For those who don’t know me, my name is Colin Thomas, I’m an occasional poster – but more often lurker – on this site, I set crosswords under the pseudonym Twin (plus one or two others), and for the first time this year I was in the grand final of the Times Crossword Championship. I have definitely run into some of you at crosswording events, which are always lots of fun, and a great chance to put faces to names/pseudonyms.
Pre-Covid, I competed in four or so crossword championships, reaching a peak of 8th in 2019, but then missed last year’s event through a train cancellation (I arrived about 20 mins into the first round, but the slightly over-conscientious Times staff wouldn’t allow me beyond the lobby). Eager to avoid the same thing happening this year, I arrived by train the night before and stayed over near Paddington, before walking across London in the morning and arriving a full hour before the doors opened. Better safe than sorry.
Before the championships I had doled out some advice to newer competitors, and for what it’s worth I will repeat it here: (i) practise solving multiple crosswords in one sitting, so that you develop the skill of knowing when to leave clues and come back to them later; (ii) don’t do the Saturday Times crossword on the morning of the event, as it only risks damaging your morale; (iii) don’t sit too close to Mark Goodliffe, for the same reason.
In the preliminary round on Saturday I failed to follow my own advice on the third point, as Mark was sat a couple of desks across from me, and I could also see last year’s winner Matthew (aka Verlaine) not too far away. Ah well. As I always do, I solved the puzzles in the order 2, 1, 3 – there is no good reason for this; I’m not even superstitious, so I guess it’s just habit – and they all seemed to go well without any real hold-ups, and in particular no plants, always my biggest fear. Nothing in a crossword clue is as scary to me as the word ‘shrub’. Somewhere in the 19th minute I raised my number, and was pleasantly surprised to see Mark raise his a few seconds later – even if I crashed and burned from this point, at least I could say that I beat him once! As it turned out we had both been beaten by Paul Gilbert, but I was delighted with second place.
After a Q&A – in which I was amused to hear one chap (apologies if you’re here) complaining about living people in Times clues, and giving as his examples Dame Edna Everage (died 2023) and Jim Henson (died 1990) – we settled in for the next round. Here I failed to take my own advice again, this time on the second puzzle where the bottom left hand corner gave me some difficulties and I spent a little too long trying to figure them out when I should have moved on: coming back at the end, they fell almost immediately. My biggest problem came in the third puzzle, though, where a dreaded plant came up, and I was at best 60:40 on the correct spelling – I won’t give spoilers here, as it will appear as an upcoming puzzle, but suffice it to say that the cryptic was no help. Fortunately for me, I plumped for the right option and, despite being four or five minutes behind Mark this time, made it into the grand final in third position.
I’ll be honest, I had hoped that, at the age of 38, I would be the young buck at this event, breaking new ground for the younger generation – but in the final round I was comprehensively outstripped in that respect, with 27 year-olds Liam Hughes & Chloe Hutton for company. Remember their names, I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of either of them – or indeed Paul Gilbert, the other finalist alongside Mark.
Turning over the sheet for the final, I was expecting a chewy final puzzle, but as it turned out it was easier than average (even allowing for the fact that, being the seventh puzzle of the day, we were all in the zone). Throughout each of the rounds I had gone for speed, spending little or no time checking the answers, and in the red heat of the final this was particularly true, as often I would start writing an answer while simultaneously trying to parse the clue, at least sufficiently to be confident that it was correct. As you will see below, this is not a foolproof approach! But in order to keep pace at the faster end of the competition, I think it is necessary: there simply isn’t time to be thorough, and in many cases I wouldn’t even read the whole clue – for one of the clues in an earlier round, a friend said it was a beautiful construction, and I had to admit that I honestly didn’t know, as I’d biffed it as soon as I’d read the definition part.
After a little under 5 minutes, Mark’s hand went up. I still had a few clues to go at that point, but they fell relatively easily – apart from one; see below – and about 30 seconds later my hand went up too. A minute or so after that, Chloe & Liam finished within seconds of each other, and Paul wasn’t too far behind. Then we all sat waiting for the marking, and each got given a copy of the solutions – I was the only person who didn’t look at these, which was also my approach in the previous rounds – before the announcement came that, as with the previous year’s final, at least one person had made a mistake. It was, of course, me – but I can honestly say that it didn’t hurt too badly, as I was just happy to be in the final, and knew all along that prioritising speed was a risky approach that wouldn’t always pay off. Yes, I know after the fact that I had actually had the time to check a bit more carefully, but you just don’t know that when the competition is happening, so I don’t think my approach will change significantly next year.
Congratulations to Mark and Chloe, both very worth winners, and I look forward to doing battle again. And thanks, of course, to the Times team for helping the competition to run so smoothly – and for letting me upstairs this year.
| Across | |
| 1 | MP ousted by Liberal, absolutely without authority (9) |
| ILLICITLY – IMPLICITLY with L for MP
After a brief glance at the start of the puzzle, I moved on from this one – having learned not to waste too much time on 1ac if the answer doesn’t jump out quickly. It was only later on that I entered it based on the definition and most, if not all, of the checking letters. |
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| 6 | Travelling west, in my opinion, America is a country for its people (5) |
| SUOMI – (IMO US)<
This was my FOI, a gentle clue if you know the word. |
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| 9 | Adoring cry of enormous woman backing husband (7) |
| HOSANNA – (OS ANNA) after H
Another biffed answer, or semi-biffed: the H for husband was clear and the rest felt like there must be a woman in there somewhere. Fun fact: the only sermon I have done in church was on Palm Sunday, which I somehow managed to link with crosswords – Hosanna came up there. |
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| 10 | Begins firing writers in publishing house (5,2) |
| OPENS UP – (PENS) in OUP
With the P in place I was fairly confident that the second word was UP and therefore that OUP was the publishing house; the answer then leapt out, even if the definition was a bit specific. |
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| 11 | Go on, having lost last religious leader (5) |
| RABBI – RABBI[t]
I allowed myself a smile at seeing this chestnut make it into the final. Recently I tried to write a clue for RABBI where I didn’t use this breakdown, and had to admit defeat. |
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| 12 | Poor one-armed guards unlucky at first in love (9) |
| ENAMOURED – ONEARMED* around U[nlucky]
By this time I was confident the puzzle wouldn’t be on the chewy side: a solid and very straightforward clue. |
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| 13 | Female originally ignored rate of birth and death (8) |
| FATALITY – F [n]ATALITY
Taking slightly on trust that NATALITY was a word, I had most of the checking letters by the time I got to this one. |
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| 14 | Run over ladies and gents when cycling (4) |
| SCAN – CANS cycled
I first looked at this when I had ???N and, unable to find the answer, moved on and hoped for a nice second checking letter. When it became ?C?N, the first thing I thought of was SCAN and it worked. |
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| 17 | Head of Interpol stops corruption and debauchery (4) |
| RIOT – I[nterpol] in ROT
I’m not sure I got as far as reading ‘debauchery’ here – an unusual case of entering based entirely on the wordplay rather than the definition – which, as it goes, is a long way down my list of ‘riot’ synonyms. |
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| 18 | Live on fringes of Fiji where it’s warm (8) |
| FIRESIDE – RESIDE after F[ij]I
The FI part of the clue leapt out immediately – it’s a nice breakdown, but ‘fringes of Fiji’ is never going to be anything else. |
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| 21 | Italian Braille oddly comprises of two characters (9) |
| BILITERAL – IT in BRAILLE*
This answer joins ICHNEUMON, EFFENDI, & PALL as being seared into my mind as errors I have made in crossword championships. Instead of the correct answer, I entered BILATERAL. I had a few of the checkers, had worked out it was an anagram, and that ‘of two characters’ was in the right kind of ballpark for BILATERAL – but didn’t spend any time checking that it actually worked. Here I’m in good company – I’ve heard that more than one test solver, as well as audience members, made the same mistake, and that both Mark & Chloe initially entered an A before spotting their mistake – but let it be a lesson to all of us: check your anagram fodder. On a day when Mick introduced an AI competitor for the final, it was perhaps ironic that A/I caused me such difficulties. |
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| 22 | Start to meddle with former pronoun twice? What nonsense (2,3) |
| MY EYE – M[eddle] YE YE
‘Former pronoun’ could only be YE, and of course ‘start to meddle’ could only be M, so this one pretty much solved itself. |
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| 24 | Both naked, baby and nana slip into ditch (7) |
| ABANDON – [b]AB[y] [n]AN[a] DON
One where the subtlety of the clue only struck me as I was writing: ‘slip into’ for DON is very nice. It only strikes me now that the surface reading is a little bizarre – nice use of ‘ditch’ though. |
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| 25 | Person hollowing out middle of bread and pastry (7) |
| GOUGERE – GOUGER [br]E[ad]
The toughest word in the puzzle, which was entirely unknown to me (and, I discovered later, to Mark). Once I had enough checkers to confirm that ‘middle of bread’ was E rather than REA, I needed ??U?E? to mean ‘person hollowing out’ (from memory I didn’t yet have 15d, but I could be wrong). It looked plausible enough, but I was certainly not confident. |
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| 26 | The aforesaid bit of Morse books retracted (5) |
| DITTO – DIT OT<
I had ??T?? when I came to this, and initially was trying to make ??TID work, before realising that only part of the clue was reversed. It probably only took a few seconds to mentally correct here, but I do find that anything that throws you off your rhythm can be perilous, so I was glad it wasn’t longer. |
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| 27 | Buys tea in bags (9) |
| PURCHASES – CHA in PURSES
A nice clue when I only had the P. For this one I didn’t work out the PURSES bit, I just wrote in the answer on the basis that there couldn’t be any other words meaning ‘buys’ that began with P and had CHA in them. Probably. |
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| Down | |
| 1 | One picked up heart and blood of god (5) |
| ICHOR – I hom. CORE
For what it’s worth, I don’t enjoy partial homophones. But in competition, where I don’t think I had any checkers, I didn’t realise this was a homophone at all: a five letter word for ‘blood of god’ can’t be anything else. |
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| 2 | Finally yet significantly beaten, aunt lost battles (4,3,3,5) |
| LAST BUT NOT LEAST – (AUNT LOST BATTLES)*
A suitable description for Paul’s performance in the final? |
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| 3 | Mob may trouble the French (8) |
| CANAILLE – CAN AIL LE
This was a word I vaguely knew – and it transpired that Chloe didn’t – although I wouldn’t have been able to define it if pushed. CAN AIL was clear enough, so it was a choice between CANAILLE & CANAILLA, and the former range much louder bells than the latter. |
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| 4 | Burlesque is component of secret raves, typically (8) |
| TRAVESTY – [secre]T RAVES TY[pically]
An easy hidden, which was nice to come across, especially as I didn’t yet have 1ac entered. |
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| 5 | Funny money probed by a guard (6) |
| YEOMAN – MONEY* around A
Another one that was very helpful in getting 1ac in place. |
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| 6 | Disheartened sot with stories about alcohol (6) |
| STEROL -S[o]T LORE<
This was my LOI, and the one that held me up the longest. The first part was clear, but with STE?O? I just couldn’t get STENOL out of my head. I wrote out the letters STE_O_, which I try to avoid having to do in competition, given the extra time it takes, but which is almost always helpful for me – I don’t know why, even for the across clues, it usually sparks something. It felt like forever but was probably only ten seconds or so before I realised that ?O?E for ‘stories’ must be LORE, and -OL is the classic suffix here. |
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| 7 | Punish subservient Scot for unhelpful behaviour (15) |
| OBSTRUCTIVENESS – (SUBSERVIENT SCOT)*
With only O as a checking, I was fortunate that this anagram suggested itself surprisingly quickly. Getting a long word like this in is so important, so putting it in as my third answer was a real confidence-booster. |
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| 8 | Being careless, scratching right cheek (9) |
| IMPUDENCE – IMPRUDENCE – R
My second answer after SUOMI. It’s worth saying that, while solving, I paid zero attention to how good any of the surfaces were – but this is one of many nicely constructed ones. |
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| 13 | Radical overhaul of motorsport’s image (9) |
| FIREBRAND – F1 REBRAND
When first looking at this one, I had no idea what was going on, so skipped on quickly. By the time I came back to it, I had every checking letter, and FIREBRAND immediately came to mind, so I entered it without remembering any element of the clue, confident that nothing else would fit F?R?B?A?D. Having written it, I read the first word of the clue again, and was happy the definition matched. |
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| 15 | Ruralist, half-cut, gallivanting round on wheels (8) |
| VILLAGER – GALLIV[anting]< RE<
I think this was my penultimate answer, and entered without parsing: surely ‘ruralist’ couldn’t mean anything else. |
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| 16 | Drink up, initially missing gob (8) |
| VERMOUTH – [o]VER MOUTH
While ‘shrub’ is still the scariest word for me to find in a clue, ‘drink’ isn’t too far behind. As a teetotaller, my knowledge of alcohol is fairly limited (I don’t think I can blame my STEROL slowness on that though). Happily I had ?E?M???H, ‘gob’ immediately suggested MOUTH, and it didn’t take too long to think of a drink that fit ?E?MOUTH. |
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| 19 | Film company boss with one Oscar (6) |
| STUDIO – STUD I O
In crosswordland, you can guarantee that ‘boss’ means STUD – so I was a bit disappointed that I got sidetracked by the ‘company’ here, thinking that I needed a CO somewhere in the answer. I actually think I’ve written an equivalent clue to this breakdown, so it should have been a write-in, but it took me a bit of thinking time. |
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| 20 | Union agreement, oddly unnoticed, sparked new spell of prosperity (6) |
| PRENUP – [s]P[a]R[k]E[d] N UP
…and ‘union’, nine times out of ten, refers to marriage. The regular letter indicator was obvious here, but in the speed of competition I sometimes need a second to consider whether I’m looking for odd or even letters, particularly in cases like this where we’re being told which ones to ignore (rather than select). Not confusing unless you’re under time pressure: fortunately I already had some checkers so this was easier than it could have been, and here I did take a moment to convince myself that UP could mean ‘spell of prosperity’. |
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| 23 | Quits contests, lacking time (5) |
| EVENS – EVENTS – T
And another one where the first answer that sprang to mind was the correct one. That was what made this puzzle easier than some: in a lot of clues, the first thought was the right thought. Not, alas, in all of them… |
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35.11 WOE. Commiserations! I had plenty of time and still put BILATERAL. Thanks for the entertaining blog.
Thanks for the blog, Colin – and congratulations on a splendid effort. I’ve just given it a go, and ended up two answers short (the NHO GOUGERE and CANAILLE, unsurprisingly) – but in 34 mins. I hadn’t even completed a first pass in the time it took you to finish it! :-))
I managed to solve this slowly.
DNK GOUGERE like most people.
My problem was DITTO as I thought Morse code was just dots and dashes.
So the clue suggested DOTTO; however I plumped for DITTO.
And thanks for the entertaining blog.
David
Colin
Congratulations on your result and thanks for the great blog. I solved it in 40 mins, but dont get “dit” in Morse. NHO a few but clear from wordplay.
‘Dits’ and ‘dahs’ are the names of the short and long sounds or flashes of light that comprise the construction of Morse code. So dot-dash-dot would be referred to as dit-dah-dit, which is much quicker in speech.
I was quite pleased to get Colin to step in as guest blogger, as it’s always good to hear how it feels to be inside the ropes. Besides Colin, a number of TftT bloggers, and probably a few commenters, made it at least to the semifinals, but I believe he was our only representative in the finals.
I did solve the puzzle, which I needed to do to generate a blog skeleton for Colin’s use. I caused myself trouble by thoroughly botching up two answers, putting in hoshana and last and not least. These caused a lot of trouble until I saw canaille, which I did know. I was very careful to count the vowels for biliteral, a useful trick if you don’t have time for all the anagram letters. My LOI was gougere, an unknown that was very likely to be correct, which is was.
Time: 28:29
>a number of TftT bloggers, and probably a few commenters, made it at least to the semifinals
There may be others, but the ones I know are:
5. mauefw
7. Verlaine
11. Topical Tim
15. Aphis99
17. Keriothe
20. Amoeba
23. Penfold
26. Pootle
27. Deane Short
36. Johninterred
You can add me at 27, although not the most prolific of commenters!
Added, thanks, and congrats.
Don’t forget 74: Astonvilla1 and 86: JerryW… (and I would have been 73rd if I hadn’t apparently made one error that I still can’t spot). I believe Starstruck and his lady wife are thereabouts somewhere, too.
“They also serve, who only turn up for the beer.”
Jerry, no slight intended against you, Astonvilla1, Mr & Mrs Starstruck and anyone else but I was merely responding to Vinyl’s comment about “…TftT bloggers, and… commenters, [who] made it at least to the semifinals…”
P
Oh, sure, none taken.
But a full list of TfTT entrants would be interesting, it appears from the comments that there were several others I was not aware of.
I thought the name tabs were a useful innovation, maybe next year entrants could be given the option to add a TfTT moniker as well..
As Jerry said, starstruck_au, (aka Mr SNITCH) deserves a shout out for joining in during his trip over here from Australia along with his lady wife Sonia, who’s company I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of days in Bury St. Edmunds and Cambridge.
Thanks Colin for one of the best blogs I’ve seen on these pages. A brilliant account from inside the trenches. The pleasure in reading it was only slightly tempered by the sad news (to me) of Jim Henson’s death!
My 19:54 wouldn’t have threatened any of the finalists, especially having entered FUTILITY at 13ac. Not sure what I was thinking, not sure I WAS thinking, but as soon as I saw the pink squares I saw FATALITY.
I’d love to enter the Championships one year. A stretch goal would be to make it past the first round, but getting knocked out early and sharing some beers with our fellow travellers doesn’t sound too bad either.
I knew my solving time could never even be on the same scale as the finalists so I relaxed and enjoyed the ride, simply aiming to finish with everything correct. I was pleased to achieve that and avoided the BILATERAL trap going for BILITERAL whilst not being sure that the word actually exists.
The completely unknown BOUGERE was another small victory as my LOI.
Apart from that one, the RH side of the grid seemed quite easy and I had hopes of completing within my personal half-hour target whilst sticking to my normal practice of annotating my printout to indicate parsing as I entered each answer. But the LH proved more difficult and I messed up my chances by marking 2dn on my copy with the enumeration (4,4,3,4) instead of (4,3,3,5). This error screwed up my attempts to unravel the anagrist for far too long and hindered solving some of the neighbouring Across clues.
A very fast (all things are relative) 21:25 but with that one error on BILITERAL. I had an increasingly desperate hold-up at the end with VILLAGER and GOUGERE, both of which fell when I finally saw the partial reverse hidden GALLIV. I never did see the very clever “on wheels” for ER.
Congratulations Mauefw on your splendid championship performance and many thanks for the blog
Very entertaining, Colin, and interesting insight to life at the top end of the speed-solving world.
You’ll get ‘em next year!
14 something – solved on Sunday on the hard copy given out on the day, so reliant on my phone’s stopwatch, which I promptly reset having not fully noted the time.
I did figure out BILITERAL. I think I spotted the two tempting options so checked the vowels. For me the uncertainty here was DITTO/DOTTO, where I was only familiar with ‘dot’ in the code, and ‘dotto’ felt plausible as an alternative to ‘ditto’, if a bit unlikely.
It was my first time at the champs, and I was pleased to finish with everything correct and in a decent position in the semi-finals. The worst part was in the first round, where I finished in 30 minutes, stuck my sheet up, and spent the remaining time fretting about a clue I wasn’t entirely sure of.
Thanks & well done Colin, and thanks setter. Nice to meet some of you there/afterwards as well.
I see I am not alone with the DOTTO conundrum.
Good to meet you in the pub.
See you in York this coming weekend, I hope.
Fascinating blog, thank you Colin, and congratulations on your performance.
16:35 for me but with BILATERAL. At least I’m in good company!
I am in absolute awe of the finalists, not only at their speed, but also that so many were able to avoid the BILATERAL trap, even at that speed and under that pressure.
So that’s how it’s done! A most entertaining blow by blow account: congratulations on every level! I managed 19.51 for this one, so inside the 20 minutes allotted for the earlier puzzles, but nowhere near the stellar times, expected of Magoo, but slightly worrying in the two young pups putting us silver solvers firmly in the shade for however many years we have left!
I did manage BILITERAL, more, oddly enough, on the suspicious definition but confirmed by a smudged look at the anagram fodder. GOUGÉRE was my hit and hope. I still look forward to the time accents matter in a crossword – maybe in a Listener?
Ha, I think you’ll find it’s a grave accent, not acute! Not worked out how to put accents in on this site anyway. I think Jackkt told us once, but I’ve forgotten, of course!
é è the French keyboard on an iPad works
Every windows computer has a Character Map hidden somewhere in admin tools. Put a link to it on the desktop then you can copy & paste any character at all ..
On a Mac holding down the key for a character which has a choice of presentation (letters mostly) for a couple seconds pops up a window with è é ê ë etc (for ‘e’ there are 9 choices), and the correct one can be pointed at and clicked on or selected by number. Careful, because holding down the key for a character which doesn’t have a choice of presentation (symbols, for example) can produce a very long line of that symbol %%%%%%%%%%%%%
Great write-up Colin and congrats again for getting into the final 5.
I solved at the back of the room and was about 3/4 done when Paul’s number went up. I polished the rest off for a total time of around 9 minutes, with BILITERAL correct. It’s a pity they didn’t pick a harder puzzle for the final.
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Chloe and Liam’s performances are great for the crosswording world.
Thank you, Mauefw, for a very entertaining blog, and it’s nice to put real names and faces to the personae on this site. I watched the final from home, and have no end of admiration for your coolness under that kind of pressure. Unlike last year’s final, this was, as you say, fairly straightforward. I fell into the BILATERAL trap initially, as being a word I’d heard of, but fortunately had the time to check the anagrist and correct it. GOUGERE was NHO, but seemed obvious with the checkers. I had the same initial confusion over DITTO as you, and like you, SUOMI was FOI. There the comparison ends, as I didn’t bother to time myself at all – it’s too depressing when making comparisons and furthermore it detracts from my enjoyment of solving clever clues and appreciating them. Probably around the hour mark.
alto ego
Thanks for the info on dits and dahs – new to me.
39:29
Not attending the Championship this year, I printed out the puzzle this morning and set about attempting to complete it. I found it tricky to get into – it seemed slightly odd completing on paper when my usual mode these days is on laptop/mobile, though having been at two previous events, I have had to complete on paper before. I would suggest this as an additional tip for those attending, that generally solve online, that they do some training upfront on paper…
After the first ten minutes or so, I still had only six or seven in place solved in the following order (11a, 22a, 27a, 8d, 10a, 5d and a pencilled-in, unparsed 24a) – an enforced break enabled me to come back refreshed and immediately see 12a, 18a and 26a which gave enough checkers to make significant progress. Missed the BILAT/BILIT trap by counting vowels; knew of ICHOR somehow, though couldn’t have said exactly what it is. Held up somewhat at the end by the unknowns CANAILLE, GOUGERE, STEROL as well as being unable to parse VILLAGER.
I remain astonished and starstruck that there are folk that can complete such puzzles so quickly, but Colin’s insights give us some clue about the approaches to solving that the speed merchants take.
Thanks mauefw and setter
Well, I did finish it this morning, but in the time allowed for three puzzles! Speed never my strong point. I found it tough, obviously, but very enjoyable for all that. So many great clues.
I am in such admiration for the people who finish these things off in several minutes. How do you do it?
Thanks Colin for the very instructive blog and well done on reaching the finals.
Absolutely riveting blog – thank you and congratulations. And I’m awestruck by Chloe and Liam. Snappy dressers too. Yup I was one of the bilateral gang with no excuse whatsoever. I was just thinking – well this isn’t too hard when the ABS slammed on in the SE corner. When VILLAGER finally emerged I spent a long time dithering over G.U.E.E and saying to self – gruyere is a cheese not a pastry you noodle, and anyway it doesn’t parse. I actually knew GOUGERE having made small ones for my children many times when they were young (they called them”cheesy poufs”) but hadn’t expected to see it in a puzzle except perhaps a Mephisto. Time was about 23 with aforesaid error.
That was a fascinating insight, thank you. Hard enough solving any puzzle at home with a coffee, but in that atmosphere it must be like the worst exam ever. And they do it for fun?
Also enjoyed Mark’s blog going through his solve clue by clue. As someone who is happy to do the QC in under 20 mins, it creases me up when someone comments that a clue made them “stop and think”, whilst still blasting through the whole thing in sub 5 mins… 😂
A big round of applause to Chloe and Liam: it would be fascinating to hear how they got into crosswords, and developed to their current level of expertise.
Congrats, thanks, really interesting. please post more and lurk less!
Really really interesting, all this kind of thing is so new and unknown to me. Congratulations on your performance!
As a rather slow QC’er, I thought I’d pick away at this puzzle just to see what the speed demons were up against and was astonished to finish without errors in just over an hour. NHO GOUGERE or BILITERAL but the clues were fair and I wasn’t hurrying.
Dear SC,
Congratulations on a successful solve!
I took twice as long, but also failed to solve 1d (ICHOR) – see below.
Woooo! Well done!
Great stuff!
Fantastic blog, thank you.
Every year I think about entering, and recall having qualified in the past. But I’ve never taken the step, having crashed and burned at the first Sudoku championship some years ago (20?). Maybe next year.
Anyway, completed the puzzle steadily, avoiding the beartrap, in 15’55”.
Thanks Colin, and thanks to the setter also.
You should give it a go for the experience of taking part and meeting the others who do. You don’t have to be an elite solver with designs on reaching the Grand Final to enjoy it… as I know full well.
As someone who is on the cusp between the rounds, scraped through last year just outside this , it did leave me free to enjoy in my own way. There is little hope of becoming significantly faster and in fact I’m becoming less and less bothered but I’m beginning to feel ,as there is nowhere to go that maybe compiling is the way preserve the enjoyment factor.
Though it is good to see some younger entrants coming through it stills seems to dominated by the old school. I think i heard said that there was an oversubscription and people were denied attendance which would suggest to me that maybe a larger venue should be considered to maybe to make things more inclusive and create more opportunity for conservation outside the echo chamber.
Somewhat masochistically, as I have never before attempted a Times 15×15 Cryptic, I dared to step up from the QC and test the water with this one as my first attempt. And, to keep the faith, I did it on paper in one stint and without aids.
The outcome? I pulled stumps after 1 hr 58 mins with just one (measly) clue unsolved. That clue was 1d (ICHOR), which I had NHO and couldn’t parse.
Comparing my progress with those of the finalists, both Mark and Colin had handed in their papers by the time I solved my first clue (PURCHASES) and I took a similar amount of time again to solve my second. After 30 minutes, I had reached the dizzy heights of 4 clues in the grid and I had 12 clues written in as the hour ticked by. Note the jaw-dropping rate of acceleration!
Shortly afterwards the whole of the RHS was populated, although not all parsed (e.g. VERMOUTH and SCAN), but I only had TRAVESTY on the left.
Somehow, bit by bit, the remaining clues succumbed and, because I was going so slowly, I didn’t fall into the trap with BILITERAL. I did know (and have even made) GOUGERE, but I had to trust to luck with (the NHO) CANAILLE.
In the end, I fell at the last fence, but I really enjoyed the attempt and can confidently say that Mark, Chloe, Colin and the others will never need to concern themselves with me coming up on the rails.
Many thanks for the excellent account and blog, Colin.
Very well done SRC!
Well done! and loved the play-by-play.
Great attempt! Just a bit more practice and I think you will be joining those giving it a go in London.
Very good!
Great blog Colin. Thank you. I managed to solve the puzzle in 23:11, but fell into the BILATERAL bear trap too. NHO GOUGERE, but managed to assemble it. Thanks for the parsing of VILLAGER, I was baffled by that. Thanks setter too.
Hi Colin. Apologies for the very belated comment on your wonderful post. It is fascinating to hear your solving process articulated so clearly. My commiserations on falling into the bear trap that robbed you of second place, but congratulations on your achievement on getting to the grand final. I know some others will have been disappointed not to make it, but congratulations to Chloe and Liam for their achievements (and, of course, Mark for winning again in such style). As for the puzzle… I saved it for Sunday morning to tackle it afresh rather than after a beer or two too many on my train journey home and finished in just over 13 minutes. A lot easier than last year’s grand final crossword, I think.
Terrific blog, thanks Colin. Nothing like eye-witness testimony!
I fell into BILATERAL error in 37 mins. GOUGEREs are the favourite snack in my club so that went in with a snort of appreciation. I could not parse LOI SCAN for the life of me and still can’t – is it an indirect anagram, ie an anagram of a word which isn’t actually in the clue?
CANS are (US) lavatories. The word is “cycled” to move the S to the front. If you are not familiar with cycling, the glossary has an explanation..
Thanks. I got the cans bit. Still feels like an indirect anagram but I see that no less a light than ulaca is rebuked in the glossary for this apparent heresy so I will try to learn the trick!
I believe that the current policy is that anything that has less degrees of freedom than a straight anagram (which has n! combinations as opposed to n for cycling) is allowed to be indirect.
I entered my last answer at about 58mins and found I had 5 wrong. Sloppy but it’s late and I don’t usually give the 15×15 longer than an hour. Managed to correct them with three minutes. I really should have got three of them but GOUGERE is unlikely to ever have occurred to me.
Hi Colin,
Thanks for the wonderful post!
>As a teetotaler
Now I need to revisit all those Listen with Others posts where Shirley confirms your membership in Elite Listener Setter Oenophile Outfit 🙂