Hello again. A nice, straightforward jumbo with some classy surface readings and no queries, once I had 4dn sorted. I don’t record times but I managed it in a single sitting, despite my short attention span..
Please, do feel free to ask questions or comment as required.
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 | Quiet in stomach, after upset at first: result! (6) |
| UPSHOT – U(pset) + SH in POT, a stomach. Thanks to my chemo I am developing one of these, and it is very irritating! | |
| 5 | Cats, say, not usually considered this when yowling? (7) |
| MUSICAL – A truism. My lovely Maine Coon, Trillian, proud mother of 12, (see 3dn!) used to make the most extraordinary noises when on heat, prior to her inevitable visit to the vet… | |
| 9 | Spin, then nothing followed in speech, getting spin out (8) |
| PROTRACT – PR (spin) + O + TRACT, sounds like tracked, followed. | |
| 13 | How for a while the French marked the turning of the year? (13,8) |
| REVOLUTIONARY CALENDAR – a CD. I was relieved not to have to remember one of the various months.. fructidor, pluviose .. but overall the calendar, properly called the calendrier républicain, sounds a lot of fun when compared to the one we use. | |
| 14 | Resolution to support band, but not with single (8) |
| BACKBONE – BACK (to support) + B(and), + ONE (single). I liked the “band but not with (= and)” | |
| 15 | Temporary home schooling period across island (7) |
| INTERIM – IN (home) + I(sland) in TERM, a schooling period. | |
| 16 | Foolish and irrational to interrupt boss (6) |
| STUPID – PI, an irrational number, in STUD, a boss | |
| 17 | Obviously highly amused, mutating this insect (2,8) |
| IN STITCHES – *(THIS INSECT) | |
| 20 | Rhymes used by old-fashioned teacher? (5,3,4) |
| CHALK AND TALK – a CD. The only kind of school teacher I ever had! Whiteboards etc only at uni. | |
| 23 | Scottish bank’s asinine utterance picked up (4) |
| BRAE – sound’s like “bray” | |
| 24 | Englishman perhaps holding small light stood up (8) |
| BRISTLED – S(mall) in BRIT (Englishman, perhaps) + LED (light) | |
| 26 | Press bell and run away? One’s fixed with an eye (8) |
| RINGBOLT – RING + BOLT, run away. Like these.. | |
| 29 | Flawed company involved in wasted money — with this? (5,7) |
| FALSE ECONOMY – FALSE (flawed) + CO(mpany) in *(MONEY) | |
| 30 | Spot extremely colourful animal? Yes and no, after reflection (4,4,2) |
| CLAP EYES ON – C(olourfu)L + APE + YES + NO, rev. | |
| 32 | Ransack mountains where there is much shooting (5,5) |
| RIFLE RANGE – RIFLE (ransack) + RANGE, mountains | |
| 34 | Hesitate as stupid woman putting in hour with each son (6-6) |
| SHILLY-SHALLY – SILLY + SALLY, each with an H(our) after the S. Reminds me of Sean Connery, somehow.. | |
| 36 | American can relax, given space (4,4) |
| REST ROOM – REST (relax) + ROOM (space). Two of the many available euphemisms for lavatory. Which is itself a euphemism, I suppose.. | |
| 38 | Yearn to enter a crack corps? Provided (2,4,2) |
| AS LONG AS – LONG (yearn) in A SAS, your crack corps | |
| 39 | Travel by railway is bloody (4) |
| GORY – GO + RY, a quick cryptic escapee | |
| 41 | Show where Detroit and Adelaide are closely linked? (4,3,5) |
| GUYS AND DOLLS – a 1950 musical, in which Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide are leading characters. I didn’t know that but with a checker or two it’s still a write-in. | |
| 43 | Be ruthless, smashing public convenience (3,7) |
| BUS SHELTER – *(BE RUTHLESS) | |
| 44 | Actor finally entering stage for a few words (6) |
| PHRASE – (acto)R in PHASE | |
| 46 | Cried beside us in Vienna, perhaps still harbouring bugs (7) |
| UNSWEPT – UNS (German for us) + WEPT (cried). Slightly strange definition! | |
| 48 | Abandon playwright for worthless piece (8) |
| KICKSHAW – KICK (abandon) + George Bernard SHAW. Not a word I’ve ever used. | |
| 50 | Where to look up barrister? (3,8,10) |
| THE CHAMBERS DICTIONARY – a CD. Not an &lit, in the absence of any wordplay. Always used to be the must-have dictionary for serious Mephisto solvers and Club Monthly bloggers .. I used to buy every new edition as it was published. Probably I won’t bother in future, apps are taking over. The current 13th Edition has been around for some years and sales must surely be dwindling. | |
| 51 | Artist and what he may wet with touch of red (8) |
| WHISTLER – WHISTLE + R(ed). Wetting one’s whistle, a quaint and slightly archaic 44ac. The artist could be Laurence, or his better-known brother Rex, who had the misfortune to be killed in Normandy in WWII. | |
| 52 | Powerful family departs, some upset by scene of squalor (7) |
| DYNASTY – D(eparts) + ANY rev., + STY, a scene of squalor although pigs don’t see it that way at all. | |
| 53 | Agreement that others will pay for years (6) |
| TREATY – TREAT + Y(ears) | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Source of cheese roll initially eaten by parents (5) |
| PARMA – R(oll) inside PA and MA. If somebody mentions Parma I tend to think of ham not cheese, but it is indeed a source of parmesan cheese. | |
| 3 | Well-off people storing equipment: number show anxiety (4,7) |
| HAVE KITTENS – KIT (equipment) + TEN, in HAVES, well-off people. A strange phrase, the more so as in my experience cats are very calm and self-possessed mothers. Despite never having attended an antenatal class, or even had a chat with their mother, they somehow know exactly what to do, and just get on and do it. | |
| 4 | In addition, husband pocketing pounds for roadside kiosk (8) |
| TOLBOOTH – I struggled with this.. I saw TOO, which has LB for pounds in it, and then H for husband. But where did the extra OT come from? I think in fact the answer is just L (pounds) in TO BOOT (in addition) + the H. I would spell it tollbooth but apparently tolbooth is an accepted alternative. | |
| 5 | What abbot would assume his back is covered in muck? (5) |
| MITRE – (abbot)T in MIRE, muck. Which presumably abbots wear as well as bishops. | |
| 6 | Lies from southern politicians (7) |
| STORIES – S(outhern) TORIES | |
| 7 | Fancy lay Catholic not in any order (11) |
| CHAOTICALLY – *(LAY CATHOLIC) | |
| 8 | Philosopher under large blanket (5) |
| LAYER – L(arge) + (AJ) Ayer, philosopher | |
| 9 | Footballer who creates dramatic scenes? (9) |
| PLAYMAKER – a DD, one of them a bit whimsical. | |
| 10 | Missing the start, reports on spells in game (5) |
| OVERS – (c)OVERS, reports on | |
| 11 | Valiant suspect again? (11) |
| REDOUBTABLE – another DD, if you are re-doubtable you can be doubted again I guess | |
| 12 | My face is friendly (7) |
| CORDIAL – COR (my) + DIAL (face) | |
| 18 | Back-to-back opera and West End production share a founding standard (9) |
| NORMATIVE – NORMA (opera) and EVITA (musical), put back-to-back and very slightly merged. A very neat clue! | |
| 19 | Talk tediously about old killer (7) |
| HARPOON – O(ld) in HARP ON | |
| 21 | Caught wearing extra habit (9) |
| ADDICTION – C(aught) in ADDITION | |
| 22 | Foolishness of many points surrounding love (8) |
| NONSENSE – O in a sea of compass points. A bit of a lazy clue? | |
| 25 | Jackson’s display stand contains only second-hand things? (9) |
| STONEWALL – O NEW in STALL, a display stand. An interesting man, Stonewall Jackson, a great general and a sad victim of “friendly fire.” | |
| 27 | Dissipating real gloom to take on major importance (4,5) |
| LOOM LARGE – *(REAL GLOOM) | |
| 28 | Gradually overcome resistance of dress with feathers (4,4) |
| WEAR DOWN – WEAR (dress) DOWN (feathers) | |
| 31 | A stammering king’s very attentive (3,4) |
| ALL EARS – A L-LEARS’S .. stammering, geddit? | |
| 33 | Scurrying around, tolerates us idle folk (5-6) |
| LOTUS-EATERS – *(TOLERATES US). From Homer’s Odyssey, originally | |
| 34 | Assistant’s service trimming top in hairdresser’s (11) |
| SALESPERSON – (v)ESPERS (a service) in SALON, which may be a hairdresser’s. Vespers is an evening service, Anglicans would call it evensong. | |
| 35 | In wild anger, lashes loss of spirit (6,5) |
| ANGELS SHARE – *(ANGER LASHES). The spirit that evaporates over time from a barrelful of eg Armagnac or Cognac. | |
| 37 | Two months suggested? Perhaps June and July (9) |
| MIDSUMMER – Mid summer is MM, two months .. | |
| 40 | We hear payment method ready for use, here? (8) |
| CHECKOUT – sounds like “cheque out” | |
| 42 | Perhaps missed church to get a divorce? (7) |
| UNHITCH – UNHIT (missed) + CH(urch) | |
| 43 | Buffet is full of eats, principally sandwiches (7) |
| BUTTIES – BUTT (buffet, hit) + E(ats) in IS | |
| 45 | William Brown’s sister bore the lined curtains off (5) |
| ETHEL – hidden, as above. I think it is a reference to the Just William children’s stories by Richmal Crompton. | |
| 47 | Almost secure someone else’s place? (5) |
| STEAD – STEAD(y) (secure, almost) you take someone’s place if you go in their stead. | |
| 48 | First person on the water, taking key, vacated outside pool (5) |
| KITTY – I TT (teetotaler) in K(e)Y, key vacated. | |
| 49 | So far unknown in a group (2,3) |
| AS YET – Y (unknown, along with X and Z), in A SET | |
A couple of DNKs: CHALK AND TALK (I knew chalk talk, but), ANGELS SHARE. UNSWEPT: I think the allusion is to hidden listening devices: ODE sv ‘sweep’ def 3. I didn’t expect UNS to be part of our foreign language GK. I assumed KICKSHAW to be archaic; I only know it from Twelfth Night. And I assumed the WHISTLER of 51ac to be James, best known for the picture of his mother.
Angels share: I knew this, only because there used to be a magazine advert (in Private Eye?) that banged on about it.
Unswept: ah, yes, thanks. That must be it.
Kickshaw: I knew the word, as a fancy foreign dish; possibly from Georgette Heyer. The latest quotation in OED is from 1882, but neither OED nor Collins marks that usage as archaic.
Whistler: When I thought of Whistler I thought of Rex, but yes, the American one is at least as well known.
I should confess that one reason I thought of James Whistler. was because I didn’t know of any other. He’s also the author of the witticism that provoked Oscar Wilde to say, ‘I wish I had said that’. To which Whistler replied, ‘You will, Oscar, you will.’
I just thought ‘the one with the mother’: I didn’t know his first name, and if pressed I might have said it was Rex.
I didn’t understand the wordplay for TOLBOOTH so thanks for that, Jerry. Nor the spelling with a single L, now I come to think of it.
RINGBOLT was too technical to be in my vocabulary. It’s one of the many items I’d refer to as a ‘thingy’ whilst knowing exactly what it looks like and what it’s used for . Still I managed to work it out from wordplay.
I was going to say I NHO ANGEL’S SHARE, but having read more about it I now recognise it, probably from visiting a distillery rather than solving a crossword.
As I mentioned to Kevin, there used to be a regular advert in Private Eye that featured it. I can’t remember what it was selling, so clearly the wrong part stuck in my mind!
For TOLBOOTH (notwithstanding that I thought it had a double L), I had L for the first pound and BOOT for the second as in a verb meaning to beat. I think I prefer the TO BOOT explanation though. Now I write this down, I realise I have used one of the Os twice, as I had TOO for In Addition. So I think I’ll have to say thanks for the explanation 🙂
NHO LOTUS EATERS, ANGELS SHARE, ETHEL as William Brown’s sister or NORMA the opera. Had to resort to ChatGPT for the latter two, managed to work out the others from the anagram and crossers.
Thought I’d never heard of the Revolutionary Calendar before but after I’d put it in and Googled it, I realised I’d seen that Wikipedia page before. So it has probably been in a previous Jumbo. I’m sure somebody could confirm or deny that.
I’m fairly sure I have seen at least mentions of it. Some of the months, eg Thermidor, Germinal are reasonably well known, and have the advantage of alternative meanings that make them grist for the setter’s mill..
Nice one. “The Angels’ Share” was a Ken Loach film in which they siphoned off a few bottles of a fine rare whisky from the barrel under cover of that phenomenon. Good fun
– Not familiar with CHALK AND TALK as an expression
– Relied on wordplay for the unknown KICKSHAW
– Can’t recall seeing that spelling of TOLBOOTH before
– Didn’t parse STONEWALL
– NHO ANGELS SHARE
Thanks Jerry and setter
FOI Parma
LOI Kickshaw
COD Cordial
This was a lot easier than it seemed: it felt really tricky while I was solving it but I somehow got it all done in less than half an hour. Lots of stuff I didn’t know.
The Old Tolbooth(one L and long ago torn down) was a famous prison in Edinburgh which featured prominently in Sir Walter Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian. I had to read it for school and think it involved a woman(Jenny Dean?) who was convicted of having a baby out of wedlock and walked to London to try to get the King to pardon her. I can’t remember how it turned out!
Well, after looking it up I see it was Effie Deans who had the baby while her sister Jeannie walked to London to secure a pardon for her from the Queen.
She gets her pardon .. but it sounds a lively book! Four volumes and a lot happened …
We felt the same way – an orderly progression from top-left to bottom-right. Not too keen on Kickshaw or the deletion-style clue for Stead, but these are minor quibbles in the context of an enjoyable puzzle. In particular, Shilly-Shally raised a smile!