Times Crossword Competition 2012 – Grand Final, Puzzle no. 3

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Andy has aked me to blog one of the final puzzles, and I drew this one, which is described as 201203 in the online version; my purely anecdotal evidence – basically, “what some people said in the pub afterwards” – is that it was definitely the one which gave people most trouble on the day. There again, if you look at the results, that’s not reflected in the number of all-corrects, so I can only conclude that it’s one of those puzzles which is definitely on the tough side, but where the solution can be worked out, given enough time, even if that’s in short supply on the day.

(My unscientific method on the day involved doing most of puzzle #1, moving on when I became bogged down – held up by a wrong answer, as I only realised with about a minute to go; making pretty short work of puzzle #2 except for one clue – never had time to come back to it, but kicked myself when I saw the answer; and tackling puzzle #3 in one long effort, which I’d estimate took me not less than 25 minutes).

I should add that even in the pressured atmosphere, I really enjoyed this one. I think some setters worry that their work goes under-appreciated when they are used in time trials, but I know I’m not alone in admiring this one, even if there wasn’t time to stop and savour it!

Across
1 CATFISH – (FIT)* in CASH(=means).
5 BY JINGO – GO(=attempt) at the end of BY(=times), Jumbo IN(=at home); the definition being “My!”. Several things in this clue which it needs experience to spot: the tiny, easily overlooked, definition; the misleading capital on Times; and the less common, arithmetic, meaning of by=times. All topped off with a brilliantly appropriate surface.
9 SET ON FIRE – (TINSOFBEER)* minus the British.
10 MARAT – (RAM=”stuff”)rev. + (TA=”we’re obliged”)rev. gives the famous bathtub murder victim.
11 A-BOMB – Mark in NABOB(rich man, i.e. person loaded).
12 DISCOBOLI – COBOL(coded instructions=computer language) in [DIS(underworld chief=Roman god of the dead) + 1].
13 THE SIGN OF FOUR – HE, SIGN OFF in TOUR. I am one of the strict Shelockians who favours the original title The Sign of the Four.
17 POTTY TRAINING – POTTY(=out to lunch), Temperature RAINING, with the definition “That’ll teach one to go”. I have a low sense of humour and thought this a brilliant clue.
21 SASQUATCH – SA(=sex appeal), SQUAT(=low), CHurch. The existence of the sasquatch, aka Bigfoot, is open to debate, but if it does exist, it’s some sort of ape-like creature; all summed up concisely in “primate, supposedly”.
24 BINGE – BIN, GarbagE.
25 AMONG – aGeNtOfMpAs. Alternate reversed letters (“recalled, regularly dropped”) and another tiny definition, “in”.
26 LOOKALIKE – OK(fine) in (LAKEOIL)*.
27 EXCERPT – Piano in EX CERT. I’m sure I won’t be the only person who was looking for a river to be the “banker”.
28 REDNECK – RED(=Trotskysist) + NECK(=down).
 
Down
1 CASPAR – SPAR after CircA. One of the traditional names attributed to the Magi / Three Wise Men / Three Kings from the East, the others being Balthazar and Melchior.
2 TIT FOR TAT – FORT in [TIT(=”winger”), ATtackers].
3 IGNOBLE – NOBLE following 1 Grand.
4 HAIRDRIER – Another classic clue. I don’t think Sir Alex Ferguson spends his leisure time tackling the Times cryptic, but I’m sure he’d appreciate the tribute of this clue all the same. The wordplay is AIRDRIE in H.R.: Airdrie might be unfamiliar unless you’re the sort of person who listens to the classified football results all the way through; personnel departments became Human Resources at about the time their primary function stopped being “look after the interests of staff” and became “ensure the company isn’t open to legal action from staff”, but I digress. The definition is “shock treatment” and refers to Sir Alex’s history of delivering a half-time volley of criticism at underperforming players, from close range and at high volume, as you might expect from a man who began his working life in the Govan shipyards. History doesn’t appear to record who first coined the term “hairdrier treatment” for this, but I bet they didn’t say it while the boss was within earshot.
5 BLESS – If you wanted to reduce “bob” to “o”, obviously you make it ‘b’ less.
6 JUMP OFF – cryptic def., the equestrian equivalent of a penalty shoot-out.
7 NARCO – ARC(part of circle line – more misleading capitals) in NO (“noh” is more normal in the name of the Japanese drama form, but “no” is perfectly acceptable). Neologism obviously derived from “Narcotics Enforcement Agent” or similar; can equally be applied to drug-dealers and hence mean the exact opposite.
8 OUTLIERS – (EUROLIST)*.
14 NEIGHBOUR – NEIGH(“as horses go”) + BOURN. Somewhat obscure vocabulary in BOURN=border, though I imagine a lot of solvers will have sooner or later remembered Hamlet’s “The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns”…
15 ORGAN PIPE – (PAPERINGOver)*. Is it accurate to call an organ pipe a “stop member”? I spotted the connection quickly, based mostly on the use of “stop”, so musicologists may wish to say if they differ.
16 APOSTATE – clever &lit., APOSTLE with ATime replacing Line.
18 YOUNGER – YOU(=solver) + ANGER minus Answer; and it is sadly true that none of us is getting any younger.
19 INBOARD =”INN BORED”. Once more the capital is designed to mislead, and the hull is a boat rather than the East Yorkshire port.
20 BEDECK – the letters either side of C and D are B and E, followed by DECK(=floor).
22 STOIC – clingS TO ICe.
23 TO LET – TOILET minus 1. I know at least one finalist got this first and used it to reverse-engineer the answer to 17 across.

6 comments on “Times Crossword Competition 2012 – Grand Final, Puzzle no. 3”

  1. 21:38 here (finished solving about 5 minutes ago before checking if the blog was up yet!). It was the hardest of the three for me, and made me go about half-a-minute over the hour for all three. I would have been well inside but for foolishly throwing in PLAY-OFF at 6D early on from the definition, which cost me a few minutes to sort out at the end.
  2. I was also much taken with POTTY TRAINING. I’m glad that I guessed BY JINGO from the checkers, as I’m not sure I’d have been able to parse the clue from scratch. The clue for YOUNGER gave me a (silent) chuckle at the time.
  3. I thought this the best crossword of the whole day, a top class effort by a top class setter. Just admire those beautiful surface readings…
  4. I found this by far the hardest of the three puzzles, but a great puzzle. However I failed on DISCOBOLI. I didn’t know (or had forgotten) that Dis was the chief as well as the place, which meant I had to get a separate chief into the wordplay and ended up with a desperate DISCOGOLI, which makes no sense whatsoever.
    I went back and forth between this one and the second puzzle, so I don’t have separate times for them but my overall time for all three puzzles was an hour and 9 minutes, including two inadvertent cheats in the first puzzle and one mistake.

    Edited at 2012-10-28 04:22 pm (UTC)

  5. This would have been my undoing – I tried the three over a few pints on Saturday afternoon and got through everything except 12 across, where I had the DIS, I and the two O’s but couldn’t figure out what went in the middle. All three were terrific puzzles.
  6. Needed aids to finish this fine puzzle. Should have got DISCOBOLI from DIS—–I, given that I was familiar, if vaguely now, with the idea from Homer. Had never herad of SASQUATCH, which made that more difficult, especially as I was very slow to see APOSTLE despite seeing the required substitution at once. The excellent POTTY TRAINING was indeed reverse-engineered from 23dn, but only after I’d got it (17ac) from here!

    Edited at 2012-10-29 06:40 am (UTC)

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