Jumbo 891 – October 2nd

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
No time recorded, as I did it bits and pieces here and there. But certainly well over two hours.

I was quite pleased to solve it without recourse to aids, although there were a few that went in from wordplay alone because I hadn’t come across the words or phrases before. DECOLLETE, RAILLERY, TRAINBAND & BELL THE CAT all went in that way.

Overall, I found it on the tough side, but I’m not sure if that was because it was actually quite tricky, or because I was just being a bit thick.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 PASO DOBLE = (A BOLD POSE)* – I wasn’t keen on this clue. I guess you’d call it a semi-&lit, but I don’t really get ‘strike’ as an anagrind.
6 BUT + TONY + OUR LIP
13 APPAL = A + LAPP rev
14 DE(COL + LET)E – A new word for me. Décolleté is a french word and means low-cut (of dresses).
15 UP + TIGHT
16 TARRED WITH THE SAME BRUSH = (SHREWD HE ATTRIBUTES HARM)*
18 R + ArtILLERY
20 SEASHORE = SEAHORSE with S moved – A hippocampus is a mythological sea creature which has the front half of a horse and the back half of a sea serpent. It’s also the latin name for a regular seahorse. Not latin, but greek of course, thanks Jerry
21 YEAR + N
23 DA(IN + T)Y – I wasn’t aware dainty could be used as a noun, but it was easily deduced.
24 DO MA IN – It took me ages to see this, in fact it was my last in.
25 GAL(VAN + IS)E
28 MONTE + VIDEO – Monte is a popular spanish card game, Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay.
29 ME(A)N
30 uNdO a ChAiNeD dOg
32 RI(SIB)LE
34 TERM – dd
35 PER + MISSIVE – A = PER cropped up quite recently in a daily I blogged so it came a little easier this time.
38 TRAIN + BAND – John Gilpin is the subject of a poem by William Cowper. A trainband was a very basic military unit that existed between the 16th & 18th centuries.
39 TREmBLE
40 EROTIC = ERIC about OR rev. That should be CITE about OR rev. Thanks Jerry.
43 OS + IE + R
45 SASH / CORD – both being types of cloth
47 RIF(L)E + MEN
49 THE WHOLE KIT AND CABOODLE = (TOOLED + BLACK AND WHITE HOE)*
52 IN A WORD = I + ROWAN rev + D
53 INCOGNITO = (NOTICING + O)*
54 TIT + US
55 HAN(D)KER + CHIEFS – 21 = YEARN = HANKER, about D (500)
56 T(AIL)ENDER – I needed to resort to a dictionary to justify Rabbit as a definition, but I found: (Brit) a novice or poor performer at a game or sport.
Down
1 PLASTERED – dd – Where tight = drunk.
2 SUPER VISION
3 DE(Life-saving Volunteers)E
4 BODYWORK apparently has a meaning within the field of alternative medicine.
5 EX + CITE – I struggled to parse this for quite a while until I realized that ‘on’ wasn’t a crypic constructor.
6 BELL + THE CAT – I put this in with little hope as it seemed such an unlikely phrase, but it does indeed exist. It’s based on one of Aesop’s Fables.
7 THE BEES KNEES = E in THEBES + K + SEEN rev
8 OREGANO = O + ONAGER rev
9 YOU’RE TELLING ME – dd
10 UTTER + LaY – LAY = song has cropped up several times before and should be familiar.
11 LEGISLATION = (AS I GET ON I’LL)*
12 upPITY – At least I think that’s what going on here. Not sure what the ‘to it’ is doing there though (other than adding to the surface) so I may be missing something.
17 ANT + ELOPE
19 LITTER + BIN – I’m vaguely aware of a bin being a place to store bottles of wine, although I think it may be slightly obscure.
22 MOLES + TED – Took me a while to see this as I assumed that spies would be CIA.
25 GINGER + LucY – Again, I’m not sure if this breakdown is accurate. Girl loses heart would seem a little vague for LY. I wouldn’t have expected to be removing two letters from such a short word, especially when ‘girl’ can have so many possible answers.
26 ANCESTRAL = (RAN CASTLE)*
27 NINE DAYS’ WONDER = (ONWARD YES IN END)* – The unnatural surface rather telegraphed the anagram, I thought.
28 MARAT + H + O + N – Jean-Paul Marat was a physician & politician from the time of the French Revolution who was famously stabbed in his bath.
31 AR(C)TIC + CIRC(L)E – A parallel refers to a line of latitude. Circe was a character from Greek mythology who crops up in Homer’s Odyssey.
33 SPANISH MAIN = (MAN’S IN A SHIP)* – A semi-&lit clue
36 IN + TIM + I + DATED
37 REAR + RANGES
41 CON + F(ESS)OR
42 RIGATONI = RIGA (capital of Latvia) + (INTO)*
44 R(OWL)OCK – It took me a while to parse this as I would have thought ‘Stopping A, B’ implies B is in A rather than vice-versa.
46 South West East + DISH
48 ADD + I + CT – Unusual to find cent = ct rather than just c.
50 OUTRE = (ROUTE)*
51 DISH – dd – More chiefly british slang here where ‘to dish’ is to ruin or spoil.

2 comments on “Jumbo 891 – October 2nd”

  1. – as well as the mythological thing, hippocampus is the actual name of the seahorse genus, not a latin name. It derives from the Greek for horse, as in hippodrome, hippopotamus etc.
    – in 40ac it is name = CITE containing gold = OR, all rev.
    – in 25dn I took it to be L(ad)Y..

    well done with the blog though, blogging jumbos must take you forever to do!

    1. – Yes, greek, I meant greek. No really I did.
      – CITE of course. Clumsy blogging. Fixed now.
      – You’re probably right that the setter had lady in mind. I considered Lucy, Lily & Lady when writing the blog, but Lucy is what I thought of when solving so I stuck with that. They all seem equally plausible to me.
      A weak bit of wordplay.

Comments are closed.