Guardian 24,379 (Sat 3 Mar)/Crucible – Cue jumping

Solving time: 9:06

A snooker-themed puzzle by an appropriately named setter to coincide with the World Championship at the Crucible last weekend. The unclued entries consisted of all the colours (less black and yellow which appeared in 1ac and 31ac) and the players referred to were [Steve] Davis and [Jimmy] White (the latter doing double duty as a ball). Seven other clues contained the letters DER in order, which was probably deliberate; hiding the full fifteen reds might have been a bit much to ask!

I solved 28dn straight away so guessed the theme quickly, and the rest of the clues weren’t too difficult. 16dn (RED) appeared as ‘null’ in the online version, but I think it was probably meant to be blank.

Music of the day may have to be shelved for a while as I’ve managed to break the sound on my computer, but what about Snooker Loopy by Matchroom Mob with Chas And Dave?

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1	BLACK + PEPPER – as in Sergeant Pepper.
12	TH(E.R.)E + UN + DER – I nearly wrote in ‘thereafter’ but luckily checked the wordplay.
15	DEC + O[r]DER
17	LOO + S,E,N
20	DERIDE; rev. of RED, + IDE
22	DERRICK; rev. of RED, + RICK – as in Red Adair.
23	VEDA – an ancient Sanksrit text.
27	REPROACHER; (OR PREACHER)* – I just couldn’t solve this anagram.
29	SE(AB)A + SS
30	EYEBROW; “[h]IGHBROW”
31	YELLOW FEVER; (FEEL VERY)* around LOW

Down
2	LEASEHOLDS; AS and HOL inside LEEDS
3	CO-LANDER – I liked this one.
4	POWDER; P.O.W. + rev. of RED
6	EDIBLES; I in [b]ED,B + LES – my last entry, which took about 20-30 seconds at the end because I was slow to split ‘Food writer’.
8	SLEEVE (hidden)
14	JOURNALESE; (NEURAL)* in JOSE
19	DERRIERE; [London] “DERRY AIR”
21	RED TAPE, from TAPERED – a bit of an old chestnut.
23	CO(HER)E
28	BALL[et] – I thought this might have been made a bit harder to prevent the theme being cracked too early.

7 comments on “Guardian 24,379 (Sat 3 Mar)/Crucible – Cue jumping”

petebiddlecombe

#1 - Sat 10th May 08, 12:01

So who is Crucible? I think we should be told …

eimi

#2 - Sat 10th May 08, 13:19

He also goes under the name Radian.

Paul B

#3 - Sat 10th May 08, 14:03

So … (you can guess the next bit).

muck

#4 - Sat 10th May 08, 15:34

I really enjoyed this puzzle. My thoughts on the identity of the setter are: ‘radian’ is the circular definition of an angle; snooker involves going round the angles. Angelo?