Times 25524 – Game, Set & Championship

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
First, a follow-up on my last blog headline … Congratulaions, Andy Murray.
Today, there’s yet another good Times puzzle, complete with all manner of devices. Sorry, I am a bit tardy with this blog as I got diverted to watch Rolf Harris on youtube and then caught Eric Morecambe’s version; followed by some more of the twosome’s hilarious performances.

ACROSS

1 THUMBS UP THUMB (to turn the pages of a book rapidly with the thumb) + SUP (drink)
9 LLANELLI L (large) LANE (section of motorway) LLI (rev of ILL, in need of hospital) for a town in Wales
10 BRANDO BRAND (line of goods, say) O (old) for the Marlon Godfather who made an offer you cannot refuse
11 PETERSHAMS Ins of T in PEER (member of aristocracy) + SHAMS (things put on) for a heavy greatcoat designed by Lord Petersham (1790-1851), an English army officer
12 LIAR Rev of RAIL (bar)
13 RIOT POLICE *(TO OIL PRICE)
16 FERVOUR Ins of E (English) + RV (Revised Version of the Bible) in FOUR (cardinal number)
17 WIND-BAG WIND (turn) BAG (secure)
20 BLIND DRUNK What a graphic cd
22 KNOT Rev of TONK (strike hard like with a cricket bat)
23 AT THE READY Ins of THERE (present) in A TAD (slightly) + Y (last letter of nervy)
25 APLOMB AP (rev of PA, dad) + ins of M (maiden) in LOB (loft) which reminds me of when the great Tiger Woods played at a golf tournament in Kuala Lumpur and a rich tycoon bid successfully for the right to partner him at the Pro-Am. After the game, Mr Richie asked his Club Pro to interprete Tiger’s advice on his golf game “He said ‘Your problem is LOFT’. Does this mean that I should angle my shots at a steeper incline, or what?” “No, replied the Club Pro “he is telling you Lack Of F***ing Talent”
26 CAROLLER CA (circa, roughly, about) ROLLER (flattening instrument)
27 ADHERENT Ins of HER (that woman) in A DENT (depression)

DOWN

2 HORNPIPE Ins of RN (Royal Navy, sailors) in HOP (dance) I (one) PE (exercising) for a lively dance, usually by one person, traditionally popular amongst sailors. A rare &lit
3 MENU-DRIVEN Ins of V (very) in *(UNDERMINE)
4 SHOP AROUND SHOP (betray, peach) A ROUND (slice of toast)
5 PLATOON Ins of TOO (also) in PLAN (design)
6 HAIR Allusion to “Keep your hair on”  meaning “Stay cool”
7 ph value greater than 7 – ha deliberately omitted
8 GINSBERG *(BG SINGER) Irwin Allen Ginsberg (1926 – 1997) was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s
14 PRICKLY ASH Ins of RICK (haystack) in PLY (regularly go) + AS (when) H (hard)
15 LADY-KILLER cd? Apparently not. This &lit was so well written that I did not see the wordplay while listening to Rolf Harris’s Two Little Boys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdbVogOKjUw) until prompted by Anonymous@2. LAD (fellow) + *(LIKELY) + nuRse (heart of …)
16 FOB-WATCH Ins of OB (obituary, he died) in F (following) + WATCH (guard) for a watch attached to a waistcoat by a chain. What a lovely definition one with hands chained – for that, my COD
18 AS ONE MAN A SON (young man) + EMAN (rev of NAME, established star)
19 SUMATRA Rev of ART (craft) + AMUSE (divert) minus E
21 IN TURN Sounds like INTERN (imprison, shut up)
24 ROLF FLOOR (stump) minus O for Harris, the talented Australian singer who gave the world Jake The Peg. Have a watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OfE7NBviTc , simply cockles warming
++++++++++++++
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram
yfyap88 at gmail.com = in case anyone wants to contact me in private about some typo

23 comments on “Times 25524 – Game, Set & Championship”

  1. 68 minutes for a very nice puzzle, where it took me nearly ten minutes to get going. THERE for present (rather than the rather more common ‘here’) was a clever exploitation of the deictic nature of such words. PETERSHAM and PEACH for ‘inform’ today’s unknowns.

    I found 16a rather contrived – my favourite was APLOMB, closely followed by HAIR and KNOT.

    Having seen Rolf Harris’s portrait of the Queen, I would say stick to singing – if I hadn’t heard his singing first.

    Edited at 2013-07-11 03:33 am (UTC)

  2. Ran into difficulties early on and fell asleep whilst solving overnight. Came back to it this morning with less than half done and it still took me an hour to complete the grid, with most of the time spent being stuck completely with five answers outstanding in the SE corner. TONK was unknown to me so with no checkers in place I was never going to get 22ac. 18dn was hampered by the feebleness of having MAN in both clue and solution. And for the record, WINDBAG is not hyphenated.
    1. No problem for cricket fans, as ‘tonk’ is a common expression for someone who likes to give the ball a fair old tap, often in an ‘agricultural’ manner. I note from Google that former Essex captain, Brian ‘Tonker’ Taylor, is still going strong.

      Incidentally, I beg to differ with you on 18d. I thought it was a fine clue – revivifying a nice expression that has fallen foul of the PC hygienists – the repetition of ‘man’ constituting a cunning bit of misdirection in a clue which proved harder than expected not least because you were looking for ‘all’, ‘the’ or ‘and’ as the second word. Not that I noticed the repetition at the time!

      Edited at 2013-07-11 07:08 am (UTC)

      1. I thought the repetition of MAN was feeble but otherwise the clue was okay. Of course if the repetition was actually intended to deceive then I can only say it succeeded in my case so perhaps it’s not so feeble after all.

        Edited at 2013-07-11 07:32 am (UTC)

  3. Tough on-line at 33.52, with everything requiring very close attention. Came within a whisker of looking up L?A??L?I as some sort of unknown subcontinental town (Rawlpindi wouldn’t quite go away even if it only matched the end). I’m told my attempts at Welsh and Indian accents sound much the same – maybe that accounts for it.
    Had several goes at both 23 and 18, as the literals raise many possibilities. I don’t think I really noticed the repeat of “man”.
    The hyphenation for WIND-BAG was not an off-put for me on the grounds that it might just as well be. Sources tell me that the hyphen is used when describing the air-sac used by some birds for display or sounding. Part of bagpipes?
    Rolf Harris is one of those unfortunate 60’s-onwards stars whose name has been tainted by Jimmy Saville- like allegations, which is a great shame whether or not he deserves it, as such mud currently sticks. If you can ignore that, try his Stairway to Heaven to truly understand his extraordinary appeal.

    Edited at 2013-07-11 08:31 am (UTC)

    1. I had no idea Rolf Harris was implicated in the Yewtree shenanigans. According to the Mirror, detectives have flown to Oz to interview two women about alleged sexual abuse. At least it’s not two little boys…
      1. Yewtree has apparently declared “open season” on any iconic figure from the period, so long as someone can be found who remembers being groped by them or, of course, worse. Let’s hope it all dies down before they go after Uncle Mac “Goodnight children, everywhere”.*

        *research suggests that hope is forlorn, even though he died in 1967.

  4. 26 mins mid-morning but a technical DNF because I needed to check my Chambers to get PETERSHAMS. I blanked on the name of the overcoat even though I had come across it before, and I thought __A_S with a clue as loose as “things put on” was a tad unfair.

    It took me much too long to see FOB WATCH once I had the “f” and “b” checkers.

  5. I thought that I had completed within my hoped for half an hour, but was disappointed when I checked and found that I had taken 33m 05s – an almost identical time to z8b8d8k. It makes me feel better that some very good solvers have taken some time over the puzzle, as I feel that I am not as far ‘off the pace’ as I thought.
    Thanks to Uncle Yap: I believe that we are ‘of an age’, and I also went to Newcastle Uni, but as a geriatric, completing my degree at the age of 60 in 2006.
    1. I think I’ve been complimented! Cheers!
      A Mohs scale based on my times would make this about an 8, where 1 is under 10 minutes, 4 is standard at about 18 minutes, 9 is “had to look things up” and 10 is DNF even with aids. My times seem to approximate to 3 Magoos
      1. Which would also be about 3 Jasons, on current form, or 3 crypticsues for that matter. I think it important to cross-post to Tony’s Neutrino-free leader board for last week, for 2 reasons:
        1) I’m on it
        2) Jason out-Magooed Magoo

        Link to Tony’s Leader Board

        Edited at 2013-07-11 12:15 pm (UTC)

    2. So you must be 67, which I became yesterday. I wish you can tell me your name ; it’s so hard saying, “Hello, Anonymous, did you use the paternoster at Claremont Tower?” 🙂
  6. 23m. I liked this puzzle: there were lots of instances where on first glance I had no idea how the clue worked, and consequently lots of penny-dropping moments when I figured it out. And two very good &lits.
    PRICKLY ASH and PETERSHAMS were today’s unknowns. I have some sympathy with Andy B: I agree that “things put on” is a bit loose in the context of a rather obscure word. By sheer luck I hit on the right answer though, which of course means the clue is entirely fair.
    MENU-DRIVEN is not a very nice term. It somehow smacks of the kind of management guff I have been excessively subjected to this week.
  7. 10.38 with ROLF the last to fall. Even though I hadn’t heard of PETERSHAMS or indeed the PRICKLY ASH, the wordplay was helpfully clear.
  8. This morning my machine’s been occasionally deciding to ignore me, not responding to keyboard or mouse, for minutes at a time, though the timer keeps secretly ticking on. Hence time is a bit overestimated, though not by much, as I could still think about clues while waiting for it to wake up.
    SE corner was hardest: I didn’t see wordplay at 15, was trying to make something of ATTIC at 25, and NEM CON at 18, I did wonder about KNOB as a possible for 22, but this isn’t Cyclops!
  9. 23:22 .. I found this tricky, especially in trying to get an initial foothold. I had never really thought of ‘thumb’ in this sense being an essentially quick motion but I suppose it is.

    COD … LADY-Killer

  10. 14 minutes with a lot of that agonizing in the top right corner. Despite being a fan, 24 had to be just the generic boys name ROLF as Mr Harris is not able to be in the grid
  11. Too hard for me today. Eight missing: Petershams plus a lot in the SW corner. I liked Lady-Killer and Blind Drunk in particular. Thank you setter, and Uncle Yap for your entertaining blog (especially the Tiger Woods tale).

    Edited at 2013-07-11 03:07 pm (UTC)

  12. I think it’s used mainly about computers – giving the user a choice of drop-down menus at various stages.
  13. My apologies Uncle Yap. You are quite right, I hit 67 years of age in early June, and my name is George Clements, which I usually give when I submit comments but failed to do on this occasion.
  14. 13:20 for me, starting slowly (as usual), then picking up a little speed, but hitting a wall about three-quarters of the way through. Like others I made heavy weather of ROLF, but I took even longer over KNOT, worried that KNOB might turn out to be a better answer.

    A small, but important, point: in 9ac, ILL = “in need of hospital – perhaps”.

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