24,685 – Championship Preliminary Round 2, Puzzle 2

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 8:45, on the Sunday night after getting home from Cheltenham

This puzzle is out of the obvious sequence for the Championship prelims, presumably because the normal order would have given us the same setter or grid two days in a row, or an answer repeated over too short a period (known reasons for shuffling the puzzle pack). Apparently No. 1 appears next Wednesday.

I can’t see any seriously difficult clues or answer words, so would guess that this was the easiest puzzle in this prelim. No. 1 was certainly harder, but I omitted to record my time for No. 3.

In the spirit of unaided competition solving, explanations of meanings below are without reference book help except where stated.

Across
1 BAR = bank (a sand bar/bank or similar I guess),ROW = argument – “Luggage transporter” seems a bit unnecessarily precise, but this is in aid of a plausible surface reading
4 ABSTRUSE – BS = Bachelor of Surgery = surgeon, in (A,TRUSE = “truce”)
10 EIGHT = (rowing) crew, SOME = “unspecified number” – I assume that eightsome = eightsome reel, and that this is a merry dance (back in my primary school country dancing classes we just might have done some, but I only remember it nowadays from the Azed special of the same name). I wonder how many others circled the N in “number” or jotted down N/X/Y/Z by the clue for “unspecified number”?
11 A(N=Northern,(oi)K)LE
12 Today’s deliberate omisson – a long answer with a whiff of chestnut that must have encouraged some contestants
14 A, SCOT = “Glaswegian, possibly” – another well-trodden path, arguably made easier by sticking to the old rules about def by example
16 OPERA = musical theatre, T = time, I’VE = “the writer’s”
18 EPIDERMIS = (prime side)* – the epidermis was the top layer of skin in those cross-section diagrams in your biology textbook
20 BI(GO = shot)T – simple construction but GO = shot and BIT = scrap are well-chosen for the surface reading
21 TAKE IN = fool, GOOD PART = attractive role – with the ‘s in fool’s read as “has” to join the two parts
25 CROFT – rev. of “for” in Ct. = court (from street atlas abbreviations)
26 RECTORIAL = concerned with the (clerical) office = job – “wrecked Oriel” = ruined an Oxford college
27 MONARCHY – ARCH = chief (as in arch enemy) replaces the E (=point) in money = cash, these choices allowing the irrelevant “cash point” to start the clue
28 FLAGON = vessel – FLAG = languish, ON = aboard – not entirely convinced of the first of these but I’m sure it would be justified if I looked it up
 
Down
1 BREAK = period of relaxation, WATER = “river?” – def. by example with minimal indication, I think, though usages like “Southampton Water” might make it a direct synonym. Mole=breakwater allows the Wind in the Willows surface reading. (A quick peek at Wikipedia confirms that Mole learns riparian relaxation techniques from Ratty)
2 ROGUE = scoundrel – U = University, in ROGE(r) = “received right away”. This one’s deceptive about the containment – “A casing B is C” immediately suggests C = B in A, but can also be read as A = B in C
3 OUT = published, POST = “message on the Internet” – I assume the setter was well aware that his post reference would end up in a post
5 BEECH = “it has branches” = “beach” = strand. Solvers familiar with London might have thought just briefly of Coutts bank, with the famous “pepperpot” building in the Strand
6 T(ediou)S,ARI((russia)N)A – probably solved from ARIA and TSARINA = Russian princess as a “functional definition”, though the real one here is just “princess”
7 UN = “a Continental” (a nice variation from LE/LA/LES = “the French”),K(NOW)ING
8 EWE = woolly female, R = Republican
9 TONE POEM = work – POE in Monet*
13 PE(N)T,ATHLON(e) – an answer that just might have brought a wry smile to Mark Goodliffe’s face as he whizzed through these puzzles – BIATHLON was the answer that felled him in the last puzzle of the 2000 National Final.
15 CHINA (plate) = mate (rhyming slang), TOW = pull, N = quarter = principal compass point
17 ENSCONCE = settle comfortably – CON = study, in scene* – more good choices of words here to produce a convincing surface
19 ELECTOR (e.g. of Hanover) = German Prince – (EC = City,T(raders)) in rev. of ROLE ROTE which I assume means “duty” by analogy with “rota”
20 BEDROLL = item of camping gear, = “be droll”
22 NO(bRuTe)H – the “bearing” here just happens to be the same one as the “quarter” a few clues ago. I wonder whether any competitors noticed?
23 A(PIN)G – straightforward wordplay, and a very straightforward def. for old crossword solvers – the pseudonym of famous setter “Apex” just mean “imitate X (= Ximenes)”
24 S = second, CAM = eccentric (I guess this is by way of “eccentric” as a noun rather than “cam” as an adjective).

45 comments on “24,685 – Championship Preliminary Round 2, Puzzle 2”

  1. Hmm, I had quite forgot that this would be a championship puzzle. I found it easy, and felt that the adverse comments made about yesterdays effort would more justifiably apply to this one. Several clues produced a grimace, especially 12ac.
    1. sorry, forgot to mention that in 19dn it is ROLE not ROTE. I spent a while wondering what a ROELE was..
  2. Having completed all the other Prelim puzzles without too much trouble and given the high percentage of competitors completing this one I thought it would be pretty straightforward but struggled somewhat and in the end used a solver to get the unheard of ELECTOR kicking myself after working it out. Having guessed that mole was a BREAKWATER I overcame my resistance to entering BARROW where I found the definition bewildering. Not overly impressed by BEDROLL either but my problems here were mostly of my own making.
  3. 25 minutes, mainly easy (some too easy); stuck for a time on a few. Is there a technical meaning of barrow as luggage-transporter? Last in Tone Poem, not a concept I agree with.
    1. Not simply “barrow” as far as I know, but a Google search for “luggage barrow” will find you some old bits of kit from railway stations.
  4. 30 minutes with the last 5 spent exclusively on 26 across. I later realised I forgot to go back and have another think about 13dn where I had written HEPTATHLON and I was almost sure it was wrong as I couldn’t see all the worplay.

    After the last three puzzles I am praying for a stinker tomorrow or I am really going to be in for it on Friday.

  5. I was surprised at how easy this was and coasted through it in 15 relaxed minutes. My only concern was “luggage transporter” for BARROW but once I had BREAKWATER it couldn’t really be anything else. Not surprisingly I’m not too keen on river=water.

    Whilst as easy as yesterday there are no completely unfair clues such as that for MEDEA or clues so old that I recall them from the 1960s such as HYDE

  6. Made a quick start but slowed down by 9 down (particularly once I had decided the first word was note), 20 down (I always took an airbed when I camped) and 26 across. Finished those clues with some guess work, all of which was incorrect!
  7. 35 minutes for this, so enough time to scamper through the other two in the remaining 25 …?

    No real problems – ‘cam’ at 24 dn bewildered briefly before I remembered I was in crossword-land and 1 dn had me scratching my head for a while as both ‘luggage transporter’ and ‘bank’ were possible definitions. I wonder how many Cheltenham sprinters put ‘heptathlon’ instead of PENTAHLON? Initially had ‘nobue’ (that famous, if recondite, aspect of Japanese drama) at 22dn. Once that was corrected, RECTORIAL was last in. The portmanteau possibilities of the word reminded me of my former (Leominster) MP, Sir Clive Bossom, of whom Churchill is alleged to have harrumphed: “Bossom, eh? Neither one thing nor the other.”

      1. It seems this, or something close to this, was said, by Churchill, of Clive’s father, Alfred.

        Then, of course, there was the New Zealand fast bowler Bob Cunis. More Byron than Benny, that one.

  8. 11:36, my only problems being with ELECTOR and TONE POEM. For the latter I ummed and aahed between TONE and NOTE and finally decided that TONE probably fitted better. I would have spent a few anxious minutes had I been in Round 2 though.
  9. Just under 13 minutes to complete the grid then another 20 seconds or so working out why heptathlon fitted the wordplay (or not, as it turned out) and correcting accordingly. On the easy side of average for sure.

    Barrow was my first in – I must have come across luggage barrows at railway stations in old films or books.

    I didn’t know mole as a breakwater but with break?a?e? and “river” to play with it couldn’t be much else.

    I’m going to upset Barry by nominating bedroll as COD

  10. 46:41, but another silly mistake writing OBSTRUSE instead of ABSTRUSE. Particularly silly since obstruse neither exists nor fits the wordplay.

    I found it the hardest of the week so far. Mainly due to the unknown ELECTOR, TONE POEM, EIGHTSOME, TAKE IN GOOD PART and Mole = Breakwater. Although all of these were got from the wordplay. I wasn’t sure whether to go for TONE POEM or NOTE POEM, but picked the right one.

    Incidentally, has anyone else noticed a bug on the website where the time clock keeps ticking after submission? Is it because I still had some answers pencilled in when I submitted?

    1. This is perhaps death by alliteration — I had OBSTRUSE as well (after correcting the C I originally wrote down for the second S, being literal and not verbal), but I didn’t understand the wordplay for surgeon and OBScure kept telling me OBS, OBS, OBS. I should have listened to that more: in Swedish OBS means “attention!”.
    2. unfortunately I put in OBSTRUSE for some reason at cheltenham. At speed i was thinking obstetrician so it kind of worked. I thought this was the easiest of the three puzzles in this batch, however when i checked through the answers at the end I realised I had stupidly done that and NOTE POEM together! Not having finished the first of these three grids in time rendered it an irrelevancy though.
  11. Slightly more difficult today, 40 mins, but with two mistakes – BURROW and HEPTATHLON… COD a toss up between 20d and 22d.
  12. 40 minutes. Two things delayed me (in addition to the doorbell and the telephone). (i) The use of GOOD in both the clue and the answer for 21 across: I spent a while searching for an alternative. (ii) The exclamation mark after the clue for 20 down: this sent me looking for an outfit that Julian Clary might wear to mince about the stage. (Maybe “camping” in the theatrical sense was the surface meaning?)
  13. 16 minutes with bleary eyes this morning. Last in was TAKE IN GOOD PART, just because I couldn’t believe that GOOD (even as part of another word) would appear in both the clue and the answer) as well as not being familiar with the phrase. BREAKWATER and BARROW from wordplay alone.
    2. A cam is an eccenter on a shaft which serves to turn the rotary motion into oscillating motion. They are found for example on the camshaft of a car.
      1. There’s a coincidence. Camshaft? (4) was going to be my entry for clue of the month until I thought better of it. (The word was POLE for those wondering.)
        1. No problem – working out what to explain in the blogs is a continuous learning exercise. If there’s only one comment starting “why”, I’m giving myself 29 out of 30.
  16. This was an acceptably easy puzzle, with nothing really obscure (or obstruse — see above), completed in a bit over an hour (OK for me) with OBSTRUSE as the only mistake. The recent discussion about crews a fortnight or so ago was very helpful with EIGHTSOME, and then I was able to fill in ROGUE, though it took a while to understand the wordplay, which I rather liked. Last in were RECTORIAL (which I found doubtful until I read it out loud — I was sure “concerned with” was indicating just the RE), after which BEDROLL and finally FLAGON fell into place.
  17. Similar solving experience to yesterday; fell asleep in the middle of it. (Is that allowed in the Championship?) On awakening I found it wasn’t as difficult as it seemed, but still got stuck on ELECTOR, RECTORIAL and the TONE POEM/OPERATIVE crossing. Fortunately Fremantle has both a North and South Mole, so that wasn’t so difficult.
  18. Completed this puzzle in 25 minutes before realising it was a Championship Prelim! Now three EP crosswords in a row (four if we include Saturday’s) so due something devilish soon!

    No COD as all too self-explanatory really!!

  19. Didn’t realise this was a prelim puzzle until I got here! A rather leisurely 18 minutes over coffee, with a bit of agonising over BREAKWATER. In the real thing would have moved onto other puzzles, so would have had less “dead” time.

    Oli

  20. Too much red wine meant that my early morning solve got dealyed and was very slow compared to others above
    i didnt see Scam for some time which held up the south west corner and i was foxed by breakwater for some time as i too looked for things to do with spies
    i thought Hyde was pathetic too
    so 75% of it went in in about 15 minutes and the rest took a long long time!
    pathetic!
  21. I find white wine goes much better with porridge.
    1D, Mole – I remembered this from my dad’s sailing days; ‘a massive breakwater’, according to his old Chambers dictionary.
    Not too tricky, but they have got progressively harder through the week. I’m waiting for a stinker.
  22. Not a tough puzzle, but I took 35 minutes becauase I couldn’t think of this meaning of ‘mole’, being stuck among the spies, rodents and skin conditions before seeing the obvious. Last entries were CROFT/SCAM. But alas, I also failed to see the obvious at 4A and entered OBSTRUSE, like some others. Apparently I don’t see that word in print very much, because I actually thought it was spelled with the ‘O’, so it wouldn’t have been obvious anyway. Regards to all.
  23. I’ve been out all day today so got to this late.
    I was very pleased with myself for finishing it in under 10 minutes, which would have been the second time ever. On reading the blog I see that I made the same silly mistake as some others, putting in OBSTRUSE. Purely a consequence of rushing so serves me right.
  24. 53 minutes – good for me. Would have been less if I hadn’t put in METRONOME for 16 on the first pass. This seemed to fit perfectly – METR(on)O (for Metropolitan Opera) around ON for working + ME.
    1. “(The) Met” is a recognisable abbreviation for New York’s best-known opera house, but I’ve never seen “Metro” (and I have been to a few performances). “keeping time” alone seems very unlikely as a Times definition for metronome too.
  25. Could someone please explain 12a and 26a ? Just started doing the Times crosswords and understand all the other clues in this puzzles except those two. Thanks !
    1. 12A: “Remain calm” is one definition for KEEP ONE’S HAIR ON, noting that ONE’S rather than YOUR is very often used in expressions like this in Times xwds, to get easier crossings with other words, especially when it’s the O and E in ONE’S or the Y and U in YOUR that would be checked. “locks still being in place” is a more jokey definition or description, with “locks” meaning hair.

      26A: “Concerned with the office” is the definition – RECTORIAL = related to the office (job) of being a rector (vicar). This sounds like “wrecked Oriel”, Oriel being an Oxford college.

      1. Thanks for that – easy once you know how !! Hopefully soon I’ll be able to do a few clues on my own.
        1. If the Times is your first go at cryptic crosswords, you’ve chosen a fairly tough way to start. Years ago (late 1970s) I gave up on the Times after not getting very far, and did other puzzles more successfully, for about 5 years. But that was when the clues were quite different and there were no blogs to read. With perseverance, you may well be able to get going without switching puzzles – others certainly have.

          If you click on Memories at the top of this page and then choose “Solving tips”, there are a couple of articles worth a look.

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