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

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
You would have been forgiven for assuming that I would have had stern words to say about a crossword with so many sporting references, but given that one of them, 13d is my COD, with its brilliant IOCESE, it seems I have finally joined the dark side. There are other brilliant clues everywhere too, 14ac and 3dn deserving of special mention in my book. Masive kudos to the setter, I really enjoyed this one.

…and as a special “treat”, you can see me solve this one in real time if you like. There’s a stream of it at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1073877354, start at about 9m30 if you don’t want to have any truck with the Concise and QC beforehand. If you have any requests for what I should stream in future, sing out!

ACROSS
1 Discharge Roman who’s caught in flagrante? (6)
ACQUIT – QUI [Roman “who”] caught in (the) ACT

5 Hesitates to stop groom’s summary dismissal (4,4)
BUM’S RUSH – UMS [as in, ums and ahs] “stopping” BRUSH [groom]

9 Colouring that’s unknown, established for use in pudding (8)
DYESTUFF – Y EST., “used in” DUFF [pudding]

10 Splendid guess! (6)
DIVINE – double def

11 After loudly interrupting, are quiet again (6)
AFRESH – ARE SH!, “interrupted” by F [loudly]

12 Dance by degrees become sweet, intoxicating? (3,5)
RUM BABAS – RUMBA by B.A.S

14 The silent force of eg alt-rock? (8,4)
KEYSTONE COPS – “alt” is an example of a (computer keyboard) key, “rock” is stone; but them together and you find a city whose police “force” are the Keystone Cops, famously silent due to talkies having not been invented yet…

17 As insulated building, possibly of fantastic age, bulldozed (6-6)
DOUBLE-GLAZED – (AGE BULLDOZED*)

20 Light show failing to finish: private disappointment (8)
COMEDOWN – COMED{y} + OWN [private]. Is “My Own Private Idaho” a tautology?

22 Wine bottles a tiny bit short caused uproar (6)
RIOTED – RED [wine] “bottles” IOT{a}

23 Regulate fair verdict from ASA? (6)
ADJUST – the Advertising Standards Authority may pronounce an AD JUST

25 Ducks harbouring bug or parasite (6-2)
HANGER-ON – HON(ey) “harbouring” ANGER [bug]

26 Out to lunch, do prefer concession made on course (4,4)
FREE DROP – (DO PREFER*)

27 PM finishing bottom left the country (6)
SWEDEN – Sir Anthony Eden is my favourite PM – I have a picture of him in my study – and if he finishes (comes after) the bottom left, or southwestern, quadrant, we get: SW EDEN

DOWN
2 Dutch player leaving United, ringing round to cancel (3,3)
CRY OFF – CR{u}YFF “ringing” O

3 Those hunting for Oscar nab Paul, seek Dicky (11)
UNSPEAKABLE – (NAB PAUL SEEK*). Superb ref to Oscar Wilde’s description of hunting as “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”.

4 Show skill as office worker, the sort to stay on the sideline? (5-4)
TOUCH-TYPE – TYPE [sort] staying on TOUCH [sideline, in soccer or rugby]

5 Support strike at Wapping and have consequences to face? (2,3,2)
BE FOR IT – BE FOR [support] + ‘IT [strike, in Cockneyland]

6 Woman’s address you see unchanged after looking up (5)
MADAM – reads the same upwards as downwards

7 Gun used by governor in uprising (3)
REV – hidden reversed in {go}VER{nor}. As in “gun your engine”

8 Tanners plus shillings man changed (8)
SUNLAMPS – (PLUS S MAN*)

13 See reward ultimately in knowing the jargon of Olympic admin? (11)
ARCHDIOCESE – {rewar}D, in ARCH [knowing] + IOC-ESE, the language of the International Olympic Committee

15 Extreme letters introduced to cunningly ensnare early Christians (9)
NAZARENES – A+Z “introduced to” (ENSNARE*)

16 Party sentiment upset left wing social reformer? (2-6)
DO-GOODER – DO [party] + GOO [sentiment] + reversed RED [left-wing]

18 Crave ball: one easily dispatched? (4,3)
LONG HOP – LONG [crave] + HOP [ball]

19 Order to leave: do so imploringly (6)
BEGONE – BEGONE! is an imperious order to leave; or you could BEG ONE to, more plaintively

21 Queen weighed down by too much fur (5)
OTTER – E.R. beneath O.T.T.

24 Music maker, oddly overlooked, but keen (3)
UKE – {b}U{t} K{e}E{n}

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

  1. 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.
  2. ….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)

  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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”
  8. 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.
  9. 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.

  10. 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.
  11. 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
  12. 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…’

  13. 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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