JUMBO 1196

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic

As the recently departed Keith Emerson used to play along to, welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.  I solved this the day after publication after a long drive and with much in the way of interruption.  Total elapsed time to solve, parse and scribble some notes etc. was bang on the hour.  Nothing was particularly tricky or obscure so I’d say this was of medium difficulty.

As before I won’t comment on all clues, just those I consider worthy of comment.  If the clue or clues that had you bewildered, befuddled, flummoxed, foxed, puzzled and/or perplexed then ask away and either I, or a kindly passing commenter, will gladly clear the fog.

When I used to be a regular participant on Anax’s DIY COW clue writing contest website I always found cryptic definitions the hardest clue type to carry off well.  I think this setter might be in the same camp as the CDs in this puzzle are mostly, um, not great.  Fortunately some of the other clues are excellent.

First in was TEMPLATE, last in was MISSION CREEP.


Across

1
THE RIVALS – U(viletrash)* with “in play” the unusual anagram indicator. The blogger’s friend, Wikipedia, describes The Rivals as “a comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in five acts” so it looks like the setter got the definition from Wikipedia, which is nice.

6
HOBBIST – S(ociety) in HOBBIT. If you don’t know what a Hobbit has to do with “Shire resident” you probably arrived here by accident and intended to Google a different sort of Jumbo. Sausage perhaps, and now that I’ve put “sausage” next to “Jumbo” the circle is complete. I hadn’t encountered the word Hobbist but as long as Thomas Hobbes rings a vague bell it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that there’s an associated word (it’s both a noun and an adjective). Hobbes is perhaps best known for not being in Monty Python’s Philosophers’ Song.

10
CACAO – O for old plus AC twice all reversed.

13
MEERKAT – MEAT with (j)ERK(y) bunged in the middle. Simples.

14
EQUATOR– if the first Poles you thought of were Lech Walesa, Rula Lenska and Jan Tomaszewski this is a CD. If the first Poles you thought of were North and South it’s just a D.

15
PLACARD – PLAY CARD with the Y dropped. Clever.

16
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD – homophone for “little read” plus Riding hood, a gangster from Yorkshire. The ancient county of Yorkshire had three ridings, North, West and East, originally each subdivided into wapentakes.

18
TWENTY – Y after T WENT.

20
GENIAL – DENIAL with G replacing the D.

21
RUMP STEAK – ST(one) in RUM PEAK.

23
REFERENDUM – Ref for judge then end for outcome inside (splitting) er, um.

25
NUTRITIONAL – (in total ruin)*. A bit of misdirection there as “in total ruin” could easily be an anagram indicator.

30
HONECKER – HACKER with ONE replacing the A. *Takes deep breath* Erich Honecker (25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German politician who, as the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party, led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until the weeks preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

31
SQUEALER – Double definition, with grass and squealer both being slang terms for informant.

34
LITERARY – LI(ke) + TRY around ERA, with “of books” being the def.

36
MIGRAINE – the setters’ favourite warplane the MIG plus RAINE(d) with “misery in capital area” being the clever definition.

37
PRAWN – there was some discussion on the Crossword Club forum as to whether or not this is an error. I think it is as it appears to be intended as a reverse hidden but that would give you PARWN, which I think I’ve only ever seen on the blackboard outside a Greek taverna along with roast lamp and beak steak. There were some suggestions that viewed in a certain way it might work but that seems to require taking an unspecified run of letters from a phrase and jumbling them up a bit which I don’t think is really on.

39
THATCHERITE – Straightforward charade of THAT, CHE and RITE.

41
ROSE-TINTED – IN (elected) inside ROSETTED. Clever.

43
GUARANTOR – U(niversity) inside (arrogant)* with posturing as the anagrind and “I assure you” as the def.

45
AUTHOR – &Lit: (Thoreau)* minus the E. Three very good clues in a row.

47
FIESTA – F(L)IES + T.A., FIESTA being a celebration and also a magazine you used to find torn pages of in hedgerows in the 1970s.

50
ATMOSPHERIC + PRESS + U + RE

52
CHORIZO – one of my most favouritest and best things, also C + HORIZO(n).

54
WHITMAN – smashing clue I thought, W for with then hitman for professional killer, or “offer”. Walter “Walt” Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist who later changed his name to Slim and yodeled his way to fame with Indian Love Call.

55
ACT ON pushed together to form part of the London Borough of Ealing, Tony Sever’s neck of the woods if I’m not mistaken.

56
LOTTERY – you need to lift & separate “first and last” to arrive at (p)LOTTER + toda(Y).

57
POLYTONAL – (TO ANY)* INSIDE POLL. Although I love music (on Friday night I went to see The Stranglers some 39 years after I first saw them) I know nothing of how it works so I don’t know if polytonal music is good or bad.


Down

1
TEMPLATE – EM on top of PL all inside TATE. The printer’s space em just happens to be the width of the lower case m in 12-point.

2
EXERT – Reversal of T. REXE(s).

3
INK BLOT TEST – so-so CD

4
ARTERY – ART GALLERY with the GALL stripped out. Just the day before I solved the puzzle I was flicking through a book on Peggy Guggenheim.

6
HOUDINI – homophone of Who’d E knee.

7
BY TRIAL AND ERROR – CD I think but it doesn’t really work.

8
IN REGARD TO – (denigrator)*

9
TAPROOM – PRO in a reversal of MOAT. The public bar i.e. the scruffy part of a pub where the beer is sometimes cheaper than in the lounge bar.

10
CLANDESTINE – I love the used of “landest” for (thou) art lighting, which is shoved inside CINE (of film).

11
CHAMELEON – CHARMER with the Rs kicked, then LEO + N.

12
OLD NICK – DD. Scratch is a name for the devil I didn’t know and the setter cleverly puts it at the start of the clue to disguise the capital letter.

19
EVEREST – (s)EVEREST, clever semi &Lit.

24
MACHINE WASHABLE – another CD that didn’t wow me.

27
LARYNX – A(fte)R in LYNX.

28
OCELOT – ONCE LOST minus N and S. Neat clue.

33
MISSION CREEP – another enjoyable clue.

35
RECLAMATION – E CLAM in RATION.

37
PENCIL SKIRT – CD but yet again I’m not convinced.

38
DISRESPECT – PE after SR in DIES with CT tacked onto the bottom.

40
AT ANY COST – NY + COS IN TATA reversed.

43
GALICIA – ICI in GALA.

44
TOMFOOL – I didn’t know this as a noun. OF M reversed in TOOL.

46
THROATY – (hot tray)*.

51
UNMAN – MA in (NUN)* discourage doesn’t seem to be a direct synonym but it’s probably close enough.

 

5 comments on “JUMBO 1196”

  1. Interesting jumbo this, with all its political overtones.. I wanted to dislike Honecker but you can’t, really, he was just a child of his difficult times.

    37ac is surely an error.. no big thing, be nice to put it beyond doubt though

    and bring back wapentakes, I say

  2. Many thanks for excellent blog. I think 7D BY TRIAL AND ERROR may be more than a CD with BY = “past” and “miscarriage of justice?” = TRIAL AND ERROR. Definition would then be “experimentally”
      1. Most certainly not “petty” – just an honest opinion expressed by a blogger on the day which is what we expect from bloggers and why we read them.
  3. Re 37a, seafood was a dead giveaway such that I wrote PRAWN instinctively, liked Scratch for Old Nick, very clever clue. ( Ong’ara, Nairobi, Kenya )

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