Of the three puzzles in the final I found this the middle one in terms of difficulty, though closer to #1 (the hardest) than #2 (the easiest). When I turned to this I think I’d done the bottom half and some of the top right of #1 and virtually finished #2.
Most of this puzzle actually went pretty well, but I got stuck on 27ac and 25dn (RAZOR WIRE/ZEUS) in the bottom right and 19ac (LOOM), and think I must have taken over 5 minutes on these three alone. Total time for this puzzle was probably around 13 mins, compared with perhaps 16 mins on #1 and 8 mins on #2.
Peter Biddlecombe adds: “For me this was the easiest of the three by a wide margin, but probably for the same reason that I recorded the best time of the day in the 4th puzzle of my first final – I’d messed up one of the middle two, so any hope of a good performance was long gone and the pressure was off. Good progress with this one cheered me up just enough to return to the 20-odd remaining clues in 1 and 2 with some hope of solving them in the 20-odd minutes remaining. Solved without full wordplay: 13, 17, 2, 3 – the last of these may well have been the last answer for this puzzle.”
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | One’s mum making this polite refusal, look (3,1,4) |
| NOT A PEEP; NO TA (= ‘polite refusal’) + PEEP – I think I got this immediately on second look, having abandoned it after a couple of seconds at the start; maybe I should have spent longer on it given the enumeration but it wasn’t clear to me at which end of the clue the definition was. | |
| 5 | Head chasing circuit for computer (6) |
| LAPTOP; TOP (= ‘head’) after LAP (= ‘circuit’) – with the ‘T’ in place this came quickly, but I stopped to check the wordplay because of alternatives like ‘desktop’ and ‘palmtop’, though on reflection I don’t think there are any 6-letter alternatives. | |
| 10 | Needlewoman’s embroidered lace — top drawer (9) |
| CLEOPATRA; (LACE TOP)* + R.A. – I needed most of the checking letters for this, and didn’t understand the reference to Cleopatra’s Needles until someone explained it to me afterwards. | |
| 11 | Girl married out of spite (5) |
| [m]ALICE | |
| 12 | Hikes over moor, finally finding driver (4) |
| SPUR; rev. of UPS, + [moo]R – couldn’t parse this at first because a three-letter word for ‘hikes’ seemed so unlikely. | |
| 13 | See intrigue when in a flap and weak (2,1,3,3) |
| AT A LOW EBB; (LO + WEB) in A TAB – if I remember correctly this was my first solve, my eyes having been drawn to the enumeration – I think I spotted the answer from that and ‘weak’, with TAB for ‘flap’ being sufficient confirmation. | |
| 15 | Jack maybe hiding book — something Bob’s often spotted (10) |
| CARBUNCLED; CARD around B + UNCLE – didn’t know this word’s meaning and so struggled until I had several letters and saw ‘uncle’ (as in the phrase ‘Bob’s your uncle’). Even then I had to work out the full wordplay to avoid ‘carbuncley’ or ‘carbuncles’ (and I remember thinking at the time that this was a potential trap, although it isn’t really). | |
| 17 | Made charts of East London showing underground passage (4) |
| ADIT; [h]AD [h]IT – brilliant, and although I couldn’t see the wordplay when solving I was pretty sure of the answer, though I didn’t write it in until I had both checking letters. | |
| 19 | Come up close by source of Tweed? (4) |
| LOOM (2 defs) – my worst clue in this puzzle, and it must have cost me at least two or three minutes, maybe more. I was badly sidetracked by ‘source of Tweed?’ = ‘T’, even though ‘loot’ was clearly not right and also that wouldn’t justify the question mark. Then I thought that if you polish something you might say it ‘comes up’ shiny, i.e. looks shiny, and very nearly put in ‘look’ but luckily went through the alphabet one more time and saw the answer. At the time I was very pleased with myself for this, but unfortunately should have done the same with ‘phoney’ in puzzle 1 where I was (rightly) unconvinced by ‘tripe’ = ‘honey’. | |
| 20 | Kitchen worker lived with woman on dole (10) |
| DISHWASHER; WAS (= ‘lived’) + HER (= ‘woman’) after DISH (= ‘dole’ [out]) – had to rub out some of this as I wrote in ‘wash’ at the beginning with the first ‘H’ already in place. | |
| 22 | After gymnastic stunts cheers very loudly, that’s plain! (9) |
| PIKESTAFF; PIKES + TA (= ‘cheers’) + FF – got this very quickly (from ‘plain as a pikestaff’), another I felt I’d solved faster than ‘par’. This was probably my 10th entry and at this point I really felt this puzzle was going well. | |
| 24 | Chap who’s bright grasping one of three basic subjects? (4) |
| GARY; R in GAY – ‘one of three basic subjects?’ had to be ‘R’ but I couldn’t get the rest until I had the checking ‘G’. The question mark made me wonder if there was an &lit element and I tried a couple of things like ‘nerd’. | |
| 26 | Is it not commonly Aussie can cut boomerangs? (5) |
| INNIT; rev. of TINNI[e] – felt I should have been quicker here, having wasted time on ‘ain’t’. | |
| 27 | One shifting bristles with rage and coils up in defence (5,4) |
| RAZOR WIRE; RAZOR + W[ith] + IRE (= ‘rage’) – oh dear. The checking ‘Z’ meant that RAZOR was obvious, but I thought ‘One with bristles’ was the definition and so was confused by the rest because I just couldn’t see where the ‘Z’ in the wordplay came from; I even considered ‘Zorbs’ for ‘coils’ (a Zorb being a giant inflatable ball you can roll down a hill in). I can’t remember what brought the breakthrough but I was pretty cross with myself when I realised what was going on. Using ‘coils’ as a noun in the definition is cunning but being picky the surface reading of this clue seems forced/ungrammatical to me. | |
| 28 | Mark perhaps left by wound goes purple initially (6) |
| GOSPEL; L after (GOES P[urple]) – excellent clue and I spent time trying to justify ‘gashed’ or similar. | |
| 29 | Outline of Shetland perhaps to the west, then second island (8) |
| SYNOPSIS; rev. of PONY’S (= ‘of Shetland perhaps’) + S[econd] + IS[land] – ‘Outline of Shetland’ was clearly SD so ‘island’ had to be the definition… or so I thought. Good to see ‘perhaps’ for this definition by example (of PONY), and likewise in the previous clue. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Scratch, cut or pinch form, whether good or bad (4) |
| NICK (4 or 5 defs) – ‘Scratch’ as in the Devil, ‘cut’ as in ‘to score’, ‘pinch’ as in ‘to steal’, and form because you can be in ‘good nick’ or (I guess) ‘bad nick’. At the time I thought there was a connection between [criminal] form and ‘the nick’ = ‘prison’, but now I don’t think so. | |
| 2 | Article to wear before ball, following college, and racing (3,5,2,5) |
| THE SPORT OF KINGS; THE + SPORT (= ‘wear’) + O (= ‘ball’) + F[ollowing] + KING’S (= [Cambridge] ‘college’) – the one long answer in this puzzle that I felt should have come faster. I thought ‘racing’ was probably an adjective and the answer was therefore something along the lines of ‘going like the clappers’. | |
| 3 | Report recalled dog swallowing gold band (3,5) |
| POP GROUP; POP (= ‘report’), + rev. of PUG (= ‘dog’) around OR (= ‘gold’) – needed several checking letters for this. | |
| 4 | Divorcee turning pictures over (5) |
| EXTRA; EX + rev. of ART – slightly confused momentarily by the lack of a definition here until I realised that it was ‘over’. | |
| 6 | French poet and topless model (6) |
| [p]ARAGON – my heart sank when I saw ‘French poet’ but luckily the checking letters and wordplay were kind. | |
| 7 | Rear people’s children late, as I ordered (4-3,8) |
| TAIL-END CHARLIES; (CHILDREN LATE AS I)* – with the crossing ‘E’ of END, I saw this straight away as my second answer in, at which point I felt I’d had a good start and might be gaining some ground. | |
| 8 | Sister gathering a few bits in quarry for father’s house (10) |
| PRESBYTERY; S[iste]R around BYTE, all in PREY (= ‘quarry’) – after seeing PREY it was still a struggle to work out the middle bit (until I cottoned onto ‘a few bits’ = BYTE) as I wasn’t totally sure of the word. | |
| 9 | Extreme characters are occupying unspecified position in Middle East town (8) |
| NAZARETH; A,Z (= ‘Extreme characters) + ARE, all in NTH – a couple of seconds’ unnecessary delay here double-checking the ‘Z’, because there’s a town called Nasareth in north Wales, and doubly unnecessary because ‘AZ’ was the bit of wordplay that led me to the answer. | |
| 14 | Pulling legs, pinch chap’s bottom, naughtily (10) |
| SCHLEPPING; (LEGS PINCH [cha]P)* – difficult but luckily I knew the word, which is Yiddish and has some variant spellings. | |
| 16 | Keen guards greeting lady, displaying it? (8) |
| CHIVALRY; CRY around (HI + VAL)* – spotted from the (semi-)&lit definition. | |
| 18 | Aussie skipper’s bludgeoned 6 stopping decisive defeat (8) |
| KANGAROO; (ARAGON)* in K.O. – I was furious with myself when I realised I’d been fooled by ‘Aussie skipper’. | |
| 21 | Fly Trieste-Stansted after lifting bags (6) |
| TSETSE (hidden) – lovely clue, with an implied ‘that’ after the definition (‘Fly’) and ‘bags’ being a verb, in the sense of ‘Cup [that] crossword champion holds’. | |
| 23 | Female for time in a panic, but not still (5) |
| FIZZY, from TIZZY – getting this ‘cold’ was a big boost because of the checking letters it gave, especially the ‘Z’, although in fact that proved to be next to no help. | |
| 25 | Super being leader once crisis is over! (4) |
| ZEUS; rev. of SUEZ – I can’t quite remember how I eventually got this – from ‘Zeus’ rather than ‘Suez’, I think – and at the time I didn’t properly understand the definition which I now realise is ‘Super being leader’ in the sense of ‘leader of super beings’. | |
HEAD looked vaguely plausible for 25D (“leader” = HEAD; “crisis” coming to a HEAD), but not quite good enough to write in speculatively. On the other hand I couldn’t make anything of 29A: with my brain now starting to seize up, the only thing I could think of to do with “Shetland” was The Shetland Bus. S for “second” would make a plausible ending for a Greek island, and the Y made me think of MYKONOS and the CYCLADES, but neither was any use. Could this me some damned island I simply didn’t know? I’ve never visited Greece or its islands, so what little knowledge I have comes mainly from ancient history and mythology.
With less than 5 minutes to go, panic was starting to set in, but I suddenly thought of the old ZEUS/SUEZ pairing and realised that 25D must be ZEUS.
Three minutes to go. Aargh! At least I now had a definite -Y-0-S-S for 29A. Suppose the S from “second” was the 6th rather than the 8th letter and “island” was IS. SYNOPSIS? Oh, bloody hell: PONY’S. And I wrote it in and held up my number with less than 30 seconds to spare.
Phew!
I laughed at gay, clued as “chap who’s bright” too..