Times Jumbo 925 (14 May 2011)

Time: About two and a half hours over several sessions.

I notice a few comments on the forum from other solvers saying how straightforward they found this. Well I found it a struggle from start to finish. I guess I just wasn’t on the setter’s wavelength. Looking back on it, it shouldn’t have been that hard.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 NOSTRADAMUS = DARTS rev + AM all in NOUS (French for ‘we’)
7 STAGE FRIGHT – cd
13 INDEFINITE ARTICLE – dd, the first being Perhaps ‘an’
14 FETED = “FATED”
15 VIRGIn + Latin
16 STEP + O + NIT
17 NARWHAL = (W + RAN) rev + HAL – Prince Hal and Falstaff were drinking buddies in Shakespeare’s King Henry IV
19 RACONTEUR = CON in RAT + RUE rev
21 NO + NSE/NSE
23 M(housE)OW
25 IMAGE = 1 MAGE
27 G + RANGE
28 TINSELTOWN = (WON’T LISTEN)*
30 HO + T(S + P)OTS
31 SOLOMON ISLANDS = (MANSIONS SO OLD + L)*
34 BAR + GAIN + COUNTER
35 PLAy + TONIC
38 TEND + IN + IT IS
40 PI + LOTS
41 STEIN – Gertrude is the writer
43 pLACE
44 ALL ALONG – cd
45 PROSELYTE = PROSE + “LIGHT” – is prose necessarily ‘boring’ talk?
48 FL(A + M)ING
49 ACADEMIA = A + CADE + AIM rev – Jack Cade is the rebel
50 UPCAST = Undertake Passenger Comfort Action Silly Twaddle – a ventilation shaft that carries air out of a mine
53 EASE + L
54 BESIDE THE QUESTION – I’ve never come across this as a phrase before. ‘Beside the point’ or ‘out of the question’, but not this. So it took me ages to get it.
55 DI’S + HO(NEST)LY
56 RATTLESNAKE = (NEAT TALKER’S)*
Down
1 NAIL VARNISH – cd – the quick being part of the fingernail
2 SE(Door)ER – a ritualized dinner observed during Passover
3 gRUFF + IAN
4 DANE = “DEIGN”
5 MET(A + TAR’S)AL
6 STAMPING GROUND – although the wordplay just seems to clue ‘Stamping’
7 SE TENANT – a term that describes different stamps that are printed connected on the same sheet specifically for collectors.
8 A + SCOT
9 ETERNISES = (SITES NE’ER)*
10 REFORM = Religious Education FORM
11 GET THEE TO A NUNNERY – dd
12 TIDDLY + WINKS
18 HEIGHTEN = (THE HINGE)*
20 CHATTERING CLASSES – dd
22 EDITOR = RODE rev about IT – it makes a change for ‘journalist’ to not be just ED
24 ULULATES = SET A LULU all rev
26 EMPHATIC = (Make + IT CHEAP)* – a very rare instance of a definition embedded in the middle of a clue
29 COVERING LETTER – dd
32 ILL + US + I + ON
33 GO + DIVA
34 BATTLEFIELD = “BAT’LL FIELD”
36 CONCERTANTE = (CORNET CAN’T)* + E (fifth grade)
37 COM(PL + I)MENT
39 ILL + EG + bIBLE
42 CO(WARD + Look)Y
46 EX + POSES
47 RIAL + TO
49 AS + SET
51 ANIMAl
52 HULLo – We had ‘hallo’ in the Sunday puzzle last week, and ‘hullo’ here. Neither spelling is particularly familiar to me.

18 comments on “Times Jumbo 925 (14 May 2011)”

  1. Hmm, when I submitted this I scored 580 which I assumed was 1 mistake, but of course with a jumbo it turns out to be two mistakes.. I put tendonitis (never having heard of tendinitis until now) and then forced the wonderful word “expiator” into the remaining space in 26dn. Looking back, neither word really fits the wordplay in any explicable fashion!
  2. 580 here, too, for two stupid reasons: I evidently failed to type in the E and D of TENDINITIS, or mistyped; and I put in ACADEMIC for 49ac, Lord knows why. 45: prose isn’t necessarily boring talk, but it seems fair to call boring talk prose; although I think I’ve only seen ‘prose’ in this sense as a verb. My question is, is entertaining necessarily light? Hello/hallo/hullo: I myself use only ‘hello’, and then not as an expression of surprise (do any Americans?); but I associate ‘hallo’ with foxhunting, and ‘hullo’ with the policeman who goes on to ask, “What’s all this, then?”
      1. Hi, I’m quite new to solving cryptics, and still learning abbreviations. Why does PI mean very good in 40 across?
        1. ‘pi’ (from ‘pious’) is UK English; my understanding (I’m American, and the word isn’t in my vocabulary) was that it meant self-righteously or priggishly good, but certainly it’s often enough cued in these puzzles simply by ‘good’.
  3. 28:23 for me, so presumably I didn’t find this particularly easy either, though I can’t remember what held me up.

    I wasn’t convinced by 1D, since surely the “quick” is the sensitive area under the nail rather than being part of the nail itself.

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