Times 27219 – TCC Heat 2 second puzzle of three. (Apparently the first in the booklet).

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This restored (temporarily) my faint desire to enter the TCC if and when I find myself geographically suited to do so. I polished it off with a reasonable confidence level that it was correct, in 19 minutes, just within the quota. There again, as last week’s was a magnitude tougher, and took an age, maybe I’ll stay away.
I enjoyed it – not just because it went in smoothly, but it raised a smile here and there, having quite a few witty cryptics and not too many anagrams or complex wordplay elements. It also lends itself to BIFFing to get to a faster conclusion, so no doubt we’ll have some fast laps, but I think I have unravelled the mysteries as well. But feel free to sharpen your electronic pencils to point out where I’ve wandered from the true path.

Across
1 Extract of tree sucker pushed back by tongue (3,6)
GUM ARABIC –  Sucker = MUG, reversed (pushed back), ARABIC being a tongue. My FOI.
6 The smallest stick it out to conserve energy (5)
LEAST – LAST has E inserted. My 2OI.
9 Character from Plato’s mostly lame answer (5)
GAMMA – GAMM(Y) = mostly lame, A = answer.
10 Try short rivet that’s penetrating (9)
TRENCHANT – TR(Y) = try short, ENCHANT = rivet, spellbind.
11 Demolish what’s next to apartment No 9? (7)
FLATTEN – FLAT TEN is perhaps next to flat nine.
12 Fruit tree I neglected is about to fall back (7)
RELAPSE – An ESPALIER is a fruit tree trained to a certain shape; reverse it and extract the I. Or extract the I then reverse it, if you prefer.
13 Old statesman will overcome manoeuvring involving right and left (6,8)
OLIVER CROMWELL – Well, he’d be 419 years old by now, so definitely old. Anagram time, (WILL OVERCOME R L)*,
17 One dealing with odds and sods? (4,10)
TURF ACCOUNTANT – Witty-ish cryptic definition. Posh name for a bookie.
21 Deep gesture of respect for weapon (7)
LONGBOW – LONG = deep, as in deep breath perhaps; BOW as rhyming with cow, for the gesture.
23 Name? It’s rejected during recess by bishop (7)
BAPTISE – B for bishop, then IT reversed inside APSE.
25 Swimmer’s revolutionary hairstyle (3,6)
RED MULLET – RED for revolutionary, MULLET = hairstyle. For amusement I can only refer you to this Q & A in the Grauniad on the subject of why it is so called:
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-6465,00.html.
I don’t read the Guardian, of course, I just do the crossword, which is good, and free.
26 More old paintings recalled (5)
EXTRA – EX = old, ART reversed.
27 Sporting events contribute this little colour (5)
TINGE – Hidden in SPOR(TING E)VENTS.
28 It helps helmsman manage after risks leaving loch (9)
PERISCOPE – PERILS = risks, departs from the L for loch, making PERIS, then COPE for manage.

Down
1 Job a disaster: a measure of PC’s performance? (8)
GIGAFLOP – GIG = job, A FLOP = a disaster.  A gigaflop is of course a unit of computing speed equal to one thousand million floating-point operations per second. Sounds quite fast to me.
2 Two degrees? One might do for you in Africa (5)
MAMBA – MA and MBA being two degrees; a MAMBA being a nasty snake.
3 Pan grouse, Sunday staple? (5,4)
ROAST BEEF – Pan = ROAST, criticise, BEEF = grouse.
4 Nasty whiff of acid from bark reportedly associated with plants (7)
BOTANIC – BO = B.O., body odour; TANIC sounds like tannic, an acid found in tree bark.
5 It’s said on leaving two thirds of Brie, say, and port (7)
CHEERIO – CHEE(SE) = two-thirds of Brie, say; RIO is a port, short for Rio de Janeiro.
6 Neighbourhood watch, roughly fifty (5)
LOCAL – LO = watch, CA = circa, about, L = fifty. Here I think local is an adjective, as the noun would be locale.
7 Fancy paella, top included, with no accompaniment (1,8)
A CAPPELLA – Insert CAP = top, into (PAELLA)*. I thought this was odd as I’d have spelt it A CAPELLA (which didn’t fit or parse) but it can be A CAPPELLA in Italian, or A CAPELLA in Latin, as you prefer.
8 Tie in league, avoiding own goal (6)
TETHER – TOGETHER = in league, loses OG = own goal.
14 Old animal droppings gathered by a single lecturer (9)
IGUANODON – an even older animal than he of 13a. GUANO is placed inside I DON = one lecturer.
15 Secure show that’s ignored by source of 20 (9)
WINEPRESS – WIN = secure, E(X)PRESS loses its X, which = (multiplied) by.
16 Doctor agrees to retain the empty, least costly beds (8)
STEERAGE – THE empty = TE, insert that into (AGREES)*.
18 Plant border of Hereford? (7)
COWSLIP – A COW’S LIP could be the border of a Hereford bovine perhaps.
19 Rankers maybe fly spacecraft (7)
ORBITER – OR = other ranks, rankers; a fly could bite you, so be a BITER.
20 County town primarily in Bordeaux (6)
CLARET – CLARE is a pleasant county in the West of Ireland; T for town primarily; red wine from Bordeaux is informally known as claret, although originally the wines were not red. Rather than attempt a long explanation as to why, I’ll refer you to this: https://www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/46560
22 Without reason, happen to limit excitement leading up to congress? (5)
BRUTE – BE = happen. ‘limits’ RUT = excitement leading up to congress (if you are a deer, at least). I see this meaning as in ‘brute force’.
24 First bars of tango found in ornamental box (5)
INTRO – T for tango is inserted into INRO. an INRO is an ornamental Japanese box or nest of boxes.

64 comments on “Times 27219 – TCC Heat 2 second puzzle of three. (Apparently the first in the booklet).”

  1. I was bang on the wavelength here, 8:29 with the last one in (with crossed fingers) being BRUTE.
  2. Completed this, then enjoyed coming to find out the whys and wherefores. Had I but thought a second that Plato’s character was a Greek letter (duh) would have been a mite quicker. Finished in the SE had WINEPRESS and just biffed it in the end without working out why, similarly with PERISCOPE.
  3. I agree with those who found this easier than last week’s. I didn’t time it, but I did generally go straight through, held up only at my LOI, which was BRUTE, because the definition part didn’t exactly mesh right away. The use of ‘express’ for ‘show’ wasn’t the clearest connection either, especially as I was fooled once again by not seeing the significance of ‘by’ in the wordplay. Regards.
  4. 13 mins for me, so 2 mins easier than last week & c1min slower than each of the 3 in the first prelim. Though none of the puzzles felt especially easy whilst solving they’ve all fallen in fairly rapid times for me – presumably the final puzzles will be a significant step up.
  5. DNF. Oh dear! I had most of this done in 45mins but for the life of me couldn’t see the very obvious in retrospect botanic at 4dn, just bamboozled by the clue and couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I got 12ac without appreciating the reverse espalier. I was another whose first effort at 16dn was etageres, I think because someone here mentioned it recently as a regular feature of puzzles past, along with Tiepolo and Beerbohm-Tree. Big ticks at that sort of rivet in 10ac, flat ten, baptise and brute for me. In this context my first thought regarding brute was of the famous 1948 radio debate between Bertrand Russell and Father Frederick Copleston on the existence of god and Russell’s position that the universe is just there, a brute, unintelligible fact. COD 17ac.
  6. At 56 mins and with quite a few corrections before I got the ‘Congratulations’ I think I will stick with the QC. Thanks for the blog pip. I biffed so many I have lost count.

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