JUMBO 1251 – Times for The Times

Hi everyone,

Would you believe it’s now just over a year since my ~~inug~~ ~~inagu~~ ~~ingurial~~ first blog? I expect the cake from Vinyl1 has been held up at customs or something.

Another puzzle of what I’d say was of moderate difficulty for me, with nothing to crow about and nothing to beef about, although when blogging I did notice that a lot of down clues had unchecked first letters which may have made things tricky for some.

One hour all told including all the usual interruptions, parsing unravellings and cross-references. First in was STIFF, last HERALDRY.

Across
1	STALWARTS – STAL{e} + WARTS
6	NEWSWORTHY – I biffed this and only saw how it worked days afterwards. The clue is “Fresh attempt to engage with men not ultimately interesting”. The def is INTERESTING, and it’s NEW + W(ith) O.R. (no)T in SHY.
12	LEISTER – hidden. Not a word I knew but the wordplay was friendly. It’s a fishing spear with three or more prongs.
13	STARCHIER – STAR CHI E.R.
14	COPRA – COP{e} + R.A., copra being the dried meat, or dried kernel, of the coconut used to extract coconut oil
16	OXFORD STREET – sounds like Oxford’s treat
17	DECELERATE – CELE{b}RATE after DE{n}
22	STITCHED – ST for saint + ITCHED
24	ACTION – {f}ACTION
25	CLAW HAMMER – C (= circa = more or less) + LAME around WHAM then (rubbe)R
26	ONSET – SET (gel) after NO reversed
29	DUFF – DD
30	FINANCED – ANC (pretty much a write-in when you see “African party”) with FINED appearing externally.
32	REHEARSAL – RE-HEARS AL
34	BACKSWEPT – BACKS WEPT
35	LAYOVERS – A Y(en) in LOVERS
36	GERM – GERM{an}
40	HANDSOMEST – HANDS + (worker)S in MET
42	GAWAIN – A W(ife) in GAIN
44	INCITING – IN + homophone of SIGHTING
46	MASTER SWITCHES – MASTERS & WITCHES
48	THE LIKES OF – (thesefolki)*
53	PHOTOMONTAGE – O(ld) TOM in (heptagon)*.
54	LOATHSOME – LO A TOME around H(enry)’S
55	EPISODE – IS ODE after EP
56	SONGWRITER – (wrong)* in (tries)*
57	DETERGENT – DETER GENT

Down
1	STIFF – S(on) + TIFF
2	ALTERATION – T{h}E RAT in A LION
3	WORKSHOP – H(ospital in WORKSOP, the archetypal crap town
4	RISER – RE SIR reversed for the bit of a stair that isn’t a tread
5	SCARECROW – (ha)S + CARE + CROW
7	WAIVER – sounds like waver
9	RECREATIONAL – CREATION in REAL
10	HIP BATH – HIP as in trendy + the fine city of Bath, a slightly better day out than Worksop
15	ANECDOTAL – (ladatonce)*
18	HERALDRY – wherein sinster means to the left from the viewpoint of the bearer, the bearer’s proper left, to the right from that of the viewer (clear?)
20	ARTEFACTS – ACTS after (after)*
21	BALLASTING – BALL A STING
23	IMPROVISER – IS in IMPROVER
27	SASSENACH – ASS + ENA in SCH(ool)
28	VICE CHANCELLOR – VICE, CHANCE plus an upside down ROLL
31	COLD SNAP – COLDS + NAP, for what the Daily Express tells us to expect just before we get a heatwave
33	ASCERTAINING – (satanic reign)*
34	BALLISTIC – B(ritish) ALL IS TIC
37	MINISTERED – I for one + ST(reet) + ERE in MIND. I can’t quite get mind and concern to be synonymous in my own, um, mind
38	MARTENSITE – I had to rely on the wordplay to get this – MAR then TENSE around IT. Named after the German metallurgist Adolf Martens (1850–1914), MARTENSITE most commonly refers to a very hard form of steel crystalline structure, but of course, you were about to say, it can also refer to any crystal structure that is formed by diffusionless transformation
41	MATCHWOOD – MATCH (be as good as) (Sir Henry) WOOD, the well-known conductor. Deal is timber so not great deal might be matchwood
43	SWIMWEAR – CD
45	CHEERIO – CH(urch) + EERI{e} + O for love
47	POP ART – PA in PORT
51	ADOPT – DO in A PT (physical training)

3 comments on “JUMBO 1251”

kevingregg says:

8 March 2017 at 3:05 AM

I think this took me longer than my usual long time, with a couple of DNKs adding to the time. MARTENSITE was one of them, Sir Henry another. But I did remember LEISTER–we must have had it in a cryptic, or I wouldn’t have known it–and I even spotted it first thing, although I’m generally pretty dull at hiddens. WORKSHOP was my LOI–another DNK, and I gather not worth knowing. One reason it was my LOI was that I’d foolishly flung in ‘Oxford Circus’, even though it made no sense given the clue; took me ages to notice.
JerryW says:

8 March 2017 at 9:14 AM

I remember this as being quite straightforward, unlike say, last Saturday’s ..

I vaguely knew of martensite (and austenite) but only after I had solved it from the cryptic, which was reasonably helpful.

a Sassenach is not specifically someone from England, (whatever ODO might say) but any Brit who is not from the Highlands of Scotland. So lowland Scots qualify, just as much as we do..

Edited at 2017-03-08 09:18 am (UTC)
Anonymous says:

12 March 2017 at 5:34 AM

Fairly tough for me.Remember Sir Gawain from an English textbook when in form one in ’79,a knight on a horse with a lance.
Ong’ara,
Nairobi.

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