Spectator 1936

[Lubumbashi]

1D? I have ????A?A?S?
28D B?L?I?

nearly there.

[smithies]

For 10 down B is clear but how about R for homophone of third person plural?

[Mysterons]

I'm sure that each of the 8 unclued lights is intended to produce just one homophone, and that although 10 down could be plural, 'are' is not the intended one. 'Esse' (pronounced ess-e) would have to take its literal Latin meaning to be a possibility, and require 1 across to cover just 2 letters (? XL) I feel JUDGE is ruled out by 28 down, so you must take your pick between the other 2 (see above). That leaves 2 or 3 letters to be covered in 1 across. LEADING NOTE is too vague as a definition, as it could refer to any note, and in any case it is singular (see above). My money is on LEADING ROLE for 'effendi' (FND).

[smithies]

Here is another thought. Is the title any clue or is it simply a reference to Why/Y? I like the FND idea but it just doesn't seem right to me. It's a bit too loose. If I were defining effendi I don't think I would go for Leading Role.

[Helveticus]

I think that 10D suggests homophones of B and R, but I can't work out which other unclued light does double duty.

[turnerjmw]

If there isn't a coherent grouping for the ten thematic items other than their being letters, it's a pretty disappointing puzzle in my view, with too much ambiguity. I can't find the letters to support QWERTYUIOP. Then I tried QUAPROPTER (latin for wherefore). It means two of the eight (R and P) are used twice, but that wouldn't be a problem. But I can't quite justify it. I think I'll give up now. Good luck to those who struggle on

[smithies]

The only remaining homophones that I can come up with are em and en. Now in typography line spacing is sometimes referred to as leading (pron ledding) so if someone can come up with a four letter word -o-e which would make sense for 1A then I would say that it was all over. Any suggestions?

[Mysterons]

Unfortunately smithies 'em' and 'en' are the letters M and N as well, so would not qualify as being homophones, just as my original suggestion of 'gee' for NUDGE is no good.

[smithies]

Hmmmm.. In that case I\'m with turnerjmw on this one. I guess I\'ll just enter Leading Note as the most reasonable guess at this one.

[Steveresz]

10D could suggest both "B" and "R". And if you went to the right sort of school, "M".