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| 16 | Your out-of-date staff eating iodine for gland (7) |
| THYROID – THY (your, out of date) ROD with I [odine] inserted.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 have run a pub for several years and have never heard of a BUMPER. I got BRUNCH and parsed it so I can feel mildly smug, but didn’t get 12 others, so the smugness recedes somewhat.
18’49”, so appear to have been in the groove. Only one I didn’t parse was BICEPS. Never seen the BP for Bishop before. Many thanks.
If I’d known it was a champs puzzle I wouldn’t have tried so I’m jolly pleased with 32:59, though I couldn’t parse BICEPS, BRUNCH or LOI CABLEGRAM. Many thanks PK.
36:03
I liked the leak fast = BRUNCH CLUE.
Slow in the SW corner. Should have got SKEGNESS quicker, since I have been there when my children were young, and my in laws lived in Lincolnshire.
NO STRING S was my LOI.
Thanks piquet and setter
Greetings from the very bottom of the world. This is my first post. Reading the comments section is almost as enjoyable as attempting to solve the puzzle itself. However I have a quick query and was wondering whether someone could enlighten me as to when semi final no. 2 for the recently deceased 2024 championships was published. Thank you.
Welcome! I think it was this one:
https://timesforthetimes.co.uk/34492-2
The puzzle wasn’t labelled as such but a few people mention it in the comments.
Hi, Zeno, and welcome. No. 2 wasn’t labelled as such when it appeared in the newspaper but from remarks made by other commenters here I gather it was #29079 published on 20th November.
Less DNF, more barely started, so thanks for explaining it all. On the other hand I have been to Skegness (more than once!)
Very hard, but I did complete it correctly with a large amount of biffing.