I enjoyed this very much. An unusual puzzle in which, as the instructions say, every single grid entry is a theme word. Thank you Gozo.
In my first quick run through the clues I got no answers at all. Scary! I can’t remember the last time that happened, even when attempting the advanced cryptics. Fortunately once I got my first answer the rest followed at a steady but not rapid pace.
The instructions are : All the solutions are thematic and almost all lack their thematic definition, though one clue does suggest the theme
All the grid entries are forenames, and in the clue for 15 across we have Some of the children… (and see comments below for other suggestions)
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ROBINA |
Bird that could be round area (6)
|
| ROBIN (bird that could be round, a round-robin) then A (area) | ||
| 4 | MADELINE |
Formed queue for sponge cake, we’re told (8)
|
| MADE (formed) LINE (queue) sounds like (we are told) “madeleine” ( a sponge cake) | ||
| 9 | SERENA |
Leading actor, endlessly calm at start (6)
|
| first letter (leading) of Actor following (with…at start) SERENe (calm, endlessly) | ||
| 10 | PENELOPE |
Shut up and run off! (8)
|
| PEN (shup up, enclose) then ELOPE (run off) | ||
| 12 | MARGARET |
French station in trade centre (8)
|
| GARE (station, in French) inside MART (trade centre) | ||
| 13 | JEREMY |
Vine-reduced sherry – goodness! (6)
|
| JEREz (sherry, reduced) and MY (goodness). Also broadcaster and journalist Jeremy Vine. | ||
| 15 | RENE |
Some of the children erred one way or the other (4)
|
| found twice inside childREN Erred, forwards or backwards | ||
| 16 | FRANCES |
Belonging over the Channel (7)
|
| FRANCE’S (belonging to France, over the channel) | ||
| 20 | MAUREEN |
Mother takes lid off soup bowl (7)
|
| MA (mother) then tUREEN (soup bowl) missing first letter (with lid of) | ||
| 21 | MONA |
Consistent complainer spoken of on Anglesey (4)
|
| sound like (spoken of) “moaner” (consistent complainer). |
||
| 25 | ALISON |
Clay and his lad (6)
|
| ALI (formerly Cassius Clay) and SON (his lad) | ||
| 26 | ATALANTA |
Afternoon in state capital (8)
|
| A (afternoon) inside ATLANTA (state capital of Georgia) – name Greek goddess | ||
| 28 | HERMIONE |
Harry’s first love clad in fur (8)
|
| first letter of Harry then O (love) inside ERMINE (fur) | ||
| 29 | VIOLET |
Unrestrained nationalist left (6)
|
| VIOLEnT (unrestrained) missing (left) N (nationalist) | ||
| 30 | LLEWELYN |
Not completely in good health in North Walian peninsula (8)
|
| WELL (in good health) missing last letter (not completely) inside LLEYN (the Lleyn Peninsular in North Wales, anglicised spelling) | ||
| 31 | RENATA |
Suspicious East German removed gems (6)
|
| anagram (suspicious) of EAsT geRmAN missing (removed) GEMS | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ROSEMARY |
Flower starts to root during fifth month (8)
|
| ROSE (flower) then Root (first letter, what starts it?) inside (during) MAY (the fifth month) | ||
| 2 | BERTRAND |
Non-English bar-tender, sozzled (8)
|
| anagram (sozzled) of BAR-TENDeR missing E (non-English) | ||
| 3 | NINIAN |
Rejected popular Japanese car – gutted! (6)
|
| IN (popular) reversed (rejected) then NIssAN (Japanese car) missing middle letters (gutted) – name of saint | ||
| 5 | ALEX |
Drink and kiss (4)
|
| ALE (drink) and X (kiss) | ||
| 6 | EBENEZER |
Samuel’s memorial stone at chapel (8)
|
| double definition – in the Bible a memorial stone erected by Samuel and byword for a chapel | ||
| 7 | IMOGEN |
One married to old dope (6)
|
| I (one) M (married) with O (old) and GEN (dope, information) | ||
| 8 | EVELYN |
Man or woman as diarist (6)
|
| EVELYN is both a man’s name and a woman’s name. There is also the noted diarist John Evelyn. | ||
| 11 | DEIRDRE |
Rider falls during dressage, losing heart (7)
|
| anagram (falls, and so becomes damaged?) inside DressagE missing middle letters (heart) | ||
| 14 | ANNETTE |
Dry during year in France (7)
|
| TT (teetotal, dry) inside (during) ANNEE (year, in French) | ||
| 17 | CAROLINE |
18’s alter ego (8)
|
| an anagram (alter ego, same person but in a different form) of CORNELIA (18 down) | ||
| 18 | CORNELIA |
Lamb having reason for a sore foot (8)
|
| ELIA (Charles Lamb) following (having, together with) CORN (reason for a sore foot) | ||
| 19 | SAMANTHA |
Worker tucked into mash, cooked with touch of artistry (8)
|
| ANT (a worker) inside (tucked into) anagram (cooked) of MASH with first letter (a touch of) Artistry | ||
| 22 | RACHEL |
Persistent pain in both sides (6)
|
| ACHE (persistent pain) inside R and L (both sides) | ||
| 23 | PIERRE |
Removes clothes from French revolutionary (6)
|
| robesPIERRE (French revolutionary) having his ROBES (clothes) removed | ||
| 24 | ELAINE |
Rested, during middle of the week (6)
|
| LAIN (rested) inside (during) wEEk (middle of) | ||
| 27 | ANDY |
Easy to use within the sound of Bow Bells (4)
|
| HANDY (easy to use) missing the H (as spoken in Cockney, within the sound of the Bow Bells) |
I guessed that 15A clue ‘some of the children’ is what preamble meant when it said one clue offered a hint to the theme. Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee.
Thanks ub, I forgot to mention that.
Thanks, Gozo and PeeDee!
Interesting puzzle!
Stared at this for half an hour with not a single solve.
I too, Geoff. Impossible!
Well beyond my pay grade
I didn’t find this as hard as others seem to have. My first entry was ALEX, closely followed (appropriately) by ANDY, which made the theme clear.
A very clever grid fill, but does anyone know, or know of, an ATALANTA? Wikipedia only has the mythological character: no actual people with it as their forename.
I thought 8D was the one that alluded to the theme.
Andrew – the most recent Atalanta I could find is the heroine from Barbara Cartland’s 1974 romantic novel No Darkness for Love. A literary classic.
ALEX was immediately obvious so I thought it would be a stroll, but surprisingly hard from then on, and made harder by not being sure whether clues were complete or not. EBENEZER was last in but both parts of the clue were a mystery. Never seen Walian before. Surely Madeline is pronounced maddle – ine not maddle – en?
I like names in crosswords, they’re all evocative words in different ways, and hope the Telegraph anti-name campaign doesn’t win out generally.
Thanks PeeDee, Gozo
James @9 – I think one has to interpret homophones in crosswords as can be pronounced “xxxxx” rather than always pronounced “xxxxx”. Otherwise we would have to abandon homophones in crosswords altogether.
Almost finished it but did not know the Charles Lamb/ Elia connection and never heard of ATALANTA the goddess let alone any actual ones.
No idea about the A in 21a.
But good fun so thanks to GOZO for an original challenge and to PeeDee for very well informed blog
A quick look at Google maps shows a place called Mona ‘on Anglesey’.
PeeDee, I’m quite happy with ‘can be pronounced …’. If some people called Madeline pronounce their name like Madeleine then fine. My objection was based on the assumption (which may be wrong) that Madeline and Madeleine are inevitably pronounced differently.
Hi James, I understand where you are coming from now. My take was that they are the same name but with French and English spellings. Names are a law to themselves when it comes pronunciation anyway, they don’t follow the norms for words in general.
I wondered about Mona the place too, but it is tiny, not much more than an airstrip. I have since discovered that MONA is the Latin spelling of Anglesey, so I think that’s probably the most likely answer.
Late today after a day’s hike in the rain but Gozo’s grid was a treat upon my return.
ALEX was my FOI too, nothing cropping up before that. Afterwards, I zipped through one half of the grid and labored on quite a few others.
Quite a French flavor to this including my favorite (Robes)PIERRE. ATALANTA made me think of the old Michel Simon film L’Atalante’. By the way, PeeDee, there’s a minor typo in the blog for 14d, which should read ‘année’.
Struggled with CORNELIA and NINIAN but I had a blast doing this.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee for an informative blog.
Really hard work. Made it in the end with, like James @9, the completely unparsed EBENEZER my last in. Quite a few others unparsed or semi-guessed along the way, including ATALANTA.
Yes, I agree with Goujeers @7, that 8d seems the most likely clue suggesting the theme. Does anyone know if the names are related in any way?
Thanks to Gozo and to PeeDee – “No Darkness for Love” indeed!
Thanks for spotting that Diane. Fixed now.
Wordplodder,
I did wonder half way through if Gozo was name-checking the old family tree?!
Very enjoyable challenge. Also started with ALEX, then MARGARET and from those went on fairly smoothly except for throwing in the final unparsed EBENEZER – thank you, PeeDee, for the elucidation. Was helped on 17d by thinking at first (wrongly) that there might be some reference in 18d to Lady Caroline Lamb. Credit to Gozo for creating a totally themed puzzle.
A few months ago Gozo did produce this FT crossword containing the forenames of his granddaughters.
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2022/01/19/financial-times-16996-by-gozo/
Yes, PeeDee, I remembered that and it made me think of a family tribute. Whatever the spur for this puzzle, it was very well done .
Thanks Gozo, that was excellent. I found this on the easier end of the Gozo spectrum despite needing a word finder to get EBENEZER and the blog to understand its parsing. My FOI was RENE and thought the theme would be French names but ROSEMARY corrected that idea. Favourites included MADELINE, ALISON, ALEX, RACHEL, and PIERRE. Thanks PeeDee for parsing and commenting on the never-ending homophone discussion.
Not to my taste I’m afraid. I got Alison, Alex and Andy early on and thought “surely not”.
It too gave up about halfway through.
Sometimes I like Gozo, sometimes I don’t.
This was the latter
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
Thought that this was a clever poem and afterwards when checking for a pangram thought that he had done something really incredible, but a couple of letters short.
Saw RENE almost immediately, and even after getting ROSEMARY, I still needed MARGARET to confirm that it was names that we were after – still impressive to fit just names into the grid – and with not too many unusual ones.
Hadn’t heard of the ‘Walian’ expression for Welsh before nor ‘Mona’ as another name for Anglesey. Didn’t make the same mistake with MADELINE as I did with a variant spelling of it in the previous day’s puzzle.
Finished down the bottom with PIERRE (clever), LLEWELYN and CAROLINE the last few in.
Thanks Peedee for a fine appraisal. I had to Google the Ebenezer stone, only knew Ninian from the football ground and Atalanta from Swinburne thanks to M John Harrison. I wonder if Gozo and I share a couple of exes as he clued their names very appropriately! I could be wrong but I think Ynys Mon is the Welsh for Anglesey isn’t it? Very enjoyable challenge, thanks Gozo.
Hi Gazzh, you are correct that Yns Mon is the Welsh name, but Mona is what the Romans called it.
I found the crossword both clever and a pleasure to solve. Like everybody else, I started with ALEX and then IMOGEN two houses down the street gave the theme. I wasted time writing in SACHEN for 22, as in Tendulkar, until I checked the correct spelling of his name.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee! I started with RENATA, PIERRE and ANDY, and the theme became apparent. Didn’t get MONA, ROBINA or NINIAN.
I agree with those who say 8d is the clue that suggests the theme.