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Malone

I expect you would also be irritated by SLOANE. Don't know if The Times has ever used it, but it's ripe for clueing with your name. 😁

Malone

No SA but a nice cricket one

Malone

You were right about more dodgy homophones this week. Times 27796.
10ac Bad joints reported by those writing regularly (8)
D - - R- - -S

5d Heard in dispute: what calls for blessing? (7)
A - - - H - O

For the latter, after repeating the solution, I think we add 'We all fall down (in despair)'.

Paul...

For the sake of my sanity, I'm trying to ignore - pointedly - many of these 'sounds like' clues. It's sad to say, but I'm definitely now a homophonophobic.

Paul, Malone

Yes they were dreadful clues, but at least there was plenty of cricket today

Jigjag

'At least there was plenty of cricket today' isn't quite how I would phrase it!

Today's disliked (by me) clue...

Spaniard maybe in East London semi, soon to move (7).

Malone

I thought it was dubious too. I thought of " 'arf " as spoken rather than written, as a Cockney would write "half".

Malone Paul

Not happy with the Times today. I think 11A is a poor clue, and I thought a "winning" position was one from which one should win, rather already won.

Jigjag, I've just noticed your earlier reply, about the Arf/Alf clue. It's a pretty poor clue, the more I look at it, the less I like it!

I haven't looked at today's Times puzzle. I'm off to do that now.

Jigjag, Malone

Jigjag, I see 11ac will torture Malone again with our old friend 'appeal'. Perhaps the solution reflects the Times wishing to claim some street cred.

As a chess player I think checkmate can be winning as well as won. However, the Czech mate pun is very stale and much beloved by tabloid headline writers. Chess rarely makes the news pages unless there's something bad going on like cheating or a love life scandal (cue Czech mate).