I always look forward to getting a Gozo puzzle on a Wednesday.
Gozo puzzles are both themed and educational, and this morning we have a Geography lesson, Gozo’s favourite subject. The clues were not hard but I had great fun looking up all sots of places both familiar and new on Wikipedia. Thank you Gozo.
| Across | ||
| 1 | HEBRON | His Excellency has brother about town on the West Bank (6) |
| HE (His Excellency) has BR (brother) ON (about) | ||
| 4 | LAMPETER | Welsh university town uprooted palm- tree (8) |
| (palm-tree)* anagram=uprooted – the smallest university town in Wales, founded 1822 | ||
| 10 | GELLIGAER | Grand galleries (not square) rebuilt in South Wales town (9) |
| G (grand) GALLERIEs* (anagram=rebuilt) missing s=square – town near Caerphilly | ||
| 11 | REIMS | Wretched miser in French city (5) |
| MISER* anagram=wretched | ||
| 12 | BARI | Male singer lacking harmony at Adriatic seaport (4) |
| BARItone (singer) missing tone=harmony | ||
| 13 | SACRAMENTO | Bread and wine and a drop of oil in US city (10) |
| SACRAMENT (bread and wine) with O (first letter, drop of, oil) | ||
| 15 | RIVIERA | I arrive looking seedy on the Mediterranean (7) |
| (I ARRIVE)* anagram=looking seedy | ||
| 16 | EUREKA | Shout about headless fish and medicinal plant in county seat in 23 (6) |
| hAKE (fish, headless) RUE (medicinal plant) all reversed (about) – Eureka! is a famous shout from Archimedes and also the county seat of Humboldt County in California. | ||
| 19 | HALLAM | Stately home by a motorway in Nick Clegg’s Sheffield constituency (and shire) (6) |
| HALL (stately home) by A M (motorway) – Hallamshire was an area of Yorkshire, the name surviving in various modern terms | ||
| 21 | ALBANIA | Country’s prohibition among other things (7) |
| BAN (prohibition) in ALIA (other things, c.f. inter alia) | ||
| 23 | CALIFORNIA | State of eastern potentate worried on air (10) |
| CALIF (eastern potentate) and (ON AIR)* anagram=worried | ||
| 25 | JURA | Island mountains (4) |
| Scottish island and alpine mountains | ||
| 27 | LARNE | Some popular neighbours in port in Co. Antrim (5) |
| found in (some of) popuLAR NEighbours – town in Northern Ireland | ||
| 28 | TENNESSEE | State of a number on headland mid- week (9) |
| TEN ( a number) on NESS (headland) wEEk (middle of week) | ||
| 29 | SPALDING | Land pigs turn over in Lincolnshire (8) |
| (LAND PIGS)* anagram=turn over | ||
| 30 | SLIEMA | Emails spammed on Malta (6) |
| EMAILS* anagram=spammed (mashed up like spam) – town on Malta | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HIGHBURY | Old football ground in London for eminent Lancashire team (8) |
| HIGH (eminent) BURY (Lancashire football team) – old name for Arsenal’s ground, the Emirates Stadium | ||
| 2 | BELGRAVIA | Fashionable part of the capital – three- quarters of another is by Roman road (9) |
| BELGRAde (another capital, three quarters of) and VIA (road, Latin) | ||
| 3 | OHIO | State of leading healthy industrialists in spectacles (4) |
| HI (leading letters of healthy industrialists) in OO (looks like a pair of glasses) | ||
| 5 | AIRDRIE | North Lanarkshire town’s salon equipment without covers (7) |
| hAIR DRIEr (salon equioment) missing outside letters (without covers) | ||
| 6 | PARAMARIBO | Standard president raised about state capital of Surinam (10) |
| PAR (standard) OBAMA (president) reversed (raised) including (about) RI (Rhode Island, state) – the capital of Suriname | ||
| 7 | TEIGN | Tumble-down gite on North Devon river (5) |
| GITE* anagram=tumble-down on N (north) – river in Devon | ||
| 8 | ROSTOV | Count on Don in Russia! (6) |
| Count Nikolai Rostov, character from War and Peace. I’m not quite sure about the exact definition. Rostov Oblast is a fedaral district of Russia, containing the city Rostov-on-don. There is another city just called Rostov that is not on the Don. | ||
| 9 | HAVANA | A Native American turned up without love in Caribbean capital (6) |
| A NAVAHo (Native American) reversed (turned up) missing O=love | ||
| 14 | SELLAFIELD | Receive money for a piece of land in Cumbria (10) |
| SELL A FIELD (receive money for a piece of land) – town in Cumbria | ||
| 17 | KINGUSSIE | Speyside town where Sue, ski-ing, crashes (9) |
| (SUE SKI-ING)* anagram=crashes – Scottish town | ||
| 18 | PASADENA | Dad with downcast girl in city in 23 (8) |
| PA (dad) with SAD (downcast) ENA (girl) | ||
| 20 | MORETON | Extra weight in town on the Wirral (7) |
| MORE (extra) TON (weight) | ||
| 21 | AMIENS | French friend with sense, at heart, in the capital of Picardy (6) |
| AMI (friend, French) with sENSe (heart of) | ||
| 22 | ECCLES | Goon’s cake in town in Greater Manchester (6) |
| triple definition – Manchester Town, Eccles cakes and character in The Goon Show | ||
| 24 | LORCA | Spanish poet rewrote carol in Murcia (5) |
| Federico Garcia Lorca, (CAROL* anagram=rewrote and town in Murcia, Spain | ||
| 26 | YELL | Shetland isle up in the valleys (4) |
| found in the vaLLEYs (reversed) – the second largest of the Shetland islands | ||
*anagram
I agree – this is a superb lesson in geography. Every high school student should be provided with a copy for geog homework.
Thanks PeeDee & Gozo
A small typo at 13a – Sacramento
Terrific fun. I might even visit Gelligaer to check it out.
Thanks Kettledrum. Unfortunately not a typo but plain poor spelling. B-
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee. Great fun and very educational. Particularly satisfying to get some previously unknown places just from the word play, but surely close to impossible to get them all without web assistance, except for a geographic savant.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
A great achievement to complete a grid with only geographic words – did find it a bit of a grind toward the end where it just became a Google search exercise to find obscure locations to fit the wordplays.
Failed with JURA which I thought was a bit tough, especially from down here where the Jura island doesn’t get air play :(. Tried unsuccessfully for a while to find the Cuba Mountains ….