Hello again. This crossword I think is the third of the preliminary qualifiers at the Championships earlier this month. I found it harder than the last one, but easier than the first. Medium difficult, doable, though not inside 20 minutes, in my case at least… I did have most of it done, but there were a handful of standouts in the bottom half left to do. I did like this one though, no unknowns and nothing too terribly esoteric.
I use the standard TfTT conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Complicated logic I use to preserve previous purpose for Apple (6,9) |
| GOLDEN DELICIOUS – OLD END (previous purpose) in *(LOGIC I USE). Never bothered to parse this, it went straight in. And haven’t we had it recently? Sure I’ve seen it somewhere, in a jumbo maybe. Not a fan of the unwarranted capital, but I generally ignore punctuation, including capitalisation. | |
| 9 | Roughly clean both sides of scab after the rest (9) |
| SANDBLAST – S AND B, both sides of scab, + LAST, after the rest. | |
| 10 | Terrace with partial occupation (5) |
| PATIO – hidden, as above. | |
| 11 | Ancient nameless ruin of Donegal (3-3) |
| AGE-OLD – *(DO(n)EGAL). Nameless, see? | |
| 12 | Composed question in letter from Athens, enveloped with scent (8) |
| TRANQUIL – Q(uestion) in NU, a Greek letter, all in TRAIL, scent. | |
| 13 | Latecomer in election takes the lead, sounding repetitive (6) |
| ECHOIC – CHOICE, election, with the E put first. | |
| 15 | One taking place at back of stable? (8) |
| STALLION – STALL (stable) + I + ON (taking place). An &lit. I thought stables had stalls inside them but Collins says it’s OK, some stalls are stables. All I know about horses is that they are expensive to run. And don’t have a brake pedal. | |
| 18 | Try to poach bananas and the centre nearly splits (8) |
| HEADHUNT – Hmm, tricky. I think it is HU(b), centre nearly, in *(AND THE). | |
| 19 | Bearing north, take advantage of graphic directions as a turn-off (6) |
| UNSEXY – N(orth) in USE (take advantage of), + XY, the axes of a graph. One of my last in. | |
| 21 | Made Urban withdraw to make jerk godly? (8) |
| CITYFIED – DEIFY TIC (make jerk godly) reversed. I put citified, until I noticed it doesn’t parse. | |
| 23 | When I’m due in Paris I roughly pack things thrown out (6) |
| EJECTA – JE (in Paris, I) + C(irca), in ETA, when I’m due. The surface nearly makes sense, but not quite.. | |
| 26 | Podcaster’s influenced kid (5) |
| SUEDE – Sounds like “swayed”, influenced. Podcasters are the methode du jour for indicating a homophone. Another of my later answers, as that meaning of kid often slow to occur to me. | |
| 27 | Toiler’s poorer when accommodating old king, King Henry (9) |
| WORKHORSE – ORKH in WORSE, poorer. OR for old king, and KH for King Henry. | |
| 28 | Have a wee one after having a wee one? (3,3,5,4) |
| WET THE BABYS HEAD – A CD and an &lit. A bit (t)wee, but I liked it.. not in Collins, but a well-known phrase here, not sure if other countries do it? | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Finally snap in rage, so agitated (2,5) |
| GO SPARE – (sna)P in *(RAGE SO). Another &lit, since you need the whole clue for the wordplay and the def. can be the whole clue, too. | |
| 2 | Fencing’s bound to fall quickly if uncapped (5) |
| LUNGE – (p)LUNGE, to fall quickly. My knowledge of fencing is right up there with my knowledge of horses, but it seems OK. To lunge, to leap forward, to bound .. | |
| 3 | Add detail to meme’s content, like Clangers? (9) |
| EMBELLISH – (m)EM(e), + BELLISH, like clangers, geddit? Another unwarranted capital. | |
| 4 | Day journal is a tedious thing (4) |
| DRAG – D(ay) + RAG, like some daily journals these days. | |
| 5 | Sample of polite, rational, educated people (8) |
| LITERATI – Hidden, as above. The “unwritten rules” I so dislike say that a second hidden now and again is allowed. | |
| 6 | Maximum quota for fattened fowl (5) |
| CAPON – I see how a CAP is a maximum but not certain about the ON. A capon is an extremely unlucky cockerel. | |
| 7 | Prominent bust or bum one has (9) |
| OBTRUSIVE – *(BUST OR) + IVE, one has. Childish I know, but I did like this. | |
| 8 | Multitudes uprising advance endlessly as rich loaf (7) |
| STOLLEN – LOTS (multitudes) rev., + LEN(d), advance. A sweet loaf of German origin, not my favourite. | |
| 14 | Deeply experienced judge abandoned over time (9) |
| HEARTFELT – HEAR (judge) + LEFT (abandoned) reversed, + T(ime). | |
| 16 | Some underwear in pine bathrooms (4,5) |
| LONG JOHNS – LONG (pine) + JOHNS (bathrooms). Two euphemisms together .. | |
| 17 | Net weight nonstandard beer tin holds (8) |
| INTERWEB – W(eight) in *(BEER TIN). A jocular word for the Internet I use occasionally, a bit surprised though to find it in Collins. | |
| 18 | Indifferent writer saying one could cut lead (7) |
| HACKSAW – HACK (indifferent writer) + SAW, a saying. | |
| 20 | Vote for split when accounts are concluded? (4,3) |
| YEAR END – YEA (vote for) + REND, split | |
| 22 | Unpreserved meat has changed hands (5) |
| FRESH – FLESH (meat) with the L changed to R | |
| 24 | Mufflers with ends trimmed cut into figure, possibly (5) |
| CARVE – (s)CARVE(s) | |
| 25 | Root is immature insect food (4) |
| GRUB – a triple definition, to finish with | |
I think one has to forget about ‘lift and separate’ at 6dn CAPON. ‘Maximum quota for’ = CAP ON (e.g. fuel costs).
After my disaster with last Wednesday’s competition puzzle I was pleased to finish this one without resorting to aids despite taking 60 minutes to do so. But reading the blog led me to check my entry at 21ac, and sure enough I had written CITIFIED. At least that explains my query over the parsing which had eluded me.
44:17. Very tough, but glad I persevered. Last three took an age: ECHOIC, HEADHUNT, HEARTFELT. WTF moment at WET THE BABY’S HEAD, as I was sure it would have something to do with ‘weeing’. But no. CAPON has come up fairly recently, too.
It’s peculiar that Collins has CITYFIED as American English but no “citified,” while the American source Merriam-Webster has only “citified” (how I first tried to spell it too) but no CITYFIED.
I was going to say the same thing about CAPON. I wondered about ON when solving but the light dawned on a second view.
OED has “citified” from 1819, and quotes an American author living and published in London, although does not mention an American etymology. I’m never sure about Collins.
DNF
Never got UNSEXY. DNK GO SPARE, INTERWEB, WET THE …(which I looked up once I had WET; it’s in ODE). Put in CITIFIED, failed to check it.I seemed to be biffing everything and slowly working out the wordplay after. Or failing to: never figured out GOLDEN …, HEADHUNT, EJECTA. A rather depressing experience; I’d forgotten that this was one of the qualifiers. Liked SUEDE.
A DNF after a long time. NHO the phrase at 28a and guessed BABE’S rather than BABY’S. I’d just changed an initial CITIFIED to CITYFIED so maybe should have used that Y again.
The hardest of the preliminary qualifiers for me. Interesting to see that so far on the SNITCH 7/16 reference solvers have been excluded with errors.
WET THE BABY’S HEAD is in the Concise Oxford. As Collins English Dictionary was first published in 1979, my attempts at Times xwds started when presumably the COD was the main reference – and it remains one as well as Collins.
If you handed in a script with up to 10 wrong or missing answers, you would have qualified, so it sounds as if you probably would have done. When the biggest pile of incomplete puzzles I can recall seeing arrived in the marking room, I thought of a way to determine the qualifiers as quickly as possible. I took each script and put it into one of two piles – one with up to N missing answers quickly counted, and one with more than N. N was supposed to be big enough for us to be certain that one pile represented “no chance”, but N was 10, so,we had to mark them all in case I miscounted by 1.
You have to mark all the scripts by hand? Must take ages to spot single letter errors like BABE for BABY or CITIFIED with an I.
It is a manual process, but done by a team, and that goes back a long way. In the days when 250 or more people turned up to London regional finals, schoolboys under the guidance of people including John Grimshaw did it, and I suspect there must have been a pretty big team of them, as complete results for the first 3 of 4 puzzles were displayed during the tea break before puzzle 4, so that any disagreements about those scores or the time taken could be resolved.
These days, there’s a team of about 8, mostly people who work on crosswords, and most of them have done this several times before.
I was also surprised to see a second inside, and we spent a long time trying to find the missing Z to make it a pangram. A nice puzzle overall, I did like WET THE BABY’S HEAD, and CITIFIED was a clever trap for those not checking the derivation carefully.
A few short, if I’d known I it was competition-grade, I’d have given up sooner.
FOI GOLDEN DELICIOUS based purely on enumeration, eventually parsed.
Kept wanting SCRUB something for “roughly clean”
Still don’t really understand STALLION, but guessed anyway.
NHO ECHOIC and that’s out of my league, need a synonym, then an operation on it, both heavily disguised, for a tough word.
Missed HEADHUNT and UNSEXY and spelt CITYFIED wrong.
As Billy Fury sang, so near yet so far away. Two missing after 35 minutes, ECHOIC and SUEDE. His Bobness did once pen ‘my life in a stolen moment’, which I had forgotten about until last Christmas when I was offered a piece of 8d by Mrs BW. I repeated the joke about stollen moments until the cake was finished with nobody knowing what the hell I was on about. I would have been quicker in not finishing this if I hadn’t been hellbent on making 27a a CARTHORSE. The most pleasant of the Championship puzzles, if that’s what it was, but I guess you’re not there to enjoy yourself. Thank you Jerry and setter.
Very difficult for a Wednesday, and only managed it with some aids. Only vaguely had heard of 21a and 28a and SW corner held me up after a fairly speedy rest of the grid, at least for me. A touch under 40 mins.
Despite 2 errors perfectly designed to catch out the unwary, I really enjoyed this one. Slow start then got on wavelength finishing most in 30 mins then taking 7 for LOI UNSEXY.
I hastily entered CITIFIED and BABES both of which I intended to revisit then forgot. I hate unindicated apostrophies but thems the rules.
Clangers had me trying to make EMBROIDER work. INTERWEB raised a smile. I don’t begrudge this DNF.
Thanks muchly Jerryw and setter.
27.09, which while it would have taken almost half the available time, still felt like an achievement. Most trouble came in the lower left, as seems to be common, and with my last, UNSEXY. HEADHUNT proved to be the key to opening its corner, and I managed to avoid the CITIFIED heffalump trap, though that’s how I’d spell it. Good to see so many proper &lits, and for once I didn’t mid the CD at the bottom, despite spending 2p.
Father forgive me, I entirely forgot this was a champ puzzle until coming here, so submitted on leaderboard.
While entering some of the answers I did think “Oh, I’ve seen that somewhere fairly recently”, but it was of no conscious assistance, I promise…
I finished this one but fell into the CITIFIED trap. I was far from alone.
Jason Crampton said on the day that he has discontinued the rule allowing only one hidden per puzzle.
DNF
just under 20 minutes but with a careless CITIFIED.
DNF with a few crossers in the SW corner that did for me, ECHOIC (which I should have seen), HEADHUNTER (where I was nowhere) and HEARTFELT (similarly lost). And there I was thinking of a quick time when the top half went in almost without thinking…
Thanks Jerry and setter.
My thanks to JerryW and setter.
Yes. a clever puzzle, DNF, big time, all in the SW.
Despite the paper clearly stating this was a championship puzzle I never saw that.
17d Interweb (one of the few I got in SW) not in Cheating Machine, added. I suppose it is a funny word….
21a citYfied not in CM but citify was. I didn’t get either.
26a Suede, tricky, DN get.
The last Christening I went to, the baby managed to wet his own head – impressive hydraulic pressure for one so young.
😂
Just under forty five minutes but with CITIFIED and BABES. Held up for ages in the SW and the SE. HEADHUNT was LOI. So near yet so far……. Thanks setter and Jerry.
DNF
Avoided the CITIFIED trap but failed on some easier ones: OBTRUSIVE CARVE and the harder EJECTA (where the Yoda speak did for me) and for me the very difficult UNSEXY – would have been easier if I had the E from OBTRUSIVE.
Did a lot of it in 20 but the pickings became very slim thereafter.
Clever – and dare I say enjoyable – puzzle. Well played Jerry and nice blog.
Phew, I was pretending to solve that as if in a comp, and it was making me quite stressed! A notch over the half hour (with citified, naturally, and biffs galore). A litle flurry of maybe eight clues in the NE and SW came in the last couple of minutes, so my completion times of 31:17, 13:42 and 30:19 give a rather flattering indication of my potential performance on the day. But, hey I’ll take it!
I’m not sure how much longer I’d have been if parsing was required: ECHOIC, HEARTFELT and HEADDHUNT all remained mysterious, despite several minutes post-solve head-scratching, so many thanks to Jerry for the unravelling.
Got most of the way there in 20 mins, but with lacunae including UNSEXY, HEADHUNT, HACKSAW & CITYFIED.
DNF
3 out on the first qualifier, 2 out on the second but completed this one. Either I am getting better or they are getting easier. The vocabulary was a bit less esoteric which means I can usually get them if I perservere.
A tale of two halves. 1 across and all connecting downs and crossing clues with them, finished in 7 minutes (when I started foolishly believing I may be ready to at least take part in the championships) followed by a quick reality check with 47 minutes for the rest.
I thought both UNSEXY and HEADHUNT were very clever. My favourite of the three although that maybe influenced by having completed it.
Thanks blogger and setter
When it’s a Championship puzzle the SNITCH may be slightly skewed, not quite sure how it works, but I suspect that’s the case here: at present it stands at 103 and so far as I can see this is a much more difficult puzzle than that. Certainly it took me 77 minutes, with aids used on the last two, which it turned out I’d never have got: ECHOIC and UNSEXY (graphic directions? Axes, but are they directions?), since I couldn’t even parse them until coming here. Never understood (and still don’t) all about WETTING THE BABY’S HEAD.
Sorry Wil, I never did really explain that, did I.. it is customary after a baby is born for the husband’s friends to take him out for a celebratory drink, whether he deserves it or not. So the first wee one refers to the drink, and the second to the baby itself. I imagine quite a few folks would have no idea about what is going on here!
Even the phrase itself is misleading, since the actual baby is not involved…
Thanks Jerry. I was unaware of this custom.
In my experience, wedding the babies head
is a rather longer affair than having just a wee one!
Y O Y did I and so many others put citIfied? It doesn’t parse!
Two goes needed, but then spoiled it with CITIFIED… at least I’m not alone.
– Didn’t parse GOLDEN DELICIOUS or HEADHUNT
– Not familiar with kid SUEDE, but it had to be
– Had heard of the phrase WET THE BABY’S HEAD without knowing what it meant
Thanks Jerry and setter.
COD Obtrusive
I had 24 correct at 51mins when I nominally gave up and checked. I then revealed HEADHUNT and that gave me HACKSAW, SUEDE and HEARTFELT. EJECTA I had previously considered so that’s a +1 to the score but I finally failed with a poorly trawled CuRVE. Everything parsed except headhunt and didn’t fall into the citified trap.
Of the three Qualifiers I did best on this one.
– Q1 – I had 11 answers on my leisurely first look through the clues which bumped up to 12+2 when I quit at 38mins
– Q2 – 5 in 20mins – reaching 16 when I gave up at the hour.
– Q3 – as above. At the 20min mark I had 8 correct.
We can safely put me in Peter’s “No chance” pile! 🤣 And with an official score of 24/90 I believe that would have earned me last place.
I failed where everybody else did, but surely the clue should begin “Make” not “Made” as it leads to “deified” not “deify”? I’d still have messed it up anyway….
Around 13 minutes so definitely on the wavelength for this one. I found it by some way the easiest of the three. I did have CITIFIED for a bit as that’s how I’d spell it but went back for another look as it wouldn’t parse.
COD to WET THE BABY’S HEAD as my fifteenth great nibling was born yesterday – in Australia, so it may be a while before I meet him!
Did I understand that aright? You have 15 great grandchildren, and solved this puzzle in 13 minutes? Impressive!
I hope the distance does not stop you from wetting his head…
Great nephew actually, nibling is a portmanteau word for niece/nephew (based on sibling) – and, yes, we have a nice bottle of Shiraz on the go!
DNF
Ran out of steam with the last few. I imagine that the Snitch is mildly skewed by those who were at the Championships re-completing the grid more quickly than they might have on the day. I didn’t think this was particularly easy, struggling with several in the SW which I did manage to solve, and three in the SE (UNSEXY, NHO EJECTA and YEAR END) which I didn’t.
Two annoyingly silly errors in 54 minutes. I had FLESH instead of FRESH and, even more unaccountably, SWEDE instead of SUEDE. Hard work throughout. I did like the way “choice” became ECHOIC
Not sure what the word Godly does in 21?
‘to make jerk godly’ is a way of saying ‘to deify tic’
Thank you … but deify then means to reverse TIC ? Maybe being dim but still not sure?
The reversal indicator is ‘withdraw’. To deify means to worship as a god. A ‘tic’ being a repetitive muscle jerk, the whole wordplay is a reversal of deify tic which gives CITYFIED. Hope that helps.
Ah I see – yes thank you
Did this in two tranches so can’t give a time. Had to ask a colleague to parse STALLION for me, although I think I would have worked it out eventually. Simon, it’s “DEIFY TIC” backwards!
Thank you – yes that makes sense. I was being dim
I’m with Merlin, I had no idea it was a competition puzzle. Had I known, I’d have given up sooner and felt less bad about leaving 5 or 6 unsolved on a Wednesday. On reflection, I’m quite pleased with some of the answers I did get before I gave up (albeit not all entirely parsed), in particular I had no idea about ECHOIC but felt it was probably OK. I think my favourite was EJECTA (NHO) which I worked out and fully parsed. I’m off to bed now.
Like James, I forgot about the competition puzzles on Wednesdays, and went through this one with three disappointing DNFs on 7d OBTRUSIVE (fixated on its beginning with OUT), HEADHUNT, where I couldn’t understand the wordplay and UNSEXY, which I so nearly got, as I’d already thought of UN, and XY being axes, but somehow never put them together. I was pleased to get NHO ECHOIC and EJECTA from wordplay. Coming here, I’m actually much less displeased, as had I known it was one of the competition ones I’d probably have thrown in the towel earlier, but I see I’m in good company. Thanks, Jerry for the parsings I missed.
After an hour and a quarters hard graft, I fell at the last not getting UNSEXY. In addition to this I failed on 20dn putting in an unparsed REAR END, thereby making UNSEXY nigh on impossible. Why on earth I couldn’t see YEAR END I really don’t know.
21A “Made Urban withdraw to make jerk godly?” caused a Pope-search with the godly connection : why the capital “U” in the clue otherwise? A tic as a jerk is quite harsh : tic douloureux is nothing to exaggerate if you’ve got it.
A week on … did this in 40’22”. No mistakes, so avoided the CITIFIED trap. Snitch on 117 is definitely low. Very tough, the way we lov’em.
Yea, a bit too tough for me too, though I thought at the outset it was going to be a doozy, having solved five clues in as many minutes, starting with SANDBLAST. Happily avoided the misdirectional capital A in 1a, but failed to do so in 21a, where I attempted to reverse Keith as part of the clue! But, having read the blog and finding that this was a tough competition puzzle, I found myself in good company with the few I couldn’t get: UNSEXY, HEARTFELT, INTERWEB (NHO), and HEADHUNT. Enjoyed the challenge though, especially the apple and CITYFIED, which I managed to go back and correct.
Thanks setter and Jerry
Only do the Times crossword occasionally from the Australian syndicated puzzle a bit over a month later than original publication. Found this one challenging, but didn’t have the issues that others seemed to have had – CAPON was the first one in and didn’t get too caught up with the CAP / CAP ON definition while solving CITYFIED by working back from the word play after having the F-E- bit at the end (made a little more difficult here as the printed version had left the ‘j’ off the ‘jerk’ in the clue). The maths degree helped with the X-Y bit of UNSEXY and it went in when all the crossers were there.
ECHOIC was a new word an my last one in and took a little time after to see how it worked.
Focus more on getting the crossword completed correctly rather than the time it takes – so at 88 minutes with help required with a few at the end, was pleased to have correctly solved a competition grade one.