An interesting crossword this, with some fairly advanced vocabulary – I count ten words (at least) that I would never use myself, in more cases than one because I’ve never heard of them. However I got there, and looking back I can’t find anything to disagree with or call unfair. I try never to complain about unknown or obscure words – they are a learning opportunity, after all. And they happen to us all, so it is best just to try to cope. I am quite proud of (eventually) constructing 22ac, as nho as any word this week. And the setter did very well to construct a crossword with so many unfamiliar words, that is still doable. Chapeau.
I was not able to attend the Championships this year so cannot say for sure that this is one of the qualifying crosswords; [on edit: yes, it is the first qualifying puzzle] and there is no mention of it on the printed page. But I see from an article about the championships that 22ac is mentioned, so it must be. I found it moderately hard, but not scarily so. If I were competing I might have done, though! I don’t record times but I suspect it was more than the 20 minute allowance ..
I use the standard TfTT conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Durham’s foremost dons translated Horace with variable use of improvisation (2,6) |
| AD HOCERY – D(urhams), in *(HORACE), + Y, a variable (along with x and z). It’s only in Collins as an Americanism (and spelt with a ck). But it’s in Chambers. The first of the words I wouldn’t ever use… | |
| 5 | Carefully considers idiosyncrasies in speech (6) |
| WEIGHS – sounds like “WAYS,” as in “She does have some funny ways.” | |
| 10 | Focusing on man lost on incorrect path (15) |
| ANTHROPOCENTRIC – *(ON INCORRECT PATH). Word no 2.. | |
| 11 | School field (10) |
| DISCIPLINE – A neat DD | |
| 13 | Limits of glossary concerning literary circle (4) |
| GYRE – G(lossar)Y + RE (concerning). Nho, so word no. 3. But gettable, if you think of (eg) gyroscope. Or remember Jabberwocky:
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe The “literary” I think is there to suggest that the word is mainly used poetically. |
|
| 15 | Ignore information about the French court (7) |
| NEGLECT – GEN rev. (information, about) + LE (French for the) + CT (court) | |
| 17 | Quiet about breaking false teeth (7) |
| PLACATE – CA (circa, about) in PLATE, false teeth apparently. One symptom of ageing I have so far managed to avoid. Hanging on, by the skin of my… well, anyway, hanging on. | |
| 18 | Front of cabin covered and carpeted (7) |
| CHIDDEN – C(abin) + HIDDEN, covered. If you chide someone, I guess they can say they have been chidden. Word no. 4 | |
| 19 | Throw mud at faceless Samoan? (7) |
| SLANDER – (i)SLANDER, Samoa being an island. | |
| 21 | Undisturbed hiding place for drug (4) |
| ACID – (pl)ACID, (undisturbed), the hidden pl being an abbreviation for place. Shorthand for LSD. | |
| 22 | Instrument about to capture this female nutritional need (10) |
| TOCOPHEROL – TOOL (instrument) containing COP HER (to capture this female). Word no. 5, and proud I was to work this one out. It is a fat-soluble alcohol apparently, and you eat them every day, if you have anything approaching a balanced diet. | |
| 25 | Ex-PM’s fashionable royal post (15) |
| CHAMBERLAINSHIP – (Neville) CHAMBERLAIN’S HIP, ie fashionable, a singularly inappropriate description of the former PM, from what I’ve seen. Word no. 6. | |
| 27 | Some flipped, reportedly unwelcome (2,4) |
| DE TROP – hidden, reversed, as above. | |
| 28 | Just read out passage in knitting pattern (4,4) |
| FAIR ISLE – FAIR (just, equitable) + ISLE, sounds like “aisle,” a passage. Still got one somewhere, that my mother knitted for me. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Regrettably snubbed theology graduate during panto (7) |
| ALADDIN – ALA(s) (regrettably) + DD (doctor of divinity) + IN, during. | |
| 2 | Stifling each other’s essential characters (3) |
| HOT – hidden, as above. | |
| 3 | Unhappily recording second of many errors (10) |
| CORRIGENDA – *(RECORDING) + (m)A(ny). Word no. 7, what’s wrong with “error,” after all.. | |
| 4 | One sent to Coventry returned in disgust (5) |
| REPEL – LEPER rev. I expect we would send them to hospital, rather than Coventry. Curable nowadays, and only occurs in the UK from folk recently returned from less fortunate countries abroad. | |
| 6 | Exhausted employees having to keep working for ages (4) |
| EONS – ON (working), in E(mployee)S. | |
| 7 | Cook festive goose after swapping tips (11) |
| GERRYMANDER – MERRY GANDER, with the M and G swapped. Bonus point for not mentioning Spooner, so I won’t add it to my word list, although I don’t recall ever discussing fiddling an electoral boundary. | |
| 8 | Exude mystery and energy (7) |
| SECRETE – SECRET (mystery) + E(nergy). I would have said it meant more the opposite of exude, but there it is in Collins: “To produce and release..” | |
| 9 | New programs bolstering school spirit (8) |
| SCHNAPPS – N(ew), in between SCH(ool) and APPS, programs. | |
| 12 | Considerable gin is in fact drunk (11) |
| SIGNIFICANT – *(GIN IS IN FACT), a rather obvious anagram. | |
| 14 | Revolutionary who was French polisher and athlete (10) |
| MARATHONER – MARAT, a French revolutionary famously murdered in his bath, and HONER, one who hones/polishes. Word no. 8, I would just say “marathon runner.” | |
| 16 | Cross nationalist from south India cooked over charcoal (8) |
| TANDOORI – ROOD (cross) + NAT(ionalist) reversed, + I(ndia), NATO alphabet. | |
| 18 | Risked neck, regularly fleeing English country houses (7) |
| CHANCED – N(e)C(k) + E(nglish), in CHAD, a country. Borderline, I seldom chance, but I let this one go. | |
| 20 | Get sick again close to Khyber Pass (7) |
| RELAPSE – (khybe)R + ELAPSE, pass. Neat clue. | |
| 23 | Love mum’s ace raw tripe (5) |
| OMASA – O + MA’S A(ce). Nho (so, word no.9), it means “the third compartment of the stomach of ruminants, between the reticulum and abomasum.” My Sheffield mum and granny both loved tripe. But definitely not me. The tripe is only the lining of the stomach, so not a very precise definition maybe.. | |
| 24 | Soldiers occupy a position around river (4) |
| EBRO – OR (other ranks, soldiers) + BE, occupy a position, all reversed. The longest river entirely in Spain, (very) vaguely heard of but still, word no. 10, just to round things off. | |
| 26 | Bears and hyenas scratching itch (3) |
| HAS – H(yen)AS, ie the yen/itch is removed. | |
Yes, who could forget TOCOPHEROL? I’d never heard of it, and used Chambers Word Wizard to finally finish an otherwise quite satisfying experience. My first one in was AD HOCERY, and that rather set the tone… a whiff of Mephistophelean sulfur in the air…
Failed on TOCOPHEROL, CORRIGENDA MARATHONER and EBRO, all NHOs. Lots to like though and after finding out it was one of the puzzles from the weekend, I’m quite happy. Lots to like and some tricky clues. Liked GERRYMANDER best.
Thanks Jerry and setter.
That was really hard. I finally gave up and guessed MONOPHERYL at 52′. Wrong, of course, so chapeau to Jerry. The rest had been a slog!
One does want to put a K in ‘ad-hockery’, somehow. CHAMBERLAINSHIP took an age, and of course it was the only big C20 PM I didn’t think of when running through them. Had I seen that quickly I might have shaved 10′ off. DE TROP only came with great effort. Ditto EBRO. NHO OMASA or GYRE, but the latter was fun to twig (from ‘gyroscope’). Overall a great puzzle. Verlaine’s 2:46 is ridiculous.
Someone at the championship told me they’d guessed something like MONOPHERYL. And verlaine’s 2:46 is helped by him having solved the puzzle 5 days ago!
Ahhh right yeah good point!
DNF. On the day I didn’t manage DISCIPLINE or CORRIGENDA. I also had TOPOTHEROL instead of TOCOPHEROL thinking that POT could mean capture. I wasn’t the only one.
Re TOPOTHEROL: That was my downfall today!
I just felt that PH was more likely than TH to be in the name of what was likely to be a chemical of some sort…
Indeed, if I’d thought of both I would probably have gone with COP
Identical experience here.
It was certainly a test ing clue!
I did quite well on the NHOs but eventually there proved to be too many of them and the last few were beyond me. I completed the grid only by looking up the answers EBRO TOCOPHEROL and MARATHONER. Okay the last wasn’t exactly unknown, but it’s not a word I’ve had reason to use or remember seeing written down.
Enjoyable to up a point which I passed around 45 minutes in.
I just did this in 24 minutes, but that was after having already having attempted it four days ago. Interestingly, I never checked all the answers (on the answer sheet we were given after completing the puzzles), so doing it again today was half-fresh, as it were.
For me, this was easily the hardest of the qualifiers, and the one I attempted first. After three minutes I had nothing and the panic began to set in. Wisely, I moved on and tried more bits later.
Got AD HOCERY quickly (well, not instantly, obviously) but it was the sort of puzzle I was fearing with a new crossword editor. (No aspersions intended, if you’re reading, Jason!)
Will be interested to see how others got on.
Needed aids to finish off the last few clues at the bottom of the grid, so a technical DNF in just under 40 minutes. Definitely at the harder end of the spectrum but with some admirably witty clueing.
FOI AD-HOCERY
LOI DE TROP
COD CHAMBERLAINSHIP
“King John was not a nice man;
He had his little ways;
Sometimes no-one would speak to him
For days and days and days…”
Thanks Jerry and setter.
31:24. I enjoyed this but it may have been another matter in a competition setting. The same difficult ones and unusual words as others have already pointed out. I just about came a cropper at 24d, not being able to remember if the river was IBRO (my first thought) or EBRO and I was only rescued by the wordplay. Turns out I didn’t know the proper meaning of DE TROP but I didn’t need to and it is one I’ll try to remember.
Look forward to next Wednesday’s qualifying puzzle no. 2.
DNF on Saturday so took (but didn’t submit) my time today to revisit and wrestle with those chewy ones that evaded me at the weekend.
Thank you to JerryW and the setter. (Each setter was named and thanked after the final on Saturday).
Yes, good point. The setters were (with apologies for any misspellings):
Qualifiers: Sarah Hayes (ie today’s puzzle), Paul Brinklow (?), Roger Phillips
Semifinals: John Newbank, James McGachie, John Henderson
Final: John Gyver
I think – but am not sure – that the spellings are Bringloe, Ewbank, McGaughey, and Guiver. Very surprised that this one was by Sarah Hayes – her puzzles usually stand out for their wit and elegance.
Thanks! My spelling only average, it appears..
I failed on TOCOPHEROL and EBRO on the day, but only 10 out of 110 completed all three qualifier puzzles correctly in the hour, so I don’t feel so bad about not finishing any of them now. Thank-you Jerry and setter.
I got there in the end with my wife’s help although we did have look up Ebro and forgot to check omasa before getting the congratulations message.
However, my wife went with odama and considered omama. I was saved by the ‘s and feel it was a bit unfair to have an obscure term not more clearly clued but I suppose it was a crossword for a competition that I will never be good enough to enter.
DNF. Gave up nearing the hour with 3 missing.
WEIGHS was very gettable, MARATHONER maybe but TOCOPHEROL was unlikely ever to emerge.
I managed the Final puzzle in about an hour but that was a work of art, more satisfying and less impenetrable and obscure than this one which started fun but became a slog. Thanks Jerryw and setter.
I think I’m still suffering a bit of PTSD from this crossword, which was as Ulaca said the hardest of the 3 qualifiers.
Lots of unknowns (CORRIGENDA, OMASA, DE TROP, TOCOPHEROL, GYRE) and on the day as my head was in a spin I struggled to put the ANTHROPOCENTRIC anagram together, I missed the hidden clue, and I didn’t actually read a couple of the clues as I jumped around the grid haphazardly.
3 of those in an hour is too tough for me at the moment so a chastening experience.
DNF
I had the feeling this was one of the qualifiers as I trudged through this. I’m surprised no one has mentioned Yeats’s “The Second Coming”: Turning and turning in the widening GYRE, / The falcon cannot hear the falconer. We’ve had ‘omasum’ here, not too long ago I think, so OMASA was (comparatively) easy. GERRYMANDER should be all too familiar to American solvers.
Or The Jabberwocky where “slythy toves did GYRE and gymble in the wabe”
As the blog says …
Sorry, was obv too busy scrolling down to find TOCOPHEROL
That Pacific whirlpool of waste is referred to as the Pacific Gyre, that’s how I got it.
… Things fall apart …
Describes well my attempt to solve this.
That was my reference point too, Kevin
You beat me to it. An image of history spinning out of control. Very apt.
29.40, and would have sent me into a tailspin on Saturday. With no aids, TOCOPHEROL is beyond (my, at least) reach: even when you look it up, it takes a while to get the wordplay. Instrument about… doesn’t help you to get TOOL and tempts you to reverse it anyway. And HER or SHE? ACID went in unparsed: apart from anything else it’s hard to get to [pl]acid from undisturbed, and I didn’t.
On the other hand, I knew GYRE, though I thought it was a Lewis Carroll invention, like brillig or slithy. I liked GERRYMANDER, an unattributed Spoonerism, but not much else.
Interesting comment as it definitely did put me in a bit of a headspin and not sure I fully recovered – such a tricky crossword to start the day. Somewhat surprisingly, despite the likes of TOCOPHEROL et al, I did manage to get this one all correct on the day but I hate to think how much time it took up of my hour and, partly as a result, I imagine, I failed on three “easier” clues in the third puzzle as was just a bit frazzled by the end.
Still a fun day meeting up with a bunch of friends and will make more effort next year to say hello to a few more from here
Only failed on the TOCOPHEROL/OMASA crosser, so I did a a bit better than on the Final puzzle. Mind you, it did take me nearly the hour. What could be better than a plate of Honeycomb Tripe? Cow heel perhaps. I used to pop in to the UCP shop for my lunch before going to a match at Burnden Park, Universal Cattle Products for the uninitiated. Thank you Jerry.
I do like learning new words but…
If 26 out of 111 competitors completed this, it is not a crossword that the general public, (me), stands a chance doing.
I feel I’ve been robbed of a crossword today.
They only had 20 minutes for each one of three, don’t forget.
I could not work out from your comment whether you tried to solve it or not, but if not I recommend it.
Sometimes the daily cryptic will be harder than many of us would like.. that’s inevitable, I think, isn’t it? But there is always the quick cryptic too.
Sheesh that was hard. Managed to get about half done including a reasonable number of the toughies. Missed out on the Anthropocentric anagram after writing out the letters.
My “instrument” was Lyre, reversed with Her, and I was looking at chemicals ending “eryl”.
COD AD HOCERY
DNF, a bit above my level vocabulary wise so I was glad to have only three words incorrect when I submitted my best guesses. Heartened to read the blog and comments that others were in a similar position.
Only positive is that I spotted ANTHROPOCENTRIC straight away.
Thanks blogger and setter. I’m quite a way off entering the championships yet.
I think that might be the general intention nowadays?
Far better to be forewarned and accept the metaphorical bruising out-of-competition, than turn up on the day to have a chastening and negative experience, having spent the time and money getting there.
I only say ‘nowadays’ because that used to be the case. We used to complete a fairly easy crossword and fill in the entry form, even fabricating the time taken to solve it!
It was bit of a shock trying to solve a completely different beast on the day.
A nice one to blog, Jerry, with something to say. I managed it without aids but in nearer 40 minutes than 20. As a univ chemist I knew TOCOPHEROL was vitamin E, as a Carroll fan I knew about GYRE in Jabberwocky. I’ve crossed the EBRO in Zaragosa a few times. CHIDDEN was a ‘must be’ guess, and I didn’t quite parse CHA-NC-E-D, but the rest was just good clueing and 10a a fine anagram. Anyone less HIP than Neville C is hard to imagine.
My thanks to JerryW and setter.
I cheated on this one. Tricky Wednesday would sum it up.
1a Ad hocery, HHO but was unable to spell it so I just put the vowels where they had to go. Added to Cheating Machine.
6a Weighs. I was tempted by Traits, but fortunately waited.
13a Gyre, easy to guess but I had to look it up. Surprised to find it is a real word as well as being in Jabberwocky.
18a Chidden, HHO but not sure where.
19a COD Slander.
21a Acid biffed. Never thought of placid, like Zabadak above.
22a Toco whatsit, NHO, cheated.
25a Chamberlainship added to Cheating Machine.
7d Gerrymander, I liked it but only worked out how the clue worked with some effort.
18d Chanced, biffed.
23d NHO Omasa… have I? Has it been seen here before? Def an Xword word. Checked it is a thing. Ah, Kevin Gregg above says we had omasum recently.
24d Ebro, HHO, reading Orwell I think, Spanish Civil War anyway. But I couldn’t find be=occupy position so I biffed it.
Managed this in 67 minutes, but had to look up EBRO and had TOPOTHEROL Tough one! Thanks setter and Jerry.
With my new approach of trying to do it all without aids it seemed, as I approached the hour mark, that I was going to have to declare a DNF, so I weakened and did in fact use aids and finished in 70 minutes. But really they were unnecessary: I was fixated on prelate but PLACATE was quite simple; TANDOORI was just good clueing and I should have been able to work it out; and the unknown TOCOPHEROL was gettable. In all cases I had parts of the answer, like plate and tan… and tool round the outside and with just a bit more application they should have fallen.
All pretty difficult but nothing unfair. Extraordinary, I think Sarah Hayes is Rosa Klebb in the Independent, where she sets very simple but very good crosswords. Or is she Arachne/Anarche, where some similar comment is apposite?
Got through quite a few of the NHOs, which, as Jerry says, are usually educational rather than off putting. But just a few too many today.
DNF, attempting this fresh as I wasn’t there on Saturday. Defeated by the unknown AD HOCERY and TOCOPHEROL, where I thought of ‘tool’ and ‘her’ but not ‘cop’.
– Relied on wordplay for GYRE and OMASA
– Took ages to get DISCIPLINE, even with all the checkers
– Didn’t know plate as false teeth, so I wasn’t confident about PLACATE
– Like dr.shred above, my trawl of Prime Ministers somehow skipped Neville Chamberlain, so I needed several checkers before getting CHAMBERLAINSHIP
Thanks Jerry and setter (Sarah Hayes, it seems)
CODs Gerrymander / Corrigenda
DNF. Over the hour with most of the SW not entered and a couple of others elsewhere.
I reflected on why I do these puzzles. Is it for fun or self flagellation? Having decided it was the former, I gave up.
I hadn’t realised it was a competition crossie as that was not mentioned, as it has been in the past. Would that have changed anything? Probably not!
Thanks Jerry for the blog and well done for completing it. Now to the quickie for some fun.
I wasn’t expecting to finish this, so I was mightily pleased to get everything bar TOCOPHEROL, NHO, naturally. Like Zabadak, I was looking for an instrument backwards, and missed the idea of COP for capture. OMASA rang a bell from previous crosswords, EBRO known and ACID bifd, without being able to parse. NHO AD HOCERY, but was gettable. The two long ones helped a lot. I took my time over this, and would not have done it within the hour, let alone 20 minutes, but I’m quite resigned to not being a speedster.
I always thought gyre’s not a real word, Lewis Carroll made it up especially for the poem. Reference: “Goedel Escher Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hoftstadter. On googling the AI thingy said he didn’t make it up, but AI is usually 100% wrong so he probably did.
Not this time.. the first quotation in the OED is from 1420.
And Yeats would not have used it in his most-quoted poem if it had been on the order of “brillig” or “slithy toves.”
DNF on TOCOPHEROL, a known unknown, and I had the cryptic all wrong – expecting a musical or medical instrument backwards about HER. The _o_o start had me mentally penciling in MONO. Really liked the puzzle though, even with some unusual words.
Without competition pressure I cruised through this in reasonable time, but gave up quickly on last one. Life’s too short. COD to DISCIPLINE.
55:35, but had to use the dictionary for TOCOPHEROL. I think my list of NHOs was about 8. might need a few more years/decades practice before trying to do the championship!
49.22 WOE
Went for MONOTHEROL – LOOM backwards enclosing NOT HER ie this female. Very clever I thought until it wasn’t. Actually too difficult dare I suggest? NHOs are great (as were the others) but surely the w/p for this clue was too vague?
Otherwise really suffered from completely failing to see how ANTHROPOCENTRIC worked, and even with lots of checkers I stared miserably at the grid with no idea what was going on. Eventually WEIGHS and then SECRETE (both difficult for me) gave me the final C and the light dawned.
Elsewhere had HONER in mind at some point but still couldn’t see the answer for ages, and also struggled with DISCIPLINE but DDs have never been my strong point. The NHOs with clear w/p suit me better.
For me this felt and in terms of time was harder than the final puzzle.
Well done Gerry for wading/sailing through and thanks setter.
I, too, was convinced that it had to be MONO- something. My only consolation is that the amount of time I spent on it (Vitamin E, huh!) means I’ll almost certainly remember it when it crops up again in a decade or two! Cop her, indeed!
Drew stumps on the hour reluctantly with two to get. As with others TOCOPHEROL was beyond me, but I’m miffed with myself for not getting MARATHONER. If I could have got RUNNER out of my mind I may have got there. So many unknown words to work out, I was a little surprised to find all the others I’d worked out were correct.
About 23 minutes for all but TOCO wotsit, gave up after another 5 and resorted to Chambers Word Wizard. Like others I was trying to think of an instrument to reverse around HER. Liked GERRYMANDER for resisting the temptation to mention the good Doctor. The hard copy of the paper did say it was a championship puzzle. I actually thought this was harder than the final one which I did manage to finish.
45,50. Bit of a beast, with a few slight aids I don’t mind admitting.
Imagine if in work meetings people started saying “Can we GYRE back to the previous point?” Oh what a heady dream. My COD was GERRYMANDER, though.
As Kevin says, GYRE is a word used by Yeats in some of his most famous poetry. In Sailing to Byzantium he has “perne in a GYRE” – apparent;y meaning a bobbin spinning in a spiral. In the Second Coming he goes on to say “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. ……The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Needless to say that when “doing”Yeats for English A Level aged 16 I quickly skated over all this as incomprehensible.
Thank U for the Keats reference, Olivia.
I remembered it from high school – which is a looong time ago, but made GYRE easy.
Apologies for this late response which probably only U will see.
We managed to get this one correctly completed in two longish sessions.
I got all the tricky stuff here on the day but failed with DISCIPLINE missing (just couldn’t see it) and ACID wrong (I went with ASIS which fitted the undisturbed bit (as is) and for all I knew could have been a drug hiding place).
Well done. Now you mention it, I have heard of folk hiding drugs up their asis…
😁
👏🏻
Lol
Yeah, no.
Always bracing to be brought down a peg or two! Bravo to the intrepid championship solvers faced with this. My head would have soon met the desk in despair if attempting this one first. I did better on the final puzzle, though still a way off completing that one too. Enjoyed reading through the blog though, so thanks Jerry.
DNF
Just popped in to take a look at what the Qualifiers look like. Managed almost half in just over half an hour. It takes me 20+mins to go through all the clues! So lots of improvement required.
On revealing my way through managed to parse everything but ACID and EBRO which rang bells but I couldn’t put into the context of being a Spanish river despite having read mention of it last week. Pleased to make figure out the OMASA / FAIR-ISLE pairing and a guess at TANDOORI. Obviously a fair few words in there I’ve NHOed.
Never got GERRYMANDER but – referring to the blog’s comment that there is no mention of Spoonerism – I believe that only applies when the initial sounds are swapped – not the letters. Merry-Jander doesn’t work.
Anyway thanks to JerryW for the blog and to the setter of the puzzle.
Did Not Finish (without aids). Did Enjoy Puzzle. Did Expand Vocabulary. D
Thanks, Jerry, and Ms Hayes
Much too tricky for me to finish without significant cheating and even then got some wrong! I ended up putting ‘ad hoc rat’ which apparently exists according to Onelook dictionary rather than AD HOCERY and incorrectly biffed ‘appal’ instead of REPEL. Also semi-biffed an uncertain (and wrong) ‘obbo’ instead of EBRO
According to one of the setters the original clue for TOCOPHEROL was an anagram, and considered borderline unfair, so it was changed to what we saw …
Interesting… I think I would have got it, or have stood more of a chance by knowing the letters. But I might well have ended up with COTOPHEROL or COPOTHEROL. None of the options sounds like Vitamin E!
It’s always gratifying to come on here after a DNF and see all those of you much more skilled than I saying that it was hard. Too many NHOs for me along with an incorrect anagram that I didn’t check . Gave up after an hour about 60% complete.
Ditto all of the above!
Five blanks or wrongs in an hour and five mins. This was my best time for a half-marathon ( which I did finish). Does that make me a half-marathoner? We have milers and steeplechasers but not 100 metresers. Sprinters maybe.
Tocopherol did for me, but I was proud to get all the others without aids – it just took hours.
If my memory of R.F. Foster’s biography is correct, Yeats saw history as a succession of widening then narrowing ‘gyres’ — a bit like an upturned cone getting wider and wider until a crisis point when it starts narrowing again. Pre-WW2, the gyre was widening as events grew more and more awful, the second-raters took over, and ‘mere anarchy’ was loosed. If it all feels horribly familiar, the only consolation is that the cycle doesn’t stop — so the good will come back. So that’s alright, then. I didn’t know this was a championship puzzle. Did it in just under 30. I admit to checking TOCOPHEROL, but it was my answer of choice and in exam conditions would have gone in. I swear it’s true.
12:29. Hard work. TOCOPHEROL last in and was a guess. Definitely seems harder than the puzzles at this stage last year.
A tiny point, but isn’t the stomach an omasum, with omasa being plural (and so giving tripe)? Is “raw” doing anything there?
Indeed, the definition I gave was for omasum, sorry if I didn’t make that clear. But two omasa still have tripe, so the clue still works. The “raw” is not strictly necessary I suppose. Perhaps the kindly setter was just trying to indicate it was part of an animal, not yet part of dinner?
Last year they made the first three relatively accessible, giving false hope. This year back to earth. DNF in 31 mins failing on (you guessed it) TOCOPHEROL, and also EBRO and FAIR ISLE. Couldn’t parse ACID; could parse but NHO OMASA; but got those two. Many thanks Jerry.
I think this was the one that was hardest, however. It was the one hardly anyone finished in the time. Next week’s might be somewhat easier.