More thematic wizardry from my favourite compiler: spot the colours in 6 across clues.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BROWN-NOSED – little bit of politics from Virgilius there. |
| 6 | PS,ST |
| 10 | TOT in LIES – LITOTES is one of those words I only know through crosswords. Chambers defines it as “understatement used for effect, especially by negating the opposite” and gives the example “not a little angry”. |
| 11 | COLLIE,R |
| 12 | (THE BIRDS WE ATE)* – WHITE BREASTED. On my first look I was tempted by WATER-something but then the theme began to suggest itself and WHITE seemed obvious with W???E filled in. |
| 14 | OHMAGE – “homage” with the initial letters swapped. |
| 15 | BLUE-EYED – a BLUE is an Oxbridge athlete that has competed for their university. |
| 17 | ED,F in RACED |
| 19 | NOB,ALL – a NO BALL is an extra in the crossword compiler’s favourite sport. |
| 22 | GREEN-FINGERED – sounds like “[Graham] Greene” |
| 24 | MAE WEST – one of the most chestnut-ty of all crossword chestnuts, but at least Virgilius tries to take a fresh approach to clueing it. It seems to be a hybrid clue containing a straight definition and another, more cryptic one.m |
| 27 | GREY-HEADED – sounds like “Gray” |
| Down | |
| 2 | hidden in “devOUT SWAMis” |
| 3 | T in (DUNGEON I HADNT)* – NOTHING DAUNTED. Not a phrase I was familiar with but once I’d settled on NOTHING for the first word, the remaining anagram fodder solved itself. |
| 4 | N,S in OPEC – the definition – “as a gamble” – is a bit tricky and export group for OPEC is not immediately obvious. |
| 7 | SAINTLY – this was a great clue, and very misleading. John, Paul and George were all saints (as well as Beatles) and Ringo wasn’t (a saint, that is). |
| 8 | A RAT<,DIDDLE |
| 9 | AL’S,ACE RAIN in LORE – another great clue. The surface reading is excellent and very apposite and the handling of the cryptic elements is very well done. |
| 13 | GAMES in BOARDS – very well disguised definition: “Go, with others”. |
| 16 | ROTA,IDEM (all reversed) – IDEM is the Latin phrase for “as previously mentioned”. |
| 20 | (I AND DR O)* – ANDROID is pretty much all you can do with those letters. |
| 21 | AGE,C in NY |
| 23 | BIRD – double def. A HOBBY is a small species of falcon. |
SITE (26A)
I couldn’t see what “Repeatedly” was doing here. It seems to be about site, cite and sight, but I can’t unravel it all.
Wil, you’re spot on (or at least, I agree with you!). Repeatedly indicates the double homophone, so if you talk about a tourist attraction, you cite a sight, and SITE is the location.
Neil, I’m not sure from your description whether you got the whole theme – all the thematic answers were descriptions of coloured body parts:
BROWN-NOSED, WHITE-BREASTED, BLUE-EYED, RED-FACED, GREEN-FINGERED and GREY-HEADED.
Nope – completely missed that bit of it!