Solving time: say 11 minutes
I have a time of 9:25 written next to the grid from solving this shortly after the champs, but I’d heard one or two answers already and even had a brief glimpse of a completed grid as you’ll see below. There are plenty of clues to make you think, but apart from the possibility of misspelling 7D, I can’t see anything that would have tripped up potential finalists. Unless of course, you know different …
Sod’s law of xwd blogs: late last night I scribbled notes on my championship copies of puzzles 1 and 2 for this prelim, thinking today’s would be one of the two. I guess there’s something in both of those puzzles that would clash with other puzzles around 23476 in the publication sequence.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | HI(JACK)ED |
5 | UTOPIA – (Op., I) in oUt-TrAy – a book by Thomas More – he’s the one keeping his kit on in the BBC Tudors series. |
10 | NI-CAM – hidden in ‘screen I came’. N?C?M was a grid no-no until this handy word came along. But see the comments … |
11 | PAINT(B(rigade))ALL |
12 | SUB(JUG)ATE – a tricky clue which I think I’ve seen before, but still had to think about a bit |
13 | ER(A)SE – ‘clear’ in the calculator sense |
14 | MESS=muddle,TIN=can. Very clever wording here, “Tommy Tucker” being a CD for ‘soldier food’ |
16 | TAILOR – 2 def’s, one referring to the “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor” rhyme for cherry stones, or a John le Carré title if you prefer |
18 | HAWSER = washer* – a hawser ‘fastens’ a ship to a mooring |
20 | ACH(IEV=I’ve*) |
22 | (g)USHER |
23 | FOOL=strawberry dish,HARDY=writer |
25 | I’M PATIENT is what the person in an operating theatre might “profess” (if awake!) |
26 | UNITE(d) – Wed being the def. |
27 | SCY=”sign”,THE=article |
28 | RE(VERS(e))AL |
Down | |
1 | HANDS,(h)OME – “Striking workers” is our “lift and separate” phrase of the day |
2 | JACOB – Ca. rev in JOB = position, ref. Jacob’s ladder – Bible story |
4 | EX-PLAIN |
6 | TO THE LIGHTHOUSE – (T S Eliot though he)* – book by Virginia Woolf, I’m fairly sure |
7 | PHALAROPE = (a poplar,eh)* – this may have caught out one or two solvers – one finalist who qualified from prelim 1 had “pharalope” written in the grid on the table in front of him at the pub. (No names …) |
8 | (r)ALLIED |
9 | DIVE,ST. – strip = {remove clothes from} is the original meaning of divest (emarrassingly obvious when reading the etymology just now) |
17 | VERY=actual,WELL=bore |
20 | A(POST)LE |
21 | QU(O)ITS – even = quits. |
24 | (b)RUINS |
Might just be me, but I felt there were too many requiring you just to take off the first or last letter of another word to get the answer.
Still, mustn’t grumble. 🙂
Clue Of The Day – 26a.
Chris
You’re right to fuss as this clue is just plain wrong. There may be the germ of an excuse in the def. on the AskOxford website (from the Compact Oxford Dict., but bigger versions may say much the same): a digital system used in British television to provide video signals with high-quality stereo sound. This could be read as “provide video and high-quality sound” (wrong) rather than “provide high-quality sound for video” (right).
Unless there’s a theme to a puzzle or an intentional link between clues wouldn’t setters usually try to avoid repetition of this sort? Or maybe the crossword editor would intervene?
Mostly off topic, but I snuck away some last night to work on Listener 3953, and think I may have finished my first non-numerical Listener in two years. Fingers crossed.
RS.
From … needed translating: this seems more of a problem to me looking back, but (… as above …)
Repetition: I’m not bothered by occasional repetition of words in clues, or elements of wordplay. I believe there was quote considerable editing of the championshp puzzles, but mainly with the intention of avoiding the possibility of duplicate answers and ensuring that a reasonable number of people solved the puzzles in the time limit. So a puzzle without repetition might have acquired it in editing.
Suddenly I was spurred on and became a good solver again, and I managed to polish it off and go back and finish puzzle two (although with a couple of mistakes in each as it turned out). Before the announcement I’d been staring at it for maybe fifteen minutes without adding a single answer!
Sheesh!
This one serves to remind me to never even contemplate trying to enter the Championship. I can print out, fold and pocket and have a companion for the rest of the day (or days sometimes). It is sufficient to be able, eventually, to find the same answers as the speed merchants and not be in a rush but to savour the clues that lead to them.
Just the 3 “easies” not in this PB blog. Is this the beginning of the end of my mission? We shall see.
3d What divers may do, itching to make the grade (4,2,2,7)
COME UP TO SCRATCH
15d Devil-may-care or punch-drunk? (4-5)
SLAP HAPPY. Hyphen heaven.
19d Touching cord? It’s instinctive (6)
RE FLEX