EV873 Capital Reasons by Raich

by

The preamble made this sound more complicated that it turned out to be. Once a few answers were in the puzzle fell in to place quickly and the straight definitions were mostly guessable from a few checking letters. I stumbled a little by wrongly identifying a couple of the extra letters and pencilling in FIND (Encounter) for FORD (Crossing Point). These errors were soon resolved.

The theme was London (Capital) Football grounds (Reasons!). The extra letters spelt out ARSENAL, CHELSEA, TOTTENHAM. The three major London football clubs (with due respect to Charlton and Millwall). Their grounds: Emirates Stadium, Stamford Bridge and White Hart Lane were associated in different ways with the 7 defined entries.

STEAMIER & DUMAIST are anagrams of Emirates & Stadium.

TEN SIXTY SIX BATTLE clues Stamford Bridge.

The third I’m not as sure about. I think that the pairs all create words but I don’t know if that’s right or if there is some stronger link than I’m seeing:

whiteLAW, hartFORD, TRIPlane

To finish off the ground WEMBLEY could be seen in grid on a diagonal from the centre (W of WEE) toward the bottom right-hand corner. And the location, LONDON, could be seen running in the same direction from the L of ALBI.

Not much time this week for detailed clue analysis but I’ll check back for comments if there are any questions.

dd double definition
(XY Z)* anagram
X[Y]Z insertion
X[y]Z deletion
ZYX< reversal
uvwXY Zabc hidden answer
>[A]YZ[X] letter movement
[A>X]YZ letter change
X. initial letter
.X final letter
X-Y-Z- alternate letters
X..Z extremes

Across
1 TEN SIXTY SIX Encounter
8 LAW Theoretical principle
11 WEETABIX WEE TAB IX brand name for a breakfast cereal.
12 GALA LAG< A
13 A ETERNE ETA ERNE
14 MZEE M-Z-E-E-
18 R YET TYRE*
19 ALLENBY ALLE[N B]Y WW1 British Field Marshall
20 S BELOW PAR (LAW PROBES)*
23 E EXAM EXE AM
24 HALDANE HAL[DAN]E Haldane is a Biologist. Dan is a title in Eastern martial arts.
26 N EUCRITE (NICE TRUE)*
29 A ALBI A[LAB]I Albi is the capital of the Tarn department
33 ALODIUM AL ODIUM I was stuck on this one for a while as I had -O-D-UM and HOODLUM fitted but didn’t quite fit the clue.
36 L COLD COL LD LD = lethal dose. Used in animal testing for a dose that will kill a percentage of a test group. LD25 being the dose that kills 25% for instance.
37 ITO ohITO’s The definition refers, I think, to Ito Hirobumi, Japanese PM 1885 to 1888. Not that well known to me, it might well have been Hawaiian J-Pop star Yuna Ito, but there you go.
38 NEW YEAR ANYW[h]ERE
41 C DHAL D CHAL
42 H SEA EGG SH EA EG G
43 E SILO S E I LO
44 BINDI-EYE BIND IE YE
45 L APE AP[p]LE
46 S STONE MARTEN (SOME ENTRANTS)*
Down
1 TWELTH acHT FLEW Tri<
2 E NEER -N-E-E-R-E–
3 A STRIDE STAR[ID]E
4 I-AND-I 1 AN 1 1 and 1 make 2! I-AND-I sort of means two too in a different way.
5 TIMMY vicTIM MYth
6 T SHEILA (SHE TAIL)*
7 O IDES I DOSE*
8 LARYNX L[AR]YNX
9 T ALOE TAL[O]E
10 WARTY W ARTY
15 T STEER SETTER*
16 YOU-ALL (LOYAL U)* more often heard as Y’ALL.
17 UPON cUP ONce
21 WEE dd
22 PEA PEA[r]
25 DIDNT D.I.D.N.T.
27 E UMRA UM RE A It refers to the lesser of the two pilgrimages, the Haj being the more important. I know it as an abbreviation for uk.media.radio.archers
28 N ENDOGEN END NO GEN
30 H BOODLE BOHO D[o]LE
31 TU-WHOO ([ab]OUT WHO)* one of may ways the tawny owl calls.
32 A ECLAIR LACE< A IR
33 M AILSA MA IL SA Scottish name meaning rock.
34 BELIE BELIE[f]
35 BREDA BR[ED]A A Southern city in the Netherlands.
39 EDIT ADIT->EDIT
40 BEET “beat”

6 comments on “EV873 Capital Reasons by Raich”

  1. As the Hammers are the London club supported in my local, the fourth stadium I found was BOLEYN GROUND (i.e jumbled) in the NE corner. WEMBLEY was then taken to be the location, as all 4 teams had played there, and I thought I’d failed to see the connection between West Ham and one of the seven answers.
    Of course, that gave the 13 letters to highlight, so didn’t look further to find LONDON.

  2. My theory is
    w in law = White
    Hart(ford)
    la in Law = Lane

    Trip may be connected to Wembley as in Wembley Trip.

  3. Thank you for blog and comments.

    Blog is correct re the Tottenham references.

    Both the extra letters and the definition only clues were presented in ABC order of clubs with the component parts of the names of the grounds in their normal order.

    The connection of Wembley with one of the seven answers referred to (dumaist)* ie Wembley Stadium, like Emirates Stadium.

  5. My apologies to Peter for overlooking the Hammers.
    Thanks to Raich for clarifying things and highlighting the connection between WEMBLEY and DUAMIST that I had missed completely when reading the preamble.

Comments are closed.