A themed puzzle from Gaff.
All eleven of the team that started the Word Cup final for England in 1966 (60 years ago today) appear in the grid, with Charlton of course doing double duty as Jackie and Bobby both played. As a Scotsman, I don’t need reminded again about that achievement. The cluing was a bit contrived in some clues and I haven’t parsed OX-TONGUE, so maybe I need the cruciverbal equivalent of an Azerbaijani linesman and a Swiss referee to get “over the line”, but didn’t want to delay the publication of the blog.
Thanks Gaff (I think!)
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BEE-BREAD |
Broadcaster studied health food (3,5)
|
| BEEB (aka the BBC, “broadcaster”) + READ (“studied”)
Bee-bread (with a hyphen in Chambers) is the pollen and honey mixture bees feed to their young, |
||
| 5 | STRONG |
Powerful tenor gutted when gripped by ballad, maybe (6)
|
| T(eno)R [gutted] when gripped by SONG (“ballad, maybe”) | ||
| 9 | NOMINATE |
Mention a different name (8)
|
| *(mention a) [anag:different] | ||
| 10 | HUNTER |
Watch for stalker (6)
|
| Double definition, the first referring to a watch with a metal protective cover. | ||
| 12 | UDOMETERS |
Short of time, talks about roof with rain gauges (9)
|
| U(t)TERS (“talks”, short of T (“time”)) about DOME (“roof”) | ||
| 13 | BANKS |
Retainers that look after money (5)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 14 | DOJO |
US lawyers love training facility (4)
|
| DoJ (Department of Justice, so “US lawyers”) + O (love, in tennis)
A dojo is a place where Japanese martial arts are taught and practiced. |
||
| 16 | SEAGULL |
Chekhov’s main trick (7)
|
| SEA (“main”) + GULL (“trick”)
The Seagull is a play by Anton Chekhov. |
||
| 19 | TANNISH |
Like male with new top looking slightly sunburned (7)
|
| (m)ANNISH (“like male”) with new top (first letter) becomes (T)ANNISH | ||
| 21 | BALL |
Party starts to become alarmingly left leaning (4)
|
| [starts to] B(ecome) A(larmingly) L(eft) L(eaning) | ||
| 24 | CAPON |
Bird dressed for cricket? (5)
|
| CAP ON (‘”dressed for cricket?”) | ||
| 25 | NEFERTITI |
Free tint I arranged for queen (9)
|
| *(free tint i) [anag:arranged]
A queen of ancient Egypt. |
||
| 27 | STILES |
Reportedly designs structures for scaling (6)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [reportedly] of STYLES (“designs”) | ||
| 28 | KINDNESS |
Point behind family charity (8)
|
| NESS (“point”) behind KIND (“family” in a wide sense) | ||
| 29 | PETERS |
Streep excited as she gets thinner (6)
|
| *(streep) [anag:excited] | ||
| 30 | CHARLTON |
Heston may be part of London (8)
|
| Double definition, the first referring to actor CHARLTON Heston, the second to a district of Greenwich in southeast London, | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BEN HUR |
Distressed Brunhilde blows lid at epic charioteer (3,3)
|
| *(brunhe) [anag:distressed] where BRUNHE is BRUNH(ild)E without the letters in LID [blows lid] | ||
| 2 | EXMOOR |
Park once on dock (6)
|
| EX (“once”) on MOOR (“dock”) | ||
| 3 | RANGE |
Mountains in the distance (5)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 4 | ART DECO |
Unoriginal piece of French company style (3,4)
|
| [unoriginal, i.e missing its origin] (p)ART (“piece”) + DE (“of” in “French”) + Co. (company) | ||
| 6 | THUMBNAIL |
Wear pages’ collar short (9)
|
| THUMB (“wear pages”, as in a well-thumbed book) + NAIL (“collar”, as in grab or arrest) | ||
| 7 | OX-TONGUE |
Speech in support of sap from bristly plant (8)
|
| TONGUE (“speech”) in support of OX? | ||
| 8 | GARISHLY |
Wayward girl has you, starting with vulgar look (8)
|
| *(girl has) [anag:wayward] + Y(ou) [starting] | ||
| 11 | USES |
Handles applications (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 15 | ORIENTEER |
Quickly navigate East three times to last frontier (9)
|
| ORIENT + E +E (East, three times) to [last] (frontie)R | ||
| 17 | STACKS UP |
Figures put spikes in drink (6,2)
|
| TACKS (“spikes”) in SUP (“drink”) | ||
| 18 | END POINT |
Finish clue for National Trust? (3,5)
|
| Not sure how to parse this except that the END of POINT is NT (National Trust) | ||
| 20 | HENS |
Layers found in kitchen sink (4)
|
| Hidden in [found in] “kitcHEN Sink” | ||
| 21 | BUFFISH |
Openings to bay upstream from swimmer are rather brown (7)
|
| [openings to] B(ay) U(pstream) F(rom) + FISH (:swimmer”) | ||
| 22 | DIGEST |
Absorb synopsis (6)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 23 | WILSON |
Old PM is success, admit players (6)
|
| WIN (“success”) admitting LSO (London Symphony Orchestra, so “players”) | ||
| 26 | RADAR |
Waves that come back the same (5)
|
| RADAR (radio pulses, so “waves”) is a palindrome, so “comes back the same”) |
A nicely worked anniversary crossword from Gaff which, at first, had me pondering the possibility of Hollywood epics but left me ruing what might have been, again (on this site, alas, I realise may well be in the minority)!
Personally, I always like the added entertainment value of discovering extra layers contained within a grid regardless of whether the theme is something I know or like (which happens often enough).
Theme apart, I enjoyed some inventive wordplay – BEN HUR – and neat surfaces, like SEAGULL and NOMINATE.
Thanks to Gaff and Loonapick.
I know I (and others) have said this before, but it is BEN-HUR with a hyphen. Thought BUFFISH and TANNISH were awful but the theme was bound to lead to some such words. Parsed END POINT as in the blog and am ok with it.
Meant to add that I couldn’t find any dictionary support for ‘ox’ = ‘sap’. The nearest I could get was ‘lummox’ but even that doesn’t quite equate.
Hovis@3: agreed. A sapi-utan is an Indonesian wild ox, but I can’t find anything to confirm ‘sap’ as a recognised shorter form.
Equally puzzled by OX.
Missed the theme which is shameful because I watched the 1966 match, the last football game I ever watched.
Thanks to Gaff and loonapick.
Thanks Gaff and Loonapick
7dn; I had to go to SOED 2007 to find the following:
p 2062 ox noun 3 fig. A fool, a stupid person; esp. a large clumsy person.
p 2666 sap noun¹ 4 [Abbreviation of saphead, sapskull below.] A simpleton, a fool. colloq.
I think that does give us “sap” as a valid definition for OX.
PB@6: Many thanks. I felt sure that if it was findable, you would be the finder.
Couldn’t parse RANGE (3d) because I found the “the” in the clue a bit of an unwanted intrusion.
I was interested to see PETERS meaning getting thinner as I have only come across it as a measure of frequency, as in the wartime headline “GERMAN ATTACKS PETER OUT IN DESERT” which prompted my father (amongst others) to wonder who Peter was. I see the word has a much broader use than that and seems to be originally a mining term.
I was around in 1966 but I’m afraid I couldn’t have named the team so the theme eluded me.
As an afterthought on BEE-BREAD, it also consumed by humans as a health food supplement. Whatever next ?
Well, it didn’t take much looking up to find the anniversary referred to and all we needed was a list of the England squad. Quite an achievement to get them all in the grid but spoiled by some awkward cluing (THUMBNAIL, OXTONGUE) and two words that are hardly words at all (TANNISH, BUFFISH). We appreciate that some slack is needed in compiling a themed crossword, but …
Not all that satisfying in the end, but thanks, both.
I think the missing link for 18d was POI for Point Of Interest? Not sure if this was legit parsing but this is how I got there anyway:
Clue for National Trust -> POI (Point of Interest)
Finish (END) that clue with National Trust +NT
END + POI + NT
18dn: Interesting idea from Hillary@11, but I cannot find POI meaning point of interest in any of the standard dictionaries, nor can I see anything in the clue that is anywhere near specific enough to suggest POI as part of the construction you have suggested. I think it works better as suggested by Loonapick in the first place. There have been arguments for many years about the legitimacy of indications such as “last frontier” for the letter R, as in 15dn of the current puzzle, but it is clear that Gaff is ready to such devices. On that basis, “end point” could easily be regarded as an equivalent clue for the letters NT.
Re-reading comment 12, I should have said “Gaff is open to such devices” or “Gaff is ready to use such devices”.
At one point the theme appeared to be substandard words relating to brown. (It was a TANNISH BALL in the final though, maybe we forgive that one.)
However, once I realised Charlton wasn’t on Ben-Hur duty, the true theme proved most helpful and I actively sought out the squad. I hadn’t seen the 60th anniversary bit. Nor was I born that on that fateful day, but I could list everyone except Wilson, who I already had.
Thanks all.