Built around a 41-letter anagram. Solving time: 52 mins.
* = anagram < = reversed
ACROSS
9 HISTORIAN (to an Irish)*
11/13/16 CANT GET AWAY TO MARRY YOU TODAY MY WIFE WONT LET ME left at the church song. * (first 41 letters of clue)
22 WINNING ON POINTS I think
DOWN
1 O (VISA) C
2 A T (TORN) EY Yet<
5 Saul BELLOW
6 ANTONY MY Antony and C
8 HA-HA A ditch
13 M OWN D OWN MD = managing director
14 RAF FLING
16 D (UTCH H) OE
21 HIGH NOON cf nigh Hoon
Thanks Niall for covering the blog.
I struggled with the big anagram for a while until I remembered a previous Indy Mag puzzle by a certain Tilsit which wason the same theme!
Nimrod at his exquisite best. I do believe he IS going to come up with that solitary 105-letter anagram across clue yet!
22 is WINNING ON POINTS. It alludes cryptically to how each of the sports is one, points of swords and points of the compass make sense. The cross-country one I’m less sure about though as a sport is in points that count but not in any cryptic sense.
As an orienteer I’d question the orienteering allusion since many top orienteers rarely look at their compasses!
Colin – a poor orienteer who looks all to often but rarely wins.
I didn’t do this but wonder if the cross-country reference might be to point-to-point racing.
6d threw me, the answer should be antonyms, I have searched word finders and cannot find ‘antonymy’ anywhere.
Patrick.
Patrick: ANTONYMY is right and it’s in Chambers (under antonym). You can also find it in the Chambers Word Wizards here:
http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/wordgames/word_wizards/wwizards.py/main