Hitting your children with a metal stick (Solution No 3,307)

Sabers (third from left) and his teammate Jeremy
(second from left) both qualified for JOs

There was no hockey this weekend, since I was preoccupied with hosting a dinner party Sunday and then a meeting and a big tournament for Sabers Saturday (he had one good bout all day, but he picked the right one: he upset the #1 seed in the semis and wound up finishing second, which punches his ticket to the Junior Olympics).

Further, the fencing club has a “Chinese Food and Movies” fencing tournament Christmas Eve (the head coaches are Jewish) and while we’re Christian, our services weren’t until 9:00 pm so we didn’t miss anything.  Since it was not a very serious event, I entered too, even though I’d only fenced twice before, never taken any lessons. What I did know was that the last time I fenced, I noticed I was getting most of my touches by timing my attacks well instead of by any kind of decent bladework.  So I thought, I might actually be less bad at epee than at saber, and a tournament like this was just the place to find out.  

The tournament went pretty well: at least three other families had both parents and children taking part, and I think that in every case except the one where the child was too young for the open event, there were parent-child bouts: in our case three of them.  Sabers beat me all three times, but I didn’t do too badly and wound up finishing higher than he did in the epee standings.

I know the parents had a good time; I think the kids did too.

The solution to The Nation puzzle no. 3,307 is below the fold.

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/168576/puzzle-no-3245

Themework: As 30a explains, the names of seven countries are hidden in across answers and three more are found in clues.  Any geography experts know if that’s the sum total of all countries whose names are four letters long?

Difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): Moderate to hard

Political content: 27a
“Nation” once again finds its 2ay into the puzzle--kind of like “Nina” in an Al Hirschfeld drawing.

Musical content:  

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" explicit in the clue, “^” first or last letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters; “§” heteronym, “¶“ letter bank, “‡” Spoonerism

Across

1a	C | *HADORS	^C^aliphate (first letter indicated by “leader”) + *HOARDS (first letter indicated by “slyly”) Iraq explicit in definition
5a	HO | STAGE	HO (“Communist figure”) + STAGE (“present”)
9a	PE(RUSE)D	PED (“pedestrian”) containing (“concealing”) RUSE (“stratagem”)
10a	MA(GNAT)E	GNAT (“a pest”) contained in (“in”) WEST (“Mae”)
11a	N_IGH	N_e_IGH (“stable sound,” omission of E indicated by “without error”)
12a	*INCUBATION	*BIONIC TUNA (anagram indicated by “weird”)
14a	HONES <T TO | GOD<	HONES (“gets sharp”) + <DOG (“to follow”) + OTT (“Mel on the baseball field”)<, reversal of the whole thing indicated by “in comeback”)
17a, 18a	GAL | ORE	GAL (“miss”) + ORE (“rock”) My opinion is that this one lacked inspiration, though it’s not improper for a split answer.  What it does is get rid of two three-letter answers though.
19a	*ABNORMALITY	*BLAIR MAY NOT (anagram indicated by “set right”)
20a	PI | RAN | DELL | O	PI (“detective”) + RAN (“managed”) + DELL (“computer company”) + O (“love”)
24a	A | SAP	A (†) + SAP (“blackjack”)
27a	IMME}R{SE	IMME{N}SE (“enormous”, replacement of N with R indicated by “^r^oot at first for McCai^n^’s ending”) This one was tough because the indicator isn’t obvious and the clue type is uncommon
28a	*ROMANCE	*CREAM ON (anagram indicated by “spilled”)
29a	TOR(MEN)T	MEN (“dudes”) contained in (“caught in”) TORT (“unlawful act”) At first I was trying to use the letters of “act” as the container, but the enumeration wouldn’t work out.
30a	*NATIONS	*NO IT’S AN (anagram indicated by “unfortunately”)

Down

1d	CAPON_	CAPON_e_ (“gangster,” omission of last letter indicated by “stops before the end”)
2d	*ARROGANCE	*CARNAGE OR (anagram indicated by “unearthly”)
3d	O(US)T	US (“our team”) contained in (“in”) OT (“overtime”)
4d	*SEDAN	*DEAN’S (anagram indicated by “total [wreck]”)
5d	HAMBURGER	Pun: HAM [plan] B URGER
6d	<SIG | MA<	<AM (“in the morning” + GIS (“soldiers”)<, reversal indicated by “resurrected”
7d	A <BAC< I	A (†) + <CAB< (taxi, reversal indicated by “climbing”) + fij^I^ (last letter indicated by “far side”)
8d	_E(TERN)ALLY	_r_EALLY (“in fact,” omission of first letter indicated by “decapitated”) containing (“is inside”) TERN (“seabird”)
13d	A S I A	^A^llowing ^S^ome ^I^nvestment ^A^ctivity (first letters indicated by “initially”) Laos explicit in definition.
14d	*HOOFPRINT	*THIN PROOF (anagram indicated by “after a stampede”) Exclamation point because definition and wordplay are the same words.
15d	T(ENDER)EST	TEST (“experiment”) containing (“about”) ENDER (“finalist”)
16d	D | RAG	enlivene^D^ (last letter indicated by “ultimately”) + RAG (“tabloid”)
17d	*GLISSANDO	*GLAND IS SO (anagram indicated by “diseased”)
21a	~RUMOR	~ROOMER (“tenant,” homophone indicated by “listening to”)
22d	~NURSE	in~NER City (homophone indicated by “heard”, hidden word indicated by “running through”) Don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of combination wordplay before.  We’ll see if any solvers post objections to this one.
23d	LORE | N	LORE (“body of knowledge”) + N (“northern”)
25d	POE | TS	POE (Edgar Allen, bard) + TS (Eliot, bard)
26d	O MIT	O (beginning of an “address to”) + MIT (“Cambridge university”)