Solving time: 7:40
Talbinho’s computer has gone up in a puff of smoke, so you’ve got me as an instant sub, solving while Australia were going through at the hands of Ghana and their own defender, and writing this at half-time and while they started to fight back in the second half. If I thought all Sunday Times puzzles would be like this, I’d be doing the puzzle every week. I can’t see any mistakes (except for something trivial) or seriously dodgy clues, and learned a new or forgotten word at 14. 4 and 7 were written without full wordplay understanding.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BREAST-FED = (bereft, sad)* – saw the ‘-fed’ part immediately and completed the rest from a quick look at crossing downs. Should have seen the whole thing immediately, especially as “bottle-fed” flashed through my brain |
| 6 | (g)AMBIT |
| 9 | CO.,HOE – the cohoe is a North Pacific salmon, and Plymouth Hoe was where Drake played his bowls |
| 10 | RESISTANT = (treats sin)* – ‘casually’ seems maybe not an ideal anagram indicator, but that’s my only wordplay quibble |
| 11 | PLAYS WITH FIRE – 2 defs |
| 14 | CUM=accompanied by,SHAW – a cumshaw is a gift or tip, which Chambers says comes from Chinese ganxiè = grateful thanks (Mandarin or a similar dialect presumably – I remember xie-xie = thankyou from tourist Mandarin) |
| 15 | RE(IN)SIN |
| 17 | ELS=golfer,TREE=’obstacle on course?’ – nicely deceptive as I was looking for something like ???TRAP |
| 19 | YOG(a),HURT (noun)=pain |
| 21 | NO OIL PAINTING – 2 defs |
| 24 | LI(BERATE=lambaste)D |
| 26 | EVICT – hidden in ‘the victor’ |
| 27 | (f)RIGID |
| 28 | CURT,S=son,EYED – I liked the [disrespectful son / respectful daughter] combo |
| Down | |
| 1 | BACK(PACK)ER – I liked “bypassing” as the containment indicator |
| 2 | EPHRAIM – I in (hamper)* – I recognised the name as biblical, but would have guessed it was a person rather than a race |
| 3 | STEMS – 2 defs |
| 4 | F(ERR,ISWH=wish*)EEL – the online version showed the enumeration as ‘(6.5)’, which I’ll guess was just down to a minor error in retyping |
| 5 | DIS = treat with disrespect – reversal of Sid |
| 6 | AS=when,SAILING=on the high seas |
| 7 | BRA(L,E)SS – L and E from sorrowfuL peoplE |
| 8 | (Desmond) TUTU – TU = Trade Union, twice over |
| 12 | HARRY=trouble (vb.),LAUD=praise,E.R. |
| 13 | IN,ST.,1,GATED |
| 15 | H(ARBOUR)E’D |
| 18 | S,’ANDBAG – if a bag of sand is small, it can be a cosh rather than a defence against flooding |
| 20 | (f)UTILITY |
| 22 | N.E.,ED’S |
| 23 | BLUR(b) – ‘obscure’ being a verb in the cryptic reading |
| 25 | TIC = (muscular) jerk = “tick” |
Well, Kewell’s not a defender’s bootlace. And if that was a handball … I’m Ximenes. Not to defend him but. What else goes: Liverpool —> Leeds —> Galatasaray —> Nowhere? Here in Australia, there are very few 12dns at the moment.
I queried 2D: surely the biblical people would be EPHRAIMITES!? Or is there some other Ephraim?
10A: I cannot find in any dictionary a link between HOSTILE and RESISTANT. This is stretching things to the limit.
14A: not in my standard dictionary – but, yes, found it in the OED; otherwise never seen or heard this word used in 60+ years
21A: Watercolour? OIL PAINTING???
2D: Plural concept – singular answer
5D: DIS; urban slang; not in my dictionary (CHambers)
10A: HOSTILE: Oxford Dictionary of English (the first place I looked, honest) has “showing or feeling oppostion or dislike”. For me “showing opposition” is plenty close enough to “resistant”
14A: it’s not in dictionaries like ODE but it’s in Chambers and as far as I can remember, the wordplay was fairly straightforward. Inventing words that you haven’t seen before is part of the game – I can find words I don’t know in much smaller dictionaries than Chambers.
21A: The clue is “Unattractive person’s watercolour? (2,3,8)”, which I described above as “2 defs”, assuming people would be able to work out for themselves that this meant that both “watercolour” and “unattractive person” match NO OIL PAINTING. If I thought that “watercolour” was supposed to match OIL PAINTING, rest assured that I would have complained too.
2D: If you do the research, it turns out that Ephraim is the name of a Biblical tribe as well as a person (like Reuben, Benjamin and various others), and therefore matches the clue’s “Biblical people”. I guess I should have stated this more explicitly in my explanation.
5D: It’s in the 2006 and 2008 editions of Chambers. It’s also in the current Concise Oxford. If you use old copies of dictionaries, you can’t really complain about them not having the latest slang.