Times 27195 – TCC Heat 1 puzzle 1 or 3 (not sure which).

Author   pipkirbyPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Last week I assumed the first puzzle from the TCC offered in the paper would have been the first one of the three presented to contenders. Apparently it wasnt, it was the second one in the booklet. So I know this must be the first or the third. No doubt someone with a booklet will advise. Not that it made a difference.
It took me 19 minutes, around half as long as last week’s, so either it was easier or I was feeling brighter. It was more or less a top down solve except for 11a, my LOI, where I had to run though all the possible countries of either 4 letters or five beginning with A, before seeing the answer.
I also had 24d wrong early on; but Snowy Owl’s First Rule says if you can’t parse it, it’s wrong. Then the checker at 28a put me right. See below.
I thought it was a very fair puzzle with enough interesting words to make it a pleasure.
I now have about six minutes left in the hour to do next week’s and achieve my 90 points! Fat chance.

Across
1 Competent secretary gets in line (7)
CAPABLE – CABLE = line, insert PA = secretary. My FOI no problem.
5 Old man’s wise quotation? (7)
PASSAGE – PA’S SAGE = old man’s, wise.
9 Wife having years in depression — Edward is sort of company (6-5)
WHOLLY-OWNED – W = wide, HOLLOW = depression, insert Y = years, add NED = Edward.
10 Fool with brain, not large (3)
OAF – LOAF = head, brain, delete the L.
11 Illuminating comment from a country about carbon (6)
APERCU (APERÇU else it would sound like aperku) – A PERU around C for carbon. Not a common word, a direct use from French meaning insight, overview.
12 Military kit needs protective cover with line crossing lake (8)
MATERIEL – For once, lake doesn’t signify L, here it wants you to think of ERIE, after MAT = cover and before L = line. This military spelling of materia/el is a frequent source of slip-ups in crosswordland.
14 Vigorously stir potato, unusually dense for fritter time? (2,2,1,5,3)
BE AT A LOOSE END – BEAT = vigorously stir, ALOO = potato (in Indian restaurant menu speak), (DENSE)*.
17 Dull university wise men, simplistic about time (13)
UNIMAGINATIVE – UNI = university, MAGI = wise men, NAIVE = simplistic, insert a T.
21 Rude captain of a Henry VIII warship ended up here? (8)
INSOLENT – Well, the Captain of the Mary Rose ended up just outside Portsmouth harbour, sunk during the battle with the French fleet in 1545. An eyewitness said she had fired all her guns on one side, hence was less stable, and was turning to shoot from the other when a big gust blew her over. Henry VIII was doubtless not impressed. The Mary Rose rose again in 1971; she’s worth a visit if you’re down that way.
23 Shocked at being opened up by terrible gash (6)
AGHAST – insert (GASH)* into AT.
25 Wood abandoned by black bird (3)
OWL – A bowl is also called a wood, in lawn bowls, delete the B.
26 Who will assemble things? Worker and clockmaker, not soldiers (11)
ANTHOLOGIST – ANT = worker, a HOROLOGIST would be a clockmaker, delete the OR from that where OR = ordinary ranks, soldiers.
27 Following religious education that’s genuine (7)
SINCERE – SINCE = following, as in since / following yesterday’s match; RE = religious education.
28 Lifting instrument adapted to mushrooms (7)
FORCEPS – FOR CEPS = adapted to mushrooms. There was a chap in our local market last Monday with a huge crate of perfect fresh ceps, something like 15 euros a kilo; I was tempted to buy them and take them to London where I saw recently they were selling for about £60 a kilo.

Down
1 Cover clothes with phosphorus, a hazard in the field (6)
COWPAT – COAT = cover, insert W for with and P for phosphorus.
2 Put lead around dog? Let sleeping dogs lie, perhaps (7)
PROVERB – ROVER the dog goes inside PB = Pb, chemical symbol for lead. Clever surface, I thought.
3 Cold volcanic rock underlying Welsh lake becomes warmer? (9)
BALACLAVA – BALA lake is a large reservoir in mid Wales, add C for cold and LAVA for volcanic rock.
4 Where one’s isolated? That’s up to you (4)
EYOT – TO YE = to you, up = reversed. EYOT is a posh word for island, a variant on AIT.
5 As US DoD HQ is very severe about monitoring device working (10)
PENTAGONAL – Bit of a clumsy surface for a fairly obvious answer. The Pentagon is indeed that shape. PENAL = very severe, insert  (ON TAG)* where ON = about and TAG = monitoring device.
6 Small border plant (5)
SEDGE – S for small, EDGE for border. A chestnut methinks.
7 Poisonous plant, one featuring in a short story (7)
ACONITE – Insert I into A CONTE, a conte is a short story. Aconite is also known as monkshood, wolf’s bane, leopard’s bane, mousebane, women’s bane, devil’s helmet, queen of poisons or blue rocket, is a genus of over 250 species of flowering plants belonging to the family Ranunculaceae, like buttercups. It’s deadly poisonous. Wonder why it’s called women’s bane? Mother-in-law bane perhaps?
8 Adeline’s upset without fine suite of rooms (8)
ENFILADE – insert F into (ADELINE)*. Enfilade is another word directly from French where it means a string of rooms joined together, amongst other things stringy.
13 Right about one single kept by friend: Puppet on a String (10)
MARIONETTE – Oh dear, I now have an earworm, here’s barefoot Sandie Shaw from 1967. Insert ONE into RT (right) to get RIONET, then insert that into MATE = friend.
15 Perhaps way out jazz party as an alternative (5,4)
SWING DOOR – SWING = jazz, DO = party, OR = as an alternative. Nice work.
16 Worked out minus is likely to bring things down? (8)
MUTINOUS – (OUT MINUS)*
18 Hormone abuse, endlessly popular (7)
INSULIN – INSUL(T) = abuse endlessly, IN = popular.
19 Devious girl conceals endorsement that’s turned up (7)
EVASIVE – Our girl EVE conceals VISA reversed.
20 Standing with suspect carrying cheap stuff (6)
STATUS – TAT = cheap stuff, inside SUS = suspect.
22 Rent pasture and vacant storehouse (5)
LEASE – LEA = pasture, S E = storehouse with inner letters removed.
24 Storey gets left out before raising top of house (4)
ROOF – Well I had *O** and bunged in LOFT as it was a storey at the top of house. But I couldn’t see the wordplay. Then I had the F from 28a so realised it was indeed not loft. Think again. FLOOR = storey, take the L out then reverse it.

47 comments on “Times 27195 – TCC Heat 1 puzzle 1 or 3 (not sure which).”

  1. 23 minutes for this, so I have around 5 minutes to increase upon my tally of 58 correct answers. Nothing to frighten the horses after APERCU went in, apart from the weed, which I got as soon as I stopped trying to make a story short and started looking for a short story.

    The easiest champ puzzle I can recall.

  2. A technical DNF here as I needed aids for ACONITE, a word I knew, but not what it means, and the unknown ENFILADE which I also didn’t know when it appeared here in 2012, 2015 and 2016. I also struggled with OAF until I had the F-checker after looking up the suite of rooms – but even then I had to do a lengthy alphabet trawl. Elsewhere I had a lot of success and took some satisfaction and enjoyment from the solve, but overall I went away feeling deflated, not helped by having had a bad day on the QC too.

    Edited at 2018-11-21 06:50 am (UTC)

  3. Certainly didn’t feel like a championship puzzle. (‘Puppet on a String’, forsooth!) DNK the story of the ship, but did remember the Solent. DNK BALA, DNK (at least, never thought of) ALOO although I’ve had more than my share of aloo gobi over the years, DNK this sense of ENFILADE.
  4. 45 mins of fun and then deflation – during yoghurt, granola, blueberries, etc.
    DNF as I eventually gave up thinking of 4/5 letter countries (there was no way it could end in U), and thinking of 5/6 letter words for story. DNK Conte, which has left me feeling ignorant.
    And I thought Enfilade had to do with gunfire. Well I never.
    Thanks setter and wise owl.
  5. Good fun stuff, and I got them all right, but I won’t be entering the championships any time soon as it took me an hour and twelve.

    I really didn’t help myself by what I thought was my FOI: at 10a I took an L from “slap” for “brain” to give me SAP for “fool”, and didn’t unpick it until I convinced myself that the unlikely 8d ENFILADE *must* be an anagram, so 10a must be something else…

    Also slowed by APERÇU, EYOT and in the bottom half 19d, where my vocalophobia kicked in for a while when faced with E_A_I_E.

  6. I was expecting a real struggle but this a straight forward top to bottom stroll in the park – at least when solved sitting at home!

    APERCU no problem. I already had the checkers and always try Peru as an early candidate for 4 letter country.

    The Mary Rose at Portsmouth is quite spectacular along with Victory of course and the Naval Museum. Hours of fun.

  7. I was within two clues off finishing after 14 minutes. A couple of minutes later, I decided, correctly, that the suite must be the unknown ENFILADE. Desperate to beat 20 minutes, a couple of minutes later again, I biffed the miltary gear as CAPERIEL. So, I finished with one wrong and not even halfway to paradise. I liked WHOLLY-OWNED and ANTHOLOGIST, but COD to PROVERB. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2018-11-21 09:01 am (UTC)

  8. Despite not finishing, I wish I’d had this puzzle in my heat as I had all but two done in about 10 minutes. I then went for EMOT rather than EYOT though with hindsight I have seen EYOT before. I also didn’t manage ACONITE. I didn’t know aconite or conte, both of which I’d argue are at least semi-obscure so I’m left feeling slightly miffed by this clue.

    Edited at 2018-11-21 09:12 am (UTC)

  9. I’d have been alright with this one, 15.34 leaving (not enough) time for last week’s.
    ENFILADE IS about shooting. My Sharpe vocab kicked in with ideas about being caught in sweeping crossfire. Apparently it’s also what this says, like rooms on one of those endless hotel corridors. Nobody told me before.
    Did anyone else wonder how LOO meant potato? If only I’d thought to check where the A came from.
    Wiki: “There’s a common misconception that the Mary Rose sank on her maiden voyage”. Yup, me too. The real story is much more interesting.
    Cheers Pip: I’m informed, corrected and educated. What a wonder we possess between us.

    Edited at 2018-11-21 09:15 am (UTC)

    1. Maybe you are thinking of the Vasa in Stockholm, which sank in 1628 on its launch as the boss made them put too many guns on it. Top heavy. Amazing to visit the ship in its museum. Google it if you can’t go.
  10. Same as Kevin et al with ENFILADE and with not knowing the potato or the Mary Rose. Certainly much easier than last week’s and if this was puzzle #1 I would have been properly lulled, squeaking in with a just about passable 15 minutes. ACONITEs are deceptively pretty flowers coming in very fetching purplish blue or yellow. The yellow ones grew wild in my grandfather’s wood and I was warned not to pick them. Why am I doing this at 4a.m. (I’m sure you were wondering) – I’ve got the first cold I’ve had in 2 years and it feels like a beaut and I’m supposed to be doing Thanksgiving tomorrow. P.S. I think OR is “other” ranks Pip but it’s not MATERIEL. Now I’m going back to bed.
  11. Straightforward enough over a cup of coffee in familiar surroundings with just a couple of hesitations that might have caused meltdown in different circumstances. Learned a new meaning of ENFILADE. Just under the half hour so far ….
  12. Twenty minutes on the nose, making this much easier than yesterday’s, at least in my book.
  13. ….this wasn’t a battle.

    As previously noted, I did the Session 1 puzzles under test conditions, and this was Puzzle 1 in the booklet.

    I tackled it first, and reached the last four clues at 9:43 on the stopwatch – at that point I paused it, and moved on to Puzzle 2 and Puzzle 3. Having completed both of them straight off, I came back to this one, and wiped off the missing quartet in 83 seconds.

    I wouldn’t go so far as to call it the easiest Championship puzzle I’ve seen, even in the tougher environment of recent years, but it was certainly no major struggle and required zero biffing.

    FOI BALACLAVA
    LOI EYOT
    COD COWPAT
    TIME 11:06

    Pip : nice to be reminded of you at 25A. While you may not be enough of a speed merchant to mount a serious challenge at the Championship, the continued quality of your blogging here far surpasses what most of us could achieve. Thanks as ever.

  14. Quick solve, but had already seen it in heat 1. That said, couldn’t remember much of it 🙂
  15. Finals Day already seems like a distant memory, but I’m pretty sure I had no great hold-ups with this one, and even found time to be amused by 1dn – I think WHOLLY-OWNED took a while to reveal itself, and I’m pretty sure I’d not encountered the secondary meaning of ENFILADE (though yesterday I couldn’t remember a word from a puzzle six months ago, so who knows). When it became apparent that quite a few people had made an error in one of the morning puzzles, I was ready to put money on an over-hasty MATERIAL being responsible for some of them, as it was in 2015. All in all, a very fair and pleasant challenge which probably took around 10 minutes on the day.
  16. I found myself capable of getting 1a as soon as I looked at the clue, but then trod in a 1d. After that I made my 5a to the NE and used some 6d to clean my shoes. Solving the anagram at 8d(an unknown usage) allowed me to 14a, and the poisonous plant at 7d was both remembered and parsed, as CONTE surprisingly sprang to mind from a previous puzzle. I carried on in a clockwise direction until I was left with the remains of the 16d NW left to do. Peru erupted quickly once Rover had slipped into his lead, and the vaguely remembered APERCU slid into place. Finally the 21a 4d stared back at me, daring me to solve it for several more minutes, while a fruitless alphabet trawl dragged on, until a re-evaluation of the wordplay brought the lonely island into sight. A most enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip. 31:44.
  17. Yes I had a very hastily entered MATERIAL as well – prob because I was only vaguely aware of the alternative. Besides that I’d have had a reasonably respectable time.
  18. Gentler than others elsewhere today and I wasn’t defeated by the dreaded two letters of a four letter clue at the end, as I have been so often recently. A few unknowns including ENFILADE, which I too thought had something to do with a volley of gunfire, but the anagram was easy enough. It’s the second time MATERIEL has made an appearance in the last week or so (I can’t remember if it was here) which was a big help for 12a.

    All done in 34 minutes.

    My three favourites were up in the NW – COWPAT, APERCU (yes, PERU is a handy four letter country) and my last in, EYOT.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  19. This is the one I did in ten minutes on the day. It was as easy a championship puzzle as I can remember.
    The definition for 9ac is a bit odd. All companies are WHOLLY OWNED: this distinction is only relevant in the case of subsidiaries.
    1. I seem to recall from my tax inspector days that ‘wholly owned’ refers specifically to companies whose 100% shareholding is held directly or indirectly by another company, but then things may well have changed since I hung up my taxes acts!
      1. Yes a ‘wholly-owned subsidiary’ is a subsidiary whose parent owns 100% of its shares. If company A owns 51% of company B then B is a subsidiary of A, just not wholly-owned.
        The phrase ‘wholly owned company’ is meaningless.
        1. I think it’s sometimes used to mean a company owned by one entity, be that a single person or another company. I agree it’s a loose usage. Mind you, income tax was 8s3d in the pound when I passed my tax exams!
  20. 14.45, so reasonably straightforward; although (as with last week) I doubt I would have seen it that way on the day.

    EYOT dredged up from somewhere to be LOI, with ENFILADE just before it as the only vaguely word-looking thing I could come up with given the letters available.

    Nearly fell into the MATERIAL biff-trap, but managed to realise there was something not quite right with it.

  21. 24’11, OK for me. Good to remember Sandie Shaw dancing barefoot as she sang Puppet on a String. Liked the ‘fritter time’ clue.
  22. I was in the other preliminary on the day, and I’m glad I was because I seem to have made this into a real struggle. Not having come across ACONITE or ENFILADE I had to wait for all the checkers before putting them in (with fingers crossed on the latter), but why it took me so long to get PASSAGE I couldn’t say. Clearly off the boil today. 20m 13s in total, with 5d the LOI after I couldn’t get PENTATONAL out of my mind.
  23. It’s just as well I was in the 2nd prelim as I think I’d still have been staring at A-O-I-E when the hour expired. I didn’t know the plant and even if I’d stopped looking for a 6-letter story to truncate and focused on 5-letter short stories I’m not sure that CONTE would have come to mind.
  24. 18′ 52”, so times three that’s ….hmmm

    Excellent puzzle, really liked INSOLENT, and would certainly endorse a day’s visit to Portsmouth. ACONITE and ENFILADE unparsed.

    Thanks pip and setter.

  25. In the headline – this is 27201, not 27195.

    That apart, some helpful explanations there, for answers which I put in without completely understanding the workings, such as 14a and 13d.

  26. On the day this was the one I did least well on. Pity, as most of you have found it reasonably easy, so it was probably an opportunity to buy some minutes for the other two puzzles.

    I managed 20/30 correct answers in the time. I didn’t get Wholly Owned, Oaf, Apercu, Materiel, Be At A Loose End, Proverb, Eyot, Pentagonal, Aconite or Enfilade. I had come across all these words but I didn’t know the meaning of Materiel, Eyot or Enfilade.

    But I really should have got Proverb, Pentagonal and Enfilade and then I suspect the other seven clues would have meekly surrendered themselves to me!

    Ah well, next year ……

  27. Well, I’d have been bounced out of any competition as I was stumped completely by ACONITE. Didn’t know it, and forgot the relatively obscure ‘conte’. I also only knew the military usage of ENFILADE, which thankfully was an anagram, or it would never have occurred to me. So not the easiest champ level puzzle in my memory, not by a long shot. Regards.
  28. Well at least this was more or less the same consistency throughout, so pretty fair. Still the usual couple of clunkers though. Why would one be isolated on an eyot? I mean, I can see the remote possibility of it, but is that really a sufficient definition even with the question mark? If I had been good enough to qualify for the championships, with the journey and everything, I would have been a bit grumpy about failing on that one. Mr Grumpy
  29. 40 minutes, but after spending about 5 of them on 4dn, bunged in EROS as I couldn’t think of anything better.
    Otherwise, definition of 8dn was new to me, and I agree with keriothe about 9ac, though no major holdups otherwise.
  30. DNF. Being at home for a long weekend with Mrs H has left me out of practice and was two short after an hour. DNK the meaning of APERCU though vaguely recalled the word. MATERIEL – clearly they can’t spell in the army. ACONITE was a guess too though kind of recall the word.
  31. I’ve been following this blog for some time and have learnt so much from the explanations. Thank you all. I do the crossword every day but have not commented before as it has usually all been said! Today I took 5d a bit diffently – I had “working” as ON which follows TAG and the “about” just means to put them inside PENAL.
  32. Welcome. Your explanation just as good, if not better, both ok as “working” is often an anagrind and often = ON.
    1. Hmm I think Freia’s parsing is the only possible one: there is no anagram so “working” cannot be performing the function of anagrind

      FGBP

  33. 16:56 so I found this pretty easy but still a delight to solve. FOI 1ac. LOI 4dn. I was a bit held up by the unfamiliar 9ac, by 4dn where the wp was helpful once I cracked it and 5dn where I overlooked the rather obvious US DoD HQ def and chose to solve it the hard way. I think I was on the wavelength and had most of the vocab needed: conte (I always think of Maupassant when I see that word), aconite, materiel, Bala and eyot. As with others I knew the gunfire enfilade but not this meaning. Given that I needed 53 mins for last week’s puzzle it will be a nailbiting solve next week to see if I can complete the final puzzle in a little over minus 10 minutes to sneak under the hour for all three.
  35. Hi – this is a VERY late post as I’d printed this one and found it in a pocket over Christmas. 11ac, 12ac and 7dn needed your assistance – so thanks. I’d also like to point out that my printed copy has 27201 on it so it took me some time to find your blog based on the date. I see that all 3 of these competition puzzles has the first number so maybe that explains it.
  37. Whoa … dunno what happened there … anyway

    Thanks pipkerby and setter
    The Times puzzle arrives later down here in our Australian newspaper (about a month later). This was proof again that I’m a long way off entering any competition over there – taking well over the hour to complete. And missed the ALOO / potato part of 14a.
    Liked the INSOLENT clue although I did have to google what Henry VIII’s captain may have been doing there. The old chestnut SEDGE was my entry into the puzzle and MATERIEL Ithat I’ve seen before) and EYOT (with it’s vaguish definition) were my last couple.

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