Guardian 28,006 – Crucible

by

A fairly gentle puzzle from Crucible today…

…with an obvious theme of sports and games in both answers and many of the the clues. Thanks to Crucible.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. DRY FLY Derby’s filly, kicking out every second, is a lure (3,3)
Alternate letters of DeRbY’s FiLlY – as used in fly-fishing
5. GOLF CLUB Beat back rookie grabbing learner driver, maybe (4,4)
Reverse of FLOG (beat) + L in CUB (rookie)
9. POOLROOM Share memory about old pots here (8)
POOL (to share) + O in ROM (computer memory); a place to play games such as pool, which involve potting balls
10. TENNIS Offence beside goal reflected game (6)
Reverse of SIN + NET (goal)
11. HAIR’S BREADTH After renovation, their bars had a very tight margin … (5,7)
(THEIR BARS HAD)*
13. THOU … such as this second person once (4)
Double definition: one (a thousandth of an inch) coming from the previous clue
14. THROWING Staggering growth in illegal delivery style at Lord’s (8)
(GROWTH IN)* – in cricket (played at Lord’s), bowlers are not allowed to throw the ball
17. LINESMAN Official who’s often up the pole? (8)
Double definition: an official in tennis, football, etc, and “a person employed for the repair and maintenance of telephone or electricity power lines”, who might have to climb poles
18. TEES Current ball supporters (4)
Double definition: the River Tees, and as in golf
20. HOLIDAYMAKER Pongy during hard slog, one’s taking time off (12)
OLID (smelly) in HAYMAKER (a powerful punch in boxing)
23. PIQUET Card game to stimulate tense F1 driver (6)
PIQUE (stimulate) T +[ense], with two definitions (Nelson Piquet is the F1 driver)
24. TITMOUSE It most often primarily takes suet that’s put out (8)
IT + M[ost] O[ften] in SUET*, &lit, referring to the balls of suet that people put out to feed birds in winter
25. EGG TEETH Young openers show energy and horsepower (3,5)
E[nergy] + GG (horse) + TEETH (power) – used by baby birds to crack the eggshell from the inside
26. DO OVER Cook finished batter (2,4)
DO (cook) + OVER (finisihed) – slang for “beat up”
Down
2. ROOT Bouncer initially tests England’s captain (4)
[kanga]ROO (bouncer) + T[ests] – Joe ROOT is the current captain of the England cricket team
3. FULL HOUSE A big hand from capacity audience (4,5)
Double definition – the first from the poker hand
4. YEOVIL Yankee vice ring infiltrated somewhere in Somerset (6)
Y[ankee] + O in EVIL
5. GAME, SET AND MATCH Plucky lot with rival finish on court (4,3,3,5)
GAME (plucky) SET (lot) + AND (with) MATCH (rival)
6. LITERARY Learned Lima route overlooking home (8)
L[ima] (phonetic alphabet) + ITINERARY less IN (home)
7. CONGA Dance company never gets awards at first (5)
CO + N[ever] G[ets] A[wards]
8. UNINTENDED Fluky piece finished around noon (10)
N[oon[ in UNIT (piece) ENDED
12. THAI BOXING Article describes excellent case for sport (4,6)
A1 (excellent) BOX (case) in THING (article)
15. WATER POLO Endless battle to accommodate river sport (5,4)
PO (Italian river) in WATERLO[O]
16. EMBATTLE English medic and old PM almost ready for fight (8)
E + MB + ATTLE[E]
19. SKATED Cousins excelled at this, working at desk (6)
(AT DESK)* – reference to the Olympic skater Robin Cousins, but surely the definition would give “skating”; perhaps “Cousins did this” would be better
21. INUIT Snowman? College erected it (5)
Reverse of UNI[versity] + IT
22. ISLE Yell for one during tennis lesson (4)
Hidden in tennIS LEsson; YELL is the second largest of the Shetland Islands

45 comments on “Guardian 28,006 – Crucible”

  4. Nice blog Andrew-esp parsing LINESMAN(Wichita?)And of LITERARY.

    The Cousins clue should have been edited as you implied.

    TITMOUSE almost lacked a def whereas ,as you said PIQUET made up for it with two!

    Thanks Andrew and Crucible.Fun and games.

  5. Thanks Crucible and Andrew

    Shirl @1 – Americans would say “lineman”, as in the song Wichita lineman.

    Yes, pretty straightforward, though the parsing of LITERARY took a little time to come. Favourites were WATER POLO and TEES.

    I didn’t like SKATED either, for the reason you gave, Andrew. I also thought the definition for TITMOUSE was very loose – ours take exclusively peanuts and sunflower seeds!

  7. Isn’t it lovely when you expect to be tortured in the Crucible, and it turns out to be a warm cosy experience? Not the battle I expected, but I’m not complaining! Thanks.

  11. Thanks for sorting out the parsing of LITERARY and HOLIDAYMAKER. No amount of staring at them would yield either for me.

  12. I was a bit perplexed by 18a, I don’t remember seeing CURRENT used as a definition for a river before – is that a crossword thing?

  13. That breezed through all too swiftly. As has been noted, a couple of oddities. Always look to the start or the end for the definition, we are told. Or both for “Piquet”! I got “thou” from one definition and did not see the other as I’ve trained myself to ignore the ellipsis between clues as being meaningless. Oops. “linesman” came quickly – one of my most used tools is my pair of US army surplus “lineman pliers” whose jaws close in a parallel action.

    All good fun and the theme did make some of the answers jump out but impressive to get so many themesters in one grid. Thank you Crucible, and Andrew for parsing “egg teeth” which I was struggling with.

  14. My favourites were ROOT, WATERLOO, LITERARY.

    I could not parse 20a and 26a, and I failed to solve 23a.

    New for me were the skater Robin Cousins, titmouse, and Yeovil – all of which meant that I need help from google today.

    Thansk B+S

  15. Loved how 26a had nothing to do with either cricket or cooking. As a relative newcomer to the cryptic world I found this an enjoyable tussle slightly tarnished by a couple of sub par clues already mentioned. Thanks to all

  16. Well, I have had my knowledge  corrected. Never having listened to the words in detail, I always thought a line(s)man for the county was some one who checked the railway lines.

     

    Thanks Crucible and Andrew

  17. I see the clue for 19d has now been changed. A pretty quick solve by recent Tuesday standards

    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew

  18. I liked 10a TENNIS for the way the surface suggested one sport and the answer was another.  I also liked “current” in 18a to indicate a river – it’s a bit more inventive than the usual “flower”, and much better than “banker”, which despite being a crossword chestnut doesn’t seem to me to make sense.

    I’m not sure that I fully understand how 24a TITMOUSE works.  If “out”, or “put out”, is the anagram indicator, what is the inclusion indicator?

    Thanks Crucible and Andrew.

  20. Thought this was going to be a write in at first, but got seriously bogged down by the bottom half of the puzzle. Wrote in HOLIDAYMAKER, but simply couldn’t parse it because I’d never come across OLID before. EGG TEETH loi, as again wasn’t familiar with the term…

  21. Pleasant puzzle, needing some help from the check button this morning to fill a few gaps from last night.  Thank you Crucible for the puzzle and Andrew for the help.

    I don’t think  DO = COOK.  One means “cheat” and one means “falsify.”  But it isn’t the books that are cheated when you cook them.

    TILTs were EGG TEETH and THOU.

    Glenn Campbell didn’t write Wichita Lineman, he just recorded it.  It’s by James Taylor.

  24. Oh and DO can can all sorts of things from Swindle, cook, clean etc

    And Glen Campbell was a great session muso as well.

  25. So grateful to this site-I love the JT version of the song and then I got led to Billy Joel doing a sort of commentary on the song while he played and sang-then did it properly then Jimmy came on to get an award.

  26. copmus @19

    I just meant that he wouldn’t be in the forefront of people’s minds, even if they followed F1.

    Ronald @20

    OLID is one of the words I’ve learnt from crosswords!

  28. Bit late in the day, but muffin’s@5 reminded me of an Eye cartoon, It’s Grim Up North London, in which an inspector complains You’ve had foxes at the bins, burger boxes everywhere, to which the householder replies Must be foxes from another borough, ours only leave ramen noodle tubs and sashimi platters.

  29. Failed on HOLIDAYMAKER, a word I’ve never encountered (and clued by another word I’ve never encountered) but should have been able to guess from the crossers. Otherwise a good challenge at about the right level for me. Thanks to Andrew for revealing a few of the more subtle parsings, in particular the significance of the ellipsis in 13a, and thanks also to Crucible.

  31. A good puzzle, but tough in the southeast.  For a while, I had EMBOLDEN for 16, (E + MB + OL(D) (E)DEN), which didn’t help.  Kicking myself for not getting THAI BOXING 😉 .  I was a little surprised that “tennis” appeared in the 22 clue and as an answer.

    Thanks, Crucible and Andrew.  PS I think you want to underline ready for fight for the 16 definition.

  33. Thanks phitonelly, now corrected.  I didn’t check the definition of EMBATTLE and assumed it just meant “fight”, ignoring the fact that this left “ready for” unaccounted for.

  34. I can’t see that someone’s already said this, but 19 has been corrected:

    Special instructions: 17 December 2019: clue for 19 down has been corrected
    19 Cousins did this well, working at desk (6)

     

  35. Top half went in easily, bottom half took much longer. A fine puzzle apart from the much mentioned SKATED. I didn’t see the THOU connection to the previous clue – nice. That reminds me of growing up in Lancashire where “thou” was still used by older people – but with a strict protocol as I learnt when I said “thou” to someone to be told “thee thous them as thous thee an’ not afore”!
    Thanks to Crucible and Andrew.

  36. WhiteKing @35

    Most of us English speakers don’t have that minefield to deal with, but it’s still easy to get wrong in French, German, Italian, and perhaps other languages I’m not familar with!

  37. Very enjoyable, nearly completed it (I almost never complete…ive no idea how people have the time to grind out the last 3, is everyone else retired or unemployed? 🙂 ) … I got 26a but as previously commented Do = cook is in a grey area at best. I’m happy with do as in con but after that you may as well have do = any verb as you can write a sentence where do is undertaking the job of another verb.

    Good fun and I’m sure I found it easier as a games fan

  40. Ben, the phrase “in the teeth of the gale” might justify it. Perhaps someone else has a better example?

  42. Bill @41

    I think, if you read the blog again, you’ll see that’s more or less what Andrew said. Technically PIQUE + T is wordplay rather than definition, which is why he hasn’t given it as such.

  43. Belated thanks to both.

    But hold!: How would you like your steak done? The turkey is overdone!! To mention but two off-the-top-of-my-head examples where “do” equals “cook”

    Do me a flavour…

    OLID eh? Now to introduce it into a conversation. (“Ah Professor Martinsleeve I’ve heard so much about you.” “Really – how so?” “Erm…”)

  44. Being an engineer, “lineman” always puts me in mind of a surveyor, though with lasers you don’t see them too often anymore.  When I was a kid, I thought that Glen Campbell was singing about being the guy who painted the lines on the road.

    Anyway – British English question time!!!  I’ve never seen THOU used for a measurement of distance.  Do you use the word “mil” interchangeably or is that strictly a US thing?

  45. BlueDot @ 44

    Long ago, in the pre-metric days, ‘thou’ was a standard unit of extremely fine measurement, though it was used more in multiples than singly. ‘Mil’ is a regular current usage, again generally in multiples.

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