For some reason it took me a while to get into this one, solving mostly from the bottom and not being totally convinced a couple of clues really work. A bit of local and botanical knowledge is required, unless you’re good at guessing and trusting the wordplay.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Part, getting dry inside, split (6) |
| BISECT – SEC (dry) inside BIT (part). | |
| 4 | What you are trying to do amid bad working is excused (8) |
| ABSOLVED – SOLVE inside (BAD)*. | |
| 10 | Message has good stuff after chapter leading up to it (9) |
| CABLEGRAM – C (chapter) ABLE (“up to it”), G (good) RAM (stuff). Do we still have cablegrams? | |
| 11 | Boy or girl needed for tonsillectomy sent back (5) |
| ELLIS – hidden reversed; presumably a boy or a girl can be an Ellis. | |
| 12 | Very good, with United when scoring more (3) |
| PIU – PI (very good), U[nited]. Piu means more in a musical score. Italian. | |
| 13 | Put together, men box in front of judge (11) |
| ORCHESTRATE – OR (men), CHEST (box), RATE (judge). | |
| 14 | Perennial, regularly used rationing is unknown on reflection (6) |
| ZINNIA – all reversed, A I N N I as above and Z an unknown. Fortunately I vaguely remembered growing these from seed when I was a kid, because they’re easy to grow. | |
| 16 | Your out-of-date staff eating iodine for gland (7) |
| THYROID – THY (your, out of date) ROD with I [odine] inserted. | |
| 19 | Sense new time, with king opening parliament (7) |
| KNESSET – K, (SENSE)*, T. | |
| 20 | Leak fast, in a word, an alternative to this form of fare … ? (6) |
| BRUNCH – I think this is an alternative to BREAKFAST, one word from two when BREAK FAST. | |
| 22 | … relating to which romantics go crazy (11) |
| GASTRONOMIC – (ROMANTICS GO)*. | |
| 25 | Blooming band, playing perhaps, certain to go off (3) |
| LEI – LEI[SURE]. | |
| 26 | A foolish face might have this urge (3,2) |
| EGG ON – you look foolish, literally or metaphorically, with egg on your face. | |
| 27 | Comedy in that place, nearly done by four, too short (3,6) |
| THE RIVALS – THER[E], IV (four) ALS[O]. Play by Sheridan, supposedly a comedy. | |
| 28 | Some tennis, then a party, in park (3,5) |
| SET ASIDE – a SET of tennis, A SIDE = a party. | |
| 29 | Ref has jogged over (6) |
| AFRESH – (REF HAS)*. As in “start over, start afresh”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Bishop’s keeping top off, displaying muscle (6) |
| BICEPS – At the moment, the best I can see is using BP’S as abbr. for bishop’s, inserting ICE for top off, as in ice a cake. But I’m still thinking. I prefer B’S for bishop’s which leaves ICEP to explain. | |
| 2 | Reserve power to maintain speed ultimately being considered (3,6) |
| SUB JUDICE – SUB (reserve, as in football), JUICE (power), insert [spee]D. | |
| 3 | Roughly formulate 29 beliefs (5) |
| CREDO – C (approx., roughly), RE-DO (formulate afresh). | |
| 5 | Fresh, round glass full of alcohol following loaf with jam? (6-2-6) |
| BUMPER-TO-BUMPER – BUM (loaf, as in loaf around), PERT (fresh), O (round) BUMPER (full glass of drink). | |
| 6 | Tinker too much maybe with old uniform I’m handing back? (4,2,3) |
| OVER TO YOU -if you OVER-TOY you maybe “tinker too much”? Then add O U = old uniform. | |
| 7 | Footballers through the 50s have spread out (5) |
| VILLA – VIA (through) insert L L . As in Aston Villa FC, I suppose. | |
| 8 | Drops key in study in front of CID officer (8) |
| DESCENDS – ESC (key) inside DEN, add DS = detective sergeant. | |
| 9 | Put off voting for councillor by a small girl and boy (14) |
| PROCRASTINATED – PRO (for) CR (councillor) A S[mall] TINA, TED (a girl, a boy). | |
| 15 | Unlimited calls with numbers ending in eight (2-7) |
| NO-STRINGS – NOS (numbers) [eigh]T, RINGS = calls. | |
| 17 | Tesla coil specially designed to sway (9) |
| OSCILLATE – (TESLA COIL)*. | |
| 18 | English resort’s bias, replacing whiskey with golf! (8) |
| SKEGNESS – SKEWNESS would be bias, replace the W by G. Run-down seaside resort in Lincolnshire, with a decent golf course and about a million caravans. | |
| 21 | Outfit that is Henry’s tawdry (6) |
| KITSCH – KIT (outfit) SC (scilicet, that is), H[enry]. | |
| 23 | View of crew changing direction by 90 degrees? (5) |
| SIGHT – EIGHT a rowing crew moves the E[ast] to S[outh]. | |
| 24 | Welcome to visit church with fine arch (5) |
| CHIEF -CE (church) insert HI (welcome) add F[ine]. | |
I was very slow getting started – maybe 5 minutes passed before I entered my first answer – but things soon picked up and I finished with 36 minutes on the clock which is not too bad for me.
Sadly I found an error on reading the blog because I picked the wrong ‘unknown’ at 14, thinking for some reason the plant was spelt XINNIA.
I’m not sure what gave rise to Pip’s remark about The Rivals ‘supposedly’ being a comedy, because I find it amusing, and the wonderful character Mrs Malaprop is alone usually worth the price of admission.
I didn’t know BUMPER as a glass full of alcohol, which rather surprises me!
I, too, opted for XINNIA, Jack. I didn’t know a BUMPER was a full glass either.
Bumper doesn’t necessarily have to refer to a drink as in “bumper harvest”. I just took it as an example of “full”
Is zinnia a perennial? I thought it was an annual
You’re right, they are not perennials – certainly not in the UK as they are not frost hardy.
I suppose 31 minutes can’t be considered too bad for a champs puzzle, but I still won’t be entering any time soon! CABLEGRAM was LOI even though I’d seen the -GRAM straight away, annoyingly. I needed POI SUB JUDICE to get there. Glad it was a ZINNIA and not a XINNIA. I can’t figure out the P of BICEPS, either, and I’m not sure I’m entirely happy with BRUNCH.
Apologies if someone’s already been there, but I interpreted BICEPS as being B….S keeping/enclosing an ‘off’ (= anagrammed) version of epic (= top, as in ‘epic performance’). Still not as convoluted as the laborious cluing for BRUNCH!
I biffed ORCHESTRATE, ZINNIA, & OVER TO YOU, parsed post-submission. Biffed BRUNCH but never figured it out, biffed B-TO-B, never bothered to try parsing. I assumed that BP was a legitimate abbreviation for ‘bishop’, although I’ve never seen it; well, now I’ve seen it, in ODE. SKEGNESS was my POI–giving me the K which gave me LOI KNESSET. I knew the name, didn’t know that it was a resort town.
I think most people in this country have seen the famous old poster showing a happy red-faced man in an old-style bathing costume prancing down to the sea with the caption “Skegness is SO bracing!”. A prime example of an advertiser attempting to turn a negative feature (it’s freezing cold!) into a USP. I’ve never been there and it’s not high on my bucket list.
Not even your bucket-and-spade list?
Very good!
He’s a fisherman in a sou’wester, a fisherman’s jersey and sea boots. He knew better than to wear a bathing costume.
Sorry and thanks for putting me right. I was only describing it from memory from seeing it long ago (I think my first ever girlfriend as a teenager had a copy on her wall) and I guess I should have gone and found the image online in the interests of accuracy. But the main thing was the relevance of the caption.
BP for bishop is in Collins.
I never did manage to parse BRUNCH, still not sure of it now.
This was hard!
I think the idea is that even though BRUNCH is the conventional shortening of BREAKFAST+LUNCH, if you took the other letters instead you would end up with LEAK FAST (or EAKFASTL).
Egad!
Seems to me entirely illogical to have L(unch) before (BR)eakfast.
Some of these clues try too hard.
ahh thanks, I get the leak fast thing now!
Complicated but makes sense. This was a prime clue for biffing…
Thanks for explaining that 👍🏻
ditto
Not fully a fan of this one. There were some good clues but I don’t get BRUNCH, NHO bumper as a full drink, the ELLIS reference is unconvincing and what is 29 doing in the clue for CREDO? Is it something to do with 29ac AFRESH? Is side = party a reference to political parties/sides? Any help appreciated. 31.30, thanks piquet. On edit: I just noticed Nelson’s mention of ‘afresh’ but I’m still not sure I like that clue.
From One More Night:
Oh it’s shameful and it’s sad, I lost the only pal I had
I just could not be what she wanted me to be
I will turn my head up high
To that dark and rolling sky
For tonight no LIGHT will shine on me
I couldn’t see the 29 either. I wondered if it was the 29 Articles of faith, but there were actually 39 of those so that didn’t help!
It occurs to me that while in isolation the line “I just could not be what she wanted me to be” might sound proudfully defiant, an echo of “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” the tone here is more rueful. It’s not him leaving but him being left.
Yeah, more rueful. I think It Ain’t Me, Babe is possibly the most cold-hearted song ever written. ‘Everything inside is made of stone’. It is brilliant and utterly bloodless, but maybe this got overlooked because of the cuteness of The Turtles cover (remember that??!!)
The Turtles were incurably upbeat. Everybody thought the guy singing “Happy Together” really was (both—Ha). For cold-heartedness, “It Ain’t Me, Babe” faces stiff competition (tho’ on that score alone) from “Ballad in Plain D,” the one song Dylan has expressed regret for writing.
Because it really is a crap song? Thumbs up to Bob for that call.
It’s a bad song, but he also said his motive for writing it (getting back at Suze’s sister) was ignoble.
I think Pip’s blog covers the cross-reference to 29 clearly
Accidentally submitted on leaderboard, so consider my wrist slapped!
I didn’t know the play, and had to guess at the ‘unknown’ in the plant – from speaking to others on the day, quite a few people did, although we mostly got it right.
Thanks both.
13’53”, which is pleasing. Ni about BRUNCH, or 29.
I saw THE RIVALS when I was twelve – the only bit I liked was Mrs. Malaprop.
Thanks pip and setter.
I think at only 12 that would have been my reaction too.
10:39. Tricky. Made up ZINNIA. Didn’t parse BICEPS. As per Jackkt, wasn’t familiar with BUMPER in that sense.
Around 50 minutes in a steady solve. Had difficulty parsing many. Knew ZINNIA so no problem with the unknown. LOI PIU which I biffed correctly.
Thanks Piquet
The problem with the BRUNCH clue is to get both the definition and the wordplay giving “brunch”. Using breakfast as an alternative, in no way gives brunch. If you start with BREAKFAST-LUNCH and remove the letters in LEAK FAST you are left with BRUNCH but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to fit the wordplay.
DNF, with the plant unsolved. Too many others biffed and unparsed, or NHOs constructed from wordplay, so not a particularly satisfying morning. Not helped by writing in Brighton when I saw the “G” crosser – though at least that was eventually corrected.
Still no idea what’s happening with BRUNCH. BUMPER etc biffed but couldn’t work it out. NHO PIU (musical terms and flowers are often my downfall).
For a second I though the comedy was a wry dig at the current Jilly Cooper TV series…
Thanks Piquet and setter.
34:29
A steady trudge around the grid with bits and bobs missed:
Failed to parse:
BICEPS – think this stumped the majority
CABLEGRAM – missed the ‘ABLE’ part
ZINNIA – guessed it began with Z though would not have been surprised if it began with X
KITSCH – missed the SC = scilicet bit
NHO
BUMPER = full glass of drink
BRUNCH – parsed after the fact as BR{eakfast} {l}UNCH being a plausible alternative to L{unch} {br}EAK FAST
Thanks P and setter
re BRUNCH, a portmanteau word of BR(EAKFAST) and (L)UNCH, could just as easily be LEAK FAST if combined in the other way, starting with L(UNCH) and (BR)EAKFAST. Maybe that’s what you are saying and if so apologies, thanks blogger and setter. (Sorry clashes with Mike above)
Just under the hour so slow progress. I also started from the bottom finishing with BISECT, BICEPS & SUB JUDICE. Same probs with the P as others. Guessed BRUNCH with no idea about what was going on.
I liked GASTRONOMIC .
Thanks pip and setter.
56 painful minutes. Has CABLEGRAM ever been a thing in this country? I biffed BRUNCH. I think FB has the right explanation above. I also biffed BICEPS having lost interest by then. I didn’t know BUMPER as a glass either. I’ll give COD to SKEGNESS, a place inexplicably I have never been to. I didn’t get on with this one much. Thank you Pip and setter.
Sod’s law that on the one occasion I manage to remember that this is a competition puzzle (although thanks to JerryW I only had to remember for less than one day) it’s labelled as such on the club site!
I think I found this the easiest of the three on the day. I didn’t parse BRUNCH, which I think is very neat. I had my fingers crossed for the plant, and selected ZINNIA over XINNIA purely on the basis that I’d have been a bit crosser if it had been wrong.
That should learn you for not doing the Quickie. ZINNIA came up last December. I remember it well.
After doing a Google search.
Oh I probably did!
Well it certainly didn’t learn me! This is from my comment that day:
I picked the wrong ‘unknown’ at 15dn giving me XINNIA instead of ZINNIA, which would have left the grid without a Z. I knew the name of the plant but not how to spell it.
Been there, done that, got a collection of T-shirts!
21.48 . A couple of pauses over brunch and biceps. Is the latter using Bp’s as an alternative to B, then ice to off? If that’s not it, I have no idea!
Pleased to have done this in under 30 mins but doubt I would have completed the first three competition puzzles to have got to the next stage.
About 15 minutes.
– Fortunately plumped for the right unknown to get ZINNIA – not a fan of that clue
– Biffed BRUNCH, and I’m happy to leave everyone else to figure it out
– Only vaguely aware of a comedy called THE RIVALS
– Had no idea how BICEPS worked
– Got BUMPER-TO-BUMPER without knowing bumper=full glass of drink
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Set aside
LOI Zinnia
COD Afresh
Zinnia are semi hardy annuals not perennials
Quite. Extremely irritating and misleading. If you’re going to do horticultural refs, get them right.
Finished in about 35 minutes with 20 across unparsed. Now that it has literally been spelt out for me, I quite like it – at least it’s original.
Disliked the Americanism in 29ac and agree with The Toff that zinnia are annuals.
15.34
Not sure what I put in my coffee this morning – shame it’s obviously something different most other days!
Getting SKEGNESS was really helpful and made me smile too. I was going to say that this is the first time I’ve “known” a plant. Of course I have absolutely no clue what it looks like – just remembered from its last outing. BRUNCH LOI with no clue what was going on
COD – BUMPER TO BUMPER
Woof!
41 mins. This week has been a slog. Fortunately a couple of the NHO have occurred recently: LEI, PIU.
SKEGNESS from the K alone, is skewness really a word?
Agree with The Toff re ZINNIA
Failed to parse BUMPER …
3hrs on the clock but I estimate 1 hour.
It was a toss up between zinnia and xinnia.
Roll on the Championships next year!
COD afresh.
16:34 Very slow to start, hopping about the grid, then a sprint to the finish. LOI BRUNCH with fingers crossed.
Umm. DNF, 25a can’t spell either lei or leisure so only mensch fitted for 21d, which is actually Kitsch. HHO 14a Zinnia plants, so much better than a 50/50 on that; DNK and do not care that they aren’t perennial, but happy to see The Toff’s correction. HHO 27a “The Rivals” but never seen it so didn’t know it was a comedy, also thought it was a book not a play, so very dubiously entered. HHO Mrs Malaprop but thought she was Dickensian!
COD 26a Egg On for the clever twist.
25.12 but several unparsed. I’m surprised that the puzzle was selected for the Competition.
I parsed biceps as B + ice (keeping) + ps (top off, as in add a postscript). Not nice, but it does work.
Thanks piquet for clarifying elsewhere.
14.36, buying myself the luxury of an extra 5 minutes to do the others. And while I don’t think this was the finest puzzle we’ve ever had, I don’t share much of the negative sentiment here. Take BRUNCH, for example: it’s a portmanteau word from breakfast and lunch, so in another universe (possible occupied by Spooner) the alternative version would be LEAKFAST, the only disadvantage being that the LEAK/BREAK bit is (to quote a recent, still embargoed crossword) an eye rhyme.
It seems all the usual sources (I can add Chambers and the Church of England) recognise Bp as an abbreviation, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t.
My last in was DESCENDS, where I stopped myself entering DISTENDS (perhaps thinking of dropsy) with a quick glace at my keyboard which doesn’t have an IST key.
maybe break meaning leak, eg news?
33 mins, I concur with the Spooner version of BRUNCH, although I nearly put BOUNCE as it was the not word I could see that fitted. Enjoyed this in a self-masochistic sort of way.
Started well and managed to maintain steady progress for a change, finishing in 23 minutes. Some biffing was needed as I could not parse a couple of the answers at the time, so thanks for the explanations of BRUNCH and BUMPER-TO-BUMPER. In general I thought this was a fair puzzle – no complaints.
FOI – BISECT
LOI – NO STRINGS
COD – VILLA
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
25.13 with some unparsed. I tried to make THE MIKADO work for a while. PIU and ZINNIA were unknowns, but rang a distant bell.
43 minutes with no great problems, but I never understood the parsing for BUMPER-TO-BUMPER, and one or two others (like BRUNCH and CABLEGRAM) were a bit vague. Initially I invented the plant Uinnia, which the wordplay gave.
43 – found this tough, with most problems in the pesky NW corner. No problem with Bp for bishop – the usual abbreviation for the first part of Bishop Auckland where I grew up – but plenty of problems elsewhere.
I took my driving test in Bishop Auckland when you could drive up Newgate Street!
Small world. I don’t think the intervening years have been particularly kind to the place, though I understand the new owner of the Bishop’s Palace has led a bit of a revival in its fortunes.
DNF
Would have been pleased with around 20’ for this one, but the perennial did for me.
Thanks all.
I think Ellis is a reference to Ellis Bell which was the pen name of emily Brontë . The three sisters being Ellis , Acton and Currer Bell as they disguised their femininity. Therefore being a boy or a girl in 11 across .
Yes, that’s what I thought too.
Mr SR also mentioned the author of the Cadfael books Ellis Peters which was the pseudonym of Edith Pargeter.
28:34 except I guessed wrong on the 50/50 XINNIA / ZINNIA thing
Started, got nowhere fast, wandered off to get some lunch, came back to discover I’d not paused the timer. Probably mid 20’s.
Mostly parsed, except BRUNCH, and I wasn’t convinced by THE RIVALS as I’d never heard of it.
40 mins, but did not get ZINNIA, didn’t figure out how to use “regularly”.
Growing up we used to call BRUNCH “leakfast” (leck-fast)
I got THE RIVALS as the Jilly Cooper novel, not a play but worked as a Ninja turtling.
Several I did not parse (BICEPS CREDO), but I don’t let that hold me up too long.
COD SKEGNESS
31:55
Very chewy. Didn’t understand BRUNCH or BICEPS but now see that both are clever. I liked PROCRASTINATED and BUMPER TO BUMPER.
I once spent a few days in Lincolnshire. The one positive thing I would say about Skegness is that it’s not as bad as Mablethorpe.
Thanks to Pip and the setter.
I am usually completely useless at names of flowers (“there’s a red one”), so I only recognised zinnia from doing crosswords. And my colleague who lives in Mablethorpe would probably agree with MichelinPoitiers about Skegness.
I started off at a gallop with most of the top third going in on reading the clues, BISECT being FOI. Then I hit a wall for a while. Got going again with OSCILLATE and built up from the SE. PROCRASTINATED was another breakthrough. The SW held out for longest with EGG ON and NO STRINGS bringing up the rear. ZINNIA was assembled from wordplay with the Z ringing a faint bell and making X a remote alternative. BRUNCH was only vaguely understood and entered with crossed fingers. 24:10. Thanks setter and Pip.
57:47. Took a long time on the last four clues CABLEGRAM, SUB JUDICE, SIGHT and EGG ON, but the rest seemed fine. As usual I took a very long time to spot ESC as a key. You would think I’d know about this by now! thanks both.
Down to earth with a bump! Hit reveal on several occasions although should really have persevered. Needed the blog to parse CREDO, BRUNCH and BICEPS, although seemingly in good company. Many thanks for the blog. Another day of learning, so all is good.
23:44 or just over 4 Verlaines continues my decent run of form on this years champs puzzles. Brunch, bumper to bumper and biceps were biffed without parsing until coming here. Zinnia is my idea of an unfair clue – yinnia and xinnia would be perfectly acceptable answers if you don’t know the plant – I don’t and got lucky.
Thx pip and setter
In the OWL club with the plant. Heads or tails, X or Z? Went for X of course, plus a fat thumbed SKEGNEES on the phone App.
We used to go there when we were kids. I remember the tide goes out a very long way. Always preferred Filey and. Bridlington myself.
A tough puzzle, but enjoyable nevertheless. Thanks for explaining BRUNCH and BICEPS, which were the ones I biffed (and BUMPER TO BUMPER, come to think of it).
Has the rerun of the championship now reached its conclusion?
Will there be anymore SPARE TYRES this week? I think we should be told.
Yep, this is the last of the Championship puzzles
Wouldn’t have liked to tackle this without Mr SR at my side, especially as I’ve never heard of KNESSET.
Mind you, he hadn’t heard of BUMPER as a full glass of alcohol.
I’m not sure what that says about either of us…
Otherwise all happily part of our GK except for BP for Bishop, but had to be.
Couldn’t parse BRUNCH and took a while to make sense of the explanations (our fault, no-one else to blame) but now understanding it, it’s really clever.
Thanks for the fun, setter (you devious, clever being), and many thanks for the informative and necessary blog, piquet.
44 minutes. Perhaps I’m in a dull mood anyway but I found this an unenjoyable slog.
I inserted “Pierce” for 1 across, which seemed quite a straightforward clue/ answer, but it sabotaged my efforts to complete the top left of the puzzle, the rest of which took about 25 minutes. Very annoying.
I rather liked this, which took me 49 minutes including a hopefully brief nap (far shorter than 49 minutes). I picked the right unknown on ZINNIA, which in the end looked more likely than XINNIA. But I do not like the BRUNCH clue. Among the ones I did like are ABSOLVED (“whar you are trying to do”), EGG ON and the cross-reference in CREDO. In any event, a fun puzzle.
To my knowledge I have never seen a ZINNIA. But I remember that Pop Larkin (The Darling Buds of May) named his twin daughters after flowers, Petunia and Zinnia. (Not sure whether this is ninja-turtleing…) 29 minutes with some biffing