Times 26901 – TCC heat 2 puzzle 2 – not done (Mistress) quickly enough?

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
The fifth in the series I’m coping with on Wednesdays (only 4 more to go) and IMO the hardest yet, not least because it requires some general knowledge as well as some smart wordplay. We’ve had a recent clue for the answer to 26a so it came to mind quickly, but the TCC Big Day was before that so it might have stumped a few non-scientists. As a one-time scientist who only ever studied one Shakespeare play (for O Level) TMOV which wasn’t a history play, parsing 3d presented a challenge, although getting the answer from wordplay was easy enough, It took me just on the 20 minutes but I admit I had to look up 3d to get an explanation afterwards.

Across
1 Maybe that family member supporting sister with nothing to hide (8,7)
RELATIVE PRONOUN – ‘that’ being an example of a relative pronoun; RELATIVE = family member, PRO = supporting, NUN = sister, insert O = nothing. Once I had the P from 5d this was a cinch from the enumeration.
9 Clipped dog that’s made better all round (9)
CURTAILED – CURED = made better, around TAIL = dog, follow.
10 Old Chinese coins left in sofa returned (5)
TAELS – Reverse SEAT = sofa, insert L. I don’t know how I knew this, but it did ring a bell.
11 Those elected first to make demand (6)
INSIST – ‘INs’ are those elected, IST = first.
12 At back of witch’s place observe one authorised to receive money (8)
ENDORSEE – I vaguely remembered ENDOR was some place to do with a witch in the Bible, and SEE = observe, but the answer came to mind before the reasons why.
13 Name given to stranger who offers a cursory greeting? (6)
NODDER – N for name, ODDER = stranger. Perhaps it’s an &lit,, I’m never sure about that.
15 Likelihood of one looking for gold not finding it? (8)
PROSPECT – A PROSPECTOR looks for gold; remove the OR = gold.
18 Old bar staff taking candles across street (8)
TAPSTERS – Insert ST into TAPERS
19 Star is attractive but heartless, a “queen” (6)
PULSAR – with all the checkers in I first thought QUASAR which is another type of star, but it wouldn’t be parsed, so I went for PULSAR as PULLS = is attractive (like a magnet, perhaps, not as in pulling the girls?) drop an L to make it heartless, add A R(egina).
21 Fellow with dog taken short hangs around good shrub (8)
MANGROVE – MAN is the fellow, ROVE(R) is the dog taken short, insert G(ood). From watching Sir Attenborough I thought a mangrove was more of a tree than a shrub, but that would be 6d.
23 Division brought by hesitation after thirty days (6)
SEPTUM – SEPT(ember), UM = hesitation. The thing that divides the nostrils into nostrils.
26 Nothing written about sort of current needed for scientific apparatus (5)
LINAC – NIL reversed, AC current; short for Linear Accelerator, as noted recently in another puzzle.
27 Financial problem posed by brief season (9)
SHORTFALL – A SHORT FALL would be a brief season Stateside.
28 Awful stir: gent so irate makes complaint after bad meal? (15)
GASTROENTERITIS – A fantastic anagram of (STIR GENT SO IRATE)* which once I twigged it ended in *T*S hence probably an ITIS, I saw quickly.

Down
1 Behaviour after game must preclude a row (7)
RUCTION – RU = game of rugby union, (A)CTION = behaviour precluding A.
2 Primate is following God for the most part (5)
LORIS – IS follows LOR(D). A primate common in SE Asia and crosswords, usually the Slow variety.
3 Doll maybe you distort finally, squeezing body parts (9)
TEARSHEET – My LOI because I didn’t know the literary reference and had to fool around with the wordplay and T*A*S*E*T. The word play goes THEE = you, T = distort finally, stick EARS in between T and HEE. No doubt everyone except me knew that Doll Tearsheet was a prostitute under Mistress Quickly’s wing in Henry IV part II. And I though it was Dickens who went in for silly names.
4 Base in small community from which convict’s escaped (4)
VILE – A LAG = convict escapes from a VIL(LAG)E.
5 Fastidiousness comes from editor stuck in room (8)
PEDANTRY – Stick your ED into a PANTRY.
6 Unfashionable game generates cost (5)
OUTGO – OUT = unfashionable, GO is a game. I’m not sure if OUTGO here is a permitted verb, as ‘to cost’; I thought the relevant noun was OUTGOING and usually pluralised.
7 Shout of approval accompanying flowering plants and shrubs (9)
OLEASTERS – OLÉ = shout of approval, ASTERS are daisies, and OLEASTERS are shrubs.
8 Unfortunately, short answer to problem doesn’t exist! (2,5)
NO SWEAT – A bit weird the definition here. Anagram of (ANSWE TO) where answe is a short answer and unfortunately is the anagrist. I guess if you say ‘no sweat.’ you can mean no problem. Thanks to jackkt and others below for correcting my definition.
14 Depression’s limiting quiet individual, they’ll testify (9)
DEPONENTS – DENT = depression, insert P and ONE.
16 Hat, sort we use in storm? (9)
SOUWESTER – Cryptic double definition, a waterproof hat and a southwesterly gale.
17 It’s always cold, climbing — help not half needed when falling into it! (8)
CREVASSE – EVER C = it’s always cold; reversed = CREV..E, insert ASS(ist) = help not half.
18 Female voice raised when there’s delay (4,3)
TIME LAG – Reverse GAL, EMIT = female, voice.
20 City developer redeveloping our slum (7)
ROMULUS – (OUR SLUM)*, brother of REMUS. City developer indeed.
22 Kitchen item stuffs centre of marrow with something very cold (5)
RICER – R R = centre of marrow; insert ICE. Our ricer makes nice fluffy worms of potato out of cooked spuds, but there may be other uses?
24 Publication shows discretion with writer’s final piece included (5)
TRACT – Insert R = writer’s final piece, into TACT = discretion.
25 The present time offers zilch (4)
NOWT – NOW, T(ime).

61 comments on “Times 26901 – TCC heat 2 puzzle 2 – not done (Mistress) quickly enough?”

  1. I think the definition at 8dn is ‘problem doesn’t exist’ and ‘unfortunately’ is the anagrind.

    I was quite pleased to finish in 40 minutes considering the unknown TEARSHEET and TAELS arrived at from wordplay. As was LINAC, which I failed to remember from only four days ago when it was discussed here in some detail. My joy was shortlived however as I had QUASAR at 19a, unparsed of course. Re OUTGO, SOED has: that which goes out; spec. outlay, expenditure. M17.

    Edited at 2017-12-06 06:51 am (UTC)

    1. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to fail with quasar, having made it through all the rest in under 44 mins, which is a good time for me. I have no excuse, though, having spent one University summer working for Dick Manchester at CSIRO, who was a pioneer of pulsar discovery in the Southern Hemisphere. My interest in astronomy is celebrated in my avatar.
  2. hi Pip, I think the def is “problem doesn’t exist” i.e. no sweat

    Thanks for the blog, found this the hardest of the qualifiers thus far

  3. 10:23. No problems with this, despite a few unknowns and a strong temptation to bung in QUASAR. Perhaps I was in the wrong heat.
    1. 21:53. Starting to think I maybe was too, but I guess we’ll find out next week! My LOI, 3d, took me over the 20mins – I managed to avoid leaving in the initial thought of TRANSIENT and found TEARSHEET, which was unknown, as was TAELS. Lovely anagram at 28a. Like Pip I frowned a little at mangrove being a shrub, but was prepared to believe I was wrong to doubt it.
  4. DNF. I thought I was down to just a couple left in my hour, but that was because I’d finally, grudgingly put in both OUTGO which turned out to be right (horrible word!), and OLEANDERS, which turned out to be wrong, both against my better judgement…

    Only remembering Endor from previous puzzles when Pip reminded us was the reason I didn’t get 12a, which is annoying, but I wouldn’t have got 3d TEARSHEET in a million years, so I don’t feel too bad about giving up.

    Being forced to study Henry IV at school was what put me off Shakespeare for thirty years or so. I don’t remember any prostitutes, just endless hours of Mr. Wossname’s droning. I’ve finally discovered in recent times that actually going and seeing the plays is quite fun. Who’d’ve thought?

  5. Since I did this on a different computer, I can’t see anything but the grid when I try to ‘Review’; another new service of the folks running the show. I remember biffing TEARSHEET (sorry, Pip) and never parsing it. Also, like Matt, put in ‘oleanders’, which helped increase my time, but finally remembered OLEASTERS from a very recent puzzle, and then remembered where the witch came from in all the NYT puzzles. NO SWEAT came to mind very early on, but I could make no sense of it and dismissed it from my mind until much later, when I finally saw how it worked; a nice one, actually.
  6. I found parts of this unfathomable on the day and fared little better attempting it for the second time this morning.

    TEARSHEET was a total unknown to me, and either I was misinformed or I misunderstood in the post-match chat — I could have sworn I was told that a doll was a printing term. I’ve been caught by you=thee before, when it’s not indicated as archaic.

    I spent ages on NO SWEAT on the day, trying and failing to make sense of the clue. Still couldn’t see the definition this morning so thanks for the enlightenment. The definition seems to have been run through Google translate a couple of times.

    So … well done to all who knew what Penfold and I didn’t the other day and resisted telling us where we had seen LINAC before. At least we weren’t suffering a shared delusion!

      1. And we were right about the grid position — same place, same clue number. That makes us very nearly smart.
  7. 35 mins and only 3dn left – with yoghurt, granola, compote, etc.
    Firstly – the positive. No Sweat is a brilliant clue (COD) – even when I came here I didn’t know how it worked and I see others felt the same. But ‘Unfortunately, short answer to’ is a fantastically concealed anagram. Brilliant.

    Maybe sour grapes – but ‘Doll’ was too little info for me – and has left me feeling uneducated.
    Linac – we had virtually the same clue last Friday – which feels unsatisfactory.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  8. My sort of puzzle – not to solve quickly but to enjoy wrestling with good clues and gradually unravelling the plot.

    My memory trigger for ENDOR is Endora, the witch in the TV sitcom Bewitched. At school I acted the part of Mistress Quickly and LINAC is a write-in for me.

    Thank you setter, well done Pip, and glad I didn’t have to try to solve it at speed

    1. Linac is now a write-in for me, but only because we had it a few days ago! The next time it comes up I will probably have forgotten though…
    2. I thought you would hate 3d, jimbo. Surely, for anyone who hadn’t read or seen the play it was close to impossible to surmise the existence of a character called Doll Tearsheet?
      1. Well, I derived the answer Mephisto style from the cryptic without too much trouble and then remembered from my thespian youth the Waggle-dagger connection. As my answer matched the checkers, I wrote it in

        I agree that “Doll maybe” is not the kindest or best of definitions and in the main I do dislike this kind of relatively obscure literary reference. These days if I don’t know something like that I Google it whilst solving but of course one can’t do that in competition. I don’t know that it’s any more obscure than LINAC so the setter does at least have balance!

        1. No more obscure than LINAC, but for that one it was pretty plausible that this would be a name for ‘scientific apparatus’, even for science numpties like me.
      2. Don’t worry, everybody’s read Henry IV Parts I and II, or at least anyone who hasn’t isn’t worth worrying about.

        I think Part I is way better than Part II mind you #controversial

    3. Jim, of all the things I’ve learned about you over the years via this blog, this is the most unexpected and the most intriguing!
      1. I guess you’re referring to Mistress Quickly

        I was amongst the early youngsters to benefit from the Butler Education Act and to be plucked from the backstreets of London into a grammar school.

        My forte was maths and not much else. I was lucky to have an English teacher who took an interest. He got me reading and into the school play by getting me to play the part of a woman – not something lads of 12 are that keen on! He started me on the Telegraph Crossword and eventually when I was 16 he introduced me to the Times

        1. Yes it was the Mistress Quickly reference I was referring to. My inspirational English teacher had the wonderful name of Monica Daffodil Davies and my debt to her can really never be repaid except, I suppose, thinking of Hector in ‘The History Boys’, by passing it on. She also introduced me to the Times Crossword, though that was a seed that took many years to germinate.

          Edited at 2017-12-06 02:07 pm (UTC)

  9. Another exercise for me in only realising I’d done (most, sadly not all of) this before, TEARSHEET being the trigger which was left blank on the day. There was another left blank, but I can’t remember which one, such is the impact of PTSD. At least next week I’ll have half a puzzle I haven’t done before.
  10. The bottom half went in so quickly, but the top half slowed to a crawl, particularly in the North-West Passage.

    3dn TEARSHEET I would not have got in two million years! For humorous names and prostitutes Ben Johnson’s Bartholomew Fair is top of the pile.
    Dicken’s was something of a late-comer to this ‘sport’ – but he was excellent at it!

    I had QUASAR 19ac and not PULSAR and OLEANDERS for 7dn.

    6dn OUTGO is horrible. One could argue that a sofa is SEATS not SEAT but that may be 5dn on my part.

    But it all made for an entertaining hour.

    FOI 15ac PROSPECT

    COD 8dn NO SWEAT!

    WOD GASTROENTERITIS – marvellous!

    Edited at 2017-12-06 02:30 pm (UTC)

  11. 17.31 with a typo and 34 minutes left for next Wednesday’s puzzle. The second heat does seem gentler so far but a train wreck is probably in the offing. Had to ponder NO SWEAT for a while before pressing submit but enjoyment of many of the excellent clues had to wait until after the event.
  12. Much enjoyed this crossword but golly, am I glad I managed to avoid it on championship day (by not entering 🙂

    About 25 mins overall, slowed up by stupidly writing personal instead of relative in 1ac to start with. Familiar with Taels from the wonderful Kai Lung stories, (by Ernest Bramah, google them) and with Endor from the boat that Hornblower stole to escape from captivity, the Witch of Endor.

  14. A bit less simple than the last Prelim 2 puzzle, taking me closer to 9 minutes last night. TEARSHEET, ROMULUS and ENDOR all well within my frame of reference, which was nice, though TAELS gave me some problems as I initially put in TALES, and I started off with a PERSONAL not a RELATIVE pronoun for some ungodly reason. OUTGO slightly baffling and unnerving to submit. Glad LINAC has become easy with the benefit of it having appeared in a Times puzzle subsequently, I’m sure it would have given me a few moments of panic on the day!
  15. All done between Chippenham and Reading on the train except TEARSHEET. Unfair with “Doll” and “maybe you” together in the same clue, I feel.
    Well done to the 33 who completed it.
  16. 31 minutes but with TEARSHEET my LOI entered with a muttered , ‘sod it, it fits’. Who knew that studying the wrong part of Henry IV for O Level would have consequences 50 years later?
    I also started off with OLEANDERS, being so chuffed to spot the OLE bit that I forgot to parse the rest of the clue properly. I was on shaky ground with Chinese coins and biblical witches too, so the NE corner was a bit of a nightmare.
  17. Dnf before even noticing it was a competition puzzle, had OLEANDERS and shrugged TEARSHEET, obscure Shakespeare characters a bit unfair I feel, even for a Championship. Oh well.
  18. … but we only did Part 1 at school. Doll TEARSHEET unknown and LOI, constructed from her body parts. Penultimate NO SWEAT, which was definitely a sweat. 50 minutes on this, distressed at the cricket news. I also tried to make sense of Quasar for too long before I eventually pulled. I did know LINAC from my Physics days. We usually would give one its full title. COD ENDORSEE, although the Endor witches weren’t tried until coven, Salem, Pendle and Eastwick had failed. Tricky stuff. Thank you Pip and setter.
    1. In Galspray’s absence I do feel duty-bound to mention the cricket. That’s 2-0, isn’t it?
    2. In Galspray’s absence I do feel duty-bound to mention the cricket. That’s 2-0, isn’t it?
  19. 18 minutes with 3dn LOI, but QUASAR at 19ac. I’d taken a few minutes trying to connect TRANSIENT with ‘doll’ before something else to fit the checkers came to mind. For the latter was led astray by the ‘see U, try Q’ hint, and although I couldn’t see how to parse it, failed to see anything better.
  21. On the day I finished in the top right corner, not quite certain enough to write in TAELS, and struggling to parse NO SWEAT. After a few minutes of bafflement I fortunately saw what was going on in enough time to finish 10th in the prelim.

    LINAC was a bit of a godsend – I’d come across it (for the first time) in a different crossword not long before. Like London buses…

  22. Unfortunately a good time with 2 wrong – like most others of you I had an unparsed QUASAR and the door bell went just as I was typing TEARSHEET, only to discover later that I had typed TEAMSHEET. Not have any kind of green fingers, I don’t know the difference between an OLEASTER and an OLEANDER, the latter apparently being somewhat larger.
  23. I’m not sure how I would have coped with this one under championship conditions, as LINAC would still have been an unknown back then, TAELS definitely went in on a wing and a prayer, and OUTGO didn’t seem massively convincing as a word, either, at least without -ING on the end; throw in the deceptive 8dn, and it made the NE corner very tricky. Before that, I’d already written in and corrected PERSONAL for RELATIVE, QUASAR for PULSAR (at least on this occasion I managed to listen to the voice which told me I couldn’t parse it, therefore it wasn’t correct) and got away from the belief that 28ac must have something to do with digestion, even though there wasn’t a D in the anagram fodder. At least the other required knowledge fell within my definition of “general”, but this was a proper tester all round.
  24. This and puzzle 3 took 41 minutes between the two of them on the day. For ages I had blanks where OUTGO, TAELS and NO SWEAT eventually ended up. In the case of the latter I pinpointed the definition but couldn’t see the wordplay, either on the day or even today when having a gentle re-run.
  25. I found this tough but most enjoyable, but I’m sure on the day it would have induced panic. I had LENTUM for a while until I ground to a halt in the North and reconsidered that though very tempting lent is in fact 28 days! Doh! I also struggled with the chinese cash and would add my slightly negative voice to the doubters about doll – my MA is in Shakespeare studies and Doll Tearsheet never entered my head at all – hence my DNF in 60m. I think it is just too obscure since the wordplay is barely helpful. But then it is a championship puzzle after all. Thanks for the blog, Pip and also the challenge, setter.
  26. Found this one the easiest of the lot so far, completed in 20:30 so almost on track. TEARSHEET derived from the cryptic and crossers but then rang a bell. LINAC in with a shrug a few days ago with similar clue, in without a shrug today. Did a few years of physics at university and never heard a linear accelerator shortened to linac – must be a UK thing? Otherwise steady, biggest hangup was spelling TALES (sic) wrongly. Think solving later in the day helps.
    Like anonymous above (whose comment I missed) for 16 I had a semi-&lit, (sort we use)* with “in storm” as anagrind.

    Edited at 2017-12-06 01:33 pm (UTC)

  27. I don’t think we’ve had them lately but they used to turn up quite regularly in the NY Times weekend crosswords. TEARSHEET does seem a bit too TLS for a championship puzzle. After a lacklustre week I was just happy to find the groove here although not enough of one to justify a return visit to the annual prom. 17.06

    P.S. I’d meant to say that I liked your headline Pip. It reminded me of “If t’were done when t’is done then t’were well it were done Quickly”. Solver’s motto.

    Edited at 2017-12-06 03:08 pm (UTC)

  28. DNF as never heard of Tearsheet. Otherwise pleased to get the rest in about 50 mins, especially as I hadn’t spotted it was a championship puzzle. But oh dear – Linac, Nowt, Tearsheet, No sweat etc. Hate this sort of cr&p. Can we have a Partac, Protac etc? And how many slang words are valid? Perhaps I will compile a crossword with nothing other than northern words.
    Mr Grumpy
  29. I struggled with this puzzle for 54:34, with my last 2 in, ENDORSEE and TEARSHEET accounting for over 10 minutes. ENDORSEE finally succumbed after I realised that OLEANDER was really OLEASTER, and stopped trying to fit COVEN into the wp. My knowledge of ENDOR also comes from Bewitched. The Doll was then laboriously constructed from the wordplay and checkers, as I hadn’t heard of the Shakepearean character. I assumed it was something to do with publishing as I shrugged and submitted. Unfortunately it was all to no avail, as not only did I get 19 across wrong, with an unparsed MOUSER from the wrong definition “queen”, I failed to notice that my previously correct entry at 16d then became SOOWESTER, giving me 2 errors. Still, an enjoyable tussle which gave me a sense of satisfaction despite the errors. Thanks setter and Pip.
  31. I got through this rather quickly, in about 20 minutes, but I’m no threat to the championship competitors since I had QUASAR. Oops. It fit the definition if nothing else, and I failed to question it. No idea who TEARSHEET might be, or whether it was a person or something else. Wordplay only, same with TAELS.I liked the NO SWEAT clue, although I needed all the checkers to figure it out. Regards.
  32. Quite happy to have gotten them all correct (though I had QUASAR for a minute too), but sorry I couldn’t see how NO SWEAT or CREVASSE parsed (it was late…).
    The anagrammed disease legitimately could have been spelled GASTROENTERITIS or ENTEROGASTRITIS, so I had to wait for a checker there to fill it in. But then it was 8down! Brilliant anagram.
  33. After 44 mins at lunch I had four clues still to fathom in the recalcitrant NE corner (10ac & 12ac; 6dn & 8dn). I managed to tidy them all up in another 10 mins after work.Taels was vaguely recollected. I took too long to remember the witch. Doll was satisfyingly derived from word play and then faintly remembered as something Shakespearean or possibly Dickensian. Outgo an odd looking bit of vocab reluctantly entered once word play and checkers could not be denied. The neatness of COD 8dn meant it took some time to crack. Also delayed by putting in oleanders at first for 7dn until twigging that 12ac had to end in “see”. A very entertaining puzzle.
  34. Just to point out that SOU’WESTER is an anagram of SORT WE USE as indicated by ‘storm’, so not a cryptic double definition 😉
  35. Enjoyed the puzzle, and happy to maintain my ‘all correct’ for the Championship puzzles so far.
    No problem with Doll Tearsheet, but I had ‘tales’ at 10a until I got ‘oleasters’ at 7d which enabled me to correct my error thanks to the clear wordplay of the former, though I didn’t know the currency.
  36. Well, of course I had never heard of Doll TEARSHEET either, but it fit the wordplay so well. So I made up a vision of a small girl crying and wetting the doll she is comforting herself with. And I assumed that would have made its way into the dictionaries somehow — stranger things have occurred. Quite a good puzzle actually, though I needed exactly an hour to solve it.
  37. This is my first comment ever. 16d SOUWESTER is an anagram of ‘sort we use’ and ‘in storm’ is the anagrind n’est-ce pas?
  39. Sou’wester is anagram of sort we use. The anagrind is in storm. Rather than dd??

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