Solving time 6:54
Did fairly well with this, but took a minute or two at the end to make sure of CLAP at 25D. Like many puzzles used in the championship, this had its fair share of novel words, some with relatively tricky wordplay, plus some old favourite tricks to annoy you if they still take a while to spot.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | SAW,N Some of those old tricks right away – deal = timber, saying = saw |
3 | A,PO(CALYPS(o))E – the original Calypso was a nymph (a naiad, specifically). Writer = (Edgar Allan) Poe. Oh, and Apocalypse is another name for the last book of the Bible. |
10 | C(A FETE)RIA |
11 | MORON = “more on” |
13 | SWATHE – 2 meanings |
15 | BY FITS AND STARTS – (standbys at first)* |
18 | SLEEPING PARTNER – cryptic def. – slightly loose perhaps, for “roommate”. |
27 | DI = I’d = I had, returned = reversed,THE RING = cycle (Wagner operas) |
28 | PODIATRIST – (idiot’s part)* |
29 | BEAR – 2 mngs – “big head” puzzled me a bit, but is mentioned in Collins as an ursine characteristic |
Down | |
1 | SECOND,BEST – second = S,best = TOP. Clever, but “wordplay” in this sense is cryptic crossword jargon, which ideally solvers shouldn’t have to know to be able to solve the clue. |
4 | PORC(ELA=ale rev.)IN(e) |
6 | LAMB,A,S,T |
7 | PER(CHER)ON – the president is Juan Peron (Mr. Evita), and Cher is a centtrally located French department |
8 | ETNA = ante (stake in poker or similar) reversed |
14 | ASTROL(l),O,GER. Refers to Old Moore’s Almanack, published every year since 1697, when the original Moore was an astrologer at the court of King Charles II. |
16 | FREE(BOAR)D – distance from waterline to upper deck level on a boat. |
17 | D(evote)E,PILATES – this interpretation of “distress” is one of the oldest tricks of all. |
24 | RAISE = “raze/rase” |
25 | CLAP – I struggled to remember this word’s “place quickly” meaning, but it’s fairly familiar from “clap in irons”. |
Championship tips
There’s a longer list of tips here. Various old ideas not used for a while seem to reappear in championship puzzles, so if you’re an experienced solver but relatively new to the Times puzzle, it’s possibly worth trying the puzzles in a book of Times crosswords – one with puzzles printed a year or two before your time. I’d also encourage you to do barred-grid puzzles like Azed, Mephisto or Beelzebub. Learning some more difficult vocabulary will help, and so will practice at the art of using wordplay and checking letters to discover words you don’t know yet.
R. Saunders