Times Boxing Day Cryptic Jumbo 1416 – every time it rains

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
This festive offering kept me occupied for a tad over the hour on boxing day.  A lot of the definitions were very well-disguised (in truth I’m still not sure exactly where some of them are) which made it enjoyably tricky.

First in was REMAP (I often peep at 1d if 1a doesn’t go straight in), last in was BUTTERFLY VALVE.

Clues are in blue with the definition undelined.  Anagram indicators are in bold italics.

Notation:

DD: Double definition

CD: Cryptic definition

DDCDH: DD/CD hybrid where a straight definition is combined with a cryptic hint.

&Lit:  “all in one” where the entire clue is both definition and wordplay.

(fodder)* denotes an anagram of the letters in the brackets.

Rounded brackets are also used to add further clarity

Squiggly brackets {} indicate parts of a word not used

Deletions are struck out

Square brackets [] expand an abbreviation or shortening like N[orth]


Across

1
Driving away fast, after return of outcast (9)

REPELLENT – LENT after LEPER reversed

6
Anarchist finally does away with aristos (5)

TOFFS – {anarchis}T, OFFS (as in kills)

9
Gets round about fifty cracking GIs (7)

CAJOLES – C[irc]A, L in JOES

13
Capital from stock drained after short time (5)

MINSK – StocK after MIN[ute]. Capital of Belarus

14
Ray and Mark well impressed by girl in the morning (7)

SUNBEAM – N[ota] B[ene] in SUE A.M.

15
Thinking no case for park in Irish town (9)

MULLINGAR – MULLING, pARk. Not a place I’ve heard of so apologies to any Mullingarnians reading this.

16
Agony one might hope to go through? (4,7)

PAIN BARRIER – CD

17
Mess around dreadfully with end of well-known aria (6,5)

NESSUN DORMA – (mess around)* after {well-know}N

18
Gave out after infusion of sulphur: something to do with seawater? (6)

DESALT – DEALT around S[ulphur] which I think we’re now supposed to spell Sulfur. PHPHS.

19
What murderer who has run for nothing has become? (8)

PRISONER – Semi &Lit, POISONER with the O becoming R[un].

21
In Fulham after vacation, one has quiet time (4,2)

FIVE PM – FulhaM around I’VE P[iano]

25
Mister Angry’s up for a scrap (5,3)

SPRAY GUN – (angry’s up)*

26
Regulator in carburettor: small copper one? (9,5)

BUTTERFLY VALVE – Straight definition with a cryptic nudge. I knew neither the valve (what I know about carburettors you could put in a gnat’s p*ss pot and still have room for the p*ss) nor the COPPER butterfly (unusually for me, as I filled in most of the I Spy book of butterflies and moths as a young’un).

28
Go round and round at speed (5)

OOMPH – O, O, MPH

29
One full of idle chatter that’s put on Flower of Scotland? (6)

DEEJAY – Well a DJ is certainly full of idle chatter, and The Dee is a river (flower) in Scotland, and you can put on a dinner jacket (probably irrelevant), and a Deejay can put on a record, and Flower of Scotland is a song, but does that all add up to a Timesy clue?  Either I’m missing something or this clue has escaped from the Guardian.

30
Correct having navy lead? (4-6)

BLUE-PENCIL – BLUE, PENCIL

33
No-one’s charged after this brawl? (4-3-3)

FREE-FOR-ALL – CD

35
Is one’s pouch for a naval NCO’s money? (6)

POSSUM – I wasn’t really sure what to underline here.  The wordplay is P[etty] O[fficer]’S SUM and a POSSUM has a pouch.

36
Tips off secretary before backing academic council (5)

SYNOD – S{ecretar}Y, DON reversed

38
Vin rosé, perhaps, and a good book! (7,7)

REVISED VERSION – One of those reverse cryptics where the clue is in the answer – Vin Rosé is an anagram (revised) of VERSION.

40
Drug pusher’s outside, on holy ground (8)

ROHYPNOL – (P{ushe}R, ON HOLY)*

42
Employ variables, including indefinite number, missing out on 28? (6)

UNSEXY – USE X Y around N.  I can just about see that summat with no oomph could be described as unsexy.

43
Peg, note, taking wine, was unsteady (8)

TEETERED – TEE, TE, RED

44
Short drink in unspecified French town (6)

ANNECY – NECk in ANY.  Somewhere I had heard of, sort of, as I thought it was ANNENCY (a quick scan of Tripadvisor suggests I’m not alone).

47
Break from tension caused by cracks? (5,6)

COMIC RELIEF – CD

50
Sharp fragments with eg acid in the form of smoke (5-6)

CIGAR-SHAPED – (sharp eg acid)*

52
Greens best to embrace the ballot box (6,3)

TURNIP TOP -TIP-TOP around URN.  I didn’t know URN as a ballot box so, taking best as just top, was trying to decipher URNIPT somehow

53
Brief plea to wake someone with a bouquet? (7)

ODOROUS – O! DO ROUSe

54
Revolutionary way to shift article, not easily swallowed? (5)

CHEWY – CHE, WaY

55
Receiver of French visits informed (7)

AWARDEE – DE in AWARE

56
Exercises help us to get ready for the Andes (5)

PESOS – P.E., S.O.S.

57
Command ultimately is passed on and observed — or not (9)

DISOBEYED – {comman}D, IS, OB[iit], EYED.  Another where I wasn’t entirely sure what to underline as being the definition.

Down

1
US band, with revolutionary sound system, will make chart again (5)

REMAP – R.E.M., P[ublic} A[ddress] reversed

2
Change out of blue number (7,4,6)

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN – DDCDH

3
Hard to dig: can only hoe at first (4,5-2)

LIKE BILLY-OH – LIKE, BILLY, O[nly] H[oe]

4
Guarantee Peru’s neutrality will hold up (6)

ENSURE – reverse hidden

5
African city rarely gets rain (8)

TANGIERS – (gets rain)*

6
Pope’s observation hurts: Rome in a flap (2,3,2,5)

TO ERR IS HUMAN – (hurts Rome in a)*.  A line from Alexander Pope’s poem An Essay on Criticism.  Nice use of Pope and Rome to mislead.

7
Iron mining, mostly filthy, not oddly something all men want (10)

FEMININITY – FE, MININ{g}, {f}I{l}T{h}Y.  Want as in lack.

8
Reservoirs in time avoided by foxes (5)

SUMPS – StUMPS

9
Cull of our bats is slightly obscene (9)

COLOURFUL – (cull of our)*

10
Cross-channel transport missed if you’re late? (4,2,5)

JOIE DE VIVRE – CD

11
One who totes, half-heartedly, a gun (5)

LUGER -LUGgER

12
Comic that is requiring much paper (6)

SCREAM -SC[ilicet], REAM

18
Dance music rather loud: men tango in irritation (10)

DISCOMFORT – DISCO, M[ezzo] F[orte], O[rdinary] R[anks], T[ango]

20
Countryman in brown coat crossing river with boxer (8)

RURALIST – RUST around R[iver] ALI

22
Heraldic feature sort of crossing improperly herein: pity! (7,2,3,5)

PELICAN IN HER PIETY – PELICAN, (herein pity)*.  Huh? A what in a who?  It’s a heraldic image featuring a pelican feeding her young with her own blood.  I’d have something a bit cooler on my coat of arms, like an Osprey ripping the head off a vole.

23
Juliet, one dispensing milk shake (6)

JUDDER – J[uliet], UDDER

24
Chap left money about to perform musical (5,5)

HELLO DOLLY – HE, L[eft], LOLLY around DO.  The writer of Hello Dolly!, Jerry Herman, died the day this puzzle was published.  Spooky.

27
A feature in camp(anology)? (4,4)

BELL TENT – CD

31
Old doctor regaled at first with a load of old pony! (6)

EXMOOR – EX, M[edical] O[fficer], R{egaled} around O[ld]

32
Father and I stop moving, with ship about to depart (3,4,5)

POP ONES CLOGS – POP, ONE (I), CLOG in S[team] S[hip] (or screw steamer if you prefer).  I went out with a Dutch girl who had inflatable shoes…

34
Youngster cared for orchids left to wither (6,5)

FOSTER CHILD –

36
Recorder for something that’s often articulated informally (3,2,3,3)

SPY IN THE CAB – CD based around the slang term for a tachograph.

37
Cynophilist’s claim overheard in the London area (4,2,4)

ISLE OF DOGS – (possibly) sounds like I love dogs. CYNO is probably Greek or Latin for dogs or something.

39
Lawman taking Young Conservatives on short course in welfare building (3,6)

DAY CENTRE – D[istrict] A[ttorney], Y[oung] C[onservatives], ENTRE{e}

41
Day just about beginning for wizard Potter (8)

WEDGWOOD – WED{nesday], GOOD around W{izard}. Nicely done.

45
I was regularly seen with sea monster in the drink (3,3)

ICE TEA – I{w}A{s} around CETE.  I didn’t know CETE as a (whale or) sea monster.  More bleedin’ ancient Greek.

46
They do breakdown of light image consultancy jargon? (6)

PRISMS – P[ublic] R[elations] “ISMS”.

48
Maybe miss show in the morning, on getting up (5)

MARIA – reversal of AIR, A.M.

49
Expectant, perhaps, as Afghan model lowers top (2,3)

IN PUP – PIN UP with the first P lowered a bit.  Clever def.

51
Wood spirit not on alcohol promotion (5)

DRYAD – DRY, AD[vertisement].  If you want to get anywhere with crosswords you need to know your nymphs, fates and muses.

9 comments on “Times Boxing Day Cryptic Jumbo 1416 – every time it rains”

  1. I came back to this from time to time, but major gaps remained, and now I can see why: NHO the pelican, although I got as far as PELICAN and I knew the trope; NHO the drug; NHO the pony; NHO SPY IN THE CAB. DNK NECK (actually, I may have come across it here once; but a DNK as near as dammit). DNK the song, but figured it had to be DEEJAY. DNK CETE, but I knew cetacean; I was surprised, though, that the setter used ‘ice tea’ rather than ‘iced tea’ (living in Japan, I’m used to ‘milk tea’ and ‘lemon tea’, but still).
  2. I thought this rather hard but some very inventive clueing. I particularly enjoy clues like 57ac where the def. is floating somewhere in the ether.
    Not only had I never heard of 22dn but when I finally extracted it from the wordplay I refused to believe it until I had looked it up. Weird concept..
    Annecy is a lovely spot. Had a holiday near there once, fondly remembered..
    1. The pelican feeding her young with her own blood is a type of Christ (type as in Christian typology); it shows up in Shakespeare, though I’m not going to go looking for where.
      1. OED says: “This story is told by Epiphanius and St Augustine, and appears to be of Egyptian origin. It may have applied originally to a different bird, or could perhaps have arisen from misinterpreted observations of pelicans feeding their young from the gular pouch.”
        .. so not quite up to Attenborough standard, as observational biology goes.
        1. The pelican story is a model of empirical research compared to the barnacle goose, qv.
  3. I also had queries re teh soundness of the clue. In addition to your comments, one can add that the bird jay chatters…?
    Adrian Cobb
  4. I had lots of queries and quibbles on this one, and even more NHO’s, but life’s too short to think them all through again after a fortnight has passed. Thanks for the blog which has explained some of the things I didn’t understand though I’m still not sure that all the clues were valid and fair.
  5. I too found this harder than average, taking me just over an hour and needing some help to validate the answers… especially the pelican thing. Lots of scribbles on my copy, ??s as I struggled with some of the wordplay but also ticks of approval. I’m afraid I still don’t get 36D and I had to look in a different dictionary from my Chambers (i.e. Collins online) to find the American meaning of JAY at 29A as “a foolish or talkative person”. MER to the mismatch of singular answer and plural definition at 52A. Otherwise I quite enjoyed a lot of this. COD to MISTER. Thanks penfold and setter.

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