Solving time: 25:48
So not much harder than the first puzzle of the first prelim, that being the easiest so far in my book. Perhaps I got a (for me) decent time because I’d just done battle with the Saturday and Sunday puzzles when I came to this one and had the skills a bit more honed than they usually are at my normal solving hour, breakfast time. Now I understand why competitors warm up early on the big day. (I also have some sympathy for Finals setters who must be confined to Times grids with exactly 30 answers.)
Conclusion: this is a puzzle with two quite difficult 14-letter answers with the rest much easier to see on first read. So 5dn and 9dn could have made the sheep/goat cut on the day. Perhaps?
Housekeeping: subbing for Jerry today in exchange for a December puzzle.
Across
1. ACCOST. Sound-alike for “a cost”. Nice simple one to get us going.
3. BARB,I,CAN. The “centre” here is a ref to the Barbican Centre, I assume. Though it is indeed also pretty central (London EC2). I saw Judi Dench there in Mother Courage in 1984. A stray chip from a block of wood she was chopping hit me. She looked concerned for a second. Most famous eye contact I’ve had.
10. MARCO POLO. Reverse CRAM (back-pack!), O (old), POLO (sport). One where the literal rather gives it away. Also the title of one of P. Simon’s youthful compositions … which I’m sure he wished were dead and buried. The price of fame.
11. WORST. Because it’s the opposite of “best” and also synonymous with it. Why “verbally” exactly? I.e., “in words”. But of course in words.
See Z8B8D8K's comment below for the other meaning of "verbally".
12. NOW,HERE. The source of many a poetic pun.
13. EARL,O.B.E. Nothing too difficult so far.
14. SHYER. Anagram of “sherry” minus one R. “To pour” — an interesting anagram indicator.
15. B,LENDING. We could almost have had “traditionally” rather than “typically” given the current functions of libraries.
18. BROWBEAT. B{oy}, ROW (brawl), BE AT (attend).
20. FIFTY. There are 10 letters in “Post Office” and 10 by five = ?
23. HEM,LOCK. HEM = “ahem”, for attracting attention. Not often mentioned in the Socrates family to this day. Though I bet Xanthippe said “Told him so” on more than one occasion.
25. ORLEANS. Anagram of L and “reason”. SALERNO also works if you have no checkers.
26. STIFF. Hidden answer.
27. AVER,AGING.
28. DOGTROTS. DOG (plague), TROTS (left-wingers). Side note: the crossing letters also allow DIGERATI. Will we see this at some point?
29. ATTEST. T (temperature) inside A, TEST. And so we get to the Downs without too many hiccups.
Down
1. ADMONISH. ADONIS inc M (maiden) + H. Our “handsome youth” was a rather obvious flag here. I seem to remember something to do with lettuces?
2. CARAWAY. CAR (wheels), AWAY (as in “away game”). Followed by another football reference.
3. SCORE DRAW. Our cryptic def for the day. I rather like the slightly paradoxical surface. A passable cd.
5. AFOREMENTIONED. This is FOREMEN inside an anagram of “idea not”. Now things are hotting up a bit. I’d guess this would be hard to get straight off.
6. BOWER. W (wife) inside BOER.
7. CARTOON. O (ring) inside CARTON (box).
8. N,UTTER. Took me a while to see this one. No idea why. Those concise surfaces always get me thinking of too many possibilities.
9. POWER BREAKFAST. FAST (quickly) which we are asked to set after POWER BREAK (outage). Again, needed a few checkers before this worked for me. Good clue though.
16. DEFOLIANT. Anagram: leaf don’t I. A well-made &lit. Bet George saw this right away.
17. EYESIGHT. Two sound-alikes — EYE (I), SIGHT (cite). I won’t go into the minor pedantic differences between citation and referencing.
19. RAMMING. RING (as in boxing) inc AMM (a male repeatedly).
21. FRAGILE. RAG (paper) inside FILE.
22. PHASED. Our third sound-alike: “fazed”.
24. OFFER. OFF (not taking), E (drug), R (right). Wot! Nothing to do with assassins?