Times 28141 – Sunil Havaskar?

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Mondays appear to have been ramped up a bit recently, with this one coming in at around my true NITCH. (The actual number is lower, but that’s mainly owing to the fact that submissions with errors and unfinished efforts are not counted.)

There are five clues with question marks, which is a bit unusual in itself, I reckon, and three in total that I am in various degrees of flummox about. So, all suggestions welcome; this one will be a true team effort. 38:38.

A technical question: does anyone know how to perform the right-click mouse function using a Dell laptop keyboard? I Googled this, but to no avail.

ACROSS

1 Bird gathering fruit (9)
BRAMBLING – double definition; to bramble is to collect wild blackberries. Did much of this in early September in my youth.
6 Occupying position of king in charge of subject (5)
TOPIC – TOP (occupying position of king) IC (in charge of)
9 Produced fabricated info about American university (7)
LIMITED – MIT in LIED; I’m not sure how limited can mean produced, but it might be something to do with geometry, where produce means to extend a line or plane. The consensus is that there is a mistake here – maybe two clues met on one dark night and this was their bastard offspring
10 Bitterness must be managed with inadequate legal organisation (7)
RANCOUR – RAN (managed) COUR[t]
11 What I can do for ’Arry! (3)
EAR – another one where I’m struggling; you drop the aitch from hear and you get EAR, but I can’t see how that fits in with the rest of the clue. Thanks to galspray: the best stab at this is that an EAR can fulfill the function of ‘earing (i.e. hearing) for ‘arry (i.e. Harry)
12 Person with bad manners and humour brought to head to give evidence (4,7)
BEAR WITNESS – BEAR (person with bad manners) WIT (humour) NESS (head)
14 This writer initially looking depressed becomes cheery (6)
MELLOW – ME L[ooking] LOW; Collins has ‘genial, as through the effects of alcohol’
15 Fruit plantation in old farm close to railway (8)
ORANGERY – O RANGE RY; ‘close to’ means ‘next to’ here
17 Head of school deficient, not working hard enough (8)
SLACKING – S[chool] LACKING
19 Care to protect church ground (6)
MINCED – CE in MIND
22 Admire a carer, endlessly out to bring friendship (11)
CAMARADERIE – anagram* of ADMIRE A CARE
23 Small island needing a technology for modern communications (3)
AIT – A IT
25 Virgin shows skills, overtaking old record company (7)
ARTEMIS – EMI in ARTS
27 Very briefly, I spoilt child, having got old and wobbly (7)
VIBRATO – V (very briefly) I BRAT (spoilt child) O (old)
28 Immature insect in mountain flower, right inside (5)
LARVA – R in LAVA (mountain flower, i.e. stream running down a mountainside)
29 Refusing to acknowledge drinking, is getting drunk (9)
DISOWNING – IS in DOWNING (IS is contained [or drunk] by the word DOWNING)

DOWN

1 Good-looking girl gets ring — first sign of engagement (5)
BELLE – BELL E[ncounter]
2 Notice learner receiving star presented by officer (7)
ADMIRAL – MIRA (a red-giant star estimated to be 200–400 light-years from the Sun in the constellation Cetus) in AD (notice) L (learner)
3 Tibet always appears to be such an answer for a particular health problem? (4-7)
BETA-BLOCKER – I think the idea here is that the word TIBET is written with the letter B in the middle; put slightly differently, the BETA is blocked by the other letters. Thanks to Isla: BETA may be found in (or blocked by) [ti]BET A[lways]
4 Meal produced by one grandmother — little girl tucks in (6)
INDIAN – DI (little, i.e. abbreviated girl) in I (one) NAN (grandmother); as in ‘Tonight I’m going for an Indian. Care to join?’
5 A crude tablet possibly erected in place of worship (8)
GURDWARA – A RAW (crude) DRUG (tablet possibly) all reversed; a Sikh temple
6 After short time cricket side gets significant number of runs (3)
TON – T (time) ON (leg side in cricket); a score of 100 plus in cricket
7 Bit of speech conveyed by telephone message (7)
PHONEME – Phone me! Hidden in [tele]PHONE ME[ssage]
8 Gruff son watched what his deferential sister might have done? (9)
CURTSEYED – CURT (gruff) S (son) EYED (watched)
13 Be silent now about member’s trouble (6,5)
TENNIS ELBOW – BE SILENT NOW*
14 Tot upset sick, having swallowed hot drink in theatre (5,4)
MUSIC HALL – SUM (tot) reversed CHA (hot drink) in ILL (sick)
16 Dad is one looking untidy — given a coat (8)
ANODISED – DAD IS ONE*; ‘to coat (a metal, such as aluminium or magnesium) with a protective oxide film by electrolysis’ (Collins)
18 A maiden encountered with hesitation — one sitting in the physics lab? (7)
AMMETER – A M (maiden in cricket) MET (encountered) ER (hesitation); an instrument used to measure the current in a circuit.
20 Fellow attending one finding accompaniment for 4? (7)
CHAPATI – CHAP (fellow) AT (attending) I (one); a flat unleavened bread resembling a pancake
21 Demonstrates quietly and goes here and there (6)
PROVES – P ROVES
24 Host not right to appear in minimal attire? (5)
THONG – TH[r]ONG
26 Girl showing ambition, on the up (3)
MIA – AIM reversed

85 comments on “Times 28141 – Sunil Havaskar?”

  1. 11:54. I seem to be very much in the minority in knowing both meanings of BRAMBLING, but the rest was tricky and I solved it in fits and starts, jumping around the grid. I ended in the NW where I didn’t understand EAR (where galspray seems to have it right and I think it’s rather neat) and LIMITED, where something seems to be missing. I’m not sure I buy the ‘reduced’ thesis as it’s more than a typo and still leaves an unsatisfactory clue.
    In other news I am showing zero errors on the leaderboard for the first time in a very long time indeed. Woo hoo!
      1. So let’s have The Keriothe ‘thesis’ on LIMITED – what is missing? – something more than a typo!?
  2. 19.45. I made steady progress on this one until ending up in the NW corner. Like others could not justify limited but the wordplay seemed clear. DNK Mira but there seemed to be only one officer fitting the bill. Brambling when it occurred to me from checkers and the gathering fruit definition just seemed to be right. It was ear that I was really unsure about and the best explanations for it here haven’t really persuaded me that it’s much cop as a clue. Fortunately three letters beginning E and ending R didn’t leave many options.
  3. Thanks ulaca for excellent blog as always, one of the rare occasions where I can’t understand clues and I’m seemingly in the right! But please explain why you’ve titled this blog as the little master indian cricket’s bravest and best opener ‘sunil gavaskar’ with a misprint- have enough things unparsed from this crossword without adding to that as well 🙂
    1. The Australian impressionist and parodist Billy Birmingham (AKA The Twelfth Man) came up with the name.

      I thought it rather nicely encapsulated the cricketing and subcontinental flavour of the puzzle.

      1. Kutis Arminhaaf, Heeza Hazbeen and Enevah Waz. Thanks for the reminder.

        The first time I ever heard Billy Birmingham do his cricket thing, I was rendered completely speechless with laughter for a good hour.

        The sketches with “Tony Grieg” and “Bill Lawrie”. Genius.

        Edited at 2021-11-22 03:31 pm (UTC)

        1. I wish I had six jackets like Richie Benaud’s in my wardrobe: the cream, the bone, the white, the off-white, the ivory and the beige would see me through most cricket seasons.
        1. He did quite a bit of stuff, but the Pakistan/Australia series is the best. As hopkinb says, the real genius is the interplay between the commentators.
  4. I started with TOPIC and populated the NE quite quickly. I then popped in INDIAN and ADMIRAL in the NW, and ____WARA. The rest came later. There were no particular hold ups in the rest of the puzzle, so I returned to the NW to finish. BELLE came first, which convinced me to go with LIMITED, despite misgivings, then I saw DRUG for tablet, which allowed me to get BRAMBLING. EAR went in last with a shrug and raised eyebrows. 18:18. Thanks setter and U.
  5. Did this early, but late to the party as had to rush out to several meetings.

    But….. DNF as I just couldn’t put in LIMITED, had BELLE but thought it too obvious and looked up GURDWARA (NHO). Looked at EAR and thought eh wot? I should take topicaltim’s advice. Just bung ‘em in and hope.

    Very unsatisfactory all round. Bah.

    Thank you Ulaca.

  6. Yay! GURDWARA really is a word!
    The NW was tough, though. I only finished on crutches.
    And hoped for more clarity about EAR, and, especially, to find out how LIMITED (which I hesitated so long to put in) could mean “produced.”

    Edited at 2021-11-24 04:28 am (UTC)

  7. My grandmother used to make bramble jelly, having been BRAMBLING, so once I had some checkers, that was OK (though NHO the bird), and gave me BELLE and LOI GURDWARA.

    A step up from a typical Monday, and my 4th puzzle of the day.

    20:10

  8. An odd puzzle to come back to. 11a was a Schrodinger’s clue. I didn’t know if it was going to be EAR or ERR until I hit the button – both made about as much sense. LIMITED has been dealt with here. BETA-BlOCKER made me wince and GURDWARA made me a little wiser. So it goes.

    Thanks to ulaca and the setter.

  9. As usual, I shot off at a tremendous pace, and staggered towards the finishing line. I think as for most it was the NW that held me up. Knew about BRAMBLINGS when I was 4 ( I was a world expert on birds at that age) but had to stretch back 65 years to find the memory.
    Just had a trauma with our Meg pictured, she decided to go for a swim and didn’t come back. She was 18, I believe old dogs can decide to move on when they’ve had enough.
    1. My Sympathies. I believe that too, we had 2 collies on our farm who went off into the night when they knew the end was near.
  10. 36’42”, of which a lot was spent head scratching over LIMITED, for which add mine to the consensus view that the clue is just wrong. EAR had to be, but it’s a shocker of a clue IMO.
  11. Around 20 mins. Same comments as the setter regarding ear and limited but couldn’t think of anything better as an answer. Some vague recollection of gurdwara but eventually got via working out the backwards clue.

    DNK Mira but, again, a reasonable infill to guess. A bit chewy for a Monday so glad I got through it without taking ages- comparatively!

  12. All done swiftly except the two discussed above, LIMITED and EAR, neither of which make sense to me although I can see how LIMITED is derived from wordplay. Could just be an error as suggested.
    I knew the brambling bird and liked the clue.
    Deduced the Sikh temple from wordplay then vaguely remembered it although couldn’t have spelt it without help.
    CAMARADERIE was a good anagram.
    20 minutes except for those two bad eggs.
  13. 18:41 late this afternoon. Enjoyed some of the clues but was unimpressed with several of the others and can’t add anything to earlier comments. It would be nice to get an official response to “limited” in particular.
    Also several NHOs as far I was concerned, which added to my vague sense of disgruntlement. However for my LOI 5 d “gurdwara”, I realised I wouldn’t recognise the right answer even if I got it, which made me concentrate on trying to construct a watertight analysis of the cryptic elements — so fair play to the setter I guess.
    COD 3 d “beta-blocker” which I thought was a clever clue, with the eventual but nonetheless satisfying PDM.
    Thanks to Ulaca and setter.
  14. But one wrong – put in gardwara. I think I had in mind the french word dragee meaning a sweet, and imagined there must be some English equivalent. Classic example of mind making totally unwanted leaps. Otherwise the same problems as everyone else. Limited was easy to parse, impossible to explain. Ear still eludes me.
  17. Couldn’t/can’t make any sense of “‘ear”.

    Curate’s egg, this puzzle.

    Mike Cowking (logged out somehow).

Comments are closed.