Jumbo 695 – anyone’s quickest ever?

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
Solving time 13:13

Only a couple of minutes outside my 23×23 Jumbo record, and there were answers I felt I might have got quicker. So I wonder whether anyone set a PB with this…

Across
6 PERFECT PITCH – nicely worked double def
15 GRAN,IT.,A – I a granita is a dessert, as well as the restaurant where Tony Blair allegedly promised to handover the job of prime minister to Gordon Brown after two terms. And an old xwd chestnut lives on – It. = Italian vermouth = wine.
27 S,TANZA(nians) – you need to “lift and separate” the phrase”South Africans”, rather than trying to make it fit the ZA at the end of the word.
41 DO,MITIAN=”mission” – here’s the gen on the emperor. My last answer.
48 IN H,AND – nice use of “and” – part of the wordplay, not a link-word. Also liked “hospitalised, presumably” for “in H”.
57 DI’S,S(E.R.)TATION – nice collection of royal folk, and a lift and separate for “Queen Victoria”
 
Down
1 EX(H,I,B)ITED
4 INHERITANCE TAX – (extra tea in Chin(a))*
19 POSEIDON = (no,dies,Op.)<=
22 C.H.,AC(ON(e))NE
45 I,N(FL.)IGHT = fl. = fluid as in “fl. oz.”

3 comments on “Jumbo 695 – anyone’s quickest ever?”

  1. I did get a PB for this (14:09) but only solved it after seeing your headline which probably meant I was quicker than I would otherwise have been. FIENDISH and finally IN HAND were my last two.

    That said, I can’t explain 14ac (“Man’s horse primarily eats grass” – HESSIAN?), so it might not be a PB after all…

    1. You gotta check those answers!

      I think you must have a transcription error at the beginning of 4D – INNER… or IHNER… ?

      14A is HASHISH (which I should possibly have explained) – Man’s = HIS, horse = H, preceded by eats = HAS.

      Sorry!

      1. “IHNER…” it is. I must have checked the crossing answers three times and didn’t spot this. Never mind…

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