A bit of everything here, with the wordplay, but nothing obscure. Five decent anagrams get you a good way into the puzzle. I remember the Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen scandals from 2001, hard to believe it was over twenty years ago. The meadowlark looks much prettier than our little brown English skylarks. 23 minutes done and parsed.
EDIT at the time I blogged this, I didn’t realise it was the first of the Championship puzzles. No too testing for the first round, then. I did the final puzzle yesterday, it took me 34 minutes (v. Magoo’s 4 minutes 38 seconds to win).
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Employees stick notes here (5) |
| STAFF – a triple definition. Notes go on a musical staff or stave of five horizontal lines. | |
| 4 | Piece containing extremes of emotional range (9) |
| SELECTION – SECTION (piece) with E[motiona]L inserted. | |
| 9 | Feeling guilty about social worker guards confined (9) |
| REPENTANT – RE (about) PENT (confined) ANT (social worker). | |
| 10 | Go back over right step in the wrong direction (5) |
| RECAP – PACE, R reversed. | |
| 11 | Warplane once deployed uranium-enriched device causing great damage (7,6) |
| NUCLEAR WEAPON – (WARPLANE ONCE)* with U inserted (“enriched”). | |
| 14 | Book author’s dedication? (4) |
| TOME – the author could dedicate it “TO ME”. | |
| 15 | Inept force destroyed Utopian state (10) |
| PERFECTION – (INEPT FORCE)*. | |
| 18 | Make a world that’s fitting for US singer (10) |
| MEADOWLARK -(MAKE A WORLD)*. A rather pretty American bird. | |
| 19 | Look around for one constructive thing to do (4) |
| LEGO – LO (look) around EG (for one). | |
| 21 | Green energy company that was of a mind to store insufficient energy (13) |
| ENVIRONMENTAL – ENRON (defunct energy company) stores VI[m] (energy, insufficient), MENTAL = of a mind. | |
| 24 | Guide that woman behind you and me (5) |
| USHER – US (you and me) HER (that woman). | |
| 25 | Obtain expert on those coming first in voters’ eyes such as Greens? (9) |
| VEGETABLE – V E (first letters of Voters Eyes) GET (obtain) ABLE (expert). | |
| 27 | Object to drinks prior to play (9) |
| REPRESENT – PRE (prior to) inside RESENT (object to). Play = represent, e.g an actor playing a real person. | |
| 28 | Severely criticise case of auditors mired in corruption (5) |
| ROAST – A[uditor]S inside ROT = corruption. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Period of growth bound to restrict having millions saved (10) |
| SPRINGTIME – SPRING (bound), TIE (restrict), insert M for millions. | |
| 2 | Ingredient of Christmas pudding being blamed for poisoning (3) |
| ASP – hidden word; allegedly Cleopatra was poisoned by an asp bite, or by the toxin from an asp which she used on herself. | |
| 3 | Individual needing to make contact but also putting up boundaries (6) |
| FENCER – double definition, one in the sport of fencing, one erecting fences. | |
| 4 | Where steps may be taken to look for eavesdropper very possibly (9) |
| STAIRWELL – cryptic definition; one may be creeping down the stairs to overhear a conversation below. Is there more to this? | |
| 5 | Sinuous snake sheds skin (5) |
| LITHE – [S]LITHE[R]. | |
| 6 | What may protect vehicle at high speed? (8) |
| CARAPACE – a car apace being a vehicle at high speed. | |
| 7 | Unable to control movements of monarch barely satisfied to stay at home (11) |
| INCONTINENT – took me while to think of the monarch part; I think it is [K]IN[G] = monarch barely, CONTENT (satisfied), insert IN for at home. | |
| 8 | I’m opposed to that, not to cycling (4) |
| NOPE – OPEN (not to, as in a door), “cycling” = moving the letters around. | |
| 12 | Doctor compared his fraternity with colleagues (11) |
| COMRADESHIP – (COMPARED HIS)*. | |
| 13 | Most wicked criminal singled out (10) |
| UNGODLIEST – (SINGLED OUT)*. | |
| 16 | Broadcast disputed piece for some time (9) |
| FORTNIGHT – broadcast = sounds like, FOUGHT (disputed), KNIGHT (chess piece). | |
| 17 | Meet politician and clerical assistant briefly (8) |
| CONVERGE – CON[servative], VERGE[r] = vicar’s assistant briefly. | |
| 20 | Virulent disease leads to extremely resilient bug (6) |
| PESTER – PEST (virulent disease), E[xtremely], R[esilient]. | |
| 22 | Theatrical production always sent up university dons (5) |
| REVUE – EVER reversed with U for university inserted. | |
| 23 | Person taking action against senior officer is powerless (4) |
| SUER – SUPER(intendent) loses his P for power. | |
| 26 | Wrap last item on the agenda up (3) |
| BOA – AOB (Any other business) reversed up. | |
For a while I thought I might have made a highly competitive fist of this but I slowed down as I got closer to the bottom, held up by two of those long anagrams (PERFECTION and UNGODLINESS) and a few toughies like ENVIRONMENTAL, VEGETABLE and REPENTANT. In the end I clocked 23.42 which wasn’t so bad. Piquet I think with 4dn STAIRWELL the def is ‘where steps may be taken’, and the eavesdropping part indicates a homophone of to look for, stare well. Maybe something to give us the ‘well’ bit would have helped, thanks for the blog.
From One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)
Your pleasure knows no limits, your voice is like a MEADOWLARK
But your heart is like an ocean, mysterious and dark
‘very’ = well, I think
I think it is “well”=very possibly, as in “that may well be true”
I think that’s right. All up quite a convoluted clue!
This puzzle contained one of two clues which held me up from finishing last Saturday. In this one it was FENCER. I went down several avenues of thought before finally spotting it. I thought the definition could just be “boundaries” so considered FENCES. I also thought “Individual needing to make contact” might be FINGER. I was relieved to finally spot FENCER – it doesn’t seem so hard with hindsight.
31 minutes. I missed my half-hour target by continuing to try to parse ENVIRONMENTAL before giving up on it. I thought the energy company was called ENVIRON so I was never going to get there.
Otherwise this was quite easy and I enjoyed the triple definition at 1ac as we don’t see enough of those.
16’32”, steady solve. I didn’t rush, and the shorter answers led me to put in ENVIRONMENTAL and MEADOWLARK without fully parsing.
I’d be interested to know any comparative times at the Championship.
See my comment below
No precise time as I solved the three preliminary puzzles on Saturday without looking at the clock, but overall in about 30 minutes, and I’d guess similar times spent on each.
After giving in your candidate sheet you have to remain at the desk until time’s up. While I was furnished with a copy of that day’s paper, I found myself instead endlessly worrying over PESTER, and whether there was another _E_TER word, as I didn’t really know the disease PEST and it seemed a bit same-sidey. Not the most pleasant half an hour!
I don’t think I parsed ENVIRONMENTAL at the time – ENRON’s a nice touch.
Thanks both.
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch…
(Cleo to her asp, A&C by WS)
A smidgen over 20 mins, under competition conditions (except for eating brekker at the same time).
I liked it. Nice variety of clues, no obscurities, neat and tidy. A good pick for the comp.
I did have a small MER at Fencer just being “individual” needing to make contact.
Ta setter and Pip.
I have to say I found this a bit bland- maybe an effect of it being a championship puzzle, maybe an effect of my knowing it was a championship puzzle.
All done in a little over 20 minutes. I thought FENCER was a bit, um, blunt.
45 mins but at least completed. Pretty tricky in parts especially the longer words as LO has already mentioned. I enjoyed the anagrams.
LOI REPRESENT.
Very enjoyable especially solving not under « exam » conditions!
Thanks pip and setter.
38 minutes with LOI FENCER. COD to ENVIRONMENTAL. I liked LEGO too even though I hated it when my kids were growing up. Horrible fiddly stuff and very painful to stand on. I didn’t parse STAIRWELL. I preferred this to the final puzzle. Thank you Pip and setter.
Your comment took me back forty years! I used to enjoy shuffling around the house on weekends in bare feet until too many encounters with the kids’ Lego bits forced me reluctantly to have to don footwear.
24:47
I was held up firstly by the MEADOWLARK anagram. Then at the end my LOI was PESTER which took an alphabet trawl luckily when I got to P it was obvious.
No problems with the rest though I couldn’t parse ENVIRONMENTAL
Thanks setter and blogger
I don’t know my individual time for this one on Saturday, save that all three puzzles took me 47 minutes in total (2 minutes too slow to reach the semi-final chiz).
I must admit I wasted several minutes in assuming that 21ac was bound to start with ECO- (Green, energy company).
Congratulations to Magoo (again) and to the two young solvers who made it through to the final.
LOI PESTER
24:07
The top half went in OK, but the bottom was stickier – grinding halt for some minutes until MEADOWLARK popped up. From there on, it was a steady finish. Some bits missed:
STAFF – missed that it was a triple
ENVIRONMENTAL – forgot about ENRON, but the checkers made the answer clear enough
PESTER – LOI – wasn’t sure about PEST as a virulent disease
INCONTINENT – FTP
UNGODLIEST – nice anagram once I’d solved it!
COD to LEGO
Thanks P and setter
Just under 15 minutes
– Agree with ChrisCox above re the parsing of STAIRWELL – ‘very possibly’ is giving ‘well’
– Didn’t parse OPEN
– Saw two definitions for STAFF but missed the ‘stick’ definition
– Didn’t see how ENVIRONMENTAL worked other than the ‘mental’ bit
– No time/tide issue today with SPRINGTIME 😉
Thanks piquet and setter.
FOI Asp
LOI + COD Meadowlark
43m 07s
Thanks Pip, especially for ENVIRONMENTAL and VEGETABLE but query ABLE being synonymous with ‘expert’.
My time would have been better had I not been fixated on 1ac being STAVE.
Re 16d FORTNIGHT, I wonder if we have ever had SENNIGHT, meaning a week. Jack would probably know. I first came across the word in ‘Caleb’s Crossing’ by Geraldine Brooks, a novel about the first native american to attend Harvard
13/5/2019
Conveyed cases almost once a week (8)
SENNIGHT – NIGH in (conveyed by) SENT
And with you on able/expert. I think there’s a reason able is often preceded by barely!
Thanks, Q!
Yes, ‘sennight’ has come up 4 or 5 times, most recently in 2019. When it does I usually comment along these lines: The broadcaster, writer and composer, Hubert Gregg, hosted a weekly show on BBC radio for 35 years called Thanks For The Memory and always signed off by saying that he would return “in a sennight”.
Thanks, Jack!
Submitted off grid as this was my second attempt at this one…the first time didn’t go well!
This was the crossword that did for me at the championships. I completed the other two (albeit with one mistake) in good time but for whatever reason I just couldn’t get to grips with this at the time. I confidently entered a different answer for 1A and things went south from there. Getting my mind to focus whilst hands were shooting up all around me proved troublesome! A great experience all the same.
Thanks to both.
I tackled this one first on the day and was all done bar FENCER in about 12 minutes.
I came back to the puzzle after completing most of puzzle 2 and all of 3, stared at 3 down for a bit and eventually put in FENCER reluctantly as the most likely answer, polished off puzzle 2, checked my answers and held up my number. About two minutes after I handed in my paper I started to worry that FENDER might have been the correct answer (contact between cars and fending off).
This was pretty much my exact experience. Apart from stressing about FENDER. Overall I think I spent about 11 minutes on each. FENCER was my last answer across all three.
INCONTINENT had me puzzled, and now I see why if your parsing is correct – the clueing is not at all clear (to me). ENVIRONMENTAL and REPENTANT also went in unparsed, so thanks for explanations. That said, all this was fairly easily guessable with crossers, and I finished in 33 mins.
It was my first time at the championship this year. I went in expecting to only complete about two thirds, but spent the first half hour or so on the 2nd and 3rd crosswords feeling like things were going very well, but later returned to the 1st (this one) and things ground to a halt. I finished with only 11/30 on this one, but pleasingly somehow finished the other two without error.
Looking at it again now I can see it was the long anagrams holding me up, as there were several that I’d parsed but not solved. Spent a lot of time not getting NUCLEAR WEAPON, PERFECTION, MEADOWLARK and UNGODLIEST. ENVIRONMENTAL would have helped too, but I was too busy trying to put ECO at the beginning. 18 minutes to finish today, despite the head start.
Still, it was great to have a go, and nice to meet some of you at the championship on Saturday. I don’t normally post on here, but I’ve been lurking for a few years, because the blogs are so useful to have. Thank you to all for your time and effort in writing them.
In the OWL club with an unparsed ‘fences’ instead of FENCER and I was put off by ‘board’ as a possible answer for 1A (staff) and ‘eco-’ as a possible beginning of 21A (environmental) for a while. I also parsed the -well of STAIRWELL as being ‘very, possibly’, IOW if you speak in slang you may possibly say ‘well good’ instead of ‘very good’ but ‘it may very possibly be’ = ‘it may well be’ is a better parsing.
This solve may have been a pb for me but still nowhere near challenging Saturday’s phenomenal champions. Congratulations to all who took part.
I found this one the hardest of the three, but not so hard that I didn’t keep going until very nearly the end. My experience was identical to Penfold’s except that it took me about 15 minutes to complete all but FENCER, and my concerns about it were general rather than specific to any particular alternative. I checked it as soon as the answers became available at the end.
Crashed and burned in my at-home competition with FENCES, one of several I failed to parse to my satisfaction. ENRON was unremembered, STAIRWELL seemed vague, and nothing to do with the icicles of recent memory. The BOMB was slow to emerge as I went through my extensive list of antique warplanes. Two definitions were enough for STAFF. But I did like VEGETABLE, not least because I had been hoodwinked into thinking it was another eco-clue.
My just-over-20-minutes time might have been okay, depending on the other two, but I’m pretty sure I’d have been panicking at my desk.
14:59 so inside my ‘par’ time by the narrowest of margins. Should have been a bit quicker, but seeing it was a championship puzzle put me on edge somewhat. About as close to ‘middle of the road’ as as a Times puzzle gets I thought.
21a ENviRON-Mental biffed. Thanks piquet. I do remember Enron, but missed it and the VIm.
27a Represent biffed. Ditto.
3d Fencer; I am aware that in fencing a contact is a point or win, blood does not have to be drawn, but it felt a weak def to me.
7d Incontinent, couldn’t parse. Ditto.
I don’t know much about fencing but in the modern sport I don’t think blood is ever drawn, largely because the ‘blade’ does not have a sharp point. Competitors are literally seeking contact (‘a connection for the passage of an electric current from one thing to another’, ODE) in order for points to be recorded.
OK, thanks k. I suppose that is good enough.
I think the STAIRWELL has been tidied up but one thing that I don’t think I saw (apologies if it was actually said by someone and I missed it) is that the definition is ‘Where steps may be taken to’: the ‘to’ is part of the definition, then it all works out as ‘look’ for eavesdropper = stare = stair; very possibly = well. Not that to be able to see this (and no doubt you could also see the ‘to’ as the mentally dropped part of ‘to look’) was much help: you can see why there wouldn’t be much point in my taking part, since I took 43 minutes just for this crossword. Good, though.
Well, I came in under 20, but with too many biffs/uncertainties to be confident I’d be all green, but I was! ENVIRONMENTAL, STAIRWELL, VEGETABLE, INCONTINENT and PESTER (LOI), all went in without being 100% certain of the parsing.
On track for the “at home and under no particular pressure” challenge of 3 inside an hour though!
17:55
No time as I looked at this between multiple post holiday chores. Unfortunately I quickly wrote in “summertime” seeing the “millions” as 2 m’s, but saw the error of my ways soon after. A few went in with crossers, eg ENVIRONMENTAL, INCONTINENT but without fully parsing, and I’ve just about played the game long enough now to accept FORT=fought! Meadowlark brought back childhood memories, but not of birds… Thanks Piquet and setter.
Most done, then ground to a halt, eventually finishing in 35 mins. I was convinced that anything green must start ECO and the energy company certainly implied that, and it was that O that didn’t work that held me up.
Took a bit longer than perhaps I should have on this at 46.40, but took the trouble to parse everything as I went as this was a Championship puzzle. Even then I failed to parse ENVIRONMENTAL, in spite of knowing of Enron. My own rather grim interpretation of eavesdropper in STAIRWELL was to look out for a person dropping from height. I guess I must have done too many risk assessments in my working life!
20 mins – seemed a bit pedestrian but I was just pleased to finish after a run of vocabulary failures over the past few days.
I did this on Saturday along with the other two qualifying puzzles. Got about half of it done before moving onto puzzles two and three. Then I was back and forth between all three until with a few minutes to go I had just one impenetrable anagram left. MEADOWLARK. It soared into view with one minute left.
All three puzzles solved correctly but 59 minutes for the lot was too slow to get through to the semifinal. Great fun as ever.
I got off to a fairly quick start with STAFF, then ASP, FENCER, REPENTANT and SELECTION dropping into place. I didn’t notice that this was a Championship puzzle. I got a bit bogged down in the bottome half with MEADOWLARK and REPRESENT taking an age. COMRADESHIP gave me TOME, which allowed me to get SPRINGTIME, another hold up. That gave me the M for MEADOWLARK, then I finally saw the parsing for LOI 27a. 18:15. Thanks setter and Pip.
47:57 all correct but without full parsing. Needed to come here for full explanations of 4d, 7, 16 & 21. Solving 3 of these in hour will always be well beyond me!
28:38. Good puzzle – nothing too tricky. I liked LEGO (obviously). I finished up in the NE corner and nearly submitted without having filled in REPRESENT (which took far too long to parse).
Thanks both!
All correct, but needed Pip’s blog for explanations to several of them: ENVIRONMENTAL, INCONTINENT and NOPE.
1ac was my LOI. Good to see a triple definition.
Very smooth and deceptive surfaces.
I’m surprised that the Championship puzzles don’t seem to be very difficult. Verlaine’s comment a few days ago is making sense to me… The clue for FENCER seems to say one individual does both things, which bugged me a little though that’s one of many I got right away. The clue for ENRON almost seems a sly dig that the company was really just a scam, engaging in historic levels of accounting fraud—as shown in the 2005 documentary The Smartest Guys in the Room.
Joining this group a few months ago has had a positive effect; three competition puzzles with one mistake in just a bit less than i did for my fastest of three i did last year 68 mins total as compared to 75 for one. Okay not fast but thanks for the tips.
This felt more tricky than the championship final puzzle. I got bogged down at the bottom of the grid – held up by thinking ECO for the first part of 21a (which I subsequently failed to parse) and having to write out all the long anagrams in order to solve them didn’t help. I had no trouble with FENCER, but REPRESENT was my LOI and took me ages, as did SUER, which seems to me a pretty poor clue. I eventually left it and came back later to finish off, which I did after about 5 minutes staring at my LOI which I was convinced meant ‘object to’.
55.55 I found this much harder than the final puzzle. The anagrams were tricky, as was NOPE, though FENCER went straight in. I put REPRESENT to finish because I couldn’t think of anything else that fitted. Thanks piquet.
I’m another who came a cropper with ‘fences’ instead of ‘fencer’. Otherwise, about 24 minutes.
…and me, except I took quite a bit longer. Pity, but it is late.
I enjoyed this, at home, sun shining in the window, a balmy 22 breeze blowing through, a nice cup of coffee to hand, and only a little wondering if I’d feel exactly the same if I was under scrutiny and under the clock at the competition. I expect not.
I lucked out by mis-spelling look = ogel for ogle, before reversing the mistake into a proper Lego.
15.42
I struggled with some of this and couldnt parse it all but my policy of keeping going and not getting bogged down paid off as I was able to keep knocking them off
The idea of folks thrusting their hands up as one is struggling with the last few sounds agonising. A really well done to everyone who had the gumption to take part