Times 28,019: Cricket and Football and Golf, Oh My!

60 comments on “Times 28,019: Cricket and Football and Golf, Oh My!”

1. Like Jack, I was slightly bemused by the plural RUM BABAS. Similarly, BUMS RUSH looked slightly odd to me, only having seen BUM RUSH before.

   I put in KEYSTONE COPS merely on the basis that it fitted, admittedly a risky business, except when the letters are that obvious. It made me think that we are missing terminology for such an action. Any ideas?

   Edited at 2021-07-02 07:35 am (UTC)

   1. Bibe — Bunged In By Eye?

      Edited at 2021-07-02 11:28 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks David. I’ll use it next time and see if it catches on!
   2. When I solve a clue like that I always think of it as the Codewords method, as in the Telegraph puzzle.
2. It was only when I’d worked out the anagram that I realized that it was that Oscar, and not the Hollywood one; great clue. But there were lots of them: I liked ACQUIT, BUMS RUSH, AFRESH, HANGER-ON, inter alia. DNK ASA, LONG HOP (and a MER at long=crave), FREE DROP. Assumed that Wapping was in Cockney territory. Biffed CRY OFF and only later remembered Cruyff. I thought COPS was an error for KOPS, which is how I knew them, but K was unpromising.
3. A worthy Friday puzzle.

   Loved LONG HOP — nowadays in white-ball cricket it’s known as a slower-ball bouncer.

   As noted, ARCHDIOCESE was brilliant.

   Thanks Verlaine and setter.

4. Ladies and Gentlemen, I would now like to see his Lordship down a yard of ale and then perform the Friday 15×15 in the pub of his choice. All proceeds to any children’s charity. I thank-you!

   This was a toughie. My time was off the scale and was completed in two sittings.

   FOI 1ac ACQUIT

   POI 5ac BUM’S RUSH – (BUM RUSH NHO!)

   LOI 5dn BE FOR IT – I did not parse the Wappin’ bit. My alts. were GO FOR IT, UP FOR IT and IN FOR IT.

   COD 4dn TOUCH TYPE – divine

   WOD 14ac KEYSTONE COPS – my biggest hold-up was when I biffed DRYSTONE WALL – my Darbyshire youth with Jennings! Doh!

   Lovely puzzle – I haven’t had 12ac for yonks! But I just had a delicious, warm durian pastry!

   Edited at 2021-07-02 08:27 am (UTC)

5. The Oscar Wilde reference in UNSPEAKABLE passed me by, I didn’t know what a BUMS RUSH is, and I didn’t figure out the ‘it’ in BE FOR IT. I would really have struggled to get KEYSTONE COPS without the K at the start, and I also misparsed ‘light show’ as ‘comet’ and was wondering where the D came from in COMEDOWN.

   A really enjoyable crossword nonetheless. Thanks Verlaine and setter.

   FOI Rev
   LOI Sweden
   COD Archdiocese

6. COPS are the policeforce. (BTW – this has nothing to do with the KEYSTONE PIPELINE)

   And it is THE BUM’S RUSH and not a bum’s rush!

   Edited at 2021-07-02 08:28 am (UTC)

7. 34 minutes. DNK LONG HOP or understand the ASA thing but these things didn’t delay me. Slightly puzzled by the plural at 12ac.
8. 12:10. I started very slowly on this — my first in was HANGER-ON — and thought we were in for a stinker but then the downs proved much more tractable and I sped up quite a lot.
   I was a bit discombobulated by the singular/plural mismatch in 12ac. It still doesn’t look right.
   Interestingly BUM’S RUSH isn’t in any of my usual dictionaries (Collins, Lexico, Chambers). It is in the full OED.
   Good puzzle to end a good week!
   1. I thought when I got it that it was an Americanism, since it’s presumably the American bum; but evidently not. ODE has ‘bum-rush’, which I’ve never heard of but which is marked ‘US’, and which has a different meaning. Longman Dict. of Contemporary English, which looks to me like a learner’s dictionary, has it sv ‘bum’. One of my E-J dictionaries is the only place I’ve found it as an entry, with the right definition.

      Edited at 2021-07-02 07:52 am (UTC)

      1. Yes all of the dictionaries I mentioned have ‘bum-rush’. One of the examples for BUM’S RUSH given in the OED is from PG Wodehouse!
   2. I agree about 12A. I don’t think it works. But otherwise a very good puzzle.
9. .. Enshaded in forgetfulness Divine

   30 mins pre-brekker. As others, bemused by the plural Babas.
   Mostly I liked Do-gooder. Great clue.
   Thanks setter and V.

10. Slow, like swimming through treacle. Unspeakable is brilliant, but completely wasted on me, couldn’t parse it. Archdiocese also brilliant. Great puzzle.
11. 33 minutes with LOI COMEDOWN. COD to UNSPEAKABLE, where I solved the anagram and then the penny dropped. BUM’S RUSH used to be said when a relationship ended, as in “Carol gave Bob the bum’s rush last night.” I spent some time parsing HANGER-ON as I wanted germ to be in there. Otherwise, no problems. Par for the course puzzle for me, with no need for a FREE DROP. Thank you V and setter.
12. 26:48. LOI SWEDEN, unparsed after a while failing to figure it out, and I failed to remember the quote to explain 3D. I loved DOUBLE GLAZED but COD to ARCHDIOCESE for the IOCESE. Thanks V and setter.
13. Slow to start but sped up after a flurry of inspirations.

    Didn’t get the Oscar reference, and didn’t bother to parse ARCHDIOCESE.

    NE took longest — was thinking UP FOR IT, GO FOR IT and didn’t see BE FOR IT for some time. Failed too to work out the Tanners anagram promptly — thinking coins and leather workers, not SUNLAMPS — doh!

    Edited at 2021-07-02 09:16 am (UTC)

14. Finished in about 34 minutes so a difficult but satisfying solve for me. Was happy to get everything correct but even after reading today’s blog, I can’t quite see how KEYSTONE COPS works. I got the answer from the crossers and from ‘silent force’ but after that I was stuck. Our blogger has accounted for e.g. alt being KEY and rock being STONE, so thank you for that. But how does that end of the clue also indicate COPS? Is the idea that ‘eg alt’ and ‘rock’ are ‘cops’ (i.e. indications)of the words KEY and STONE? Is that legit?
    1. The clue requires you to get KEYSTONE from wordplay and from that it follows that the silent (police) force of KEYSTONE are the KEYSTONE COPS. Seems rather clever to me, or at least unusual. Keystone was the name of the company that produced the films.

       Edited at 2021-07-02 08:30 am (UTC)

       1. To my mind, that means ‘force’ is doing double duty. ‘The silent force’ is the cryptic definition, so ‘force’ seems to be out of the equation for the rest of the clue, except in the case of and lits, which I don’t think this is.
          1. I don’t claim to be an expert defining types of clue (life’s too short!), but perhaps we’re in the realms of semi&lit?
15. 68:33 but with a typo, GO-GOODER, and a careless DEVINE at 10a. Hard work. Managed to parse it all though. Coconut-less again 🙁 Thanks setter and V.
16. 28.50 but saved by a couple of good guesses- or so they seemed. Comedown based on come being a short comet -well it worked out alright- and do gooder from the fact it didn’t seem likely it could be anything else.

    Very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and blogger though I’ll pass on your kind offer to watch you solve this crossword in slightly longer than a millisecond. I have enough feelings of inadequacy as it is!

    Have a good weekend everyone.

17. 28 mins
    Okay puzzle in the main, but an error in the clue at 12ac, which mars it.
    Thanks, v.
    1. Not an error actually; you could perfectly well have a sweet of more than one.
       Off putting maybe tho
       1. Therefore
          sweet = apple crumbles
          sweet = trifles

          Well, yes, in the sense that you could, if you were so inclined, eat more than one crumble or trifle as a singular dessert, but it’s a hell of a stretch. And I don’t think RBs are like profiteroles, where you get a few in one dessert. A RB is generally a single thing.

          1. Yes I agree with this. Profiteroles are a dessert; strawberries are a dessert, RUM-BABAS are desserts.
             1. Thanks, k 🙂
18. Spent an awful lot of time not connecting with the setter’s synapses on this one, and treacled along to 33.40.
    Let me give an example. I’m old enough to remember the Wapping dispute, in which the organ that supplies our beloved pastime was intimately involved. The strike was precisely not in favour of IT, so my guess of UP/IN/GO FOR IT and so forth made no sense. I haven’t yet decided whether to applaud the setter for a brilliant misdirection that had me by the short bits, or to supply a BUM’S RUSH just for being an UNSPEAKABLE b’stard.
    Then there was the coinage of IOCESE, which I weakly applauded once I worked out that my initial ARCHDEANERY had precious little going for it.
    HON for “ducks”? Really?
    I’m by no means convinced that the COPS are accounted for. Leave out the eg, and the clue is a very decent &lit, but the eg wrecks it.
    SWEDEN was my LOI, just not connecting bottom left with SW, despite constant similar uses in this parish.
    Los of brilliant stuff here, worthy of a Verlaine Friday, but it left me feeling obtuse and a bit sulky. Bravo and boo-hiss in pretty equal measures.
    1. Vaguely remember Rupert moving his organ from Fleet Street to the outer suburbs. Always thought Wapping was way out to the left near Wimbledon and Heathrow and Reading (which might or might not be to the left) etc. But Wikipedia tells me Wapping is in East London. Who could possibly know that?
       1. I’m glad it wasn’t just me thinking that (and I was living on the outskirts of London around the time all the striking happened!)
19. Enjoyed this and arrived home safely in 12:48 mins. I only vaguely remember Rum Babas – did not Wimpy Bars used to trade in them? More Baba than Rum! My COD was 25dn LONG HOP – ‘high over Long On for six!'(Homer!) As well as a bit of knitting, The Duke of Windsor used to play the UKE!
    1. Did Wimpy do a Rum Baba? All I remember is a Brown Derby (whatever that was!).
       1. Well I had one in a Wimpy when I was a kid. Anticipation was greater than experience. Thin syrup on a sponge donut with synthetic cream, marginally redeemed by a half glacé cherry on top. But we were happy…
20. Great video thanks V ..think the be for it is be for information technology…wapping is where the times became more computerised hence the job losses and strike , Tom M
21. Or maybe not on reflection ! Tom
22. No time recorded for this engaging and inventive Friday jobbie, which is disappointing as I think I was relatively fast. The Z, Y, V crossers and other letters from the scary end of the alphabet helped no end as things got underway. Around 20 mins or so.
23. Half of which was spent in the NE. annoyed not to get MADAM sooner, which would have greatly helped.. LOI BUMS RUSH which I’d vaguely heard of.
24. Really enjoyed that video, thanks for posting. Fascinating to see which clues went in immediately and which ones took a bit of time, particularly given the significant number where we were completely different – e.g. I puzzled over DOUBLE-GLAZED & ACQUIT for a while, but didn’t have trouble with MADAM & UKE. And for some reason I had SUNPALMS for a while. 7m 50s in total.

    I had forgotten that Johan Cruyff was no longer with us.

    Edited at 2021-07-02 11:48 am (UTC)

25. Most enjoyable. Quite daunting on the first pass through, but its bark was worse than its bite, and I worked steadily in an anticlockwise direction from the South East. Many excellent clues, but ARCHDIOCESE TOUCH TYPE and SUNLAMP were the pick for me.

    Enjoyed the video V – perhaps wear your top hat next time?

    Thanks to Verlaine and the setter

26. I certainly thought it was an Americanism – from when a wino or other undesirable was ejected from a saloon. There must have been a number of such scenes in the Keystone Kops (yes Kevin) era of movies. From the antics of that squad you might conclude that in those days blue lives didn’t matter. I concur with preceding comments on the plural puddings – they had me confused. A halting 26.54.
27. Pleasingly on the right wavelength today, although I didn’t completely parse everything. E.g. thinking REV might have been a previously unknown shortening of “revolver”. Plus not quite seeing how the IT of BE FOR IT worked. Held up a bit by COMEDOWN but not significantly. Some lovely clues and sneaky definitions.
28. Very nice stuff, requiring me to do some proper thinking on a Friday, which is as it should be.
29. What fun. I had a few I couldn’t parse (for example, I’m another who thought COMEDOWN was a short COMEt and then the rest of the wordplay something something). I’d forgotten who the ASA are but I guessed it had something to do with advertising to make ADJUST work. Also a little confused by the plural BABAS but the wordplay was clear enough so it didn’t delay. I got KEYSTONE COPS from the definition and never quite saw how the rest of the clue worked (except that there was rock=STONE which was enough for me).
30. 21.33. I found it hard to get started on this one but once I got going I felt I was making a pretty decent fist of a tough puzzle. Couldn’t help feeling that the setter deserved a much brighter solver than me. The Oscar Wilde quote was over my head, as was IOC-ese. Once I had the nuts of those clues, I didn’t need the bolts to finish them off so they didn’t receive quite the appreciation they maybe deserved. Also handily too dim to pick up on the sweet = rum babas discrepancy while solving.
31. So just under the half hour. Lost a few minutes because I initially put in Nazareans for some reason. Also Kryptonite distracted me at 14 across. I saw the ‘see’ early enough but got fixated on the names of bishoprics. Lovely crossword. Re Eden, I discovered only this week — thanks to the delightful Times 100 years ago column — that his widow is still with us! Aged 105 or something, the Countess of Avon is the daughter of Winston Churchill’s brother Jack. Churchill’s mother — the irrepressible Jennie — died after a fall exactly 100 years ago, which was why it all came up.
32. ….I made matters far worse here before giving up after 20 minutes. If I hadn’t put those inept officers down as Kops I might have helped my chances, but 13D was thus impossible. It didn’t help that I biffed SWEDEN only as a last resort, being totally unable to see what was going on. Thank you V ! Similarly, I might have got ADJUST, despite not knowing what the ASA was, if I hadn’t barked up several wrong trees trying to find the pesky musical instrument — a real DUH moment when I came here, as I’d tried in vain to find an instrument of 6 or 7 letters with an E at/near the end (“fiddle” gave “ide” for example) using “keen” as the definition. COD BUM’S RUSH.

    Edited at 2021-07-02 02:14 pm (UTC)

33. Another who had to finish in two sittings. Well, I say finished but that is not strictly true. Left with COMEDOWN, RIOTED, ARCHDIOCESE and SWEDEN, which I eventually got, having looked up ARCHDIOCESE. Bah. . Agree with the comments on RUM BABAS. A MER at HON for ducks too. I did like SUNLAMP, TOUCH TYPE and KEYSTONE COPS though. Thank you V and setter.
34. I much enjoyed Lord Verlaine’s short broadcast. My thought processes were much the same as His except my effort was in slo-mo — 8x slo-mo! And He was so damn cheerful even though he claimed to know nothing of sports. The Usain Bolt of the 15×15.
35. I enjoyed the video, V, but would it be possible next time you do it (and I hope there is a next time) to arrange that the type is bigger? You’re going at such a speed that when the type is small it’s hard to keep up. You’ve solved it before I’ve deciphered the clue. There was a lot of unused space around the sides. On those vlogs that Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe do the type is easily readable.
36. Thanks V for the blog and the link which I have watched. I took precisely 4 times longer than you. I did notice that you type faster than me … this should save 22 seconds. As to the rest … who knows? Great fun.
37. It’s like running a long marathon
    It’s not so important who won
    If you get through the wall
    If you finish at all
    You can say to the setter “Well done”
38. What a superb puzzle, even if it took me 53 minutes to solve it! The first run through I got none of the across clues (BE FOR IT was my FOI), but then it very very slowly fell into place. I certainly didn’t understand UNSPEAKABLE when I entered it, but the wordplay was clear enough, and I also couldn’t parse KEYSTONE COPS nor TOUCH TYPE, but all of those answers were clear, so no complaints. ARCHDIOCESE was indeed brilliant, but there were many other good clues like SWEDEN, for example. My LOI was HANGERS-ON and when I saw H……ON for Ducks I couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes. What a delight.
39. Thanks for the Twitch link, very interesting to watch the thought process.

    I was nowhere near finishing today, got about a third during breakfast and lunch and was happy to come here to find the rest tonight.

40. Tough but very enjoyable. LOI “Comedown” took me ages as I could not get “Lovelorn” out of my mind.
    I didn’t understand Hon for Ducks until I came here — very clever, though.
    Great puzzle — thanks to our setter and also to our blogger.
41. I’m from the QC club and watched you with fascination after I had completed it (less Cute and Slept).
    Thanks for sharing your video — a great insight to your solving methods etc. Great typing skills.
    And entertaining too!
    Kind regards
    John
42. Never mind the plural in the literal, the clue itself (Dance by degrees become sweet, intoxicating?) seems to have problems in term of grammatical number.

    Surely it should be ‘Dance by degrees becomes…’

43. I loved watching your solve. And I watched you doing the club monthly. I also watch Magoo attempting it without a dictionary, which is insane. Even more insane he gets it correct about half the time. Without a dictionary. I can’t get close with mephisto without a dictionary, although I consider it cheating to use anagram and searches (my Chambers is on my phone).

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