Guardian Cryptic 28,041 by Brummie

by

A themed offering from Brummie that took a wee while to get into.

On first pass, I only had a handful of answers slotted in, but then the theme began to emerge and the answers came to me as quickly as wickets against South Africa.

I counted at least seventeen cricket terms in the solutions, not including STRIDES which may or may not be a term for cricekt trousers, or the word “DUCK” in one of the clues.  There may be more, but the setter did very well to get so many themed answers in without making the remaining solutions obscure.

For the record, the terms I was able to identofy were RABBIT, (FULL ) TOSS, BOUNDARY, EDGBASTON, SPIN, OPENER, CREASE, STUMPED, DOLLY, ALL OUT, TEST, RUN, DISMISS, SINGLE, SCREEN and OVERS.

Thanks, Brummie.

completed grid
Across
1 SADIST Who would happily make you smart (6)
  Cryptic definition, where “smart” means “feel pain”
4 RABBIT Could be pet‘s collar, missing top piece (6)
  (g)RAB (“collar”, missing top) + BIT (“piece”)
9 FULL Satisfied to clean and beat cloth (4)
  Double definition, the second a new one on me.
10 ROYAL HOUSE A holy play brought in to stir up Windsor? (5,5)
  *(a holy) [anag:play] brought in to ROUSE (“stir up”)
11 SPAYED Digger said to be made sexually unproductive (6)
  Homophone [said] of SPADE (“digger”)
12 BOUNDARY Four obliged to join a decentralised rally (8)
  BOUND (“obliged”) to join A + [decentralised] R(all)Y

For the definition, think cricket.
13 EDGBASTON Ground earth to be removed from border fortress (not Italy’s first) (9)
  E (earth) to be removed from EDG(e) (“border”) + BAST(i)ON with I (Itay’s first) removed.

Edgbaston is a test cricket ground in Birmingham.
15 SPIN Ride south with Peg (4)
  S (south) with PIN (“peg”)
16 DILL Plant‘s day off (4)
  D (day) + ILL (“off”)
17 OPERATION Almost share in public function (9)
  [almost] RATIO(n) (“share”) in OPEN (“public”)
21 ASSYRIAN Old person says ‘rain dances’ (8)
  *(says rain) [anag: dances]
22 OPENER Key exercise to cut pound? (6)
  PE (physicai education, so “exercise”) to cut ONER (a “pound”)
24 BILINGUIST Two-tongued individual, bachelor utilising mobile (10)
  B (bacherlor) + *(utlising) [anag:mobile]
25 TOSS Cast getting drunk over at premiere of Shrek (4)
  <=SOT (“drunk”, over) at [premier of] S(hrek)
26 SCREEN Stones gathered at bottom of cliff before new show (6)
  SCREE (“stones gathered at bottom of cliff”) before N (new)
27 CREASE Tuck, the musical, gets a new lead (6)
  (g>C)REASE (“musical, getting a new opener)
Down
1 STUMPED Dismissed and baffled (7)
  Double definiton
2 DOLLY Catch the sheep? (5)
  Double definition, the first referring to a simple catch on cricket and the second to the fist cloned mammal – Dolly the sheep.
3 STRIDES Banks on getting temperature right inside trousers (7)
  SIDES (“banks”) getting T (temperature) and R (right) inside
5 ALL OUT Completely exhausted, disagree on going topless (3,3)
  (f)ALL OUT (“disagree”, going topless)
6 BLOOD SPOT Rex withdraws from foxhunting, possibly result of pricked finger? (5,4)
  R (rex) withdraws from BLOOD SPO(r)T (“foxhunting, possibly”)
7 TEST RUN Hampshire river flow try-out (4,3)
  TEST (“Hampshire river”) + RUN (“flow”)
8 EYEBROW PENCIL Heavily used when preparing to play the pantomime villain, eastern boy Prince Lew, maybe? (7,6)
  E (eastern) + *(boy prince lew) [anag:maybe]
14 BILLY LIAR 1960s’ play and film, featuring American club with revolving bar (5,4)
  BILLY (“American club” or truncheon) with [revolving]  <=RAIL (“bar”)
16 DISMISS Vicious comeback by female? Pay no heed (7)
  <=SID (Vicious, come back) by MISS (“female”)
18 ROOSTER Bird shown as ‘duck’ in list (7)
  O (“duck”) in ROSTER (“list”)
19 OVERSEE Manage to put rhyme into Anglo-Saxon language (7)
  VERSE (“rhyme”) into OE (Old English, so “Anglo-Saxon language”)
20 SINGLE Confess member’s short of $1,000, for the record (6)
  SING (“confess”) + LE(g) (“member” short of G (grand, so “$1,000”))
23 EXTRA One of those who makes a film host? (5)
  Cryotic definition

*anagram

68 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,041 by Brummie”

  1. I saw the theme relativelyearly. I might never have got ‘edgbaston’ otherwise. Thank you for parsing rabbit. I was unaware it was a cricketing term. Another one is ‘extra’

  2. All very enjoyable. I was not familiar with ‘billy’ as an American club, but the crossers made the answer pretty obvious. Altogether, a good start to my day, so thanks to Brummie and loonapick.

  3. I enjoyed this, but was wondering about a couple of points. (1) Why the question-mark in 22a – the clue seems straightforward enough. (2) Isn’t there a typo in the 23d clue (ignoring the explanation): shouldn’t it be “those who make”? Thanks.

  4. Quickest spotting of a theme ever with EDGBASTON and STUMPED. I wasnt aware of the other meaning of FULL but it went with TOSS in the theme.And Chambers confirmed it.

    But I didnt check spelling in SPAYED-is SPEYED the American way?

    Nice timing of this following England’s victory in South Africa.

    Thanks loonapick aand Brummie

  5. Just thought I’d pop in to say hi.
    My human is double-dratted to tell you that the driver of the Compact Pussycat absolutely loved the Crucible crossword last week. So much up her street that she won that particular Wacky Race by a country mile with the Anthill Mob coming in a poor second place and professor Pat Pending bringing up the rear.

    Somewhat to her personal chagrin she failed on 1across. She’s hot on the plays of Aristophanes (special subject in Year 2 at college) but hopeless on the Muses. Mind you all the Wacky Racers are delighted that Pen appears in this week’s Quiptic! It’s just like old times again although we all think a better clue for 22across in the Quiptic would have been ‘Many lean back as they recognise it’s Penelope’.

    Last week of the shooting season coming up. Let’s go and get rid of some of those pesky pigeons, folks! Up the Villa!

  7. Thanks loonapick and Brummie.

    I saw the theme about three quarters the way through (when I got Edgbaston), and it helped marginally with some of the remaining answers. A steady solve today in two sessions.

    I am not sure what “cryotic” means in 23d, loonapick, but it sounds interesting.

     

     

  9. Nitsuj@6 not sure I agree. One of “those who make = extras” = extra.

    Btw. Only 3 of the theme clues actually required cricket knowledge in their solution – BOUNDARY, EDGBASTON and STUMPED.

  11. I spotted the theme on getting Edgbaston. It was no help with getting 8d though, which I thought was a clever cricketing misdirection, making me wasnt tu use some kind of heavy roller! Thoroughly enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks to Brummie and Loonapick. (I agree that ‘one of’ those is essential for 23d)

  12. Quickish solve, though theme didn’t really help my soggy morning brain – spent too long on (g)rease before it clicked!

  13. That was fun. Theme certainly helped.

    I knew FULL from fullers’ earth and RABBIT I learned here a couple of weeks ago. LOI: DILL.

    Thanks loonapick and Brummie.

  14. Hallelujah – I saw the theme before the end and it helped with a couple of solutions. I counted 19 theme related answers (STRIDES as in the bowler strides in etc and EXTRA) which is very impressive – especially as none were contrived nor required specialist knowledge. Favourites were SADIST ROYAL HOUSE (did anyone else go down the soup ladle/spoon rabbit hole at first) BOUNDARY DOLLY and ROOSTER. Thanks to Brummie loonapick and England for the result.

  15. Although this was a steady and fairly quick solve, and all readily parsed, I found this oddly unsatisfactory, with no feeling of accomplishment on completion. On the plus side it did remind me of one of my favorite movies (14D), which to my shame was the last-one-in.  I never look for themes, and thus never find them, even when they stare you in the face, and even when this one was once all you ever cared for in life.

  16. Thanks, loonapick for a great blog and Brummie for a puzzle which I enjoyed without having any interest in the theme [although I did spot it and get most of the references].

    I think this is the third time time  we’ve met ‘rabbit’ in the cricketing sense in the last few weeks.

    Like Auriga @13, I had no problem with FULL, because I knew how the Romans cleaned their togas! – see here

    Dr WhatsOn @3 – I don’t think it’s a typo in 23dn but an example of the mistake that is a particular bugbear of mine: I wish I had a pound for every time I have read / heard, ‘I am not one of those who thinks … ‘, for example – even from John Humphrys, author of ‘Beyond words‘!

     

  17. Thanks Brummie and loonapick

    Odd one. I was stumped in the NW and SE, went away to do something else, came back and they were write-ins. I didn’t see the theme, of course.

    Favourites were BILINGUIST and EXTRA.

    Brummie doesn’t worry about wordy surfaces, does he? 8d in particular could have been a much shorter clue.

  19. At 22a i had opener as Robert Key who has been an excellent pundit on Sky cricket recently. Rather obscure for non-cricket fans though.

  20. Dolly was also the nickname of the great Basil D’Oliveira! A most enjoyable solve. Thanks to Loonapick and Brummie.

  21. I thought ‘key’ in 22a referred to Robert Key, the Kent opening batsman, rather than a thing that opens doors!

  22. Thanks Brummie and loonapick

    In 27, I think ‘the’ is an important part of the clue, as the film was always tagged as “Grease – The Musical”.

    Fun puzzle.

  23. 24A reminded me of when I went to get my Permis de Séjour when I moved to France back in 1974 (pre-EU). The lady behind the desk at the Préfecture took one look at my passport (Place of birth: Billinge) and remarked “Ah, vous êtes bilingue!”

  24. A steady solve for me, and quite challenging. I had absolutely no inkling of any theme in this at all — what a revelation when I came here! Yes, muffin @17, I thought 8d was more of a dissertation than a crossword clue. And yes, WhatsOn @9, I agree that “those who makes” is an error. It’s possible that some confusion arises over the antecedent to ‘who’: is it the plural ‘those’ or the singular ‘one’? (Cf. ‘a set of figures which shows…’) It was a bit of shame that ‘dismiss’ recurred in the clue of 1d and the solution of 16d.

    Anyway, I enjoyed it. Thanks to Brummie and blogger.

     

  26. I stared at 13A with all the crossers for too long before realising it was EDGBASTON and that there was a cricketing theme! That helped marginally with completing a few at the end.

    Excellent setting to get in so many themed clues.

    Eileen @18; I once wrote to John Humphrys about his use in the book of ‘an’ before words with an aspirated ‘h.’ In the end, he couldn’t justify it and just said that he had always used the ‘an’ in that way!

    Thanks Brummie and loonapick.

  27. And Brummie would have enjoyed inserting EDGBASTON as his local Test ground, presumably. Thought BILINGUIST a cleverly disguised clue.

  28. And presumably Brummie would have been particularly keen to fit his local Test ground Edgbaston into the grid. Thought BILINGUIST was cleverly disguised.

  29. I enjoyed the cricket theme of this puzzle. My favourites wee BOUNDARY, EXTRA, SPAYED.

    New for me were billy club, and full = clean, shrink, and felt (cloth) by heat, pressure, and moisture.

    Thanks Brummie and loonapick.

  30. Sorry about the repetition above, my first post was “awaiting moderation” so I reposted. Nothing like trying to overstress a point!

  31. I’m interested in the grammatical discussion on 23d. It would be “one makes” but “those make”. How does one decide which in the compound construction? “Makes” seems better to me in this instance.

  32. I’m probably being very thick but I don’t understand the ‘host’ in 23D, unless it is the archaic meaning: to be a guest. Perhaps someone could explain and put me out of misery.

  34. Saw the theme early because I had to go to Collins to confirm the cricketing meanings of STUMPED and DOLLY. My lack of familiarity with the sport didn’t hold me up much, but spotting the theme didn’t help, either, and for a long time I resisted putting in EDGBASTON even though the wordplay clearly pointed to it, thinking that it surely can’t be a word. My feeling upon completion was more relief than anything else. However, as others have said, it was skillful setting to have worked in so many themed clues without affecting the quality of the others and without requiring a lot of knowledge of the theme. Thanks to Brummie and loonapick.

  36. Excellent theme I thought, as I peruse the series averages of S Africa v England. So many cricket-related answers were bound to produce some difficulties: Is BLOOD SPOT a thing? It isn’t in Chambers. BILLY was new to me, but I knew about fulling mills. I imagine online solvers in the US found some of this challenging.

  37. I know that this digresses from commenting purely on the coossword at hand, buts everyones contributions adds to the fun. I especially enjoyed, in this instance, the obscure information about the theme eg Basil D’Oliveira was nicknamed dolly. Back to ‘those who makes’. Isnt those the object of the preposition’of’ and ‘one’ the subject? Who is the subject of makes and is therefore correct grammatically! This discourse can be blamed on the same classicists who tried to ban the split infinitive. I hereby wish to gratefully thank Brummie for instigsting this side discussion.

  38. Dan Milton @35

    I think Brummie is using ALL OUT in the sense of out of stock here.  E.g if a person asks for nails in a hardware store, the response might be  “No, we’re all out”.  I’d be interested whether any commenters do use the expression ALL OUT to mean extremely tired in the UK.  (I am a British native, but I’ve lived in the US over 20 years and am out of touch with current usage.)

    Your post reminded me of another curious transatlantic in/out difference in usage:  in, Britain people fill in forms, whereas in the US, they fill out forms.

  39. Thanks to Brummie – very much enjoyed this.

    One quibble: –

    12across surely needs a ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’.

    A BOUNDARY need not be a FOUR – it could be a SIX!

  40. Roy Blake @39

    I would agree with you, but TV commentators wouldn’t – they always refer to a six as a “maximum”!

  42. Re 23d, I’m with Eileen.  Logically, the antecedent must be ‘those’, not ‘one’. Otherwise, who are the ‘those’?  The expression “one of those” only makes sense if there is a common attribute linking the ‘those’, and the plural verb is needed to say what it is they all share.

    I agree with pserve p2 @24 that there are other cases where the antecedent is not so clear cut.  I think “a set of figures which” could be followed by either show or shows, depending on emphasis.  ‘Show’ would suggest that we’re still (half) thinking of the figures as they were before being collected into the set, ‘shows’ implies they are now very much a fixed ensemble.

    Cf. “England expects” but “England were all bowled out”.

    In 23d, there’s another factor in play – host (surface meaning = person hosting) is singular, but host (cryptic meaning = great number) is plural.  Maybe Brummie used the singular verb because he was seeking to misdirect us towards a singular host.

    Back to the cricket:  I noticed a couple of ‘almosts’ – DILL(ey) and ROO(t).  And perhaps also umpire BILLY Bowden (he of the “crooked finger of doom” and the lascivious leg bye signals).  I’m sure LIAR wasn’t intended as a commentary on his umpiring decisions!

    Sorry for the interminable post.

    Superb innings from Brummie, great blog from loonapick.

  43. muffin @ 31 – I  went out before your comment was posted and have only just come in, so many thanks to essexboy @42 for saying more or less what I would have said. The antecedent is clearly ‘those’.

  44. essexboy @42 (and Eileen ’43)

    It’s a confusing area. I would regard “a host” as singular even if it contained multiple components. For instance, Wordsworth saw “a host of golden daffodils”, didn’t he?

  45. muffin – ‘host’ doesn’t  come into it: it’s a question of whether  ‘one” or ‘those’ is the antecedent of ‘who’.

  47. Hi muffin

    Yes sorry, ‘host’ could indeed be grammatically singular, even if meaning a great number – I was just suggesting that the ‘plural feeling’ of a host of extras might have been in Brummie’s mind, and trying to (mis)direct the solver away from that could have induced the slight grammatical lapse…

  48. Got most of this done in the small hours (a tiresome cough / cold keeping me up), but was stumped (ahem) by the SE corner, despite, for once, seeing the theme. Returned to the crease this evening and was pleased to carry my bat: though I was only confident of SINGLE and OPENER because of the theme, and needed to resort here (thank you, Loonapick) for an explanation of the parsing.
    Very neat work from Brummie – thank you!

  49. Dan Milton @35 yes I’d say all out = exhausted as previously mentioned eg Shopkeeper – “we’re all out of bread”

    International phrase differences can be confusing … can anyone explain to me why (depending where you are) “lucked out” and “lucked in” both mean got lucky, but (maybe thankfully!) no one seems to use the other one to mean got unlucky!?

    Anyway I am a cricket fan but that didn’t help me much here (as previously commented I’m not sure cricket knowledge was required or even helped much)…I always have much more difficulty with clues that require you to take letter(S) off a word as opposed to ones where you add words…is that just me? Is there a trick to it, I’m nearly always in guess the definition and back-parse in such clues.

    This Crossword also featured one of my pet hates… as a drinker I know (at a rough estimate) 48billion words for drunk, and crossword-land always uses some archaic word I’ve never heard any use in my life…. 🙂

  50. Not a congenial theme for me – I’ve learned some cricket terms perforce over the years, but didn’t know about RABBIT or DOLLY.

  51. On the first pass I only had BILINGUIST and ASSYRIAN and it took some time until others followed. It was quite some time before I saw the theme which gave me EDGBASTON. I didn’t get DOLLY even then- I’m not very big on cricket you’ll be astonished to learn-so not a success for me.
    Thanks Brummie.

  52. Thanks both,
    I found the theme helpful. If ‘all out’ is to mean ‘exhausted’, then it needs to be followed by ‘of’, IMHO.

  55. This was one more to admire afterwards than to enjoy solving. If I had twigged the theme (which I should have done from TEST RUN and SINGLE) I would have made more progress and enjoyed it more, but seeng (on this page) the grid full of cricket references was ample compensation. Bravo Brummie.

  56. Unfortunately I know nothing about cricket – and so missed the theme but also only got Dolly only from the crossers.  I had quickly put in Dream (when I only had Sadist) … I thought “Catch the sheep” was such a nice cryptic definition for stopping the count and actually falling asleep … hence dream. Clearly I was reading too much into it …

  57. Simon S at 54: but it would have to be ‘they’re all out’ to match ‘completely exhausted’.
    The OED has that usage as rare, with the last quote from 1901.
    Lovely puzzle, thanks S&B.

  58. Thanks to all involved: I thought this was a very enjoyable puzzle from Brummie, a really helpful and instructive blog from loonapick which showed me even more theme words than I had spotted myself, and a most interesting discussion from the contributors to the forum.

  59. On 23d again. It occurred to me overnight that if you regard it mathematically the solution – the RHS of the “equation” – is singular, so the clue – the LHS – must be singular too; hence “one” is the subject, and “makes” is correct.

  60. Back to ‘one of those who [verb]’, I don’t know the technical terms but if you can put a comma after the ‘those’ without changing the sense it takes the singular verb, otherwise it takes the plural verb. So the cryptic grammar is wrong. In the surface reading we are picking out ‘one of those [unspecified people]’ hosts a film.
    Or so it seems to me 😉

  61. Hi again muffin @ 59

    You might have a case where the solution (RHS) is ‘shingle’, but the definition in the clue (LHS) is ‘pebbles’ – you could use an = sign, indicating equal meaning, but grammatically one would be sing. and the other pl.

    Just as, mathematically, it would make sense to say 1m = 100cm.

    That said, I agree that in 23d both RHS (extra) and LHS (one) are singular.  The question is, how do you get to the “one”?  The answer, it seems to me, is that you define it as one element of a subset (those) and then describe the subset (who make a film host).  In describing the subset you have to use a plural verb (make) because there is more than one in the set.

    [I’ve just realised Dr WhatsOn @ 9 made the same point much more neatly – apologies!]

    Gonzo @ 60

    Re inserting a comma – I’m not sure you can do that here, but you could insert a dash.  Then you would have “One of those – who makes a film host?”

  62. Thanks for response, essexboy. I do a lot of proofreading, and when something like this comes up I’m never sure what to do. “One of those” seems singular to me, but I do see your (and Eileen’s) point.

  63. I’m very late (It’s evening in Eastern Time) and I know from experience that few, if any, commenters will follow my post, but I’ve very much enjoyed the bandying on the grammatical problem of 23d.
    I agree with most that the clue is wrong in its grammar, and would work better if it were correctly phrased (though misdirection may have been the motive).
    If we must use the clue as spelled, I’d offer this alternative:
    One (of those!) who makes a film host

  64. …Similar to Essexboy’s @60 idea, but a little different. One could replace my parentheses with twin em-dashes just as well.

  66. Interesting link from Eileen about the Romans and fuller’s earth. When I worked in Leeds in the late 70’s I was introduced to the expression- ‘he doesn’t know if he’s on this earth or fuller’s’. Meaning he is out of touch with reality, or a daydreamer. Never heard it anywhere else in Britain.

  67. This was a great crossword – just did it from the Guardian weekly and really enjoyed spotting the theme.   I got it all except Edgbaston and now am kicking myself. Also, can anyone explain ONER = a pound to me? It had to be, but why?

     

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