A Christmas Eve Sunday Jumbo – which was a bit hard to find online. Xmas eve puzzle with a Xmas-lite theme (pantos, reindeer, santa…) which even I didn’t find very hard. A couple of new words, a complaint about 6-letter lights with only two checked letters, and finally one (spurious) ambiguity claim.
| 1 |
P(RESENT)ATION – (in panto I)* containing RESENT. “Cast” is the anagrind. |
| 14 |
ASTR+ONOM+[ma]Y – star* followed by moon* followed by Y (last letter of “may”). And ASTRONOMY (kind of “study”) is “found”. Not a bad surface (reading that is, not the moon’s). |
| 15 |
ERICA – double meaning: ERICA and ling are frequent cryptic types of heather that grow on moors. The former is also a girl and the latter also a fish and thus appear frequently in double definitions. |
| 16 |
ICE-LEDGE=”I sledge” – Chambers has ICE-LEDGE as an icy coast. Sledging is till Santa’s preferred form of transport – I mean why bother with the bus if your sleigh can fly? |
| 18 |
CAB+AL[l] – I’m not a great fan of “X by Y” to indicate Y followed by X since you’d expect X followed by Y. Oh well. |
| 19 |
RUDOLPH – Hidden in “PeRU DOLPHin”. |
| 24 |
HERE+rev(“draw”) – HEREWARD was an English king who had an interesting mother (Lady Godiva). This time the wordplay explicitly states that HERE must be placed “first”. In a comment below PB notes that HEREWARD wasn’t actually a king (just a rebellious leader) but that’s what the clue says. |
| 25 |
REIN+DEER=”dear” – Jokey definition of “seasonal transporter”. |
| 30 |
WAIVE=”wave” – one of the last clues solved since only two crossing letters in the worse possible place for a 5 letter light: ??I?E |
| 33 |
PLANTLIFE – I struggled with this: looks like it’s an anag &lit: the wordplay is (a, pf, lentil)* with PF abbrev(“perfect”) with the abbrev indicated by “small” and “form” the anagrind. The surface is reasonable since “lentil” is a “form” of PLANTLIFE. |
| 34 |
GLASS CLOTHS – cryptic definition of what you use to polish your drinking glasses: where “schooners” are glasses and are meant to mislead you towards boats. |
| 44 |
MEN(N)ONITE – (n, I met one)* containing N[orth]. “Traveling” is the anagrind. |
| 48 |
SCOW+L – The other kind of “lower” (verb). |
| 51 |
DEC+OR+O+US – I wonder about using DEC[ember] to define Yuletide since it’s pretty general (in 51D it’s used to define “end of year” which is more palatable I think). Remember OR (or au) is a standard abbrev for “gold”. |
| 54 |
SACK – double meaning: that’s where Santa had your presents when he was busy sledging with Rudolph. |
| 60 |
TRO(O)P – rev(port=left) with “turn” indicating reversal and O (“duck” in cricket) inside. |
| 66 |
IN+CO+(got in)* – Fashionable is often cryptically IN and you’re going INCOGNITO if you’re “in disguise”. |
| 67 |
pies*+L+ON – EPSILON is the Greek letter and if it’s still “attached” it’s still ON. |
| 68 |
ENSILED |
| 1 |
PODS – double meaning |
| 3 |
EX+C+EL+S[cholar] – EX common idiom for former or “out of”. C a popular Roman numeral, EL the Spanish article. |
| 6 |
OP+TIC – OP is common cryptic abbrev for “work” from opus or operation. |
| 7 |
W+HOLLY – First letter of W[assailers] followed by (“sporting”) common seasonal decoration: HOLLY. |
| 8 |
BOYFRIEND – (deny if Rob)*: proper names often hint at anagram fodder. |
| 9 |
O+READ – I’m not very good with nymphs but I remember OREAD and naiad. |
| 10 |
[evenin]G+HILL+I.E.– Scots word for professional fishing and hunting guide. “Rise” is HILL and I.E. is common idiom for Latin “that is”. |
| 12 |
FOR+BIDDING – The pedant in me would say that you use eBay for buying or selling! |
| 17 |
GARGOYLES – double meaning: one of the last clues: “mouthwatering” had me misled in the direction of food for a long time. |
| 20 |
RE+PAST – One of the 6-letter lights with only 2 checked letters. Being of the other faith, I actually hazarded Pesach at first given ?E?A?? – it’s a “feast” and you could argue that it’s “about over” since it’s Passover in Hebrew! |
| 21 |
AWL – (law*) and it’s what cobblers used when they’re working at the “last”. |
| 23 |
SURPLUS=”surplice” – Not quite homophones: rhotic accent or otherwise. |
| 24 |
HOS+ANNA – rev(soh=5th note) followed by an old Indian coin: ANNA. |
| 26 |
N+E+PAL – “directions” are N and E, not NE (which would be singular). “Mountain state” is NEPAL – Americans might be misled into thinking of one of the mountain states (CO, ID…). |
| 27 |
EARTH+Y – Not a bad surface: I like “bushy tail” yielding Y. There’s a lot of EARTH around the entrance to a foxhole (from all the digging). |
| 32 |
A+FAR – This was my last clue! Both “back” and “return” can indicate reversals: in this case, it’s “return” that indicates the reversal of RAF (“service”). |
| 35 |
[s]LEEK – Definition is “this vegetable”: and if you add the first letter of “sight” to it, you get a word that means “glossy”. |
| 36 |
SENT(I)ENCE – the SENTENCE is the pronouncement that the judge hands down. |
| 37 |
CON[i]FERS – conifers are seasonal trees. |
| 38 |
OUTWITS – (us tow it)*: “at one time” indicating that “gulls” in this sense is somewhat archaic. |
| 39 |
CREATE – double meaning: the “make a fuss” sense is a Britishism. |
| 41 |
PRIOR=”prier” – or PRIER=”prior”. Since the 4th letter isn’t checked I believe that this clue is ambiguous since the homophone indicator is in between the two parts: “Churchman? He sounds like a peeping Tom”. I vote for the first guess since the answer corresponds to the literal reading of the surface. However, in general, X “sounds like” Y can resolved either way. In this case though — as the comment below shows — the ambiguity is only apparent: the qualification of “Churchman?” by “He” serves to emphasize that the answer refers to him and not the “peeping Tom”. |
| 42 |
E(AS)Y – rev(ye=archaic “the”), with “retirement” indicating (sort of) reversal, contains AS – and it’s “child’s play” if it’s EASY. |
| 43 |
S(NOW+P)LOUGH – Somewhat wishful thinking that you’d need one in England to clear the road to get to work. SLOUGH is a great word having many different pronunciations and meanings including “shed”. |
| 45 |
jest*+K[ick]+I – Another 6-letter light with only 2 checking letters. I’m not wild about JETSKI defining “scooter” without being qualified (with sea or water). And I’m not sure whether qualifies as an &lit since last I used one, I didn’t need to kick-start to get it going. |
| 47 |
SOUTH WIND – Last clue understood! I think this is an excellent clue (perhaps because the wordplay is so simple and well-hidden): “With sound off – it’s a breeze!”. I found myself thinking of musicals and the theatre (“sound off” hinting at “sounds off”, “The Sound of Music”, “South Pacific”) and homophones when it’s just (with sound)*! As PB said I would, I kicked myself. |
| 50 |
STY – hidden &lit: “…worST Yet!” |
| 51 |
DEC+EASE – DEC[ember] cropping up again – this time as end of year which is preferable. |
| 62 |
SPOON – double meaning: a SPOON can “create a stir” and I’m sure golf players know it’s a three-wood “club” as well. I didn’t. |
| 63 |
WRENS – My favourite clue actually: “In service at sea, odd to find them in crow’s nests?”. Nice consistent nautical surface (“at sea”, “crow’s nests”) and definition is naval-related: WRENS were women in the Royal Navy. Finally, Mother Crow might wonder about a wren appearing in her nest. |
| 64 |
ON+US – the mantle of “this” ONUS can weigh heavy ON US. |
Are the times for the Times accurately timed?
If the clue had been “Churchman sounds like a peeping Tom” then I would agree with your analysis.
However in this clue the setter has been careful to clarify the situation and this should be acknowledged.