Times 275609 – the Final final one, finally.

Author   pipkirbyPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Here we are in mid March (almost) and, three months on, I’m blogging the last of last year’s TCC puzzles, the one which finally decided that Mark Goodliffe a.k.a. magoo once again held the big prize ahead of John McCabe and Helen Ougham. Surprisingly, I didn’t find it particularly difficult, although had I travelled to London at the crack of dawn and already spent two hours finishing six other puzzles under pressure on the same day, I dare say I’d have been close to brain dead and unable to decipher much of it. My hat is permanently off to those happy masochists with this kind of stamina.

16d was a word I’d never seen before, although clearly of obvious derivation. Explaining 3d caused me some trouble, as did getting 20d and the long 28a, which I assumed was more complicated than it really was. Half an hour had it done.

Across
1 Simple decision that’s up for review (15)
UNSOPHISTICATED – (DECISIONTHATSUP)*. A fine anagram and really tight clueing.
9 British PM once interrupted by a cross martinet (6-3)
BATTLE-AXE – B (British), ATTLEE with A X inserted.
10 Stupid students swapping sides (5)
CRASS – Students = CLASS, swap the L for R.
11 Short Persian jockeys have ambition (6)
ASPIRE – Anagram of PERSIA, i.e. Persian short.
12 Carefully observe indefinite number returning to Lincoln, Nebraska (4,4)
NOTA BENE – N (indefinite number), OT (returning to), ABE (Lincoln), NE (Nebraska). Made much easier as soon as the easy 6d was in, making ?O?A look like it could be a bit of Latin.
13 Revolutionary Communist Party following dictator’s first move uncertainly (6)
DODDER – D (dictator’s first), then RED DO (Communist Party) reversed i.e. revolutionary.
15 Falling stock market index pulled back (8)
DOWNWARD – Very suitable clue for this week, if not for December 7th 2019. DOW the US index, then DRAWN (pulled) back (reversed).
18 American went down behind joint (8)
DOVETAIL – In America, it seems, the past tense of the verb DIVE is DOVE, not dived. Then TAIL = behind.
19 Pressing case for unpopular fellow (6)
URGENT – UR being the first and last, or ‘case’ of unpopular, and GENT being fellow.
21 Spreading solace around after vacation — social worker’s responsibility? (8)
CASELOAD – (SOLACE)* then AD = ArounD after vacation.
23 Vocal pair lay out rug (6)
TOUPEE – Homophone of TWO PAY = pair lay out.
26 Fungus still covering wings of aphids (5)
YEAST – still = YET, around AphidS.
27 Ignoring the odds, Kiwi nurses fool friend at first (9)
INITIALLY – I I = Kiwi ignoring the odd letters; insert NIT (fool) ALLY = friend.
28 Subversive character finally learnt good sense (15)
TREASONABLENESS – In spite of having the initial T and several other checkers, this took me longer than it should have; by ‘character’ I was thinking of a person rather than a character trait. And had not imagined the answer would be simply T (finally learnt) then REASONABLENESS all one word meaning good sense; I thought it might start with TRANS and end in NOUS for sense, at one early stage. But, too much thinking.

Down
1 In cheerful mood, trimming carpet (7)
UPBRAID – UP (in cheerful mood), BRAID (trimming stuff). Upbraid, carpet, reproach.
2 Lifting couch is exercise (3-2)
SIT-UP – PUT IS ‘lifting’ i.e. reversed. I think PUT = couch here, in the sense of ‘couch in so many words’.
3 Extremely miserable mate goes bust, losing vehicle (9)
PALTRIEST – PAL (mate) TRIES (goes, efforts), BUST loses its vehicle = BUS leaving the T.
4 State, or regularly misread, question (4)
IRAQ – m I s R e A d, Q for question.
5 Three piggies, one lacking energy for confrontation (3-2-3)
TOE-TO-TOE – toe toe toe loses an E for energy.
6 Gas and endless solid fuel for hot drink (5)
COCOA – CO (carbon monoxide), COA(L).
7 Brand new head of abattoir stopping production of red meat (9)
TRADENAME – N(ew), A(battoir), insert NA into (REDMEAT)*. I spent unnecessary time trying to justify TRADEMARK.
8 Nudist endearingly covering belly (7)
DISTEND – Hidden word in NU(DIST END)EARINGLY. Belly as a verb, belly out, distend.
14 Waste and junk kept turning up on side of lane (9)
DEVASTATE – SAVED (kept) reversed, TAT (junk), E (side of lane).
16 Snort ice, a synthetic drug (9)
NARCOTISE – (SNORT ICE A)*. Have we seen synthetic as an anagrind before? Presumably to drug with narcotics as a verb although as I said above, not a word I’d seen used.
17 Single French capitalist losing heart after run on bank (8)
RIPARIAN – R (run) I (single) PARISIAN loses its ‘heart’ IS. For me the word ‘riparian’ was made famous by the Hyancinth Bucket character in Keeping Up Appearances, she liked to organise ‘riparian feasts’ i.e. posh picnics by the river.
18 Make intelligible point after attack (7)
DECRYPT – PT after DECRY = attack, criticise.
20 Makes patterns drawn on my legs periodically (3-4)
TIE-DYES – TIED = drawn, YES = alternate letters of m Y l E g S.
22 Plant contents of husk under patch of ground (5)
LOTUS – LOT = patch of ground, US = centre of husk.
24 Cry about small sign of life (5)
PULSE – PULE (cry plaintively) around S.
25 Member left Bengali film club at last (4)
LIMB – L (left) then end letters of Bengal-I fil-M clu-B.

​

53 comments on “Times 275609 – the Final final one, finally.”

  1. I thought this was surprisingly straightforward for a championship final puzzle. Looking at it now I see no unusual vocabulary (except NARCOTISE, which as Pip says is unusual but easily derived) and no tortuous parsing. Indeed I’m wondering what took Magoo so long 😉
  2. I was doing really well with this and had a smooth-flowing solve going but eventually succumbed to tiredness with more than 3/4 neatly completed, and nodded off thus losing track of my solving time. I think it was probably around 30 minutes to that point. On resumption this morning I had 4 unsolved, all in the SW corner and unfortunately these took me in the region of another half-hour. They were DOVETAIL, DECRYPT DEVASTATE and CASELOAD – none of which are difficult words but obviously the clues managed to deceive me for far too long.

    DK PULE or understand ‘belly’ as a verb meaning DISTEND. Fortunately I had seen RIPARIAN in another puzzle very recently so it came readily to mind.

    Edited at 2020-03-11 07:53 am (UTC)

  3. …a puzzle completed, “unaided” in 8 Magoos is a win for me!
    Thanks for explaining PALTRIEST and DEVASTATE, Pip. Now you can go back to blogging ‘normal’ puzzles!
  4. something under 40′, the last few minutes taken up with POI DOVETAIL and LOI PALTRIEST. (‘dove’ is a possible past tense for ‘dive’ in the US, but ‘dived’ is also heard.) I had no trouble with PULSE, until I read Jack’s comment and finally realized that I didn’t know the word and was confounding it with ‘mule’ as in Jacques’s first stage of man, ‘muling and puking in his mother’s arms’. Well, it worked. 1ac very impressive, as was 17d. As with last week’s, I felt chuffed to have finished without an error.
  5. 16:25. I remember trying this on the day and getting nearly 1/3 way through before Magoo finished. NHO PULE for cry, so PULSE had to go in on trust. LOI DEVASTATE.
  6. 18.25, which I think looks quite good. There were (deliberately?) a number of traps for the hasty filler: TRADEMARK, NARCOTICS, TREASONOUSNESS and more, which clearly didn’t fool Magoo (they did me for a while). But a kind enough puzzle given its purpose.
  7. Much as Jack with a few missing and an error at 13ac DITHER not DODDER! Top half not so bad – south west a wasteland. Oh! and 23ac COUPLE not TOUPEE

    FOI 2dn SIT UP

    COD 1ac UNSOPHISTICATED

    WOD 17dn RIPARIAN

    Time 1 hour 5 minutes and 57 seconds…

  8. Spent ages on 17dn thinking I didn’t know any French capitalists.

    Words I wasn’t expecting to be verbs: drug, belly.

    COD: 1ac, lovely anagram; 18dn a close second

    Answer from yesterday – westernmost point of the island of Great Britain is Corrachadh Mor on the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Argyllshire – the UK is more tilted than most people realise (inspired by LIZARD).

    Question inspired by a clue: what is the only US state that has no letters in common with its capital?

    1. When my parents lived in Bath and I was at university in Edinburgh, people found it hard to believe that I was going to end up west of where I started when I drove back to college after a vacation.

      And I’ve even been to Ardnamurchan point (well to the pub and the lighthouse…I’m not sure exactly where the westernmost point is precisely)

    2. Superb question. It just seems so unlikely that there’s only one!
  9. What a beautifully crafted puzzle and worthy of the Final. No problems but I needed to concentrate throughout. COD to the long anagram at 1a. Thanks setter.
  10. I was really enjoying this with only the tricky SW corner to go at the half hour mark when I pressed submit by mistake. There is no return from that error so I can only guess how long DOVETAIL, DEVASTATE and RIPARIAN would have taken… possibly quite a while. Lots of pink was my outcome.

    Request to The Times: could you add an ‘Are you sure?’ to give clumsy fingers a chance to retreat from this catastrophic mistake, which is quite easy to make on a phone early in the morning (I once did it with NO clues completed!)?

    Anyway a superb puzzle and thanks for the blog Pip.

  11. 46 minutes, so easier than I would have expected for the grand final, but tricky even so. LOI RIPARIAN, which I didn’t know, although I think I have heard the word.I only watched Hyacinth Bucket very occasionally. There weren’t many groan-worthy clues but maybe they wouldn’t be welcome by the contestants. COD to TOE-TO-TOE. Thank you Pip and setter.
  12. A masterly puzzle, with some great surfaces. Should have been a bit quicker, but took too long to twig the French capitalist, and was held up near the start by ‘almost’ seeing cortisone for the drug, and thereby getting fixated on a noun rather than a verb.
    1. My wife is from South Dakota, I look forward to sharing that nugget with her.
    2. Can you please explain why South Dakota, which has an S, 2 Ts, an H, 2 Os, 2 As and a D in it?! (As in Washington DC?!)
      Aha! The “its” refers to the State, not the US, so “Pierre”!
      The dime has dropped!
  14. Thanks Kevin, it’s in Pip’s blog but it had never occurred to me until I read that.
    1. Whereas I managed not to read it, and to offer a gratuitous comment 2 days in a row.
  15. 26 mins; no dramas.
    If you gave me the answer sheet, a blank grid and a pencil I would struggle to copy out the correct answers in under 6 minutes.
    Thanks pip.
  16. 11:05, but I miscounted the letters in 16dn and ended up with NARCOTINE. This is the disadvantage of solving on the train, where you can’t write out the letters.
    I had completely lost track of where we were in the sequence so was surprised to discover that this was the last of the competition puzzles. Of course I had no memory of the puzzle itself, but I remember finding it reasonably straightforward on the day: I actually finished it before Helen Ougham, which just goes to show that wavelength is a thing, whatever the cause might be.

    Edited at 2020-03-11 10:37 am (UTC)

  17. I recall Richard Rogan mentioning on the day that this puzzle was set by Sarah Hayes. Solvers may have also seen her consistently witty and elegant puzzles in the Guardian and FT under the bylines Arachne and Rosa Klebb respectively.
  18. Anyone of a certain vintage remembers Johnny Preston’s 1960 hit Running Bear, about young native American lovers stranded on opposite banks of a raging river as their tribes were at war. Eventually they could stand it no longer; Running Bear dove in the water, Little White Dove did the same; sadly they both drowned, and are now in the happy hunting ground.
    1. I’d happily forgotten that toe-curlingly awful song. Thanks a whole bunch for reminding me Rich!
      1. Do you remember Wally Cox doing a take-off? Hell, do you remember Wally Cox?
        1. DNK him Kevin. I didn’t get to the US until round about when he died.
    2. A must at our family parties. We all made the background grunts while my brother sang the heartrending lyrics. (Usually followed by Old Shep and Ebony Eyes) They don’t write songs like that any more…
    1. I remember, alas; and I remember preferring to think that Little White Dove loved running bare.
  20. Straightforward but not particularly easy this one. As others have noted, 1a is a masterpiece. As Z mentions I tried to work with “trademark” for a while. Didn’t parse PALTRIEST – good one. The only quibble I have is with the definition in 9a. I think of a BATTLE-AXE as an unpleasantly formidable woman, usually also described as “old” and, it’s implied, ugly. I think of a martinet as a disciplinarian. 22.14
    1. I agree about martinet. One flaw in an otherwise exemplary puzzle.
  21. Nice puzzle, which actually rang bells more loudly than the ones which I solved competitively have done over the last few weeks. Like others, I was surprised the organisers didn’t unveil an absolute beast for the Grand Final, but, of course, the result would likely have been the same, and we’d all just have had to wait around a little longer to see the prizes awarded and get to the pub. Made a special error of my own by putting in a hasty, and obviously wrong, CORTISONE at 16dn, so that needed correcting.
    1. Another cortisone user! It seemed so obvious, and took far too long to get back on the right track.
  22. I managed this, but it took me 49:57. I had all but the SW and 28a solved in around 30 minutes, but those last few had me going round in circles until I noticed that NARCOTICS didn’t fit the clue(I’d also started with TRADEMARK and had to correct that), and changed it to NARCOTISE. That allowed me to get 28a, and I twigged RIPARIAN and CASELOAD which allowed me to finally get DEVASTATE and DOVETAIL. Mostly straightforward, but the SW was tricky. Thanks setter and Pip.
  23. Even an UNSOPHISTICATED bloke like myself managed to rattle off all but 3 clues. PALTRIEST didn’t seem to match the clue, but on reflection I suppose it just about does. RIPARIAN LOI no idea about the French capitalist till I came here. TOE TO TOE COD when I eventually twigged
  25. I took my time and never felt terribly stuck, though the parsing of PALTRIEST took a while (and it’s really kind of amazing) and I had the same cognitive dissonance as Olivia over BATTLE AXE. My LOI was RIPARIAN.
  26. Three-quarters went in without the expected brain-ache but that did creep up for the rest; but though no time recorded it didn’t feel too bad. An amusing puzzle in the true sense.
  27. I rarely have a go at the 15×15 but I was interested to see how I fared, without aids, on this particular puzzle. I allowed myself 1 hour and was surprised to see that I was close to completing the grid. I had 3 clues left… NOTA BENE (should have got that one), DEVASTATE (would have got it with more time) and RIPARIAN (not a hope). Thanks Pip for the blog.
  28. What a toughie! Kept at it and really pleased to finish but it took me 44.36 . I can’t imagine how demotivating it must have been to see the winner finish in under six minutes, a real “I’ll get my coat “moment!

    Loads of cracking clues. Just to note a few narcotise, caused me angst before I realised it was a verb not a noun. Liked 18 across as well as 23 especially. LOI paltriest.

    Easy one tomorrow please..

  29. I was expecting this to be a beast so it was a pleasant surprise to find that it was a steady solve. I have to say the Magoo’s time is amazing. When I reached that point I’d filled in about 3 or 4 answers and hadn’t even read half the clues.
  30. Very fine clue, that 1ac..
    I’m pleased to say I never read the bit at the top till I had it completed, so it did not intimidate. Still, Mark’s time is quite safe from me
  31. If the setter wanted to indicate a superlative, then they should have used ‘most miserable’. Or ‘mate goes bust having lost vehicle-becomes most miserable’. As the clue is written, the superlative isn’t indicated in any sense whatsoever. Magoo must have bifd that one. Mr Grumpy
  32. DNF. Bah! Very annoying. I completed the puzzle in just over 23 mins but didn’t pay enough attention at 16dn and put narcosite instead of narcotise. I thought this was a puzzle of high quality craftsmanship whilst being surprisingly accessible for a Grand Final crossword. Certainly not the fearsome toughie I expected after reading the rubric at the top. Loved 1ac. I appear to have missed the bus at 3dn. I was sorely tempted by trademark but fortunately just couldn’t make it work. The French capitalist was a nice touch.
  34. ….I had this about two thirds finished when Magoo triumphed, and quickly wrapped it up on the Tube back to the hotel.

    It was my opinion, which I’d love to have officially confirmed, that this was the easiest puzzle of the day, and was designed to be a time trial for the three finalists.

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