27526 Thursday, 5 December 2019 Play up, play up, and play the game

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

A pleasant ramble over 18 minutesand some, for once spotting the typo before submitting. I promise you 9ac is in the dictionary, though you may never have the need to use it. 17 reminded me of a rather rude (weren’t they all?) rag mag joke which involved more hardware. Should you wish to know, I’ll send it to you in an electronic brown envelope, if I can find one.
We have two “ups” in the grid, but aside from that, some likeable, grin-generating clues, my favourites being the fashion victim in 7ac,and the alternative definition at 15d.
Now if the puzzles on Saturday are all like this, we’ll have a fine run and, no doubt, some teeny-tiny-times. All the best.
You will find (here) clues, definitionsand SOLUTIONS

Across
1 Still agog(10)
“There’s a BREATHLESS hush in the close tonight
Ten to makeand the match to win”
Henry Newbolt’s Kiplingesque poem embodies both meanings of this double definition
7 Entering room in knickers, fashion victim? (4)
MINK A cute definition, its slaughteredand skinned owner buried in a rooM IN Knickers, poor thing
9 Dull, see, their plays (8)
ETHERISE the letter content of SEE THEIR “plays”. It’s an anagram.
10 Determinedinnings over then? (3-3)
ALL-OUT A double definition of sorts, though the second, (“each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out,and when he’s out he comes inand the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out…”) would not be hyphenated
11 Offensive,a course inspiring thuggery primarily (6)
ATTACK A plus TACK for course, with the first letter of Thuggery inspired or drawn in
13 Island: old man therein crossing river, doing the backstroke? (8)
TRINIDAD Kind of the setter to separate the definition from the rest of the clue with a colon. The old man is DAD, there in provides IN IT, those letters cross R(iver). Tack them together,and use “doing the backstroke” as a reversal indicator
14 Hardand windblown Hindu Kush, say, where shots fired repeatedly? (7,5)
DRIVING RANGE  Perhaps the setter was influenced by the similarity in sound of the whole answer to “driving rain” so that “hardand windblown”  mutates readily to DRIVING. I never really thought about it before, but the Hindu Kush, Persian for Hindu frontier is indeed the range of mountains to the west of the Himalayas extending into Afghanistan. RANGE, anyway. A driving range is a practice place where golfers whack balls as far as possible without the thrill of getting them into the hole.
17 What one making a mad dash is,and does? Basic stuff(4,3,5)
NUTS AND BOLTS I needed all the checkers for this, but it’s easy really. One making a mad dash is NUTSand what he does is BOLTS
20 Flies disturbed sleep after turning over for quick stretch? (8)
LIFESPAN An anagram (disturbed) of FLIES plus NAP for sleep “turning over”. For those of you wondering why it’s a quick stretch, may I refer you to the Book of Common Prayer “he shall come to judge the quickand the dead” where quick just means living,
21 Iron Lady,it’s felt (6)
FEDORA Well, it’s made of felt. The iron is FE,and the lady DORA
22 Carefully considerresult of enlargement? (4,2)
SIZE UP The result of enlargement is that the size of your photo goes up.
23 Duck, parrotand budgie, perhaps, back on team (8)
SIDE STEP A parrotand a budgie might both be PETS,and they are back(wards) tacked on to SIDE for team. If you wish to debate whether a side step, horizontal motion, is the same as a duck, vertical motion, please do.
25 Gathering speed at sea, perhaps? (4)
KNOT As in a small gathering of people. A double definition here,, the second “one nautical mile per hour”.
26 Value again up following overhaul of paper(10)
REAPPRAISE Overhaul is your anagram indicator to play with the letters of PAPER, sticking RAISE for up (verb) on the end

Down

2 Turningcorrupt, a politician (8)
ROTATORY A clue that would have delighted Nye Bevan*, with its alternative rendering as ROT A TORY (corrupt: ROT, A, politician: TORY)
3 Certainlyorgan may be heard(3)
AYE sounds like EYE, certainly
4 Lift first of immaculate white shrouds (5)
HOICK The first letter of Immaculate “shrouded” in HOCK white  (wine from the Rhine region)
5 Leader in equestrianism, victory key for competitive horse(7)
EVENTER (As seen, now you know, at Badminton) The first letter of Equestrianism, plus V(ictory) plus the ENTER key bottom right on most keyboards
6 Aid sent to poor is posted(9)
STATIONED An anagram (poor) of AID SENT TO
7 Philosopher I support for a very short time(11)
MILLISECOND A simple charade of philosopher John Stuart MILL, I, support: SECOND
8 Sweet, posh, with label attached round about (6)
NOUGAT I put this in, then erased it before finally seeing the wordplay It’s label: TAG plus attached: ON round posh: U (Mitfords as ever)and all of that lot “about” reversed
12 Vehicle covered by bill sticker — that’s promotion!(11)
ADVANCEMENT  The vehicle is a  VAN, the bill an AD, the sticker CEMENT. Arrange until happy.
15 Score, might you say, that’s written on(9)
NOTEPAPER A bit of Uxbridge English Dictionary here,and welcome as ever. A musical score is clearly note paper.
16 Kingand queen to stop celebs revealing all (8)
STARKERS Celebrities are  stars, King K, queen our own. Assemble appropriately
18 Always forgetting where Lebanon is, assuming Norway initially in Middle East(7)
AMNESIA I would have preferred amnesiac to match the definition, but no matter. Lebanon is in ASIA. Place N(orway) inside M(idle) E(east)and inside ASIA
1 9 Is man one, evolved? (6)
SIMIAN A pretty little &lit. Evolved suggests anagram, here of IS MAN I (one)
21 Given worms while in nest, possibly — had enough? (3,2)
FED UP “Possibly” acknowledges that some nests are not up anything, but ours is.
24 Audibly mark offbeat music(3)
SKA … is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. Mark is a synonym for scar, which to us non-rhotics sounds like our answer
* “No amount of cajolery,and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.” Aneurin Bevan, architect of the NHS, 1948

66 comments on “27526 Thursday, 5 December 2019 Play up, play up, and play the game”

  2. I think you mean DAD not POP at 13A!

    I totally couldn’t see SIZE UP and after an alphabet crawl I put LINE UP pretty sure it was wrong. So DNF.

  3. Lovely blog – thanks, Z.

    I was clearly on the wavelength for this and glad the setter has ignored Ulaca’s request for more Anglocentric clues. I don’t think I can see any in this crossword, which is to be lauded!

    I liked the “quick stretch” definition and the quirky 17a (even without speculation on what might be contained in Z’s electronic brown envelope).

    Edited at 2019-12-05 03:06 am (UTC)

  4. I had to go to the Times site to do this, as Firefox warned me not to go to the club site. Hasn’t this happened before?
    Anyway, FOI MINK, POI ATTACK, LOI HOICK (DNK). I thought of HOIST seriously enough to remove ATTACK for a while, until I finally thought of HOCK. ‘Dull’ had me puzzled for a bit, but I remembered T.S. Eliot’s notorious ‘like a patient etherised upon a table’.
  5. 28 minutes, Thought the answer at 18dn should have been AMNESIC rather than AMNESIA or ‘amnesiac’ as suggested in the blog.

    I wondered for a moment what Nye Bevan had to do with SKA until I spotted the tiny asterisk referring back!

    EVENTER was handy after yesterday and KNOT for ‘gathering’ after recent discussions, possibly re a QC.

    1. I took “forgetting” to be a noun (a gerund) and so thought the clue was fine, even quite clever.
  6. Finished in about 70 mins accounting for breakfast and work interruptions.

    However I had a silly simion for 19d even though it was an anagram.

    Enjoyed advancement, sidestep, and
    Cod mink.

    Edited at 2019-12-05 05:52 am (UTC)

  7. Nice and straightforward today finishing with my COD, MINK. I like the definition though I feel we might have seen similar before.

    With Kevin referencing TS Eliot’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock today and keriothe having mentioned The Wasteland yesterday it’s like A Level English has come back to haunt me!

  8. I think someone should report our setter to the authorities for the injunction contained in Row 5!
  9. 31 minutes, not flowing quite as freely as yesterday’s, but certainly not getting stuck anywhere for too long. FOI 7a MINK LOI 22a SIZE UP. ADVANCEMENT through the DRIVING RANGE took me a while. I’ve only been on one once, and I think I was about 12 at the time.

    I just tried the club site in Firefox and had no problems, but I don’t know if that means it’s fixed or if I just got lucky…

  10. I bunged in DUMBSTRUCK at 1ac and that took a lot of unravelling. Good and fun crossword.
  11. 25 mins.
    So pleased to see others thinking of Eliot this morning.
    Mostly I liked Nuts and Bolts.
    Thanks setter and great blog Z.
  12. 8:42 … and biffed to within an inch of its life, though I did have time to think of Prufrock, who these days would presumably have to measure out his life in wooden stirrers at Starbucks.

    I went to a driving range once. As far as I could see, everyone was trying to hit the man in the little caged cart who was zipping around hoovering up the balls. There are worse outlets for existential rage, I suppose.

    Thanks z8 for the ever entertaining rummage through the stuff of life as occasioned by a puzzle.

    COD to the pithy and thoughtful SIMIAN

      1. Thanks, Olivia. Nice to know I’ve still got it, even if by tomorrow I’ll have forgotten where I put it 🙂
  13. You’ve all beaten me to J Alfred Prufrock’s love song, and to Henry Newbolt’s Play Up! Play Up! and play the game! 32 minutes with LOI HOICK. I was also going to do a riff on the quick and the dead, but that space has been filled too. I’m still making LIFESPAN COD. So, farewell to Robert George Dylan Willis, a genuinely good guy. I don’t think he’d have been that impressed on The Verdict about SIDESTEPping a bouncer though. Wasn’t it Daniel Finkelstein earlier this week in The Times who noted how appalled Clem Attlee and Ernest Bevin were at Nye Bevan’s vermin comparison? Another good puzzle. Thank you Z and setter.

    Edited at 2019-12-05 09:21 am (UTC)

    1. There is a percepton that Nye’s vermin speech lost the Labour movement 2 million votes, perhaps because it was not sufficiently polite or deferential enough to
      the natural order of things. Bur it clearly came out of heart, experience and conviction and remains a beautifully crafted insult. Today’s social media stoked confrontations seem crude and depressing by comparison.

  15. Am sorry to say that this was in my mind too z.

    Plus EVENTER after recent discussion.

    And I remembered that Tony Blair has SIMIAN hands.

    And that the colonel’s jammed and the Gatling’s dead.

    And restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.

    These helped immensely in my 18’42”.

    Thanks z and setter

    Let us go then, you and I….

  16. Another one who couldn’t access the club site and had to get the puzzle via the paper

    Enjoyable top to bottom solve without ever being over taxing

  17. Yes, Firefox blocked me too but I did a Vinyl and overrode. Not only do we have two “ups” as Z points out, we also have two “feds”. Before it became a personal finance tool “quicken” was what the baby in your stomach did between 4 and 5 months – though as we now know the little mite has been there all along. Since we are waxing poetic this morning I’ll mention that Newbolt wrote a poem to my maternal grandmother – no it’s not “Captain art thou sleeping there below”. 16.17
  18. ….I thought a SIZE UP is what I probably need before I can fasten a pair of trousers again. My MOT at the quack’s is due just before Christmas, and I’m expecting serious aggro after losing 14 pounds twelve months ago, but then putting 16 pounds on over the intervening period. I have my excuses ready, but a tin hat might be a wise purchase.

    It’s too much to hope for a set of puzzles like this one on Saturday, the parsing of AMNESIA post-solve being my only problem.

    FOI MINK (fur enough)
    LOI SIDESTEP (a synonym with duck if it’s an issue)
    COD FEDORA (raised a smile)
    TIME 9:38

  19. Damn! Very pleased to complete in 19 minutes only to discover 20 across was lifespan not timespan ( mites anyone?)

    Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

  20. This went quickly for me – about 40 minutes over coffee (plus some chit chat) as I’m a houseguest for a few days. About the only trouble was with Hoick, which I didn’t know and, like others, I paused over hock for white before I wrote it in.

    Looking forward to seeing the gang on Saturday

    1. From Google “Is Lebanon in Africa or Asia?
      The Middle Eastern country of Lebanon is located in the western portion of the continent of Asia. Officially known as the Lebanese Republic, this sovereign state is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, Syria, Cyprus, and Israel”.
      From Wiki: Lebanon officially known as the Lebanese Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية اللبنانية‎, romanized: al-Jumhūrīyah al-Lubnānīyah, Lebanese Arabic pronunciation: [elˈʒʊmhuːɾɪjje lˈlɪbnɛːnɪjje]; French: République libanaise), is a country in Western Asia.
      1. I have the internet and know how to use it.

        Olives and pumpkins are fruits, but nobody anywhere calls them that or puts them in the fruit dish with the grapes and apples. It’s silly sophistry, and in this case was a pointless step too far by setter IMO.

  22. I found most of this puzzle of average difficulty but really struggled with the NW corner. BREATHLESS eventually got me going, and ROTATORY gave me ATTACK, which put paid to HOIST as the proper White finally surfaced as my LOI. I also entered AMNESIAC from definition until I was forced to REAPPRAISE by the wordplay and 26a. Nice puzzle, but a sluggish 41:53. Thanks setter and Z for the usual entertaining blog. I was another screws and washer.
  23. I did this on my iPad at the dentist’s waiting room and finished in 42 mins, but came a cropper as I had SPEECHLESS at 1ac and never got over it, making 2dn PUTATORY! – I was in pain!!

    I also failed at 20ac with TIME and LIFE being synonymous and ignoring the flies! – a lot of pain !!

    FOI 6ac MINK

    LOI 19 dn SIMIAN

    COD 12dn ADVANCEMENT

    WOD 21ac FEDORA (Malcolm Allison!)

    I was shocked to read Bob Willis’s obit. in The Times today.

    1. SPEECHLESS is, indeed, a perfectly valid answer to the clue “Still agog (10)”. I think that the clue is poor. It is a double definition utilizing two words which share a lot of semantic overlap.
  24. Asia Minor, innit. 40 mins, but not rushing. Driving = hard – yes: driving rain = hard rain. But windblown? No. Unless I’m missing something…
    Thanks z.
    1. Chambers:
      adjective (of rain, etc) heavy and windblown.

      Regardless of the dictionary support, to me driving rain suggests more or less horizontal. If you can suggest another way of making this happen other than through the wonder of wind I’m all ears 🙂

      1. Hi p, no, I’m sure you’re right. I think it’s just a ‘feel’ thing with me, which is probably susceptible to being disproven by hard facts. I kind of connote driving with an action and windblown with a state (‘you’re looking windblown after that long walk’). Also, windblown suggests a dry state to me. Like the cover of Wind & Wuthering :))
    2. Well maybe, but driving rain has to be driven by something, and it’s rarely a Perkins diesel or a nicad battery. In my experience, wind has a lot to do with it, and its normal m.o. is blowing.
  25. 8:07 so a timely confidence boost / into-a-false-sense-of-security-luller ahead of Saturday. This is the last puzzle I think I’ll be able to solve beforehand.
  26. A gentle 8m 02s today, with only considerations of DUMBSTRUCK at 1a causing much delay, although I was also slower than I should have been to get the chestnut at 2d, expecting an anagram of CORRUPT A.
  27. 5:47. Either a well-timed burst of form or peaking too early. I liked ‘quick stretch’ and ‘fashion victim’ a lot.
  28. 12:43… but I wont be lulled ahead of Saturday either. I liked ADVANCEMENT, STARKERS and the fasion victim. Thanks Z and setter.
  29. Took ages to get going, so thought this must a tough one ahead of the Championship. Then all of a sudden I’d finished it! For some reason I didn’t understand TRINIDAD till I got here, and my last one was ALL BUT until I realised my error. Like your definition of a driving range, I am a golfer, but I’d rather go STARKERS than play on one.
  30. Having taken 40 minutes for this one, I’m relieved not to be competing in the championship! Not sure why I was so slow on this, since nothing seems too difficult in retrospect. BREATHLESS, ROTATORY and ETHERISE were my LOsI, and DRIVING RANGE was another late entry.
  31. A shade more with it today. It was raining so didn’t venture out for a lunchtime trudge around Glasgow, so attempted the grid to the sounds of a grating American. Lovely guy but a voice which rots the little grey cells.

    Six left with 35 on the clock – no breakthrough until I returned to it over dinner and saw SIZE UP and then ADVANCEMENT almost immediately. All done shortly after. Funny how the brain works….

    Edited at 2019-12-05 06:22 pm (UTC)

  32. Never felt on the wavelength, so as an counterbalance to others above, I certainly don’t feel as if I’m in some good form ahead of Finals Day. There again, I could just as easily tell myself that I’m getting a bad one out of the way in practice. Difficult stuff, this psychology.
  33. Feeling very dim – indeed sedated – as have been in hospital for tests today, so barely started let alone finished. But I had to pop in to say that I was highly entertained to see our competitive horses back so soon! At least that one jumped out at me 😊 Hope to be back in the saddle tomorrow.
  34. Good to see the alma mater getting a mention in the blog – for which thanks. Read biog of Newbolt recently. Humble origins in Walsall, half Jewish. Did this in 15’46” inlcuding three minutes getting granola out of oven and minding baby. So must have been on wavelength.
  35. 26:54 which feels positively pedestrian in retrospect. COD to the fashion victim in 7dn.
  36. Not happy about the word ‘offbeat’. The offbeat is the second and fourth beat in a 4 crotchet bar, and occurs everywhere in modern music; Ska is different – the relevant accents are played BETWEEN the beats on the 2nd,4th,6th & 8th QUAVERS of the bar. Check out on YouTube The Specials recording of ‘Gangsters’. The drummer is playing the offbeat, but the other instruments are playing the BETWEEN beat figures as described above. Wikipedia wrongly describes Ska as ‘characterised by…rhythms on the offbeat’. Perhaps that’s why the setter used the wrong word in his/her clue. Can anybody think of a clue to ‘Ska’ that doesn’t include this howler? Maybe it would have been better if the solution had been ‘spa’ -it wouldn’t have affected anything else.

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