Estimated competition solving time: 9 minutes
As for the Grand Final puzzles, FL indicates clues solved on first look, and WW indicates those entered without complete wordplay understanding. Both are subject to the accuracy of my memory and for many of the the WW ones, it’s perfectly possible that thinking for a few seconds more would have been enough for full understanding.
These puzzles contain the real answer to Jimbo’s criticism about the leap in difficulty compared to the qualifying puzzles. Both these and the prelim 2 puzzles, which seem a bit harder than this set, were the kind of puzzle you could see any day of the week in the Times, and only a fairly gentle step up from the qualifiers. (Weren’t people asking last year whether the Cheltenham puzzles were too easy? This set of three took Mark Goodliffe about 17 minutes instead of 13 or 14 for last year’s prelims. That may sound a lot but it’s a pretty small difference in difficulty.)
As well as an excuse for me to tell a story from the championship archives, there’s lots to admire in this puzzle.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | DEMOBILISE – MOB=rabble in (isle die)* |
| 6 FL | V=very,END=last part |
| 10 | A CRO(B.)AT |
| 11 FL | OMICRON = (moronic)* – a stock formula which should have given everyone a starter in the top of the grid. The formula is: {character/letter plus some Greek personage} means: look for a name of a Greek letter which appears somewhere in the original Greek version of their name – here, Aristophanes would contain an omicron. |
| 12 WW | F(ETISH = (is the)*)IST – I didn’t see puncher=fist until re-solving last night. |
| 13 FL | THYME – hidden in “healTHY MEals” |
| 14 FL | A(U=united)DEN – den = “low place” .i.e. a shady place like a “den of iniquity”, rather than somewhere like Death Valley. W H Auden wrote librettos for operas by Britten, Stravinsky and Hans Werner Henze, as well as poetry |
| 15 | EX,PUR(GAT)E |
| 17 | PUR(CHASE)R |
| 20 | L,OPES = “in verse starts” – ope = open (poetic) |
| 21 FL | A(R)ROW – just realised how close this clue is to 20’s – both have runs and lines, but of course both mean different things in each clue |
| 23 FL | CO(L,U from MarceL MarceaU)MBINE – Columbine is the Anglicised version of Columbina, a character in the Commedia dell’Arte |
| 25 FL | TINFOIL – tuck=food, not what you do with (bed) sheets – and of course “tuck in” is what you can do with that food – the sort of incidental point that can give you a bit more mental grief when solving against the clock – never mind the possibility of a (tuck in such) “sandwich” |
| 26 | TWITTER – 2 defs, and done without reference to saying things in 140 characters or less |
| 27 FL | ROPY – cryptic and fairly plain defs |
| 28 FL | BRIDE’S HEAD = “a veil may be drawn over this”, and a literary pile = stately home. |
| Down | |
| 1 FL | D=heart of Mordor,WAR=fighting,F=Frodo at the outset – very nice surface, as I’m sure that the Lord of the Rings trilogy must include a “Tower over (the) heart of Mordor”, possibly with a name five letters long |
| 2 WW | MAR(YTUD = duty rev.),O.R. = “those without (military) commission” – a fresh way of getting the “other ranks” |
| 3 FL | BABES IN THE WOOD = (with beans booed)* – a pretty transparent anagram which should have helped start the left of the grid |
| 4 | LATT(I,C)E – nicely done coffee shop surface |
| 5 FL | SHOO,TUP=ram=sheep |
| 7 FL | E(A,R from inteRest) – another starter clue, with the easy ELY and R |
| 8 FL | DUN(GE.)ES,S – a crossword version of Dungeness, as sand is in short supply there. |
| 9 FL | WINTER OLYMPICS – L in (me win icy sport) – I couldn’t help sniggering at this when Mark Goodliffe, who had moved from the second prelim to the first, was only a few feet away. Here’s why. Last year, the snowy Bernese Oberland was one of very few clues in the grand final to really make him think. And now that his place in the solving elite is assured, he probably won’t mind this old story being told: In the 2000 National Final, Mark was defending the title he’d won the previous year in his first final. The puzzles were about the same difficulty as last year’s Grand Final, and Mark recorded times around 6 minutes for each of the three (tackled separately back then). With one puzzle left, he was five minutes ahead of yours truly in second. Just 3 minutes behind me were Bill Pilkington and Alastair Sutherland – both top solvers of that era, and a couple of other familiar names were 5 minutes behind me. So my aim for the final puzzle was just to hold on to 2nd, which would have been my first podium finish. I finished the puzzle first, inside 8 minutes and (as you did in those days) walked off the stage to check the official solution in the next room. Mark saw this, decided that he had about 3 minutes left, and I’m sure had less than 5 clues left to complete – probably about two. One of them just managed to evade him. I can’t remember the clue, but will never forget the rest – the checkers were ?I?T?L?N and the answer was BIATHLON – the Winter Olympics event that combines cross-country skiing with shooting. Mark settled for a guess based on the checking letters, walked out to confirm his expectation that it wasn’t right, shook me by the hand and I’m sure bought me at least one pint in the pub afterwards. |
| 14 | ASP HALTER – back in 2009, this was the clue that held me up a while in this prelim. St Patrick famously banished snakes from Ireland, and an asphalter is one who prepares the way=street, rather than someone like St John the Baptist, who prepared a different kind of way. I couldn’t see this (or, fortunately, anything else) from A?P?A?T?R and decided to bash on with puzzles 2 and 3 and come back to it – a tactic not available in that 2000 final. |
| 16 WW | AP(POINTE(d))E – incisive = pointed – a slippery one as ADDRESSEE is pretty well defined as a post recipient and fits a couple of checking letters |
| 18 FL | SECULA(r) = (clues ar(e))* |
| 19 FL | RELATED – 2 defs |
| 22 FL | RUN UP = run-up – 2 defs |
| 24 FL | E.R.=”top royal”,RED=”flush’s colour” – nice surface as a poker royal flush could be in hearts or diamonds and therefore red. |
All nine championship puzzles are on the Times website in PDF files:
First preliminary
Second preliminary
Grand Final
Solutions
Full Results – Word document, not PDF
…but got there in the end. Now to settle down to 6 for this evening – are you blogging the second session at any stage or have your fingers dropped off by now !?!