Times 27597 – second TCC semi-final puzzle

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I’m surprised 42 of 80 got this all right, I struggled with some of it for quite a while, taking well over my permitted 20 minutes, and the parsing was tricky. Maybe people had more time for it, as last week’s was easier. I’ll be interested to see what SNITCH makes of it.

Across
1 Incredible temperature detected in a measurement at sea (10)
ASTOUNDING – A SOUNDING has T inserted.
6 Problem with glasnost, oddly, recalled (4)
SNAG – alternate letters of glasnost reversed, t S o N s A l G.
9 I think firm must leave someone in privileged position (7)
INSIDER – I CONSIDER loses the CO = firm leaves think.
10 Old boy suffers setback in India, country offering woeful interjection (7)
ICHABOD – I had no idea what ICHABOD meant, but stuffed it in from the wordplay and being sure the checkers were correct. I (India) CHAD (country) insert OB reversed. Apparently Ichabod was a Hebrew biblical chap and used in a sentence it means ‘the glory has departed’. I shan’t be using it often.
12 Greasy stuff in meat recipes sadly lacking energy (10)
SPERMACETI – (MEAT RECIP S)* where recipes loses an E. A sperm whale can have up to 1900 litres of this waxy stuff in its head cavity, apparently. The name comes from a mistaken belief of old that the substance was congealed sperm; I’d have thought 1900 litres was a ridiculous amount of sperm, even for a whale.
13 Start to veer away from evil rocks (3)
ICE – VICE loses its V start of veer. ICE as in ‘on the rocks’.
15 Foolish behaviour of idealists with no sort of memory (6)
ANTICS – ROMANTICS lose their ROM = read-only memory.
16 One shows bit of rump with little hesitation? About right! (8)
STREAKER – STEAK (rump) + ER (hesitation), insert R for right.
18 Description of rubbish stock mostly offered in bargain? (8)
DETRITAL – TRIT(E) = stock, mostly, inside DEAL. Not a word I’d seen, but obviously an adjective from detritus.
20 Establishment dishing out love drug (6)
STATIN – STATION loses O for love.
23 An ’orrible place a bit beyond the yard (3)
ELL – double definition, one being cockney Hell, one being an ancient measure; I remember my father (a master tailor) telling me an ell of cloth was 45 inches.
24 Very bad and very good intelligence? Very bad (10)
VILLAINOUS – Assemble; V (very) ILL (bad) A 1 (very good) NOUS (intelligence).
26 Spoil good welfare, having reversed plan (7)
DIAGRAM – All reversed; MAR (spoil) G (good) AID (welfare). A chestnut, I think.
27 Insect from another world found by DNA expert (7)
CRICKET – My NTLOI. Francis CRICK was one of the co-authors of the original paper on the DNA double helix, and ET = extra-terrestrial. As a chemist of yore, I should have twigged it sooner.
28 Performs in parties full of energy (4)
DOES – A party is a do, insert E into DOS.
29 One after the other destined, it’s said, for detention (10)
INTERNMENT – Sounds like ‘IN TURN, MEANT’.

Down
1 Shrub, or a flower in Africa, chopped (4)
ANIL – A NIL(E), a flower chopped. indigofera suffruticosa, from which we get the dye indigo.
2 Possible little drop of spirits for Spooner to get drunk (7)
TOSSPOT – the Rev. Spooner would say POSS. TOT I suppose. I hadn’t realised that on the many occasions I’d called someone a tosspot, meaning a silly-billy, it also meant a habitual drunkard, but the derivation of that original meaning is clear enough.
3 Working for a foreign character, always being below expected grade (13)
UNDERACHIEVER – UNDER (working for) A CHI (Greek letter) EVER (always).
4 Start of demolition in built-up area that is on the Indian Ocean (6)
DURBAN – D(emolition), URBAN. I kept wanting to insert D into something to make e.g. Madras, but it isn’t that.
5 Sweet little letter containing crossword compiler’s admission? (8)
NOISETTE – Insert I SET into NOTE. My FOI.
7 Dash after writer in club (7)
NIBLICK – NIB (writer), LICK (dash). An obselete golf club equivalent to a nine-iron today.
8 Seriously religious friend, agog after conversion (3-7)
GOD-FEARING – (FRIEND AGOG)*.
11 Cosmetic treatment that brings a bigger shock? (4,9)
HAIR EXTENSION – Cryptic definition.
14 One who is this still needs a crash helmet, being unsentimental (10)
HARDHEADED – another cryptic definition.
17 Big money — millions pocketed — for salespeople (8)
TALLYMEN – TALL (big) YEN (money) insert M (millions). A MER at this, I thought tallymen counted things, they weren’t salesmen. I must have been wrong.
19 Farmland? Something money’s put into over time (7)
TILLAGE – TILL (something money’s put into) AGE (time).
21 Animal that’s wild and short turning up in Cheddar? (7)
TRUCKLE – This one needed a bit of lateral thinking for me. I knew a truckle is a big wheel shaped lump of cheese, not necessarily Cheddar. To get one, join ELK (wild animal) and CURT (short) and reverse it all.
22 A huge hapless chap, awfully inept in company (6)
GAUCHE – (A HUGE C)*, where the C is CHAP withouth HAP i.e. hapless.
25 As you were about to abandon way through town? (4)
STET – Stet being Latin for ‘let it stand’. STREET (way through town) loses its RE (about).

​

58 comments on “Times 27597 – second TCC semi-final puzzle”

  1. A lot tougher than any of the others so far. LOI TALLYMEN, who I only knew as the guys who counted Harry Belafonte’s bananas. I wonder how many of the 42 solvers knew of ICHABOD. (“Woeful interjection, beginning with I? Of course; Ichabod!”) I hadn’t realized until I came here that TOSSPOT meant anything other than ‘drunkard’. DNK TRUCKLE, and only put it in because I couldn’t think of anything else that would fit the checkers; I confess I then checked ODE, and only then saw how the clue worked.
  2. An hour, but have to own up to using aids to unscramble the anagram at 12 after being stuck in the doldrums for a while and needing something to kick-start me. I guess with a few more checkers in place I could have worked that one out without actually knowing the word.

    I also looked up the names of the DNA pioneers to assist with a similar lull in the SE corner.

    I had some small successes though, coming up with DETRITAL and working out ICHABOD, a word I knew without having the faintest idea what it meant.

    TRUCKLE was known from fancy selections of cheese marketed at Christmas. I don’t know there’s a set size but the dictionary definitions all say they are small and barrel-shaped, which fits with the ones I have seen.

    Edited at 2020-02-26 07:37 am (UTC)

  3. My LOI was TRUCKLE, and I didn’t really know what it had to do with cheddar. Never heard of TALLYMEN either, and of ICHABOD knew only the name and not the expression, so I found this pleasantly educational.

    “Hapless chap” for C was delicious.

    Edited at 2020-02-26 07:38 am (UTC)

  4. Only 22 or 23 minutes, so I’d have the same 22 or 23 left for the third puzzle. For me, the semi-finals thus far have been far easier than the qualifiers.
    DNK Ichabod, Tallymen (Weird Al sang: Hey Mr. Taliban, hand over Bin Laden), Spermaceti as being greasy. Truckle as a cheese remembered after finishing. Knew of anil from crosswords, and niblicks from golf. I even own some Niblick-brand shoes.
    Quite liked this, very tricky constructions and some uncommon words, but all very gettable.
  5. What alliteration! It could only be Gerard Manley Hopkins.
    45 mins of tough-ish work with yoghurt, blueberries, granola, etc.
    Very enjoyable to finish, eventually. Tricky vocabulary, but some lovely stuff.
    Mostly I liked “hapless chap”=C. This will be added to my ‘letter indicator list’.
    Thanks setter and Pip.
  6. Tricky one today with 12 ac a lucky guess. About 34m so about twice my average. I’m still unsure about noisette though as I only know this as a small piece of meat (notably lamb). Is it a pudding, then, or a sweet as in bag of sweets?
    1. It’s defined identically as ‘a chocolate made with hazelnuts’ in Collins and Lexico and ‘a nutlike or nut-flavoured sweet’ in Chambers.
      1. Yes I was getting a bit cross and nearly inserted ILE, but then thought of ICE. I connected it rather with diamonds than icecubes.
  8. …that HARD HEADED woman of mine. A masterpiece by the great Taj Mahal, which I delighted in drumming to for years in a Blues Brothers tribute band.

    A long struggle with this tough puzzle, completed in 54 minutes but really a DNF as I had to look up the whale anagram and the exclamation. Expecting some complaints here about an obscurity clued with an anagram – no chance of getting this if you haven’t had the dubious pleasure of coming across SPERMACETI.

    However like Myrtilus I thought the hapless chap utterly brilliant, and there was plenty more to admire. Thanks setter and Pip.

  9. ..if that’s how you spell it. 62 minutes, so the whistle would have blown before I’d even started on the other two. This hapless chap makes GAUCHE COD as well as his lifestyle choice. I followed the instructions on ICHABOD, knowing where the B was from NIBLICK. LOI was DETRITAL, amending ‘detritus’ when I finally entered TALLYMEN, having constructed it much earlier. I thought they just collected the debts. But by then, there was no glory left to depart. Thank you Pip and setter.
  10. DNF as 23ac TRUCKLE, which I’d heard of, was beyond my competence – EEK an ELK!

    At 19dn I had ACREAGE via – something to put money into A/C (Account) + RE = over, + AGE = time with 18 and 23 across on hold. Ref. VAR!

    Was in good shape after 28 mins, but I gave up after 40 as I knew I was sunk. No one ever remembers losing semi-finalists.

    FOI 6ac SNAG

    COD 22dn GAUCHE bit of a peach!

    WOD 17ac The original Tallyman of Bowden were lovely people, not! You can still buy the UFCo brass tallies on line. Although he was not born in Jamaica, Harry Belafonte lived with his grandma, from an early age, near Warsop, Trelawny.

    1. Come on, everyone remembers the Dallas Cowboys in the 1982 championship round (the semi-final before the Superb Owl). Joe Montana. Dwight Clark. “The Catch.” The end of one dynasty, the start of another.
      1. Ummm actually, no! I follow English football not ‘American Rugger’ Dallas 1982… now then…. wasn’t J.R. Ewing the quarterback?
  11. 16:32. Much harder than last week’s, and a very enjoyable and satisfying puzzle I thought.
    As pleasuredome8 notes, 12ac is not a fair clue really: an obscurity clued by an anagram. I only know because it has come up once or twice in these puzzles in the past.
    1. Well, as you yourself have often enough said–or was it me?–one man’s GK is another’s esoterica. I’ve known SPERMACETI since adolescence, as in Hotspur’s
      … the sovereignest thing on earth
      Was parmacety for an inward bruise, [IHenryIV]
      and Melville talks about it, of course; somewhere in the book the sailors rub their hands in it. It honestly didn’t occur to me that it would be considered obscure.
      1. Indeed. I studied Henry IV at school and university, so I must have come across this, but a) there’s no obvious reason I would have known that parmacetty was the same thing as SPERMACETI and b) even if I had I would have forgotten by now. I’ve never read Moby Dick: I suppose I should at some point.
        1. Apart from the story Melville appears to pack every known whale-fact legend thought rumour and conjecture at the time into the narrative. A glorious read nonetheless.
        2. I think Moby Dick might be my favouritest novel.. but i concede it is not to everyones taste. Spoiler: the whale wins
          1. Any work of art that some people find their favouritest will almost by definition drive others up the wall.
            One of my favourite novels is The Adventures of Augie March, which my wife considers an abomination. The strange thing is I sort of agree with her.
      2. But the cryptic crossword isn’t supposed to be a test of GK. That’s what the ‘concise’ is for. The cryptic is meant to be a linguistic puzzle. Mr Grumpy
  12. Just managed to complete this within the hour, with the unknown TALLYMEN and TRUCKLE the last to go in and a few other new words along the way. I’d only ever heard of ICHABOD with ‘Crane’ appended, but even so I had to look up who he was post solve. Fortunately I had come across SPERMACETI before.

    I enjoyed the STREAKER and HAIR EXTENSION cryptic defs. On the other hand, I won’t be too fussed if I never see the self-referential DETRITAL again.

  13. I managed to complete this in 28:53, having done all the hard work, but screwed it up by spelling EXTENTION wrongly. If it had been an across clue rather than a down I’d have noticed on the proof read. Drat and double drat!! DETRITAL was new to me. Have seen the truckles in Gough’s Cave in Cheddar, but didn’t see the parsing. Knew ICHABOD as an expression of dismay. SPERMACETI rang a faint bell. Also only knew TALLYMEN as Harry B’s banana counters, but saw the wordplay. Interesting puzzle. Shame about my spelling ability:( Thanks setter and Pip.

    Edited at 2020-02-26 11:20 am (UTC)

  15. Oh rats. I was channeling Belafonte and typed an A instead of an E at the end of TALLYMEN. I only knew ICHABOD Crane from Washington Irving’s Legend Of Sleepy Hollow but it couldn’t be anything else. Slight whiplash effect of very easy clues mixed with quite hard ones. It helped to know SPERMACETI (which Live Journal’s spellcheck flags for some reason). 23.56 with a pink square.
  16. However I did look up TRUCKLE and the definition I saw said nothing about cheese, which had me confused and it got chucked in on the basis that it obviously wasn’t TRUCKIE. ANIL, ICHABOD, SPERMACETI words I knew but no idea what they meant. WOD NIBLICK can only dream of golf at the moment as our course is awash.
    1. Amusingly, The Times puzzles Editor continues to refuse to accept ‘anil‘ as a qualifying word in the polygon. He needs to have a word with his setters. Mr Grumpy
  17. Simply relieved to get there (despite no previous truck with truckle) and in awe of the F1 or sub-twenty gang. An exhilarating work-out.
  18. 6m 22s today and longer than that on the day, with DURBAN being the LOI on both occasions if I remember rightly. TALLYMEN gave me some trouble, but fortunately I remembered the Jeff Beck song Tallyman (from the first album I ever bought, his best of, which I picked up because of Hi Ho Silver Lining and its associations with my beloved Wolves).

    TRUCKLE and SPERMACETI were also unknown to me, although SPERMACETI was comfortably the most plausible anagram I could come up with. I had come across ICHABOD but couldn’t have told you what it meant.

    Edited at 2020-02-26 12:27 pm (UTC)

  19. TRUCKLE LOI, knew it was a word but no idea what it meant, eventually saw the brusque moose [drat, can’t find a copyright sign].

    SPERMACETI no problem once I’d got the I. Hapless chap made me laugh out loud.

    I bet few would understand me if I used TOSSPOT with its original meaning.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  20. ….to complete this on the day, but it must have been reasonably quick to earn me 23rd. place.

    What I remember :

    FOI SNAG, and a reasonable start in the NE corner. DNK ICHABOD as an imprecation, but the wordplay was helpful. COD STREAKER.

    I was unsure about the position of the final E and I at 12A, but HAIR EXTENSION resolved the argument. STATIN was a shoo-in, as I take one every evening to control my cholesterol level.

    DNK DETRITAL but it was obvious from detritus. DIAGRAM was worked out in reverse. 17D was left in glorious isolation (I think I moved on and came back to it).

    I thought DURBAN was a poor clue as the D is on rather than in urban but I shrugged and moved on.

    Eventually LOI TALLYMEN.

  21. today, no idea what time I recorded on the day. I have the odd sensation of being able to remember discussing various clues with other people shortly after solving (the obviously tricky ones – SPERMACETI, TALLYMEN and their bananas, ICHABOD etc.) but not the actual solving. The thought process really does go from brain to page and then off into the ether without being retained, it seems. Enjoyable and challenging on at least one of the occasions I solved it, anyway.
  22. 20:12 today, but I didn’t finish it on the day. Last 2 in DETRITAL and TALLYMEN… I probably didn’t get those. Even second time around I didn’t recognise much until after I’d solved them. I still failed to understand C for hapless chap. Thanks Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2020-02-26 01:06 pm (UTC)

  23. Biffed truckle and tosspot at the end – so was mighty relieved. Had no idea that truckle had this meaning, and found the Spooner clue not brilliant.
  24. … I invented TALLSMEN, which fits the wordplay if not any kind of probably test. Ah well. I recall very little of this from the day. Only the presence of ICHABOD convinced and SPERMACETI (which was new to me in December) convinced me that I’d attempted this before. I definitely didn’t finish last time so this was definitely an improvement but still nothing to trouble the scorers (TALLYMEN?).
  25. What a difference two days makes. I found this really tough and sort of finished in just under 50 minutes- never got tallymen so looked it up! Mea Culpa. Lots of clever clues I thought, particularly 27 and 29 across and COD for me 21 down. Can we have an easier one tomorrow please?
  26. For a semi-final this all went in without too much heartburn, surprisingly, a bit under twenty minutes. That despite the scattered unknowns or unheard of words, which the wordplay was generous toward, such as TALLYMEN, ICHABOD and my LOI, TRUCKLE, which I only recall as part of ‘truckle under’. And I don’t really know what that means either. No problem with SPERMACETI, which I saw immediately, although I can’t offer any explanation as to why. I had a bit of a hold up at 27 as I thought the DNA researcher was ‘Krick”. Oops. COD to GAUCHE. Regards.
  27. I was pleased to polish this off in 45 minutes of my lunch hour at work, with DETRITAL and TALLYMEN my last couple in after I finally figured out that TILLAGE wasn’t FOLDAGE or WELLAGE.

    I’m another who only knew Mr ICHABOD Crane, and I’m only really familiar with him from the telly series of Sleepy Hollow, so that was definitely a Ninja Turtle… I was, however, entirely familiar with TRUCKLE, though I’m not sure why!

  28. 37:13 felt like a good time for me on this toughie and I think it would’ve been but on submission I found I had a wretched typo, extensiin, making this a DNF with one pink square. Very annoying to find an error like that after a satisfying struggle. FOI god-fearing. I think the setter / dictionary definition of tosspot may be far more charitable than mine, so although it was the obvious answer from checkers I was loathe to put it in until I cracked the spoonerism making it one of, if not the, LOIs. Ichabod was unheard of apart from Crane but no qualms once I had the wp. Durban and tallymen were other late entries with tosspot. I too liked the hapless chap in 22dn.
    1. Indeed, in the days when the crossword could get away with not quite Ximenean construction, quotations with a blank were acceptable and 95% of regular solvers were the Dean of somewhere. I believe the original clue was Land of hope and ___ (7), and your version tends to clue RURITANIA, obviously with (9) as the numeration. Happy days!
      1. Intriguing, I was sure I had seen my version (with the explanation that ‘the glory is departed’ from Land of Hope and Glory), possibly a Torquemada clue. But you are quite right, the clue is much better documented with the solution Ruritania. Regards.
  30. I knocked this off in 26.47, using up all the time I’d saved with the other two. It would have been touch and go.

    Anonymous beat me to the (apocryphal?) ICHABOD clue, but that’s embedded in my collection of great (if not strictly kosher) clues, so the solution was simple, even if the clue was necessarily more complicated for these more punctilious days (not to mention the diminishing number of solvers who would immediately exclaim “ah! the glory is departed, 1 Samuel 4 – how clever!”

    I struggled with TALLYMEN as sales people, and only got DURBAN when I clicked that SPERMACETI didn’t have an I in the middle

  31. Just glad I didn’t pay good money and spare time to travel down to London for this nonsense. These championship crosswords have really been so run-of-the-mill, with one or two curve balls thrown in to each one. So basically one’s success in the event seems to turn on the ability or otherwise to solve those one or two clues that elude the majority. Mr Grumpy
    2. I would’ve rather seen some sterner challenges too personally – today’s 15×15 would have been good for instance! – but I understand that they probably wanted to make it “not too terrifying” for the hoped-for throngs of new competitors.
  32. I found some of these clues very straight forward and the rest unsolvable! Never heard of niblick, anil or Ichabod. Someone said they solved the last by parsing – how do you know the country referred to is Chad? I also like the hapless chap although I didn’t get it! I will definitely remember it if it comes up again. Thanks for all your comments, a big learning day for me.
    1. I once committed to memory the list of eleven four-letter countries (Iran, Iraq, Oman, Chad, Mali, Togo, Fiji, Cuba, Peru, Niue, Laos—apparently I committed it successfully!—and it does occasionally come in handy. It’s not the kind of trick I’d usually deploy, though, and I think you have to be pretty dedicated to improving your solving to start doing things like that.
  33. 42mins, grinding it out. TRUCKLE LOI; never heard of in relation to cheese. I thought it was a bed on wheels to slide under a normal bed. DETRITAL with a groan. Loved the hapless chap once explained by Pip.

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