Solving time 15:43
This puzzle should have appeared on the recent Bank Holiday Monday, but some clot putting together the Times2 supplement put in a repeat copy of the very easy 754. The right jumbo was available on the club website, and was printed in the paper on the following Friday.
This one felt quite easy, but there are quite a few answers that seem to need a comment.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | GR(EAT,A)UNT |
| 6 | LES(MISERABLE)S |
| 14 | DEEP=highly emotional,FINE LEG = feeling* – cricket fielding position where catches are easier than in the slips. |
| 20 | FININGS – 2 defs, one being a clarifying ingredient of wines |
| 23 | HIGH WIDE AND HANDSOME – descriptive of the big bloke, and in sporting usage, a missed shot at goal – the kind that ends up in “Row Z” |
| 43 | SURFEIT = “surf it” |
| 45 | GRENADE = Dane in erg, all reversed. Interesting use of ‘shoulder’ |
| 47 | PERAMBULATE – referring to the fact that “pram” is short for perambulator – close to the modern US equivalent “stroller”, which makes Brits do double takes when they see signs about “no strollers” in places that seem ideal for strolling. We’ll get back to the Jumbo crossword momentarily … |
| 51 | NUMEN = “new men” |
| 54 | HEAVY(HYDRO)GEN |
| Down | |
| 3 | T(or)RENT |
| 4 | UNDER,STUDY |
| 6 | LEFT-HAND = sinister,DRIVE=Verdi* |
| 7 | SAN,T.A,ANNA(l) – Antonio López de Santa Anna led the victorious forces at the Alamo – the first of two new snippets of knowledge for me. |
| 8 | (st)ILLNESS |
| 12 | STEE(P)LE,JACK – Richard Steele was co-founder of The Spectator. I didn’t remember that much about him but did recognise him as a possibility for ‘essayist’. |
| 22 | ANCHORITE = “anchor right” |
| 25 | A,LD.,WYCH=”witch” |
| 26 | DI,PINTO |
| 30 | EVASIVE=guarded,ACTION=case |
| 32 | EPICENE – PI for O in ‘Eocene’ |
| 37 | OLD KENT ROAD – “Knock’d ’em in the Old Kent Road” is a music-hall song – new to me. Sung by Shirley Temple with Arthur Treacher in The Little Princess. Just watch the last 90 secs or so of the clip if you don’t want the context. Or as with many well-known songs on YouTube, you can watch the Muppet version. |
| 40 | HUSH MONEY – cryptic def. |
| 43 | SPAR(S)ER |
| 46 | ACUTEST – Cu = copper in A-test = atom-bomb test – as at Bikini Atoll. |
| 50 | CACHE(t) |
I’ll be blunt: the Jumbos are a fairly low priority – the long wait until the closing date means people have very little to say about them in comments. When I rashly wrote an explanation of every clue for one Jumbo (749) and the number of comments was a big fat zero, that was rather a low point! But we have a couple of fresh Jumbo bloggers so you should see reports more regularly.
There’s only one suggestion I can make – that is, to change the style of the blog for both of Saturday’s competition puzzles.
Instead of giving answers and explanations, might it be better to give pointers towards, say, 50% of the answers…
“This charade-based clue requires you to read one of the components as a verb rather than as the noun it appears to be”.
By thus giving away none of the answers it may be OK to post the blog much sooner after publication date – provided, of course, a rule is introduced whereby bloggers adding comments must desist from including any of the answers.
I think we must keep to saying nothing about the competition puzzles until after the closing date, except for the occasional note that a particular puzzle should not be missed. But this applies to lots of the Saturday 15x15s and the quality of the jumbos is pretty high too.
Composer of silent music can shut up (4,4)
The thing is, of course, you want to read the blog while the crossword is fresh in your mind. I’ve been thinking about delaying solving the puzzle until the blog is due to appear, although this would mean not being able to enter the competition.
Paul S.