Times 27561 – TCC Heat 1 #2 – get your just desserts.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Under peaceful ‘exam type’ conditions this took me exactly another 19 minutes, so with last week’s I have exactly 22 minutes of the hour remaining to do #3. Not too bad, although I should have been faster; I was held up at the end by finding the word that fitted all the checkers at 17a before seeing it was an anagram, and by re-visiting 2d (q.v. below) because I couldn’t parse my first saintly answer.

Across
1 Monstrous hound, far roaming, brought about Baskerville’s end (7-2)
UNHEARD-OF – (HOUND FAR E)*, the E from the end of Baskerville.
6 One graduate’s avoiding cake, a Cuban export (5)
RUMBA – The soggy cake RUM BABA loses one of its BAs.
9 Managed to return thank-you letter (5)
DELTA – LED (managed) reversed, TA (thank you).
10 Drug-taking experience embraced by shy youth (9)
STRIPLING – TRIP embraced by SLING
11 Minister to put on touching shyness (7)
RESERVE – Bit vague on this one, I think it must be RE (touching, about) SERVE (minister to).
12 Sailor joins party workers in the middle? (7)
ABDOMEN – AB (sailor) DO (party) MEN (workers).
13 More than one bid from directors is thrown out (4,2,3,5)
GOES BY THE BOARD – Double def., one prosaic one an idiom.
17 Butcher introduces game for bar? (14)
DISCOURAGEMENT – (INTRODUCES GAME)*. A nice anagram whish took me a while to spot.
21 Study country’s Article 50 (7)
PERUSAL – PERU’S A L.
23 Splendid secretary who’s been in the family a long time? (7)
GRANDPA – GRAND, P.A.
25 Bird’s audible celebration of cat’s passing? (9)
KITTIWAKE – Sounds like a WAKE for a Kitty or cat.
26 Getting ready to drop litter? (2,3)
IN PUP – not very cryptic def.
27 Dig garden’s first exposed borders (5)
NUDGE – NUDE (exposed), insert G (garden’s first).
28 Timber producer occupied court, close to accused (9)
SATINWOOD – SAT IN = occupied, WOO (court) D (close to accused). I feel I’ve seen this very clue before.

Down
1 University angered cooks lacking the required seniority (8)
UNDERAGE – (U ANGERED)*.
2 Dominance saint possesses (5)
HOLDS – HOLD (dominance as in has a hold over…) S for saint. For some reason I wrote in HALOS until I failed to explain it.
3 Shelled haricot bean disintegrated without oxygen (9)
ANAEROBIC – (ARICO BEAN)*.
4 Course designers ultimately admitted to waste (7)
DESSERT – S (end of designers) goes into DESERT (waste).
5 Incinerator’s features to include receptacle for ashes (7)
FURNACE – FACE has URN inserted.
6 Fleet inspector retires following censure (5)
RAPID – RAP (censure), DI reversed.
7 Computerised application in trouble after millions join up (4,5)
MAIL MERGE –  M (millions) AIL (trouble) MERGE (join up).
8 Hearty complaint from gang in Arbroath (6)
ANGINA – Hidden in G(ANG IN A)RBROATH. Too many deep fried Mars Bars eaten there perhaps.
14 State seizing Grand Duke settled abroad (9)
EMIGRATED – EMIRATE (state) insert G for grand, add D for duke.
15 Campaign speech in the course of which people cleared out (9)
OPERATION – People cleared out = P E, insert into ORATION (speech).
16 Bound leaves up, with page slotted in (8)
STRAPPED – DEPARTS = leaves, reversed = STRAPED, insert P for page.
18 Server’s receipts significantly increased (7)
UPLOADS – Something UP LOADS could be significantly increased.
19 Swell fellows standing in for us during holiday month? (7)
AUGMENT – MEN replaces US in AUGUST.
20 Rung any old number that’s announced (6)
SPOKEN – SPOKE (rung) N.
22 Lock-keeper’s slow decline (5)
SLIDE – Double def., as in hair slide.
24 Sponge falls over (5)
DIPSO – DIPS (falls) O(ver).

​

38 comments on “Times 27561 – TCC Heat 1 #2 – get your just desserts.”

  1. Under exam conditions on the day I’d have gone quickly into full panic mode because I must have read 10-15 clues before I found an answer that leapt out at me (26ac) and then I got the intersecting 5dn and 12ac which gave me something to build on in the NE corner. After that I chipped steadily away at it and completed the grid in 40 minutes.

    Edited at 2020-01-15 07:08 am (UTC)

  2. 19:48 … I thought that was tricky but not necessarily in a good way. It seemed to rely on odd equivalences for difficulty (rung=spoke, sponge/dipso, unheard-of/monstrous, for example). I don’t think I’d be over-impressed with HOLDS or RESERVE in a regular daily puzzle. I’d file this one under ‘quirky’, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who missed the wavelength of it on the day.
  3. I’d second Sotira’s comments–wish I could second her time. I couldn’t come up with 22d; although I suppose if I had been there I’d have gone with SLIDE, it didn’t convince me at the time, slowness not being for me an attribute of sliding (and DNK hair slide). I got KITTIWAKE, oddly enough, because it was in material I’d used in class recently, one of 10 anagrams that ‘Christopher’, a so-called ‘savant’ who can’t do noughts and crosses but speaks a dozen or so languages , solved in 2 and a half minutes.

    Edited at 2020-01-15 11:57 am (UTC)

    1. I agree with you both. I’d go further and say that this puzzle wasn’t up to championship standard. Mr Grumpy
  4. Almost the opposite experience to Jack, where I had an encouraging start with FOI 13a, then was steadily chipping away until about the three-quarter mark, and then slowed down to little bursts of activity punctuated by lots of staring and frowning.

    I never even spotted that 17 was an anagram, so that went in on a wing and a prayer as second-to-last before I returned to the top half and immediately saw DESSERT, which was more a course of leftovers for me. 48 minutes all told, with only about 15 spent on the top half, I’d say.

  5. I didn’t realise this was a championship puzzle until coming here. I found it trickier than the first one but not too troublesome.

    Like Pip I was held up at the end by DISCOURAGEMENT as I’d seen the word quickly enough but spent some time trying to see how it had a game inside a word for butcher. With hindsight butcher seems an obvious anagrind. I liked KITTIWAKE but COD to UPLOADS for combining a sly definition with a very smooth surface.

  6. …A friend of Mrs. Kittiwake?
    35 mins – under ‘yoghurt and granola’ conditions.
    I liked it. Lots of quirky humour, for example the sublime Kittiwake.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  7. I’m here in 47 minutes, so I’m not a contender. I put in UPLOADS thinking of a computer server, after a successful MAIL MERGE. LOI was SATINWOOD, which was very clever. COD to KITTIWAKE. I liked IN PUP too. Must be because it’s raining cats and dogs outside. I used to love RUMBAbas back in the sixties, but I had one in a posh restaurant recently and it was a deconstructed, miserable offering, with not even a glacé cherry in the middle. This felt like a crossword by committee.Thank you Pip and setter(s).
  8. I found the SW corner difficult. With the checkers I had in place in 25ac, I was looking for a bird that ended in w(h)istle (audible celebration).
  9. At 25ac I started out with KITTYWAKE and finally woke to KITTIWAKE which released my LOI 22dn SLIDE.

    7dn was 1dn

    FOI 3dn ANAEROBIC

    COD 20dn SPOKEN

    WOD 25ac KITTIWAKE

    Time 34 mins

  10. I did this and the 3rd puzzle in about 46 mins on the day and I think I found this the harder of the two. So I’m guessing it took me about 25 mins then. I struggled to get going with it today but then a few synapses started to fire in the memory zone.

    COD and LOI: DISCOURAGEMENT. I think I finally spotted that it was an anagram on finals day – but not today! Very nice anagram.

  11. Same thoughts as Sotira. A bit quirky and generating difficulty by using slightly questionable synonyms. I ploughed through it but somehow didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped.
  12. All but the SW quadrant went in quickly. Knew the beautiful bird. COD to the long anagram.
  13. I’m about halfway between Sotira and myrtilus on the like-o-meter, and a bit more than double pip in time. Now awaiting championship puzzle # three. I liked Rumba.

    Edited at 2020-01-15 10:36 am (UTC)

  14. 34 mins. Got through it without loving it. Thanks pip. By the way, the newspaper has this listed as No. 27,561. Might be different online 🙂
  16. I’ve had this on the brain for some reason so DICOURAGEMENT slid in nicely – a very well-executed anagram in (as others have noted) a slightly odd puzzle. The one that “did myself confound” was IN PUP which called for all the checking letters before I could quite believe it. I wore a hair SLIDE all through the early school years and can confirm that the stupid things do indeed slowly decline until they fall out altogether. A kirby grip was much safer but I hated them. At least I didn’t have to “labour night and day” thanks to a wavelengthy (but not good enough for the champs) 14.33.
  17. Wracked in discouragement at seeing neither wordplay nor definition at 17. Bar? Courgae might be game, and it was the only word I could see that fit. Before that the top half when straight in, presaging another 15 minute solve, but not to be. The SW corner was completely impenetrable even though only one NHO: hair slide. Finally limped home in 40 minutes which leaves me 5 minutes for the third one next week.
    Really liked some of the clues: 1ac, 17, 21 and 15dn for their surfaces; and 5 and 8. Nonplussed by a few of the others which I thought a bit dodgy.
  18. 8m 45s for this one, with UPLOADS, DISCOURAGEMENT and DESSERT being the last three – as others have noted, a very nice anagram for DISCOURAGEMENT, which I only parsed after having come up with the word. Elsewhere, slowed a bit by GONE BY THE BOARD but 14d was quite kind so I was able to rectify fairly quickly.

    IN PUP wasn’t terribly impressive in my view, being barely cryptic.

    As mentioned last week, I was in the afternoon session on the day and so far I think both of these have been easier – but that might be exam conditions for you.

  19. 15:28. After a slow start it seemed to flow OK. I agree that some of the equivalences were stretched a bit but I wasn’t left doubting that my answers were correct.

    Like most it took ages to spot that 17 was an anagram. Probably because “introduces” looks like a wordplay indicator.

  20. 16:00 today. Yet again I failed to remember most of it from the day, but I must have taken about 19-20 minutes then, I reckon. I finished with HOLDS after, like Pip, failing to get HALOS to work. COD to KITTIWAKE, which I remember liking before.
  21. 19:29. I struggled with this, and felt like I was making heavy weather of it. I got particularly stuck in the SW corner. Like others I failed to spot how DISCOURAGEMENT worked for ages and found some of the synonymery a bit odd.
  22. Hit submit out of force of habit today at 9:38. At the competition I stared at DISCOURAGEMENT and UPLOADS for fully 20 minutes before surrendering to the inevitable. The rest progressed fairly smoothly, pretty much as it did today (indeed it wasn’t until I sought out the clue at 17 across that I was sure I’d seen it before.
  23. The NW and SW held me up for ages, with a penny drop moment at 1d, UNDERAGE, eventually opening up the former, and PERUSAL the latter. SLIDE and NUDGE were my last 2 in. I also only spotted the anagram at 17a after filling in the gaps and trying in vain to insert a game into a butcher. FURNACE was my FOI. A sluggish 48:34, confirming that my presence at the Champs would be futile. Thanks setter and Pip.
  25. Got the hard ones, struggled with the easy ones, esp DIPSO which should have been a write-in. As others above, I had to come here to realise DISCOURAGEMENT was an anagram.
    COD KITTIWAKE for my birdwatching wife.
  26. I solved this today, after many struggles, and have absolutely no idea how I finished it in anything like a respectable time on the day – barring one clue, it might as well have been an entirely new puzzle to me, and not an easy one either. The rogue clue was, of course, DISCOURAGEMENT, which was much talked about on the day, and was my LOI in the heat; the best-disguised anagram I’ve come across in many a year.
  27. 24’34”, which leaves me 24’39” for next week. Not put off, but not particularly celebrating either.

    DELTA, STRIPLING FOsI, SPOKEN took a while. DISCOURAGEMENT unparsed.

    Thanks pip and setter.

    Edited at 2020-01-15 04:13 pm (UTC)

  28. ….the Championship puzzles of old, back when I was a contender. I loved it.

    FOI STRIPLING
    LOI SPOKEN
    COD KITTIWAKE, but UPLOADS runs it close
    TIME 9:37

  29. Very enjoyable crossword. Almost made a mess of 25 dn by being too literal about kitty but managed to realise the mistake in time to finish in 20.46. Competition conditions would almost certainly have seen me take a bit longer combatting the adrenalin rush.

    COD for me was satinwood. Memories of university decades ago..

  30. 39:40 and back to earth with a bump after solving last week’s puzzle in 11.01. That leaves me just over 9 minutes for the last puzzle if i want to complete all three in the hour. I’d say the chances are slim to none. I went through a lot of clues before finding somewhere to start FOI anaerobic. I also had ungraded instead of underage for a while which caused me a few problems in the NW. LOI furnace. Overall I was a bit off the wavelength and didn’t enjoy this solve as much as I usually do.
  31. Effectively DNF, as after half an hour had to resort to aid to find anything to fit checkers at 17ac, so was completed in 36 minutes, though couldn’t parse it – never did think of anagram till coming here.
  32. I was held up for a time since I put IN PIG instead of IN PUP (which is perfectly good answer to the clue, it just doesn’t fit with the crossing clue. I kicked myself on DISCOURAGEMENT since I filled it in as the only word that fitted the checkers and took forever to realize that it was an anagram. But surely “bar” is a lot stronger than discouragement?
  33. Pleased to have finished but would’ve been left with only 11 minutes for the other two grids. Finished most of it in 25 mins then plenty of thought on the SW before NUDGE and then PERUSAL appeared. Did not know KITTIWAKE was a bird though knew the word from somewhere.
  35. 17a is clearly anonymous’s problem. That or being clueless.
    Didn’t recognise it as an anagram until reading the blog! Put it in without conviction, as the only word that seemed to fit, but agree with above comment that ‘bar’ is much stronger than ‘ discouragement’ , so a MER ( major eyebrow raise) . 43 mins ……not even close.

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