The 2008 US Open Golf Championship starts today at the Torrey Pines course in San Diego, CA. Virgilius commemorates this fact in his usual inimitable style.

Harder than the average Paul today - or maybe my brain is slow in sympathy with this BT Broadband connection.

ACROSS

8 THERE ARE NO FLIES ON HIM - tracksuit bottoms rarely come with zippers (”flies”)

10 D(RUM)ROLL

11 Y(AR)BO-ROUGH : i.e (BOY)* with A R(ight) inside plus “ROUGH”. A Yarborough is a bridge hand with no “points” i.e only the cards between 2 and 9. The eponymous Earl used to offer 1,000 to 1 odds on it happening. He was no fool ; the real odds are almost twice that and he never (reportedly) paid out.

12 D(AMP)EN - “Watt” is the unit of power, but if electricity is “power” then the “Amp” is one of the units of “power”. Moan, moan, whinge.

14 Omitted on purpose - anagram

15 ??? - I didn’t get this yet. Help welcome.

17 A(LSO)RAN

20 MAR-CELLO

23 CHILD’S PLAY

24 RARE : as in meat cooked that way being red. A blue moon is very rare. Is Paul also playing on the fact the French describe very rare meat as “bleu” (blue) ?

25 MUDDY WATERS

26 E-QUALISE - (I SQUEAL E)

DOWN

1 CHORDATA : (ACTORHAD)* - spent too long looking for a British geographical reference, but it is in fact the group of animals to which we human belongs - reference to our (spinal) chord, I suppose.

2 B-RIM

3 C(ANY)ON

4 H(EARS)AY : “ears” as “word processors” is a real stretch, but the answer is unmistakable when you see it, which is the way I assess clues for fairness.

5 CO(LOSS)AL : Reference to Margaret Thatcher’s problems with the miners in the 1980s. “Noire” is a particularly pleasing touch, as coal is in fact black.

6 T(H)ROUGH-OUT

7 E(MIG)RE

13 P-IN-A-COLA-(so)DA : A trademark piece of Paulism. I spent way too long looking for “LIME something” thanks to the SODA reference.

16 BULLS EYE

18 A(I)RB-RUSH : (BRA) reversed (strange image!) with “I” in it plus RUSH

21 AT HO(s)-ME : ATHOS was one of the Three Musketeers

22 WA(YOU)T : So soon after Tuesday’s “ANGKOR WAT” we have another WAT today. I’m not wise in the ways of Buddhism - I just know the word from playing too much “Tomb Raider” on the Playstation.

This appeared in the IoS on the day that Don Manley’s guide to cryptic crosswords was given out free with the paper. I thought perhaps some of those new solvers might turn to this puzzle (Quixote being Don’s Indy pseudonym), but it’s more likely they’d look at the puzzles in the guide itself.

Maybe just as well because I found this extremely hard by Quixote standards, got there in the end though, solving time 38 mins.

* = anagram < = reversal

ACROSS

1 SAP PH O have not seen that PH = measure of acidity for a while.

4 SEN D UP Democratic Unionist Party  (in the news just now in London as well as NI)

7 I’M PERFECT The imperfect tense (grammar)

9 GORE cf OGRE

11 ASTATINE (sea taint)* Very subtle. The definition is At (the chemical symbol for Astatine)

12 WIND ER Another very tricky one. ‘times’ refers to winding watches, I think.    Been a while since I did that.

14 UN H ITCH

15 Greta GARB(o)

17 TEST Hidden

19 ART IS T(h)E not sure about ‘is’ = ‘needs to be’ acquired by, but it has to be right

21 SIT-IN G Very good

23 TURN E D ON

25 BASE Double definition

26 TYR (ANN IS) E

27 D (ES) IRE   Es a bit of a cliche by now   tu es (French) = thou art (’you are’ in an older guise) so es = French art

28 MAO RIS< Very tough, my second last entry

DOWN

1 SEMOLINA (a lemon is)*    Not had that as a dessert for a good while.

2 PEE RED Doesn’t bear thinking about

3 HU(e) FF as in ‘hue and cry’, I think

4 SET Double definition

5 DOGFIGHT  Excellent pun on ‘boxers’

6 PARSE C c = speed of light (maximum speed) as in e = mXc(squared)

8 C (consulted initially) ASE HISTORY (so hysteria)*

10 C ASTLES (slates)*

13 RU S(players finally) TIER

16 BA (RR) IERS (Serbia)*

19 SYNOP SIS Pony’s<

20 ST (R) AND

22 TANNER A for E in tenner - A and E are both musical notes. And, yes, if you can remember back that far, there were 2 tanners (sixpence) in a shilling, and 20 shillings in a pound so a tanner is 1/400th of a tenner. Phew! This was the last clue I solved - it crossed 28 ac.    But it lives on in football speak e.g. on Sky ‘he can turn on a sixpence’.     I like asking younger people if they understand that - no one has yet so I explain it was a very small coin.

I found this Cincinnus distinctly more difficult than I am used to. Did others feel the same? It carries on his elegant quality with great clues such as 13A, 19A, 5D and 24D. Some clues that stumped me for a while were 13A, 14D and 20D.

Across
1. HAM AND EGGS - H (husband) + AMAND[a] (girl almost) + EGGS (encourages)
7. GOLD - G (grand) + OLD (getting on with it)
9. OPUS - hidden, reversed word
10. PROFITLESS - FIT (suitable) in PROLES (poor people) + S (shilling)
11. NORMAL - NORMA (girl) + L (left)
12. EMPHASIS -AS (while) in [m]EMPHIS (US city with leader absent)
13. MERCATOR - [fil]M + anagram of CRATE OR
15. ETNA - ANTE (before) reversed (going west)
17. FLAK - F[alse] + LAK[e] (mostly mere)
19. ISOTHERM - IS (is) + OTHER (not the same) + M (Monday)
22. POOH POOH - HOOP HOOP (rings) reversed (round)
23. MUTINY - MU (Greek character) + TINY (small)
25. WELL SPOKEN - WELLS (writer, i.e. H.G.) + POKE (sack) + N[ovember]
26. TROY - T[ransfer] + ROY. The Roy here is as in “Roy of the Rovers”, a very long-running comic strip that I don’t recall ever coming across before this clue came along.
27. AYES - A (one) + YES (vote in favour)
28. EASTENDERS - EA (each) + S (leisure centre) + TENDERS (offers)

Down
2. APPROVE - PA (governor) reversed (about) + PROVE (turn out)
3. ASSAM - AS (when) + S[erved] + AM (in the morning)
4. DEPILATE - DE[lilah] + PILATE (Biblical character)
5. GLOBE ARTICHOKES - anagram of BOOK TEACHES GIRL
6. SKIMPY - KIM (Philby) in SPY (agent). Cute given that Kim Philby was a spy.
7. GILGAMESH - L[illian] + GAME (play) in GISH (Lillian). After a brief diversion thinking about Lillian Hellman and Lillian Beckwith, I quickly guessed this answer but took a while to reconcile it with the wordplay.
8. LESBIAN - B (born) in anagram AN ISLE
14. CAKEHOLES - anagram of CHELSEA OK. How wonderfully English!
16. COMMENCE - COMMERCE (traffic) with R (right) changed to N (pole)
18. LOOSELY - LOOS (conveniences) + ELY (cathedral). And my favourite cathedral to boot!
20. RANCOUR - homophone (”ranker”). I did not get this wordplay originally — see notes below.
21. TOPPLE - TOP (spinner) + ‘ELP (Cockney’s assistance) backwards (to rise)
24. TOTED - TOT (little one) + E[xhauste]D