Tags

, , , ,

Last week I left you this clue to solve:

Ashes could be reinvigorated with this game (5)

Say ‘the Ashes’ to anyone who knows anything about cricket and they will tell you that it is the name of a famous contest between England and Australia which began well over 100 years ago.  This year the Ashes series, consisting of 5 matches each potentially 5 days in length, is being played in the UK and starts on 8th July.

However, I am sorry to say that none of that information is of assistance. By making Ashes the first word in the clue, where it naturally has a capital letter, the crossword setter has deliberately led us astray.  The clue refers, not to a series of cricket matches, but to ashes which remain after something is burnt (the word ‘ashes’ is the plural of ash, see here).  While ashes in a fire are still hot it is usually possible to reinvigorate them (defined here as to give them new energy – in other words re-establish a flame) by stirring them a little.  To do that one pokes the smouldering (still burning) ashes using an implement called a poker.  And that is the answer to the clue:

POKER

since poker refers not only to something which could reinvigorate ashes but is also a well known game (a gambling game involving cards), as defined here.

Although cricket has nothing directly to do with the clue, there is a historical connection between cricket and ashes.  A trophy known as The Ashes (kept permanently at a famous cricket ground in London called Lords) is said to contain the ashes of a piece of cricket equipment burnt in 1882 following the English team’s heavy defeat by Australia in England.  It is this trophy (a very small urn or vase) that the English and Australian teams compete to win every couple of years (the current holder is Australia). If you are interested in learning more about this piece of cricketing history please see the Wikipedia article here.

The English summer has a busy sporting calendar.  As the Ashes gets under way we still have to get through the later stages of the tennis at Wimbledon, which began earlier this week.  This will be a nail-biting time (an anxious few days) for supporters of Andy Murray, the great British hope.  It seems only appropriate, therefore, to include a clue about tennis.  This is from The Daily Telegraph Prize Crossword Puzzle No. 27,767 dated 4th April 2015 and reads:

Front drive in SW19 (8)

If you have been to London you will have seen streets in the city labelled W1, WC2, EC4 etc.  These are postal districts:  W standing for West, E for East, C for Central.  The area known as SW19 (South West 19), on the outskirts of London (quite a long way from the centre), is Wimbledon where the tennis courts are situated.

A front drive is a path leading to a house and is typically where you might park your car.  However, in tennis, ‘drive’ has another meaning.  It refers to a strong stroke: the ball is driven hard by the player’s racquet.  Being a ‘front’ drive the answer is:

FOREHAND

rather than a similar type of shot played on the backhand.

For some of the vocabulary used in tennis please see the BBC Learning English website here.

It is really too early to start thinking about football which resumes again in the UK in early August, but for those who are more interested in ‘the beautiful game’ than cricket and tennis here is a clue you might like from Daily Telegraph Crossword Puzzle No. 27,834 dated 22nd June 2015:

False credit note accepted by football team (8)

A credit note (saying you owe someone money) is known as an IOU – because if you say IOU quickly you hear “I owe you”. One of many football teams in the English Premier Division is called Tottenham Hotspur or Spurs for short. The club is based in North London (N17) at White Hart Lane.

So if IOU is ‘accepted’ (taken inside) SPURS, the answer is:

SPURIOUS

The word spurious means false or fake and in certain contexts can mean invalid – see the definition here.

But back to Wimbledon, and (from the same crossword as the SW19 clue above) this is quite neat:

Half score before point is added in game (6)

I will tell you that the answer is:

TENNIS

Your challenge is to work out why.  All will be made clear next week!