Times Cryptic No 27084 – Saturday, 07 July 2018. Too much football is barely enough?

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This took me longer than usual: about 50 minutes. I don’t think it was too hard. Just a well-clued Saturday puzzle. My LOI was 1ac, which took me ages to see, so I’ll call it the clue of the day. The bulk of the clues were “assemble as per instructions”, although the structure of 25ac is interesting. A feature was the number of clever definitions! Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.

Clues are in blue, with definitions underlined. Answers are in BOLD CAPS, followed by the wordplay. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’, with the anagram indicator in bold italics. Deletions are in {curly brackets}.

Across
1 One is so tired of editors! (7)
ANAGRAM: cryptic definition, since “so tired” is an anagram of “editors”. Unusual style of clue, and my LOI.

5 Mark a record for language (7)
TAGALOG: TAG, A, LOG (mark, a, record). A Philippine language which some may not know  , but the wordplay is generous.

9 Bandaging a strange wound, murmur finding rash (5-6)
HARUM-SCARUM: A RUM SCAR (a, strange, wound) inside (“bandaged by”) HUM (murmur).

10 Dirty horse, tail wiped (3)
MAR: drop “e” from MARE.

11 Coat bound to cover a hole, half reversed (6)
MOHAIR: RIM (bound, in the sense of boundary) “covering” A HO{le}, then the whole thing is reversed. Neither my Collins nor my Chambers gave “mohair” as the garment as distinct from the fabric, but the Shorter Oxford has it. On edit: thanks to Isla for pointing out that the definition works perfectly if it’s referring to the coat of the goat, rather than the garment made from it!

12 Make to withdraw in secret, a renegade (8)
GENERATE: backward hidden answer, indicated by “to withdraw in”.

14 Old football stadium messed about with near the Arsenal, vacated (5,4,4)
WHITE HART LANE: (WITH NEAR THE A-L*). A-L is Arsenal “vacated”. Cute surface, since I assume WHL (home of Spurs, of course) is/was near their rival Arsenal’s ground.

17 Very little in clue, if I have no ability (13)
INSIGNIFICANT: IN, SIGN, IF, I, CAN’T (in, clue, if, I, have no ability). We had a very similar clue five weeks ago – perhaps even more clever. My first instinct was to pencil in INFINITESIMAL, which didn’t help me at all.

21 Party after support gaining seat (8)
BACKSIDE: BACK, SIDE (support, party).

23 Lovely drop, in parts (6)
DIVINE: DIVE, parted by IN. The crossing letters were _I_I_E, so I needed to apply myself to the clue to get this as my last in on the RHS.

25 One catching dinner running this way and that? (3)
BIB: cryptic definition … what a baby wears to, er, catch dinner. “Running this way and that” could refer to the baby food, or could mean the answer is a palindrome.

26 Drained piping, distant or otherwise, in remote outlet (7,4)
TRADING POST: (P-G DISTANT OR*). P-G because “piping” is “drained”.

27 Setter consumed with guilt finally, over disease (7)
TETANUS: SUN (setter – very nice!), ATE (consumed), {guil}T, all “over”.

28 Capital letters in centre of banknote read out? (7)
CAYENNE: sounds like KN. I didn’t know, but it’s the capital of French Guiana.

Down
1 In two articles, order maintained (2,4)
AT HOME: A, THE are the articles. They hold (“maintain”) OM. A minimalist definition.

2 Sky entertainment, broadcast repeated? (7)
AIRSHOW: AIR and SHOW both can mean “broadcast”.

3 Left in control of horse, mother overwhelmed (9)
REMAINING: MA inside REINING. Another nicely disguised definition.

4 Club that’s used in riot control (4)
MACE: double definition: a club or a riot control gas.

5 Sharp taste initially in scoffin’ dessert (5,5)
TARTE TATIN: TART (sharp), then T from T{aste} in EATIN’. Never heard of this one.

6 Ultimately failing, I am what I am, one’s usually conceded (5)
GIMME: G from {failin}G, then I’M ME. A golfing expression.

7 Beat damaging a dance (7)
LAMBADA: LAM (beat), BAD (damaging, perhaps as in “damaging revelations”), then A.

8 Gem cut, ruby collected (8)
GARNERED: GARNE{t} is the gem, then ruby RED.

13 Wrap filled with what? Some chocolate inside (6,4)
BEHIND BARS:EH (what?) in BIND (wrap), then BARS (some chocolate). Yet another nicely hidden definition.

15 In provocative manner, drink alone? (9)
TEASINGLY: TEA (drink), SINGLY (alone).

16 Slowly, Times fed to boring couple? (3,2,3)
BIT BY BIT: BY (times, with a deceptive capital letter), inside (fed to) BIT twice (boring couple!)

18 Fire still in old instrument (7)
SACKBUT: SACK (fire), BUT (still). A sort of trombone, apparently.

19 Endless knitted fabric on navy hat (7)
TRICORN: TRICO{t} is the fabric, on RN, the Royal Navy.

20 Spot on the boil (6)
SEETHE: SEE (spot), on THE.

22 Material appeal, money (5)
SATIN: SA (crossword staple for “appeal”), TIN (ditto for “money”).

24 Openers in dreamland, incredibly, securing cricketing record (4)
DISC: first letters.

 

27 comments on “Times Cryptic No 27084 – Saturday, 07 July 2018. Too much football is barely enough?”

  1. You will get into trouble for insinuating that Arsenal’s ground was White Hart Lane. It was Spurs old ground.

    I too had 1ac as my last one in, when the penny finally dropped.

  2. Biffed a couple– 9ac, 23ac, 27ac– parsed post hoc. LOI DIVINE; ‘in parts’ was neat. As Bruce says, lots of clever definitions. Bruce, at 27ac you forgot to note that ‘over’ indicates reversing the order of letters.
  3. Happened to see ANAGRAM straight away which set me up to finish in 26 minutes. Liked the not so obvious defs such as ‘in’, ‘inside’ and ‘rash’ and the ‘boring couple’ wordplay.

    The ‘dual purpose’ wordplay for BIB was my favourite.

    Good start to the weekend. Even better to come tomorrow…

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  4. Thanks Bruce. I somehow missed the reversal in 12ac.
    I did like the almost hidden definition IN 1dn. 1ac was very clever and is also my LOI/COD. I also enjoyed INSIDE in 13d. Today we had INSIGNIFICANT A few weeks ago we had SIGN IF I CANT!
  5. But still not so bad, 30 minutes. I enjoyed the interesting definitions, too. Tarte tatin LOI, forgotten it since last time. Remaining and anagram also proving recalcitrant.
    I thought WHL was an excellent &lit – right now it is an old, vacated football stadium near The Arsenal, being messed about with – being rebuilt into a giant, shiny, new stadium.
    In mohair I took “coat” to be the coat of the goat it comes from, I think that works?

    Edited at 2018-07-14 04:39 am (UTC)

  6. An unspectacular 43 minutes on this tricky but pleasant puzzle. LOI DIVINE. COD to BEHIND BARS. I took a while to remember the spray meaning of MACE. In 2004, I was sitting in the main stand at WHL with a friend, just after the death of Bill Nicholson, trying not to show I was supporting my beloved Wanderers The guy sitting next to me on the other side, about my age, twigged within a few minutes, and we reminisced happily together about the fifties. Any Spurs supporter also remember Ditchburn, Ramsey, Duquemin, and Eddie Baily, a good friend of Nat’s? Bolton won 2-1 too. A great day, despite having to park by the A10 and walk all the way down White Hart Lane. Thank you B and setter.

    Edited at 2018-07-14 06:34 am (UTC)

    1. The 1951 First Division winning side is a little early for me – I really only woke up and took notice ten years later, but of course the names are embedded in any Spurs fan’s lore. Rumour has it that parking will be easier at the new ground (which looks fabulous, BTW), though it’ll probably still take a couple of hours to get out.
      1. I was seven years old when we won the Double but my Dad used to wax lyrical about Len Duquemin as an unsung star of the ‘push and run’ team. I went to my first game in ‘63 and I remember walking the length of Tottenham High Road to get to Manor House tube station. Happy days!
      2. When I was working in London in the mid-80s, I used to go to the Lane for the visits of my team, Manchester United. I remember one game where we were so tightly packed in pens behind the goal that I suggested to a policeman that they opened one of the two pens whose closure was designed to keep rival fans from getting at each other. Thankfully, after consulting with the control room, he did.
    2. No mention of great Spurs sides is complete without the name Danny Blanchflower. What a stylish footballer he was! As a lad I read his book “The Double and Before.” It was unusual for the times as he wrote it himself; it wasn’t ghost written. Two items from that book that I have remembered down the years:
      firstly, when he was at Aston Villa (or was it Barnsley?) the players were not allowed to train with the ball on the basis that they would be hungrier to get it on the Saturday. But as Blanchflower said, ont that basis, come Saturday, they wouldn’t know what to do with it once they had got it!
      Secondly, in response to criticism that the FA Cup Final against Leicester City was disappointing as a match, he replied that you can’t call a game to order. Very true.
      1. I think he was only booked once, and it was at Burnden Park. Hartle, Hennin, Higgins and Banks had given Spurs the friendly reception they gave all visiting teams by kicking them for 90 minutes, on a mudpatch of a pitch, with no protection from the ref. In the last minute, he awarded Bolton a penalty. The spot having been obliterated, the ref then got hold of the ball, paced out the 12 yards and put the ball down. “Are you going to take it for them as well?” asked Danny. When asked for his name, he answered Stanley Matthews, so he wasn’t absolutely sure that he was booked.
        1. Nice reminiscence!
          I can’t find any record online which says whether Blanchflower was ever booked or sent off but my research did remind me that he once refused to appear on “This is Your Life” live on TV in front of Eamonn Andrews.

          Edited at 2018-07-15 08:05 am (UTC)

  8. Couldn’t not like a crossword which includes WHL, though probably a bit premature to be calling it old: whatever multinational gets its naming rights blazoned across the new stadium, I suspect most of us will still refer to it as The Lane. Apart from anything else, the new stadium is actually closer to White Hart Lane than the old one was. As for “near the Arsenal”? I’ll let the setter off for wordplay purposes, but Woolwich isn’t even North of the Thames. Or have that alleged football team moved recently?
    This one took me 17.35, so close to par.
  9. My note says ‘16 minutes, straightforward’ so I must have had one of my good days.
  10. As a Man U fan WHL was the best place down in the smoke to see footie. Greavesie, Gilzean (RIP), Mullery et al. Now I suppose Split will be the place to go!

    46 mins

    FOI 4dn MACE

    LOI 26ac TRADING POST

    COD 14ac White Hart Lane

    WOD 9ac HARUM-SCARUM!

    Edited at 2018-07-14 11:32 am (UTC)

  11. 44:49. I found it hard to get started on this one. It wasn’t until I got to 28a and had an inkling as to what the answer might be that I sought a couple of checkers and so my FOI was 24dn. The puzzle flowed a bit more after that until LOI 23ac where I needed a couple of minutes to come up with something. Good stuff.
  12. Zipped through this in 24:27 with ANAGRAM LOI as the penny dropped with a huge clang. TAGALOG only known from these crosswords. Lots of construction work here, as Bruce points out. Liked BEHIND BARS which took me a while. Very enjoyable. Thanks setter and Bruce.
  13. I got White Hart Lane straightaway and then gradually worked my way through this until I had two left -1a and 4d.
    I had noted Mace as a possibility for 4d but then stared vainly at 1a without seeing how the clue worked.Gave up at that point.
    An excellent puzzle I thought.
    Was it only a week ago that England beat Sweden and Russia so nearly eliminated Croatia?
    David
  14. In 9ac bandaging and murmur are linked, but they are not adjacent. I’ve never seen this before, is it normal?
    1. It’s the same form as:

      “Mounting his silver horse, Galahad rides off.”

      “Bandaging [a strange wound], [murmur] …”

      so [murmur] is the subject of the sentence, [a strange wound] is the object of the phrase starting with the participle [bandaging].

  15. 23 minutes for this, enjoying HARUM-SCARUM particularly. TAGALOG a write-in, in a city where vast numbers speak it.

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