Time: 27.37
This was the second of the Qualifiers from the Championship which I found much easier than the first (and looking at the results from the day, seems everyone else did as well), though still coming in over the allotted 20 minutes. An excellent puzzle with some fine, smooth surfaces, and a healthy sprinkling of wit.
I was treated to a surfeit of booze in my first blog; today it is a menagerie of animals and fish to entertain us.
Across
1 Routine repast involving tea, endlessly sweet (10)
MECHANICAL – MEAL around CHA + NIC(E).
6 One does admire poachers at last catching game (4)
STAG – S + TAG.
I suspect that whenever any experienced solver sees DOES their thoughts immediately turn to Bambi and his friends. This is a particularly nice example of the device.
9 Christian VIP yet to meet maker? (7)
PRELATE – if you are not yet LATE you are “pre” LATE, I guess.
I had assumed a PRELATE was a particular post but it seems it applies to any high ranking clergy, typically a bishop.
10. River banks washed out around area in the dark (7)
UNAWARE – URE surrounds [banks] a reversal [around] of WAN + A.
12 Team doctor stopping to help on field (4,6)
REAL MADRID – DR inside [stopping] AID after [on] REALM.
On the animal theme, there are some who might say our favourite/loathed Spanish football team had a few of those as well (Ramos and Pepe, here’s looking at you).
13. A positive result having trimmed one’s beard (3)
AWN – A W(I)N.
15 Little darling couple has married off (6)
PETITE – PET + ITE(M).
A lovely surface.
16 Knowing about false icon failed to impress (3,2,3)
CUT NO ICE – CUTE around (ICON*)
18 Losing wings, so start to drop lower? (8)
HEREFORD – (T)HEREFOR(E) + D.
Our second animal and what a great clue with a clever use of “lower”.
20 Mark’s daughter self-satisfied European entertains (6)
SMUDGE – D within [entertains] SMUG + E.
23 Source of vintage puzzle does not include Times (3)
CRU – CRU(X).
24 Pastel, once restored, reflecting different colours (10)
OPALESCENT – (PASTEL ONCE*).
26 Earl and duke devoured by Asian land animal (7)
ECHIDNA – E + D inside [devoured by] CHINA.
Together with platypuses, the only mammal that lays eggs, with their offspring known as puggles. If there is a cuter name for youngsters, I can’t think of one.
27 Round character extremely short in leg (7)
OMICRON – MICRO inside ON.
Chambers specifically prefaces small with “extremely”. I wasn’t tempted by trying to do something with ST as I already had most of the checkers.
28 Ceremonial county known to Scots (4)
KENT – past participle of KEN.
KEN might be commonly used outside Scotland but I suspect the pp is not.
29 Leading swimmer smoked with Carol outside (10)
SKIPPERING – SING around KIPPER.
Down
1 Second exercise class for depressive (4)
MOPE – MO + PE.
MOPE as a noun here.
2 M’s predecessor constrained by Bond showing mercy (7)
CLEMENT – L inside [constrained by] CEMENT.
Nice. Can’t wait for the next film, though unsurprisingly they are still struggling on the sequel when the main character has been singed to a crisp.
3 Much sentimentality about female at Oxford ultimately useless (1,3,3,2,4)
A FAT LOT OF GOOD – (A LOT OF GOO) around F + AT; then D at the end.
4 What may be melting in current century with rising speed? (3,3)
ICE CAP – I + C plus a reversal [rising in a down clue] of PACE.
I spent a week in Greenland this summer where the icecap is indeed melting at a rapid rate. Highly recommended destination if you like icebergs. But not if you like your flights being on time.
5 Sign where fish are small, having lost mass (8)
AQUARIUS – AQUARIU(M) + S.
My star sign. “Progressive, independent and intellectual with a deep sense of humanitarianism and a love for innovation” apparently. They don’t always get it right.
7 Rosenthal, a minister showing masses of brains (7)
THALAMI – hidden [showing].
8 Commando without experience leads soldiers in punt (5,5)
GREEN BERET – GREEN in front of [leads] RE in BET.
11 Displaced man changed ID one summer? (6,7)
ADDING MACHINE – (MAN CHANGED ID I*).
Solving from the bottom of the grid I biffed a rather foolish TURING MACHINE (having had it in a puzzle recently) which caused a few issues above until the obvious error revealed itself.
14 Completed article on Native Americans in bother (2,3,5)
UP THE CREEK – UP (completed) + THE + CREEK. Presumably the alternative with a different middle word was not considered for the Championship.
I was puzzled by this as I only knew the CREE Native Americans but there are both the CREE (mainly in Canada) and the CREEK (also known as the Muskogee) from the Southeastern Woodlands.
17 Creature no longer seen in area south of large country (5,3)
GREAT AUK – A under [south of, in a down clue] GREAT + UK. Last seen in 1844.
19 Chap hungover, not very lively (7)
ROUGHEN – (HUNGO(V)ER*).
Another superb clue.
21 Gods protecting revolutionary republic for pennies (7)
DENARII – DEI around [protecting] a reversal [revolutionary] of IRAN.
Translated as “penny” in the New Testament and, of course, from where the “d” for penny comes.
22 Win back theatre company with uniform parts (6)
RECOUP – (CO + U) goes inside [parts] REP. I didn’t immediately lift and separate THEATRE and COMPANY and for a moment, wondered where the excess CO came from.
25 Sons drink, kiss and cuddle (4)
SNOG – S + NOG.
If memory serves me well this was the only puzzle of six that I managed to complete on the day of the competition. This was quite a contrast to last year where I solved all six with time to spare. I think the SE corner was the last to fall with GREAT AUK and SKIPPERING proving particularly troublesome.
As dvynys says, does for deer is common in crosswords, as is lower for cow. Unfortunately such things went out the window when I was trying to solve three puzzles in an hour. Maybe next year I will revise common devices in the hope that I can recall them more readily!
Like Pootle, this was the only puzzle I completed. Unlike him, I only solved three in total.
I never parsed ROUGHEN, so thanks to our newest blogger for that!
I dithered before submitting online with leaderboard, but did so on the basis I seemed to re-solve the thing in exactly the same way with just the same hold-ups. The synapses of the brain don’t change. Well, you know what I mean…
22:16
21.49, enjoyable crossword, all good except I’m blowed if I can find a Dylan reference seeing ROUGHEN Rowdy Ways probably won’t cut it. Guy?
“She’s true like ICE, like fire”
Or is one out of three not good enough?
Yikes – no, I can’t fine one either (you’d think MOPE would be in a Dylan song somewhere!). It seems almost surreal, but he’s coming to Wales in a couple of weeks, and I have a ticket – looking forward to the concert.
Oh, and the crossword: 7 short in the 30 mins I had available, so a big DNF, but very much enjoyed nevertheless.
Madrid is mentioned in Boots of Spanish Leather
Oh, but I just thought you might want something fine
Made of silver or of golden
Either from the mountains of Madrid
Or from the coast of Barcelona
Excellent contributions all round! I should have used that ICE short cut (there are some other ice refs I think) and forgot all about Boots, so thank you all!
A typo = a DNF. I skimped on the parsing of a few, eg UNAWARE and A FAT LOT OF GOOD so I suppose such things do tend to occur. I hadn’t heard of the term ‘ceremonial county’ before and after looking it up am waiting for “shrieval” to pop up sometime.
I wish we could have more weekday puzzles I can just enjoy, solve and put down without having to spend time scouring dictionaries afterwards trying to understand convoluted parsings and justify off-beat definitions. A number of people posted along these lines yesterday and I am now coming round to that point of view. I suppose one has to make allowances for this being a championship puzzle, but even so…
Afraid I don’t agree, I thought this was an excellent puzzle with nothing too obscure or needing a dictionary, and some clever definitions. Not easy, but fair.
Agreed
Definitely agree. Nothing remotely unsolvable or obscure in this one, and lovely elegant surfaces.
I’m with you Jack. Almost close to giving up. I know this was a competition puzzle but even so I wonder wether we have a new set of setters? Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m finding it harder and harder to finish one these days.
I thought it might just be me having a bad run. I don’t think I’ve completed a crossword since last Thursday. I doff the hat to the solvers who come here with their success stories and always to the blogging team, but I confess I’ve blown a few raspberries at the setters’ obscurities and convolutions of late. I’ll keep at it though: I’m sure it can’t go on like this forever.
I very much agree – either Monday or Tuesday this week had some very obscure answers which I think we don’t need. However I did not see anything too obscure or difficult in this, especially for a championship puzzle, just beautiful cluing that took me 33 minutes to decode.
Hear Hear
58 mins but with one red square, just could not figure out AWN. Had the clue/def wrong way round.
— Really liked STAG “one does admire”, seen that kind of thing a couple of times but this was so smooth I missed it
— kept trying to make PISCES work for the “sign where fish are”, forgot about AQUARIUS
— not sure what “ceremonial” is doing, KENT is a proper county. Has a cricket team, a county council etc. its borders may be different from the ceremonial version, but still a county, unlike Middlesex or Westmoreland
— COD PRELATE
There’s an explanation if you go to Kent on Wiki and click the link to Ceremonial in the first sentence. I think other counties such as Middlesex are officially ‘historic’.
We’ve had “county” many times before, why “ceremonial” today? Although it helps because I always misread as “country”, and I don’t think there are any “ceremonial countries”.
Well, why not? It adds some colour to the clue and I’ve learned what a ceremonial county is and how it differs from an historic county.
If you lived in Rutland, as we do, you’d know that it went from being a proper county up to 1974, was absorbed into Leicestershire so became “ceremonial” only, then was de-merged in 1997 and became a proper county again (with too many expensive council staff, for 41,000 people), and is about to be merged into North Leicestershire and have “ceremonial” status again. Which most Rutlanders are cross about, especially the expensive council staff.
Can I start rather than finish with the customary thanks to blogger and setter – between the two of you, you gave me as many lightbulb moments as Blackpool illuminations. Completed in a fraction under 30 minutes, with at least half a dozen clues contending for COD.
FOI SMUDGE
LOI UNAWARE
Another DNF after yesterday and didn’t know this was one of the championship puzzles. Failed on several including CLEMENT, which I should have seen. AQUARIUS was one of my last in which gave me UNAWARE. UP THE CREEK went in but had no idea how the ‘K’ worked so thanks D. Really liked the clues for STAG and HEREFORD.
Thanks D and setter.
Did it! Admittedly, everybody else would have gone home and the place locked up for the night by the time I entered LOI ROUGHEN. About 75 minutes, biffing UNAWARE and PRELATE and not knowing why the CREE had added potassium. Favourite clue HEREFORD. Thank you Dvynys and setter.
At least you wouldn’t have been alone, I’d have been there with you and still there after you’d left.😀
2+ hours, but glad to say without aids and all parsed in the end.
I must admit that I guessed that if there were Cree there may well have been Creek.
Not upset about the time considering the satisfaction felt for the completion.🍺🍺🍺
16′, with one typo which wouldn’t happen on paper. No idea re CREEK, knowing only Cree like our blogger.
A DENARIUS was about a day’s wage for a labourer in first century Palestine.
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
25 minutes, though if I’d been doing this at the championship I reckon my brain would have been fried by the other puzzle we had last week.
– Didn’t parse CRU, though with C_U it couldn’t be anything else – I wouldn’t immediately associated crux with puzzle
– Same query as Merlin above as to why KENT is defined as a ceremonial county
– Held myself up with 11d by putting ‘on ice’ for the latter two words of 16a, and only once I had all the checkers did I realise my mistake and get CUT NO ICE to enable ADDING MACHINE
– Was tempted to bung in GREAT APE for 17d before I thought about it a bit more and realised GREAT AUK made much more sense
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
FOI Thalami
LOI Aquarius
COD Stag
Me too, on Crux. But I came to the decision point, and…
Submitted off-board as this was the only crossword I had any joy with at the Champs, and I agree with others above about it being the easiest of the three.
This was the 3rd crossword I tackled on the day as I went 3, 1, 2 for some reason, and it provided some solace as I’d spent about 25 minutes on the others going nowhere fast.
The only clue I didn’t fully understand at the time was ROUGHEN as I missed the anagram so thanks to our blogger for the enlightenment and to the setter for an entertaining solve.
37 mins which now I know the origins is more satisfying.
Kind of a block-breeze where I was slow to get going but once a critical mass of crossers was in place a chain reaction occurred.
Missed the Does trick annoyingly, enjoyed ADDING MACHINE.
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
20.40. Under Championship conditions, I might not have spent so much time trying to parse the relatively benign PETITE, hampered by trying to remember Wendy and -um-the other two. A FAT… took me a lot of unravelling, and again under time pressure I might not have bothered. On the other hand, if time was an issue, I might well have ended up with AQUARIUM, almost my last in after I sorted out UNAWARE, another complex bit of wordplay.
Chapeau to Dvynys for an entertaining and informative blog, revealing much of the solver’s processes to great effect.
My thanks to Dvynys and setter.
I found it doable for a pleasant change. But I cheated; some difficult vocab and tricky wordplay had me worried.
10a Unaware biffed. I saw River Ure but missed the wan.
23a Cru, DNK crux=puzzle.
28a Kent, DNK but assumed pp of ken is kent.
1d Mope, DNK mope can be a noun, but guessable.
3d A fat lot of good added to Cheating Machine.
7d Thalami. I’m not good at hiddens and thought Rosenthal referred to Leni Riefenstahl, but no. Surprised to find the dictionary specifies MASSES of brains.
14d Up the creek, NHO Creek nation.
Having been pre warned that this was a Championship puzzle, I approached it warily and was amazed to finish in under twenty minutes. From MOPE to ROUGHEN (which I failed to parse) in 19:39. Thanks setter and Dvynys.
Tough but I managed to complete fully correct – and parsed apart from 6 across where I didn’t see the does device until I came here, but it had to be STAG. I would have been well outside competition time of 20 minutes per puzzle though. I didn’t help my cause by writing in echinda instead of ECHIDNA which meant I struggled with 3 down.
Like Boltonwanderer I was pleased just to finish, which suggests that all the clues were fair, if tricky for a slow-poke like me.
I finished this on the day but mistakenly spelt the bird AWK, which of course doesn’t fit the wordplay, for 29/30. Doh! Thanks Dvynys and setter.
awk is one of the key utilities used in the UNIX operating system. I had that spelling as well.
I had it too, but then remembered that awk and auk are spelt differently – and awk was the scripting language.
In common with Pootle et al this was the only one of six puzzles I completed all correct on the day. I think I did it in one go in about 12 minutes.
I can’t remember much about the solve other than puzzling over the CREE / CREEK thing as alluded to by our blogger.
No wonder Verlaine was so fast: he’d done it only a few days ago, and unlike people like me, he remembers. 49 minutes, of which the last five were spent on REAL MADRID, which at first I couldn’t do even with all the checkers. Eventually I decided it must be a word/words I’d never heard of, so used an electronic aid, which of course was no use. Oh, not a UK team, then. Not comfortable with the K for CREEK or crux = puzzle, but otherwise a very good puzzle I thought. Except the very mild departure from perfection in having a part-word of an answer repeated (ICE).
At 13.42, I came in well below par for this, with the comfort of non-exam conditions. So I won’t dwell too long on a glaring error at 4d with ICE TAR. Entered with a solemn nod of recognition, as well: oh dear, so is the ice tar predicted to start melting this century as well – wasn’t that responsible for one of the mass extinctions?
I see what I was thinking of was the Siberian Traps, (probably) the primary cause of the Permian-Triassic extinction. And of course Siberia today has a mix of ice and fossil fuels, presumably called ice tar, doesn’t it? What utter nonsense. Much enjoyed the puzzle, and the blog – thanks Dvynys.
I solved this puzzle without much difficulty, putting in and erasing both great awk and ice tar. If it doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t. I had heard of the Creek, and I somehow managed Real Madrid. I can never spell echidna, but since it was my LOI I was forced to spell it correctly.
Time: 28:17
37:00. I hadn’t seen this before unlike some of m’colleagues above and so it presented a lovely challenge. Great vocab, NHO AWN was the only one today. COD PRELATE.
Thought I was doing quite well but failed at Hereford, not seeing the separate “lower”.
Ice caps habitually shrink in the summer, though the prediction by Gore et al that the Arctic ice cap would disappear altogether by the summer of 2013 turned out to be inaccurate. The lowest point reached in 2013 was 3.4 million sq km, and the figure for 2025 was 5.6 million sq km.
The Great Auk was mentioned frequently in the first Famous Five book, Five on a Treasure Island. One of the boys fancied he had seen one.
It’s actually “The Island of Adventure”, it is Jack who is the one keen on birds. It’s a separate series from The Famous Five.
I stand corrected. I remember it now.
The moon was in the 7th house and Jupiter aligned with Mars for me on this one and although peace isn’t exactly guiding the planet it was a pleasure after last week’s “ad hockery.”
Well I enjoyed this one, thought it only medium hard and it had some lovely clues .. look at eg 5ac, very neat… no unknowns, though I was pleased THALAMI was only a hidden..
Well I’m looking Jerry and I can’t see 5ac.
6ac. I typed it perfectly, I’m blaming the keyboard for this!
Funny enough, I found this the hardest of the three on the day – not helped by losing my way completely in the NW corner.
Thank you for the enlightenment on the ones I got so wrong!
I’d forgotten that this was a champ puzzle, and that may have aided me as I set about it pretty well.
Only two unparsed – POI HEREFORD and my LOI ROUGHEN, both of which were relatively simple when I consulted Dvynys’s blog! Thanks for enlightenment.
18:20
I should’ve thought of REAL MADRID but failed to do so and put ‘potato’ instead of PETITE – it doesn’t work but I can imagine some people would use it as a term of affection (‘little darling’)
I finished all three of the qualifier puzzles on the day, but like several others this was the only one I finished correctly. So to me this was the right level of difficulty for the purpose, but I would say that wouldn’t I.
Made steady progress on this and finished in 40 minutes, too many of which were spent trying to unravel REAL MADRID. Only realised it was a comp puzzle when I had finished and read the small print, so I was quite pleased with the time. Agree with piquet’s comment above – tough but fair.
FOI – CUT NO ICE
LOI – REAL MADRID
COD – PRELATE
Thanks to Dvynys and other contributors.
Made steady progress on this and finished in 40 minutes, too many of which were spent trying to unravel REAL MADRID. Only realised it was a comp puzzle when I had finished and read the small print, so I was quite pleased with the time. Agree with piquet’s comment above – tough but fair.
FOI – CUT NO ICE
LOI – REAL MADRID
COD – PRELATE
Thanks to Dvynys and other contributors.
Only two off this time which is one better than the previous competition puzzle. I’m told the third semi-final one is the one to dread so don’t expect that to continue to improve.
A biffed UMBRAGE blocked ADDING MACHINE (annoyed to be fooled by a classic cryptic definition) . On about 45 minutes before struggling hopelessly with those two.
I think there was some psychological block with this, as looking back a lot of the clues were not anymore difficult than you would expect on a normal Wednesday.
Liked HEREFORD, something satisfying about taking the ends off longer words.
Thanks blogger and setter.
Something of a depressing experience for me with people saying last week’s was easier yet I struggled more on this. Only had five answers in the allotted 20mins and struggled out to about half the puzzle in an hour. That’s not going to cut the mustard if I want to be at the Championship
Surprised but v. happy to hear this was a championship puzzle. I know in exam conditions I’d have stressed out and flunked it, but I completed in 18’03”. That included time wasted by putting in “A BIG LOT …” instead of FAT. I think I’ve heard of the CREEK, but it didn’t matter because I saw the CREE bit and didn’t bother checking any further. Some lovely surfaces, notably for CLEMENT and ICE CAP. Many thanks to setter and blogger.
7:09. Found this simpler than the first championship puzzle. Some nice clues scattered through this one. Enjoyed it.
Well I managed it, in 28:47. So I’m obviously now a contender 😁
Couldn’t parse HEREFORD, the NIC in MECHANICAL, or the K in CREEK. NHO THALAMI or AWN.
Great puzzle, lovely blog. Many thanks both.
All solved; but if this was the easiest of the qualifying puzzles, I don’t think I’m anything like ready for the competition; I don’t time myself, I’m happy just to answer all the clues, but I’m sure it took me far longer than the time allowed in the competition. And although I got all the right answers, there were quite a few that I couldn’t fully parse and a couple that I couldn’t parse at all.
Top marks to Dvynys for calling out Ramos and Pepe for the cheating thugs they were – or maybe that should be “are” since both are still playing, just not for Real Madrid.
Not that I am ever going to be heading for the championship, but I was on the wavelength of this one, with a surprising number of bifs, then post parsed at leisure, since I don’t time solve. Among those were ADDING MACHINE, HEREFORD, PRELATE, AWN, PETITE, UP THE CREEK, AQUARIUS. It was a certainly worth parsing them, though, as there were a lot of delightful surfaces – particularly HEREFORD and STAG, my COD. Just wish I could tackle all of them in a similar time frame!
75 minutes. Several people on the QC blog recommended this for its approachability but I was completely off the wavelength. And I had to read the blog explanation twice before I understood STAG. I’ll blame the late hour. Thanks Dvynys.
P.S. I was also distracted by Brian Eno’s Another Green World, which is new to me. I’m listening to it again. It’s lovely.
I put this off for two days, waiting to have some uninterrupted time, and I’m glad I did. It is a nice puzzle. thx dvynys, thx setter, and thx to ed(s) for the fine Championship challenges (so far)
Lovely puzzle, but a tad above my pay grade. Had to lookup a few, just to get me off the blocks: MECHANICAL, HEREFORD ( where I even saw the lower device, but couldn’t recollect the breed!), and PETITE, where I couldn’t parse the married bit. GREAT AUK also was a problem, as I could only see broad as the first word (D’oh!). THALAMI a good guess, likewise the CREEK, but ROUGHEN an outside bet with no parsing. But enjoyed overall; COD STAG.