Jumbo 798 – Do you know the way to ….

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
… Bulawayo?

Solving time: a very nominal 60 minutes.

I got interrupted for this or for some reason failed to note a time, but it would have been a bit meaningless, as one clue – 43D 41D – had me baffled for several days in the end. I did eventually see it tonight, but only after doing a search of Chambers for ?U?A?A?O, finding nothing, and realising I needed the atlas rather than the dictionary.

There are lots of very clever clues in this puzzle – I’ve chosen about half to talk about, but ask away if any others stumped you.

Across
1 SWEEPS=”black workers”,TAKE=accept
14 GRAPEVINE – CD with very nice pun on “go to press”
16 A,U(l)STER,E – stand by for the standard quibble that Ulster is not strictly the same as NI, including three counties from the Irish Republic, so ‘part of UK’ is not quite right.
17 THE TURN OF THE SCREW – a lovely Cryptic def. (‘Driver’s job’, ‘driver’ being informal for a screwdriver), and plain def. referring to the Henry James story later turned into an opera by Britten.
19 CUP-TIED – CD based on the fact that footballers who transfer (‘move’) between clubs after the FA cup has started cannot play in that contest for their new club, but are “cup-tied”.
21 TRITON(e) – Triton is a Greek sea-god who blew a conch shell, which I guess counts as some kind of ‘horn’.
30 NORWICH CITY = (icy town rich)* – non-Brits will probably need telling that this football club, who traditionally wear bright yellow, are “the Canaries”.
33 SI=is rev.,LENT=fast,NIGHT=dark
35 TROMPE L’OEIL – clue seems to be just a cryptic def. relating this to sleight of hand.
42 PAR=level,VENUS=goddess
49 A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS – i.e. Thomas More, in the film with Philip Schofield Paul Scofield that folk of my generation got dragged along from school to see at the cinema.
52 BA(R)RE – lovely clue, short enough to quote – Where dancer goes for practice run in the nude
53 APPLET=pieve of software,REE=e’er rev.
54 HARD SHOULDER – nice CD with the usual two links – ‘cry uncomfortably here’ for a ‘hard shoulder’, and ‘after breakdown’
 
Down
1 SIGHT=sense,SCREEN (vb.)=cover – a sight screen is a big white board placed behind the bowler, so that the batsman can see the flight of the bowled ball.
3 PRE-JU(D)ICE – “before electricity” being the PRE-JUICE
4 TWIN(N)ED – another nicely worded clue – Some towns are coiled round back of mountain
7 SHOW-STOPPER = (prophets sow)*, with ‘great number’ as the def.
8 O,X,FORD – the “characters in simple game” being O,X from noughts and crosses / tic-tac-toe
9 DEAD=accurate,WOOD=conductor – Sir Henry, founder of the Proms. The Deadwood stage features in Calamity Jane.
10 SISTINE CHAPEL = (then is special)*
12 DEERS=”dears”,TALKER=gosip
13 BAD HAIR DAY – another lovely CD based on bob=hairstyle – Bob’s miserable time?
20 PAPER CLIP – this matches the checking letters and a def in the clue, so should be right, but the worplay eluded me while solving – Page with summary trimmed at edge, held by this – I think I’ve got it now – P=page, by = PER, edge = LIP – I guess the sunmmary is a short account = A/C., giving P,A(PER)C,LIP
25 SP(H)IN,X
26 BRIDGE,N(ote)D – which is a town in Wales of which I know nothing apart from the name
29 POPPET = “pop it” = ‘Say what I should do with this pill’, ‘darling’ being the def.
31 INNER,HE(BRIDE)S – Mull is in this group rather than the outer ones. For once we don’t get wordplay about brides of the wrong gender.
33 SLIPPER=”one going on foot”,BATH=spa town
35 TEAR(JERK)ER, the fool being the jerk and the ripper the tearer.
36 LE,TOFF’S,TEAM
40 MAGDALENE – it’s Russian doll time – D=daughter in GALEN=physician, all in MAE=West
41 BUL(l),AWAY,O
43 R(EDUCE)R – educe = infer from data as well as ‘to bring out’ as in the well-worn etymology for ‘education’
46 FUS(e),SPOT
47 GAM=school (whales etc.),BOL(t)=’no time to run away’
50 (s)OARED – ‘having something to pull on’ being a subtle def.

7 comments on “Jumbo 798 – Do you know the way to ….”

  1. Took forever, even with the aids. Just glad that I could finish it on the day. Cup tied had me stumped for ages – a new term to me. Good puzzle, and it kept me inside out of the heat.
  4. I usually do these when I’ve some time on my hands, but this one turned into a marathon session, with clueing of very high standard. Thank you for your explanation of PAPER CLIP. I was clueless. And your explanation of CUP TIED should replace that in Collins, at least in my battered old edition. Difficult to pick a COD. So many good clues: OXFORD, SHOW STOPPER, DEADWOOD and IDEAS (Fish like thinking) and that’s just one corner.

    As for Deadwood, HBO released a rather grittier or should I say ordure filled version, reputedly closer to the truth, in which Calamity Jane was, well, a calamity. There are numerous youtube snippets but none of Jane herself in full whisky filled flight that I could find. It’s a very effective antidote to Doris. It never made it to Oz telly. Perhaps you were luckier (is that the right word?)

  5. I enjoyed this one a lot, and one improvement the Times site has made is in having solutions with the letters inside the grid, better than the old hunt-and-pecking, particularly for the down answers. This has been implemented for the Mephisto as well.

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