Sunday Times Jumbo Cryptic No 5091 by David McLean — all unwrapped

22 comments on “Sunday Times Jumbo Cryptic No 5091 by David McLean — all unwrapped”

1. 32: smellies is in both our reference dictionaries as “fragrant products”, and the singular version is perfectly logical though not often used in real life.

   52: v indicated by “see” is surely “vide”, the word recorded under v in dictionaries, rather than videlicet = viz.

   1. Thanks. I’ve removed the latter part of videlicet.

2. DNF
   Never got SCRABBLY or STABILE (DNK; didn’t get ‘delivery facility’), or ELASTIN. I put in FLOGGER without knowing why (DNK John Lewis), ditto FESTIVAL, COMET, & GAR. DNK smelly, DNK that SPROUTS were part of a Christmas dinner. DNK CHALCOCITES, which wasn’t in ODE, but was in my English-Japanese dictionary, which often fills in ODE gaps for me.

   1. SPROUTS as a traditional part of the British Christmas dinner is an odd one because allegedly most of the population is said to hate the things and they are often
      overcooked until they turn almost to mush. Jokes abound about putting them on to boil hours if not days before the meal. They are rarely to be found on restaurant menus at any other time of the year.

      1. See also turkey! Two things nobody eats at any other time. To be fair a good-quality turkey is absolutely delicious, and the things are just too big for almost any other occasion. And I adore sprouts, but they have to be crunchy.

         1. Properly cooked sprouts are a favourite here too.

3. SeeThere were some tricky clues here but enough easy ones to provide checkers and keep up momentum.

   My unknowns were BLUE-EYED MARY, SCRABBLY as covered with stunted tress (I’d have said ‘scrubby’), NAHA, CHALCOCITES, RENCOUNTERED, and SENSE ORGANS. I wondered if the last of these was in ‘green paint’ territory, but it’s in Collins. When I checked SOED it had ‘sensory organs’ instead, and I realised that’s the term I would have expected to see.

   On the subject of ‘smellies’, I’ve heard that used mainly with reference to fragrant products such as soap, face powder, oils and other bathroom products for personal use. It’s a word that might go on someone’s list of ideas for gifts at Christmas or birthday. Guy mentions ‘incense’, and you will sometimes hear of rituals in the higher Anglican and Catholic churches as being conducted with ‘smells and bells’, especially by those who disapprove.

4. For me the reference to the Virgin Mary as IT novice was verging on the tasteless if not blasphemous. That let this otherwise excellent crossword down.

   51dn: why Aussie? I couldn’t find any reference to NEWIE being an Aussie term. I consulted Chambers, Wiktionary and other online sources but couldn’t see any reference to an antipodean origin. I haven’t yet checked the OED. I guess I should do that.

   1. Collins has NEWIE as Australian and, in specific reference to a person, also US.

      As an atheist, I consider “blasphemy” a nonissue.

      The whole notion of the virgin birth seems to have been a result of a translation error in the first place, FWIW.

   2. Surely only blasphemous if she’d been clued as an IT ‘expert’? Perhaps it did verge on tastelessness but ‘it’ seemed to be preying so much on this setter’s mind that it worked as part of the running joke.

5. Despite what Collins claims, I have never heard of NEWIE as a term for immigrant here in Western Australia. Perhaps beyond the Nullarbor those strange Eastern-Staters use it?
   SPROUTS and MARY as an IT novice were unexpected but got Christmas cheers.
   The scoring system for this crossword seems based on a standard 15×15, not a Jumbo, which is clearly an error.
   Just under an hour.

6. Enjoyed doing this amidst the usual Christmas stuff. Some answers baffled even as I wrote them in. Didn’t get the Mary ref at 16ac, nor the “congress” ref at 18ac (I’m such an innocent!). And NHO of 21ac’s SCRABBLY nor RENCOUNTERED at 50ac. Surprised myself by getting LEG BYES at 7d – finally getting the hang of the cricket thing? 11d a total over-my-head punt. But all done, no time recorded because it was so patchy (I do it in the print edition). Thanks to all for another year’s guidance and entertainment. Guy, I love your blogs!

   1. Thank you!

7. A very enjoyable exercise to fill in the slow times over Christmas. I managed to complete it all in the end but am grateful to the blog for 4/5 parsings I just couldn’t see. GAR was chief of these as I found it so hard to look through the surface. Thanks setter and blogger.

8. 43:43. A satisfyingly chewy solve, just right for the occasion, with a nice mix of easier clues, unknowns where I needed the wordplay, and appropriate seasonal references.
   I was familiar with ‘smelly’ meaning perfume, but was a bit surprised to see it here so looked it up. I was even more surprised to find that it wasn’t in any of the usual dictionaries, and it never occurred to me to look for the plural.
   I thought ‘IT novice’ was excellent. TFW you come up with a hasty story to placate your husband and end up inadvertently founding a millennia-spanning global religion.

   1. Do we know he was placated? And is there an official position on whether, after the birth was out of the way, he finally got his marital rights?

      1. These questions are beyond my scriptural expertise.

      2. Do we know whether anything in the two mutually contradictory nativity stories (and genealogies) in the gospels is even true? Rhetorical question.

      3. He was and he did; the Gospels are quite clear on both points. Mathew I:18-25 is one easy reference.

9. I have to admit I was a bit miffed there wasn’t a regular Xword. This one was too much writing, and a mixture of difficult vocab and lots of gimmes. Is SCRABBLY a word? It seems to be in the usual sources. Is Bertolucci widely known to people who don’t watch foreign-language films?
   Wiktionary: “rencounter
   (archaic, transitive) To meet, encounter, come into contact with.
   (obsolete) To attack hand to hand.”
   Not in my cheating machine so DNF double-time.
   I don’t want to just be negative, and it’s only once a year, so all is forgiven.

10. Thanks so much for taking us through this one!

    Still don’t understand how “worry” is a definition of “eat”…?

11. I concur re ‘newie’ and I am a strange Eastern-stater. It sounds like a word the Brits think would be an Aussie word.

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