Times 26925 – TCC Final final (#3) – if you can’t explain it, it’s almost certainly wrong.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Having already used up my allocated hour and more on the first two Finals puzzles (see previous Wednesdays’ blogs) I wasn’t expecting this to be easy, and it wasn’t. Even if I had been there and tackled this one first on the day, I wouldn’t have finished it in time. It began well enough with answers dropping in nicely from the NE corner down and across, until I was looking at mainly the SW corner unfinished and the long 1d; even when that fell into place I stared at 17a and 21a for an age. Once again my titfer is off to those who completed this in decent time and avoided the bear traps at 11a and 28a.

Definitions underlined, anagram fodder (in brackets)* and anagram indicators in italics.

Across
1 Key rings unable to be brought up (5)
TABOO – TAB = key, O O = two rings.
4 Frantic chase with army ducking shots (6-3)
CAMERA-SHY – (CHASE ARMY)*
9 Not including design leaving a waste product (9)
EXCRETION – EX = not including, CREATION = design, remove the A.
10 Asian dog covering miles (5)
TAMIL – Insert M into TAIL
11 Getting unseated, mounted fighter’s lost face (6)
OUSTER – I’d never heard of OUSTER as a noun, so my first effort was OUSTED, but then I decided the mounted fighter was a JOUSTER not a jousted so went for the right answer with fingers crossed.
12 Tag game outside involved tariff (8)
GRAFFITO – GO = game, outside (TARIFF)*.
14 Loudly entering drunk, sense I might get duped (4,5)
SOFT TOUCH – SOT = drunk, insert F = loudly, TOUCH = sense.
16 Like this young lady from East African port (5)
LAGOS – SO = like, GAL = young lady, from East = reversed; Lagos being a West African port.
17 Plaintiff’s back behind person who won’t be appealing? (5)
FRUMP – I tried too hard with this one thinking of legalese for plaintiff and such guff, but it’s easier than that; F = plaintiff’s back i.e. last letter, RUMP = behind.
19 Like to dig into top grub prepared here? (9)
GASTROPUB – Insert AS = like, into (TOP GRUB)*. Definition the whole clue, or just ‘here’.
21 Go off a person in party giving a twirl (8)
ROTATORY – ROT = go off, A TORY a person in a party. I spent too long trying to get DO for party into it somewhere.
22 Periodically, varsity hymn gets a complaint (6)
ASTHMA – Alternate letters of v A r S i T y H y M n A.
25 Give a lift to European and others around (5)
ELATE – E = european, ET AL = the others, reverse them = around.
26 Bourbons knocked back by this general: a vulgar, boring soldier (9)
GARIBALDI – GI = soldier, insert (boring) A RIBALD = a vulgar. Signor Garibaldi and a thousand or so chums sailed south and attacked the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ruled by the Bourbons in 1860. Question; is it a coincidence that both Garibaldi and Bourbon are names for tasty biscuits?
27 British are out to block harsh brickbat (9)
RASPBERRY – My LOI and rather inelegant parsing I think; RASPY meaning harsh, insert B ERR for British ‘are out’.
28 Writer quite slowly knocking out leading article (5)
DANTE – Well of course I saw D*N*E and put in DONNE the bell tolling chap. Then remembered the rule mentioned in my headline. Know any other writers, Pip? Even a dreaded poet? ANDANTE means rather slowly, musically, of course, knock off the AN.

Down
1 We’re short of tailored clothing that’s tight (3,5,3,4)
THE WORSE FOR WEAR – These long multiple word clues are usually the easy starters, but for me this one wasn’t. Once I realised what the definition was, I got the answer in then deciphered the ‘why’. TIGHT in the sense of drunk; (WE’RE SHORT OF)* followed by WEAR = clothing as a noun.
2 Funds in Madison County (5)
BUCKS – A double definition, funds in Madison, capital of Wisconsin, being dollars = BUCKS, and the English county abbreviation. I see there are in fact 23 USA cities or towns called MADISON and eleven Madison Counties, and it’s nothing to to with the ‘Bridges of … ‘ movie that Mrs Pip is very fond of.
3 Fail to limit fare before passing through duty-free? (7)
OVEREAT – O VAT could be duty-free; insert ERE = before. A neat clue, l liked it because for once I twigged it quickly.
4 Cold sauce for prune (4)
CLIP – C for cold, LIP for sauce.
5 Upset stomach in the end for Burger King fan (10)
MONARCHIST – (STOMACH IN R)*, the R from end of Burger. What a cool surface.
6 Tee off straight, feeling pity for others once (7)
RUTHFUL – TRUTHFUL would be straight, knock off the T, an old fashioned word meaning RUEFUL. Nothing wrong with it as a word, but not as commonly used as its opposite, ruthless.
7 Calling for cuts on winning résumé (7-2)
SUMMING-UP – I think this is SUMMONING = calling for, cut the ON out, and UP = winning.
8 A single chicken sandwich (6,9)
YELLOW SUBMARINE – Very droll. YELLOW = chicken, cowardly, a SUBMARINE is a submarine-shaped giant roll or sandwich (mainly in USA but I suspect creeping into UK eateries). Rather banal Beatles single of 1966, on which a whole equally banal movie was based.
13 Chirpy Australian doctor on a run after shift (10)
BUDGERIGAR – Need a 10 letter Australian bird, mate? Has to be budgerigar or kookaburra. Then work it out; BUGDE = shift, RIG = doctor, alter, fix; A R(un).
15 Fliers in tropics giving clue for bananas (5,4)
FRUIT BATS – Well I can see BATS = bananas, crazy. Can FRUIT be a synonym for clue? Fruit for thought, as in food for thought? Let me know.
18 What might season reportedly be, after fuss? (7)
POTHERB – If you knew a POTHER means a fuss, then this was easy. I didn’t, and I am not convinced herbs ‘season’ things, as do spices, salt, pepper etc. And B = reportedly be, fair enough. It went in last along with the raspberry and a grunt of ‘well maybe’.
20 Did rebel call the wrong way? It’ll prove a bloomer (7)
ROSEBUD – ROSE = rebel, DUB = call, reverse it = the wrong way.
23 Treasure for Paris Commune Le Havre’s seized back (5)
HELEN – Our hidden reversed clue, in COMMU(NE LE H)AVRE.
24 Sally hasn’t got over fight (4)
FRAY – FORAY = sally, drops its O for over.

58 comments on “Times 26925 – TCC Final final (#3) – if you can’t explain it, it’s almost certainly wrong.”

  1. Nearly made it, but as the hour approached I started to lose interest (I’d left too many unparsed along the way) so I gave up on 13dn, suspecting it was some obscure Australian bird I’d never heard of, and used aids to complete the grid. Absolutely maddened to find that is was BUDGERIGAR as I had a series of them in my childhood without ever learning that they were Australian in origin.

    The wordplay at 11ac screamed OUSTER but I still wrote in OUSTED to fit with ‘getting unseated’ – another maddening error as I knew the legal term but was fixated on the idea of people falling off horses.

    It’s mildly interesting that YELLOW SUBMARINE is a rare example of Ringo Starr as lead singer on a Beatles track, and he will become a ‘Sir’ when the New Year’s Day honours come into effect.

    Edited at 2018-01-03 06:55 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks. One has to cover every base around here! Rare enough that I doubt the average person could name another track and surely the only one that was a hit and a single as per the definition in the clue 🙂

        Edited at 2018-01-03 05:25 pm (UTC)

        1. I’m a devotee of the Beatles, so I may have lost touch with what the average person knows about Ringo, but I think many would be able to hum With A Little Help From My Friends. Yellow Submarine is by some distance his most well-known vocal, though, I grant you.
      2. Your sentence is commuted to community service (see comments on Fifteensquared) as I made the same error as Jack on ‘ousted’. Therefore, an error on one of the Championship puzzles so far (I haven’t tackled last week’s yet – Festive Season and all that).
        1. Brilliant. Maybe I’ll get to work – and talk – with Wayne Rooney down the garden centre. How much I will be able to understand though is another matter.
  2. I put in OUSTED, and thought I’d worked it out correctly, to the point that when I saw the D in pink on the club site, I thought maybe I’d forgotten to type it in. But I did steer clear of Donne, although he came to mind first. Odd that we just had GARIBALDI in a ST puzzle, with the RIBALD part unaccounted for in the clue. I wondered about FRUIT BATS, too; could it simply be that FRUIT BATS could be a dd clue for ‘bananas’?
  3. My time was 35 minutes but I went for 28ac DONNE, as I like him; though not bloody DANTE! So a DNF!

    So I would have failed as, 13 others did on the day. Only 11 triumphed!

    LOI 11ac OUSTER is heard more and more on CNN etc

    Jack I cannot believe you didn’t know that 13dn BUDGERIGARs come from Australia!! Lord Galspray would not be amused!
    (They actually come from pet shops!)

    FOI after a bit of a wait 22ac ASTHMA

    WOD between 13dn BUDGERIGAR and 12ac GRAFFITO – the latter I think.

    I’ll leave 27ac RASPBERRY to Mr. Myrtillus the Breakfast King.

    COD 15ac LAGOS subtle.

    Decent puzz.

  4. Solved this for the second time today and still put OUSTED! I don’t think I ever discovered the correct answer first time around, though it felt wrong both times. OUSTER as a thing feels so odd. Elsewhere not too hard, considering, and a lot of fun.

    Edited at 2018-01-03 07:53 am (UTC)

  5. About forty five minutes in, I was almost certain I wasn’t going to finish within my hour. However, a late rally including finally working out 1d and unlocking a few on that west side saw me come in at 57 minutes.

    Luckily I’ve previously stared with a quizzically-raised eyebrow at “ouster” as a noun in a couple of American articles, mostly about the “ouster” of CEOs at tech companies, so I didn’t fall into the 11a trap, and my unwillingness to biff let me hold off until I worked out ROTATORY. As Pip noted, I was very much aided by having looked up General Garibaldi yesterday after he popped up in the Picaroon puzzle.

    I’m not sure how I keep on missing the small print below the header, but I’m not sure I’d have had the confidence to keep going if I’d noticed it was a championship puzzle. Rather glad my bleary eyes didn’t notice.

    Anyway. FOI 10a TAMIL, LOI 24d FRAY, very soon after 27a RASPBERRY, WOD BUDGERIGAR. Nice def. there, too.

  6. I found the note at the beginning a little intimidating and had to take a nap before finishing. Didn’t remember to finish parsing RASPBERRY once I had it in. Rather tricky puzzle, though none of the answers are anything too obscure.

    Edited at 2018-01-03 07:59 am (UTC)

  7. DNF in an hour – with yoghurt, granola, fruit bats, etc.
    After struggling up the left hand side, I had a brain freeze in the NW: Ouster, Bucks, etc.
    Too tricksy for me.
    Some great clues – e.g. Yellow Submarine (COD) and Fruit Bats.
    But mostly I didn’t like: ‘Are out’ = ERR, Duty-free = OVAT, Pother and Ouster.

    With regard to Raspberry (Lord H) – my compote of choice today was Blueberry – and the ‘are out’ had to be an anagram of Are, surely. Still, not pothered.

    Thanks champ setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2018-01-03 08:34 am (UTC)

  8. Got there in the end but in a couple of sittings, way over the hour (for just one puzzle, of course, never mind doing 2 more). Did the Guardian after, which coincidentally had POTHERB with almost the same clue. Fell into the OUSTED trap but got myself out again. I was another person who looked at the Budgie for ages before I had all the checkers thinking I was looking for something very obscure and kicking myself when I put it in.
  9. About 70 minutes but solved it, eventually plumping for LOI OUSTER. I didn’t parse RASPBERRY. Penultimate in BUDGERIGAR, with the answer literally staring me in the face. OK, Yellow Submarine wasn’t a great song, but news of Sir Richard Starkey last week brought a smile to my face. (He was the best drummer in The Beatles, whatever John said in jest, and he was/is still damn good. He was also the best Thomas the Tank engine narrator, sounding like a father just home from work, reading his kid a story, and he was brilliant in That’ll be the Day.) COD GARIBALDI. Thank you Pip and competition setters.
    1. John never actually said that thing he’s supposed to have said, whether in jest or otherwise. It comes from Jasper Carrot.
      1. That’s why I put ‘whatever John said’, K. I wasn’t being definitive. My only problem with Jasper Carrott being the originator is that I, like a few others, have a memory of seeing John say it. I’m aware that this has never been tracked down. I don’t know if anyone has asked Jasper if he made it up himself. “Oi, Carrott…”
        1. Oh, sorry BW, I read ‘whatever John said’ as meaning ‘in spite of what John said’. From a quick google it seems that someone (Mark Lewisohn) did indeed check with Carrott, who confirmed that he (or one of his writers) made it up. See here.
          1. Interesting .. but that article doesn’t conclude it’s from Carrott. Its best guess is a radio programme called “The Burkiss Way.” I find that a tad more convincing because it is much easier to pass someone off as John Lennon on the radio.
            I have a distinct memory of John saying this on a US television interview around 1965 .. but there again, I’ve forgotten what I had for breakfast yesterday so that doesn’t mean very much.. this article is interesting .. and pretty fair to Ringo. The comment is mentioned but not in a very conclusive way:
            http://mikedolbear.com/groovers-and-shakers/ringo-starr/

            Edited at 2018-01-03 07:13 pm (UTC)

            1. The quote from Lewisohn’s book says ‘it was an early 1980s gag by British comedian Jasper Carrott, as confirmed in an email to the author, 13 April 2012‘.
              Carrott may have nicked the gag from someone else (and taken unjust credit for it) but the writer of this admits that is speculation, and In any event it’s still a gag (rather than something Lennon said).
              I find it hard to believe that if Lennon had said something like this it would have left absolutely no trace.

              Edited at 2018-01-03 09:13 pm (UTC)

  10. I found this difficult and would have failed miserably under exam conditions. Like others had to make myself put in OUSTER and didn’t realise Budgie came from Oz. Well done Pip – great piece of blogging
    1. Ah well Jimbo I had one as a kid, called Jimmy (until it laid an egg and so became Jemimah), and I learnt he / she was Australian, like a cocker too?
  11. Exactly 30 minutes but stuck in DONNE as my self imposed deadline approached. Instead of my usual plod, I started very slowly and seemed to race to the finish. Didn’t like RASPBERRY but COD to MONARCHIST.
  12. 18:04. I’d have come in comfortably under the hour for these three, so I’m feeling better about my solving abilities than I was after failing so miserably on the third puzzle of heat two. OUSTER was entirely familiar to me, which certainly helped. I wasted more time convinced 1dn was going to be a phrase starting with TOO: too close for comfort, too tight to mention…

    Edited at 2018-01-03 09:31 am (UTC)

  13. About 10m on the day with some considered biffing. It helped having seen similar Burger King, GASTROPUB and BUCKS constructions while cramming for the championships, not to mention multiple POTHERB/FRUIT BATS/GARIBALDI appearances. 1D held me up the most, even though I was pretty sure from early on that it was going to be an expression meaning drunk beginning with THE. Had encountered OUSTER as a noun in much the same way as gothick_matt so wasn’t tempted by the alternative. Some excellent clues in this, in particular the definitions lurking in, e.g., MONARCHIST and YELLOW SUBMARINE.
  14. Trickiest of the three for me, without a doubt, and very carefully crafted. As with the best puzzles, though, it’s all there when you see it (er, even if that point takes a while to arrive). Bearing in mind the motto at the top of the page, I even managed to avoid DONNE, which made me wonder if I am still capable of learning from my mistakes; there again, I thought that OUSTER (my last one in, which I read and re-read very carefully today) rang a faint bell, and sure enough, a search reveals that it apppeared in a tough Saturday puzzle in 2013 and caused similar problems then, for me and others who went with OUSTED. Anywway, in theory, I suppose I could have solved all three just inside the hour, though possibly only in theory, as my kitchen table is much less stressful than Times HQ…
  15. ‘Backs’ for BUCKS, ‘bed’ for BUD and ‘ed’ for ER in 11a so a clear DNF in about an hour and a half. At least BUDGERIGAR was my first in and I wasn’t seduced by the sound of the bell tolling for 28a.

    I enjoyed the def and surface for MONARCHIST and the def for YELLOW SUBMARINE. Banal or not, we sang the song rather gleefully as ‘We all live in a rotten boarding house, a rotten boarding house…’ all those years ago.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  17. Enjoyed this immensely and very pleased to get home in 28.11. I had an almost empty SW corner for a long time until I finally saw what was going on in 1d and didn’t trust RASPBERRY at first because I thought it must contain B and the letters of ARE (out). Some delightfully witty and oblique definitions and how refreshing to have a crossword written in the language of 2018 not the 1960s.
  18. Stopped after 32′ with much of SW undone, and also OUSTED wrong. Oh well, learning experience. Should have got BUDGERIGAR. Thanks pip and setter.
  19. Wow that was tough! Finished eventually with OUSTED just over the hour. Spent most of my time on 1d trying to fit the anagram around ‘that’ or some equivalent of it, and hadn’t thought of the other meaning of ‘tight’. And I have never seasoned with a potherb…. or have I?
  20. So it’s an Americanism is it? We’re getting it all the time here at the moment as in the “OUSTER of Matt Lauer as co-host of the Today show”. Even so I too started out with “ousted”. Interesting overlap with the Guardian, as others have noted. I think of RASPBERRY as a rude derisive noise rather than a “brickbat” but I suppose it works. P.S. Forgot. 27.21 so I’m definitely saving the airfare for next year’s.

    Edited at 2018-01-03 12:20 pm (UTC)

  21. Scraped in under 10 minutes and that was *having done it once before* – admittedly I had drowned most of my brain along with my sorrows by mid-afternoon that day, but it’s still no excuse. I managed to just fail to finish the three puzzles in the hour while plastered, but I feel like I could have done creditably on these particular beasts if compos mentis… oh well, there’s always next year!
  22. Not pleased with myself for putting in OUSTED despite it only making half sense. Mind you, to me OUSTER as a noun only makes half sense. Still, that’s me for you.
  23. 13:56 for another second-time around solve. Cracking puzzle mind.

    The Uxbridge defines ASTHMATIC as an electric bidet.

  24. Scraped in under the hour by 28 seconds, but fell into the bear trap at 11a, having never heard of OUSTER in the required sense. Otherwise an enjoyable but tricky puzzle. POTHER occurred quite recently so I wasn’t phased by that. GRAFFITO and RUTHFUL were my last 2 in and held me up for around 15 minutes. The SW was the sticking point prior to that, with FRUMP opening up the corner and being the penny drop moment for 1d. GARIBALDI was eventually my way into the squawking Ozzie. Liked MONARCHIST. Thanks setter and Pip.
  25. Yep, I hate to think how many times I’d have slipped on the ice! Super pictures, Olivia. Thank you.
  26. 60m but DNF as I needed aids and would never have got RASPBERRY whatever time I’d spent and was irritatingly a long way from the budgies. Shame that ROSEBUD didn’t take us to Orson Welles ‘Citizen Kane’ but the word alone made me smile. Very good puzzle and excellent enlightening blog. Thank you both providers.
  27. An hour and a quarter here with OUSTED, though I did wonder about it. Apparently, BUDGERIGAR means “good to eat” to native Australians, though I think you would need quite a lot of them to make up a chicken sandwich.
  28. I need to rub my eyes harder – I felt good about this at 16 minutes and submitted to find I had one error – not OUSTER which I saw but I had a stray letter in MONARCHIST. This has not been my week as I’ve had a typo in all the puzzles but one.
  29. Well, I was nowhere near the needed time, maybe close to an hour, and I had DONNE besides. Obviously I found it tricky, especially the long THE WORSE… clue, which took ages to appear. Right side went in far more quickly. No problem with OUSTER though, surprised to find it’s thought of as a USA-ism. Judging by comments, it evidently is a USA-ism. Regards.
    1. Ouster is a moderately well-known UK legal term .. but it’s use in general conversation may well be US specific
  30. Gave up after an hour with 1dn (& several others) missing and resorted to ‘OneLook’ to find something to fit the enumeration with the checkers I had. Once that was in place, and I noticed that nothing would fit 13d because I’d carelessly biffed ROTATIVE at 21ac, I was done in another ten minutes or so – except for the OUSTED and a stray duplicate letter where I’d forgot about the autoskip.
  32. On the day I did plenty of biffing, so it was fun going through this again and properly parsing the answers. I thrust my hand up on the day with OUSTER in the grid, then started kicking myself for not writing OUSTEE… the moral is, don’t check your answers.
  33. I foolishly began my assault on this Everest bleary-eyed, feeling tired and without realising I was scaling the big one as opposed to the usual daily peaks. After 20 mins of head scratching and wondering what what was going on I only had about 5 answers. About that many again went in over another 20 mins at lunchtime still feeling baffled as to why I wasn’t getting anywhere. Eventually saw the blurb explaining that it was one of the Grand Final puzzles after work and made steadier, more surefooted progress but stalling just shy of the summit by putting in ousted at 11ac and failing to see ruthful at 6dn. Very clever stuff.
  34. Well, I schadenfreudianly pleased that not everyone found this a walkover in the park, as I DNFd. POTHERB was a no-hoper – I was stuck on “pet”. Nor did I get even close on RASPBERRY.

    Fortunately, it’s now the today that was yesterday’s tomorrow, and I’ll see if I can redeem myself on the Thursday puzzle.

  35. I had all but the SW corner (including 1d) done in about 22 minutes, then had to keep my brow furrowed and work them out. I was pleased to finish all correct without aids in 31:06. COD to FRUIT BATS. A great puzzle and well blogged. Thanks setter and Pip.

Comments are closed.