201201 2012 Championship Grand Final – Puzzle 1

This was my first final and – no doubt like many first-timers before me – I felt an element of pressure that just doesn’t exist when I’m sitting at home, solving online and munching on a plain chocolate digestive.  It didn’t help having Peter Brooksbank scribbling away confidently on my left.  But whatever the reason, it took me an age to get going on this puzzle and I would guess that it took up 20-25 minutes in total, even though in hindsight it was perhaps the easiest of the three.  1A, i.e. the very first clue in the final, was the very last one I solved before putting my hand up.

I must say that I found it hard to fully appreciate the work of the setters when solving under competition conditions.  I entered quite a few answers that seemed right at the time but which I couldn’t immediately justify from the wordplay (though more so from puzzles 2 and 3 than puzzle 1).  And having made such a slow start, I was more concerned with getting on to the next clue rather than being sure that what I’d written in was 100% correct (a strategy that inevitably resulted in an error).  However looking over the puzzles again now at my leisure, it’s obvious the effort that has gone into each clue’s construction – for which I can only applaud the setters.

Across
1 RACECARD – RACE (channel – the commonest example I can think of for this is millrace) + CARD (queen, say).  A RACECARD gives the running order and competitors at a racecourse, which is of interest to betters.  This was my LOI for the entire final, mainly because I was convinced that “Queen” must refer to either ER or R.  And this despite a very similar word showing up in the prelim.
5 BLOW UP – BLOW (setback) + UP (doing its usual sterling service to indicate being on a horse)
10 FAMOUS LAST WORDS – (A must for Sod’s Law)*
11 SPANISH – SIS (sister) around PAN (to criticise) + H (husband)
12 BLOATER – L (lake) inside BOATER (chap in dinghy).  A BLOATER is a type of herring.
13 CANNIBAL – C + ANN + I + (LAB reversed) where LAB is the Labour Party
15 NICAM – (CINeMA)* (ordered to remove English), where NICAM is an acronym for Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex, a form of compression used to transmit stereo TV sound.
18 LINKS – homophone of lynx
20 CHARTISM – SIT reversed (to meet about, where SIT is used in the sense of a committee or a parliament meeting) inside (stopping) CHARM (appeal)
23 GORILLA – GO (shot, in the sense of an attempt) + RILL (stream) + deltA (close to delta)
25 CHOLERA – HOLE (spot, in the sense of a difficult situation) inside CRAm (short study)
26 HIT THE HEADLINES – HIT (strike) + THE (article) + HEADS (leaders) around LINE (policy)
27 PEYOTE – PE (exercise, i.e. Physical Education) + OT (books, i.e. Old Testament) inside YE (you).  PEYOTE is a cactus native to Mexico that is a source of mescaline.
28 DESPOTIC – (DOPES)* + TIC

Down
1 REFUSE – RatE (rate dropping at first) + FUSE (bond)
2 COME AGAIN – dd with “what?” used in the sense of “Pardon?”
3 CAUTION – dd though the usage in the sense of “amusing person” is not one that I can recall hearing recently.  For some reason it strikes me as the sort of thing that might have been said in “Are You Being Served?”
4 RALPH – R (beginning to read)+ ALPHa (unfinished letter).  The Emerson in the clue is RALPH Waldo Emerson, the American essayist.
6 LOW-DOWN – dd where dope is used in the sense of information
7 WORST – ROW reversed (topsy-turvy argument) + ST (way, i.e. street) and the definition is “Best” in a verbal sense.
8 PASTRAMI – PASTIs (endless aperitif) around (welcoming) RAM (the sign of the zodiac Aries).  Pastis is an anise-flavoured aperitif, PASTRAMI a type of meat usually made from beef.
9 ISABELLA – ALL ASIa (whole of continent cut) reversed (up) around BizarrE (extremely bizarre).  There have been umpteen Queen ISABELLAs from all over Europe.
14 BACKACHE – BACK (second) + H (hour) in ACE (great).
16 CASHEW NUT – (AS + WHEN)* (prepared is the anagrind) inside (to be eaten) CUT (sliced).  I wouldn’t have necessarily said that this was a popular snack, as opposed to just a snack, but maybe I don’t move in the right nut-eating circles.
17 FLAGSHIP – FLAGS (Becomes less enthusiastic) + HIP (with it, i.e. trendy)
19 SILK HAT – (HIS TALK)* A stovepipe is a tall silk hat.
21 TROLLOP – TOP (Premier) surrounding (eating) ROLL (muffin).  Tart is used in the sense of prostitute.
22 BARSAC – SAC (bag) below BAR (counter).  This isn’t a wine that I can recall being served at a Crosswordland dinner, nor encountering in real life, nor is it in Chambers (2002), but some Googling tells me that it’s one of the five communes entitled to use the Sauternes appellation.  This clue did give me pause, but I was fairly confident that SAC must be the bag mentioned in the clue and BAR seemed to be the only sensible option for “counter”.  This kind of clue, where the answer or part of the wordplay or (worse) both are outside of one’s realm of knowledge, is a solver’s worst nightmare.
24 RATTY – R (king) + bATTY (daft to lose head)
25 CHAFE – H (hot) in CAFE (tea-room)