Returning to this puzzle, I find I recorded a solving time of an hour and a quarter. Casting my mind back a couple of weeks, I’m pretty certain this was as a result of solving in relaxed fashion while watching the Test match on TV, or something similar, rather than finding it exceptionally difficult, but let’s blog and find out…
(some time later) Verdict: no, slightly on the tough side of average, I’d say, without being a real head-scratcher. Some very good clues (especially one or two definitions), and a tentative question mark or two; though I think I’m safe in saying that the posters who occasionally complain about a perceived bias towards Arts rather than Sciences will not be pleased with this puzzle, especially in the amount of Shakespearean knowledge required.
With Jumbos I generally confine myself to discussion of answers which I think might be a) less straightforward for inexperienced or non-UK based solvers, or b) especially elegant / questionable. However, as always, if a particular clue is not discussed, please feel free to raise it in comments for explanation or discussion.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 |
PETER RABBIT – PET + ERR + [B |
| 7 | MAGIC CIRCLE – a magic circle would be a non-natural shape; the Magic Circle is a “tricky group” in being the professional body of stage magicians. |
| 13 |
GREED – |
| 14 | UNSWEPT – i.e. (them) ‘UNS WEPT. |
| 15 | BEEFEATER – FEE(rev) in BEATER; much on display amongst the current glut of Royal 1dn. |
| 16 | ADORNMENT – R.N. MEN in A DOT. |
| 17 | AMELIORATE – the prophet might introduce himself with (I) AM ELI, then ORATE. |
| 24 | HECKLER – cryptic def.; a recent repeat of QI taught me that “heckler” originally was a specific job title in the Scottish textile trade, and these workers were famously bolshie, hence the transference of the name. |
| 26 |
PRE-RAPHAELITES – (REAPPRAISETHEL |
| 33 |
INFIDELITY – (L |
| 37 | ACORN – COR(=my!) in AN; not the sort of fruit cup you might drink, then, but a neat misdirection instead. |
| 39 | FULL STEAM AHEAD – cryptic def. referring to the way a speedy traveller might proceed in the age of steam. |
| 41 | BRACELET – 16 (across) is ORNAMENT (rare to see internal references in these puzzles): split that up and you get BRACE(two) + LET(allowed). |
| 44 | NODDIES – NOD + DIES; the noddy is a sort of tern. |
| 45 | TARDIER – replace the S at the heart of TARSIER with a D. |
| 47 | LIONS SHARE – to get this you need to be aware that the “mechanicals” referred to are the amateur thespians who perform Pyramus and Thisbe, the play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Nights Dream; and that the action of that play involves a lion. I interpreted the answer element as saying “Yes, there is a lion involved in the action”, but “No, it’s not the key part of the play”, hence “Yes and no”. People who aren’t familiar with the text will have presumably just screamed; and without getting into the vexed question of what constitutes “general” knowledge, which a setter should be allowed to assume exists in any solver, it certainly strikes me that the mechanicals crop up in Times puzzles far more often than their wider cultural significance would suggest is appropriate. |
| 49 |
CAPARISON – C |
| 54 | ISOLATE – rewriting the question “IS 0 LATE?”. |
| 55 | IDAHO – 1 + DAHO(mey); in isolation, tricky without the knowledge that what is now Benin was Dahomey until 1960, though I guess the checkers make it fairly obvious without it. |
| 57 | TEMPERAMENT – [ERA MEN] in TEMPT. |
| Down | |
| 1 | PAGEANTRY – AN TRY under PAGE. |
| 2 |
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY – adding Y |
| 3 |
RADON – RA |
| 5 |
BESOTTED – [SO T.T.(dry) |
| 7 | MATTERHORN – MATTER(subject) + HORN(instrument); another misleading definition, but it is true that the mountain in question is hard to climb, and hence a “difficult scale”. |
| 8 | GOBBI =”GOBBY”. Is it considered fair game to clue a person simply by his Christian name, however unusual? |
| 10 |
IDENTICAL – [1 |
| 11 | CITY – take the “oventr” from COVENTRY and replace it with IT; the surface reads true because WWII bombing did indeed cause the centre of Coventry to need almost complete rebuilding (but not necessarily improvement, unfortunately). |
| 12 |
EURO – |
| 27 |
CONTEMPT – CON(prisoner) + TEMP(casual worker) + |
| 28 | BRIEFING – for once, the crossword Cockney isn’t dropping his aitches, but turning THING into FING, this particular FING relating to BRIE. The most notable Cockney fings were those immortalised by Lionel Bart. |
| 34 | LEEDS UNITED =”LEADS” UNITED. Forever known as Dirty Leeds if you’re old enough to remember the team of Charlton, Bremner, Hunter et al. |
| 38 | CHARLADIES – AD in CHARLIES; I spent quite some time working this out, possibly because I’d characterise charladies as working more in domestic settings rather than offices, but to be fair, there is a “maybe” in there. |
| 40 | SPIRITUAL – 1 T.U. in SPIRAL; the House of Lords contains Lords Spiritual (bishops) and Lords Temporal (political affiliates). |
| 48 | SERGE =”SURGE”. |
| 50 | RAITA – ferraRA ITAlian. If you wanted an accurate surface, Tzatziki would be geographically closer, but far more difficult to form into a hidden word clue… |
I couldn’t make up my mind whether the “people” in 14ac were a common version of “them” or of “Huns”.
My interpretation of 47ac is that the LION’S SHARE of MSND is far from being the LION’S SHARE. Which is probably just a slightly different way of saying what you’re saying.
Certainly not “Dirty Leeds” to a Yorkshireman like me – though I suppose Hunter could be a bit hard occasionally.