Championship 2015, Preliminary One, Puzzle two: don’t panic yet.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Thus far, I am on target to survive the prelims (had I been in London to enter and not been fazed by the presence of 88 other hopefuls and Magoo, all eyes-down). This one seemed on much the same level as the first, and was completed within my 20 minute target, although one or two bits of parsing needed more thought. Of course, any puzzle with Arsenal in the solution can’t be bad.

Across
1 FRANTIC – FR for father, ANTIC(S) = cut short tomfoolery; D overwrought.
5 ABJURES – AB for sailor, J for Jack, (C)URES for salts, perhaps, without the C: D gives up. It’s not about curing ailments, it’s about curing bacon, for example.
9 DISCOURSE – DISCO for dance, then (SURE)*: D conversation.
10 VINYL – VIN = wine, Y the unknown, L label primarily; D records.
11 LUNCH – LAUNCH = start, loses the A; there’s no such thing as a free lunch, unless you’re an MEP on expenses perhaps.
12 OMBUDSMAN – Insert BUD (shoot) SM, into OMAN the eastern state, (well, middle eastern); D commissioner.
14 BLOCK AND TACKLE – DD.
17 CATHERINE WHEEL – You could biff this from the enumeration, or spot the anagram (A CHEER WHEN LIT E)*.
21 LIGHTEN UP – LIGHT UP = srart smoking, insert (M)EN; D to relax.
23 MYOPE – EPONYM (titled person) reversed, remove the N: D wanting contacts (lenses); a short-sighted person like moi.
24 TRIBE – Find the River TIBER, move the R at the end to second place; D race.
25 PARODYING – OP (work) round RA (artist), all retro = PARO, then DYING = final; D taking off.
26 DRESDEN – DR, (NEEDS)*, anagrind ‘mobile’; D city.
27 DOYENNE – YEN = longing, inside DONE = through, finished; D she’s admired by juniors.

 

Down
1 FIDDLE – Insert DD for theologian into FILE for dossier; D cook, as in cook the books.
2 ARSENAL – ReAd, regularly, over, is AR; LANES (passages) elevated is SENAL; D magazine, or The Gunners.
3 TOOTHACHE – Slightly witty cryptic def.
4 CORPORATION – COR = my, exclamation; PORTION = allotment, insert A for area; D concern, as in business ‘a going concern’.
5 AXE – AXLE = shaft, lose the L(arge); D fell, chop down.
6 JIVED – D(E VI)J reversed, where DJ = formal attire, E = event’s top, VI = six = three couples; D danced.
7 RAN AMOK – A MO (modus operandi, way of working) insode RANK = class; D got out of control.
8 SPLINTER – Replace the R in SPRINTER (runner) wth the other side , L, D breakaway.
13 BAD-TEMPERED – DAB = fish, reversed; TEMPERED = tougher after heating; D peppery.
15 ASHAMEDLY – A SHAM ED = no pukka journalist, L(AD)Y; D with red face?
16 SCULPTED – SCUL(L) is a brief row, P T E D first letters (leads) to Program’s Top Exec Defending; D what Moore did.
18 TAGLINE – S leaves STEALING to give the anagrist (TEALING)*; D end of joke.
19 EROSION – OR (men) inside NOISE (racket), all reversed; D long term damage.
20 MEAGRE – Hidden word in HO(ME AGRE)EMENTS; D spare.
22 TREAD – THREAD = drift, loses its H; D walk.
25 PEN – OPEN = begin, remove O for old; DD a bird (female swan) or a cage.

52 comments on “Championship 2015, Preliminary One, Puzzle two: don’t panic yet.”

  1. So glad I never have to face the dreaded room itself. Finally got there just under the hour. Thought the clue for CATHERINE WHEEL was very good indeed. Nothing like a good &lit for my money.

    As for ARSENAL … I’ve already said enough on that topic. Perhps it should be spelled AR$ENAL?

    (Seems the userpic is missing?? Now it’s not!)

    Edited at 2015-11-11 07:16 am (UTC)

  2. Stuffed, as many on the day must have been – and not a few today, I wouldn’t wonder – by MYOPE, which I had to look up, even though I am one. 35 minutes bar that mishap.
  3. Panic set in immediately as looking for an early foothold or two I failed to solve either of the 3-letter answers on first reading, or even on the tenth or twentieth!

    After what seemed like an age I eventually got started with FIDDLE and 5-10 minutes later CATHERINE WHEEL, after which progress was steady but still very slow.

    I was quite surprised to get within one answer of cracking the whole thing without resort to aids, but as the clock passed the hour I gave up and looked up MYOPE to fill the grid. I’ve had myopia since the age of seven and have never wanted contacts so I failed to make the connection.

      1. Not that I’m aware of. I assume the clue is loosely suggesting that anyone with sight problems would want contact lenses and myopics would be amongst these.
  4. 16 minutes, with maybe 5 minutes at the end trying to avoid chucking in a made-up word at 23a. When the logical first step of writing down E_O_M and a floating ‘N’ finally occurred to me, the way forward was pretty obvious. Had I been “in the room”, I have a nasty feeling I would have gone with something made up.
    1. I wasn’t in the room – with good reason it would seem – and yet the very lonely character from historic fiction (in every sense of the word) MOONE made an appearance. Well, it ends in ONE so that satisfied “individual” in my deranged mind. All the rest in about 16 mins to make it all the more annoying.
  5. Which means I have about 11 minutes left to complete the third one. Unlikely, some would say.

    Excellent puzzle, but I got stuck for ages on the AXE / ABJURES intersection. In the end I just got finished in time to claim victory for my hemisphere.

    Joint COD to CATHERINE WHEEL and JIVED. Thanks setter and Pip.

  6. For me this was the most difficult of the three puzzles on the day – although as a long standing member of the contact lens wearing myope club I had no problems whatsoever with 23a.
  7. 18m. Quite a lot harder than the first one, I thought.
    MYOPE was my last in but it didn’t hold me up for long once I had the O from 18dn.
    I’m not sure I’ve ever come across ‘peppery’ for BAD-TEMPERED before, so I needed all the checkers for that one too.
    1. When facing a blank, W.S.Gilbert often provides the answer for me:

      And I’m a peppery knd of King,
      Who’s indisposed to parleying
      To fit the wit of a bit of a chit,
      And that’s the long and the short of it!

      King Hildebrand in ‘Princess Ida’ (not a recommended text for these more enlightened days).

      Edited at 2015-11-11 11:14 pm (UTC)

  8. I found this harder than last Wednesday’s puzzle and would struggle with it under exam conditions. Can’t solve these days without coffee and occassional wander round the room.

    First class clues all of them with MYOPE particularly difficult to spot and CATH…WHEEL my favourite

  9. JIVED and DOYENNE were obvious answers but I needed a bit of time to understand the parsing.
  10. I found this easily the toughest of the three on the day, and having solved everything else, sat for what seemed like an eternity in the circumstances, staring at M_O_E. I suppose I should be glad I ignored MOOSE and MOUSE and MOORE in favour of carefully working it out (by which I obviously mean running through the alphabet, and with Y being at the end, this was a particularly laborious process).
  11. Count me as another who found this the hardest of the three on the day (and I would say on a par with two of the Final puzzles), solving in something like 11m30s in total, to the point where I left it unfinished and moved on to puzzle 3 for light relief before returning. My main hold-ups were the parsing of JIVED, even though the answer couldn’t really be anything else, and an inability to see past MOOSE for 23A. Fortunately the latter didn’t even vaguely satisfy any part of the clue so I knew it couldn’t be right – eventually EPONYM floated up into my mind and all became clear.
  12. 31:22. About half of this went in quickly but there were several which held me up, finally finishing with MYOPE and MEAGRE. After staring at it for a while I made the jump from contacts to contact lenses which gave me MYOPE. It still took another couple of minutes to get MEAGRE so it had been well hidden from my perspective.

    Mention of Arsenal reminds me of Spurs’ dominant display against them at the weekend (though it ended in a draw). Perhaps it presages a first Premiership finish above Arsenal? I can dream…

  13. 35:43. I too found this rather tricky and I was pleased to finish without aids. Thanks for explaining ABJURES. I knew it was a word, but couldn’t remember what it meant and couldn’t see where the URES came from, nor where the IVE came from in JIVED – thanks for explaining that too, Pip. I was misdirected to trying to find an anagram for ‘Peppery fish’ and then tried to justify RED SNAPPERS in vain for 13d – my favourite along with 17a once I got it. MYOPE my last one in too after a PDM realising what ‘contacts’ was referring to. I used to be one, but never wore contacts and had eye laser surgery a few years ago to cure the problem.

    Edited at 2015-11-11 10:08 am (UTC)

  14. I certainly wasn’t doing the same puzzle as Pip. Should have started with the down clues because I got all the way to Dresden before anything clicked. Many thanks to our blogger Vinyl for 10a (finally). I had all kinds of stupid parsing fumbles (“ration” instead of “portion” in 4d and a clown called Taglione who kept butting in to 18d). Ok on MYOPE – perhaps because I was one until age lengthened my sight. I felt lucky to come in at 23.56 and would certainly have panicked on the day.

  15. 42 minutes for what was not that hard a puzzle!

    BAD TEMPERED held me up as I failed to see the fish served up -then DOYENNE went in without any more ado.

    FOI SCULPTED LOI MYOPE

    horryd Shanghai

  16. Do any other bloggers find LJ trouble sometimes with an advance post being refused with a pink message ‘no password sent’, even when logged on? If so, is there a work around and why does it happen?
    Thanks – pip

  17. Lowering the tone by even mentioning ARSENAL!

    Just the sight of OVF (old vinegar face) New Green Arse (6,6)

    brings me out in a horrid rash!

    horryd Stretford End of Shanghai

  18. I tip my hat to all who finished that one under test conditions. It was a right belter.
    I had real trouble with 16d, going through all the Moore’s I knew: Patrick, Old (of the almanac), Bobby, Gerald, Demi (OK, she’s not dead) until alighting on Henry of stone holes fame, having got all the checkers.
    PLOI was 23a, after running through baron, nob, noble etc.
    LOI 20d accompanied by the sound of my head thumping against the wall.
    1. I couldn’t get the pugnacious former international rugby player Brian out of my mind, despite him also being very much alive. HOOKED obviously didn’t fit but SCRAPPED looked like a candidate for a while.
  19. It took a while (30 mins+) and MYOPE was not an issue. What was an issue was the inexplicable VYNOL. Perhaps I’ll do something else on Wednesdays for a bit.
  20. I’d have been leaving with my tail between my legs due to ‘myope’ and not ‘moone’ (don’t ask!). Other than that, a nice solve in about the allotted time.
  21. Very tricky,far tougher than last week’s. It was six minutes before I was sure of an answer (21), though I had pencilled in TOOTHACHE lightly at the beginning. After that it was a slow trawl, but at some point I got onto the setter’s wavelength and speeded up. No problem with MYOPE once I had the M and O. 8 was my LOI after 48 minutes, just managing to avoid resorting to aids.

    An excellent set of clues and a most enjoyable puzzle.

  22. My only ‘ope would have been if every other competitor in the room had had food poisoning.
  24. This was a very good puzzle! Definitely harder than last week and I did not see the wordplay for JIVED so that would have been my bung in and hope on the day.
  25. Put me down as another who found this the hardest of the three on the day. Had to go back to finish it with plenty of gaps but had everything done with 5 mins of the hour left except 23ac. It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d had 55. Myope a completely new word for me so wasn’t too cheesed off when I saw the answer sheet. 17ac the CO the whole D for me.
  26. 28 mins. I had all but MYOPE done in 15 mins and then suffered brain freeze because it took me an age to disabuse myself of the notion that the “individual” in the clue was “ONE”. I think if I was at the championships I’d have gone on to the third puzzle and revisited the clue once I knew how much time I had left.
  27. The stopwatch was at about 15m 30s with MYOPE missing, and me unable to explain TAG LINE (despite it being a fairly simple anagram) when I was interrupted by a colleague – then in the course of the conversation I figured out MYOPE. Not sure why, as he suggested ‘mouse’.
  28. All correct, without aids, but did not manage to parse several of the clues correctly (4d – another fixated on ‘ration’: 6d – saw the DJ and the Event’s top, but not the three couples: 27a – failed to pick up the ‘through = done connection).
    23a was my LOI, but I really should have tumbled it quicker, having made an error on ‘got it’ yesterday due to misreading the clue.
    Cracking puzzle I thought.
  29. Good thing I live on the other side of the ocean from any championship competition. I actually breezed a bit through the top before struggling with the lower half. I finally had to surrender and resort to aids for MYOPE. I didn’t know the word, though it makes sense and I had actually figured out the parsing. It seemed to unlikely to be correct, however. What I got took about 35 minutes. Regards.
  30. I liked this one, which kept me occupied for about half an hour. The MYOPE that held up some was one of my FOsI, possibly from personal experience. In fact, the ravages of age are making me progressively more presbyopic as well as myopic. Eventually, the two -opias will meet in the middle, and I will only be able to operate on very thin patients oriented in my focal plane. The alternative, I suppose, would be to switch to dermatology, which tends to be two-dimensional.

    TAG LINE was very nearly my FOI, but I failed to parse it until close to the end, and didn’t have the nerve to bung it in until I had all the checkers. The simple AXE also held me up, for no very good reason.

  31. Way out of my league. I can complete easy Times puzzles, but not this.
    Does The Times reveal who sets these wonderful works of the art?
    BW
    Andrew K
    1. Sadly not, though my (entirely unscientific) research suggests that most solvers and at least some setters would be very happy if it did.
      1. My preference would be for setters to be identified when the solutions to the puzzles are published. With other newspapers, some solvers are put off from tackling puzzles because they regard particular setters’ offerings to be too hard: if they actually persisted in tackling them, they might become attuned to the setters’ styles and relish them. Anonymity when the puzzles first appear encourages solvers at least to read the clues.
      2. Not this solver, not least, in addition to the reasons already given, because the whole thing is likely to become about personalities and favourites, leading to “cliqueiness”, which would be a shame, especially for this site.

        “Tradition, tradition!” (best Fiddler on the Roof voice]

        1. I’m with you, ulaca. I’ve learnt to take pleasure in wondering and not knowing. And I love Fiddler on the Roof!
  32. American Airlines was cooperative – I brought this to kill an expected hour wait in the Detroit airport; I arrived early, and AA put the flight back twice. Still, that did not lead to a happy ending. Extra time did not help. Aides (the OED by mobile connection is an experience not to be missed) did not help. Finally, PipKirby DID help. Thank you.
  33. Like others, I found this much the trickiest of the three on the day, and I confess to a certain amount of biffing. MYOPE held me up longest, but I eventually cracked it in the same way as sotira by writing down E‑O‑M. I believe that particular clue dished a number of solvers’ chances.

    A very fine puzzle, thoroughly worthy of inclusion in a Championship preliminary.

  34. Describes me this morning. Had ‘hot-tempered’ convincing myself a ‘toh’ was a fish. Thus got stuffed and so dnf.
  35. For anyone even later than me, I offer the humorous anecdote that when I reached MYOPE, I only had the M. And I spent a minute trying to see if I could parse it you be MAGOO. After all, the character does wear specs. And I thought it would a delightful piece of cheek to include him in there.

    Turns out the included crossword genius was another…!

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