” then it seems to me that a reverse engineered DELLA SUGGESTS HER SISTER PERHAPS might have worked.
We may never know
As one brought up on Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason, I have no trouble with Della Street, his secretary. I am just amazed at Gozo’s ability to fit in so many battles and yet did not have to resort to strange words for the Down clues, like those we encounter in Mephisto or Azed. Bravo and thank you, Gozo and PeeDee
Uncle Yap@23 – I hope you saw my Comment at 10 above. Thanks.
Your parsing of 22d (MA + ALONE) gives an extra A: MAALONE.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
I enjoy the themed puzzles of this setter – the across clues are generally clearly and unambiguously clued without using too many difficult word parts – maybe LUTZ, AUSTER and ALICIA were right on the boundary. Still, no problems getting it out and a history lesson to boot when reading up on the many battles that I hadn’t heard of before, which I like doing.
My last clue in was LINDA which was a complete ‘bung in and hope’ entry and still don’t really like it.
The error with the grid didn’t really impact until about a third of the way through when the bottom half numbers didn’t seem to match. It wasn’t all that difficult to see the problem and white out two black squares, black in two white squares and alter the numbers to suit.
Thought the ‘stomach-turning’ IOWA was very clever.