Times Cryptic Jumbo 1371 – From the mountain tops, down to the sunny street.

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
Hello again.  This puzzle kept me occupied for over an hour so I’d put it at the trickier end of the scale.  I needed aids to check some of the more obscure stuff.

There was a veritable musical theme running through this one, with contributions from Jeremiah Clarke, Julie Andrews, Aztec Camera, Chas ‘n’ Dave, Embrace and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.  ELP missed out by one letter.  Which earworm stuck with you?

First in was ROUGHEST and last was STATION.

Clues are in blue with the definition underlined.  Different brackets mean different things:

Square to expand a standard crossword abbreviation: D[aughter]

Wiggly to denote letters not used:{testimonia}L

Rounded followed by a * to indicate anagram fodder: (spare golf)*

Rounded to add clarification: cool (as in trendy)

Anagram indicators in bold italics: pants

Deletions are denoted by strikeout

CD = cryptic definition, DD = double definition, I guess other stuff is spelled out for you.


Across

1
Old dictator to be in one’s part-time army (7)

BATISTA – BAT (to be in at cricket), I’S, T[erritorial] A[rmy].

5
Regulated eg, thus — or most inaccurate (8)

ROUGHEST – (eg thus or)*

9
Bones and Sulu, only half accepted by the ship’s crew? (6)

TARSUS – SU{lu} in TARS.  Clever Trekky surface.  For the benefit of those of us who never really bothered with medical training the tarsus is a cluster of seven articulating bones in each foot situated between the lower end of tibia and fibula of the lower leg and the metatarsus.

13
Jumbo’s sound and not forced: that’s music to our ears! (7,9)

TRUMPET VOLUNTARY – Straight def and cryptic hint.  Not by Purcell apparently.

14
Get back from park, all down? (6)

RECOUP – REC (recreation ground) followed by O UP (i.e. nothing must be up if everything is down).

16
You troublemakers, partly responsible for closing bars! (5)

OUTRO – Hidden.  Count Basie and his Orchestra on triangle…

17
Land to the west excellent — north west? (7)

ESTONIA – Reversal of A1, NOT S[outh] E[ast].  Sneaky.

18
National reserve network with warning light coming back on? (9)

ICELANDER – ICE (reserve), L[ocal] A[rea] N[etwork], RED reversed.

19
Lots of French who drink fine English whiskey (5,1,3)

QUITE A FEW – QUI, TEA, F[ine] E[nglish] W[hiskey]

21
One might ask caddie to get this put right (4,3)

IRON OUT – Straight def with golf-related cryptic hint

22
Two, having change of heart, bringing about thaw? (2-3)

DE-ICE – DEUCE with I replacing U

23
Insect with a soft skin, mostly (5)

APHID – A P[iano] HID{e}

25
Psychiatrist, Regional Health Authority chief, hosting old Shakespearean actors (9)

RORSCHACH – R[egional] H[ealth] A[uthority] CH[ief] around O[ld] R[oyal] S[hakespeare] C[ompany] for the ink blot geezer.

27
Say something cheeky, pinching girlfriend’s drink (3-4)

EGG-FLIP – E.G. LIP around GF

29
Passes over spare golf pants (9)

LEAPFROGS – (spare golf)*

31
Be not totally penniless, reportedly, after power failure? (5-4-4)

MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN – Homophone for HAS BEAN after MIGHT

34
Centre of stilton to keep getting softer, cut with harsh sound (6,7)

MELTON MOWBRAY – MELT ON, MOW, BRAY.  I love a bit of Stilton but I don’t see what the fuss is about the pork pies from this place.  The ones our local butcher makes are far superior.

35
Animated character with old coin after cake (9)

SPONGEBOB – BOB after SPONGE.

37
Failed to follow suit, minister agreed (7)

REVOKED – REV OKED (okayed)

39
Picked up something to go with roll, a square cheese (9)

ROQUEFORT – sounds like ROCK A FOUR

42
Daughter, standing, gets knocked back (5)

DRANK – D[aughter], RANK

43
City’s matches: one’s been put back (5)

PARIS – PAIRS with the I shifted along a bit

45
Plant that’s simple and exotic we adore (7)

OARWEED – (we adore)*.  It’s a sort of seawwed.  I don’t know what’s simple about it.  Maybe it’s from Norfolk.

47
Eccentric went for early bath? (4-5)

LEFT-FIELD – Straight def and sporty cryptic hint.

49
Show where the food’s kept: about time! (9)

PAGEANTRY – PANTRY around AGE

50
Recalled hotel late in the day closing early in ME city once (7)

NINEVEH – reversal of H[otel] EVENIN{g}. It was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq so I’m guessing the ME means Middle East rather than Maine.

52
French philosopher’s pained conclusion to testimonial (5)

SOREL – SORE {testimonia}L.  Georges Eugène Sorel (2 November 1847 – 29 August 1922) was a French philosopher and theorist of Sorelianism.

54
Complaint viewer has first off is recorded? Correct! (6)

IRITIS – I[s] R[ecorded] IT IS.  Correct and IT IS are both ways of avoiding saying YES and getting gonged.

55
Fair number to be found in magazine? (6,10)

BLONDE BOMBSHELLS – CD

56
The latest hard, fashionable, Times puzzle setter (6)

SPHINX – SP (as in what’s the SP?) H[ard] IN X (mulitiplication sign)

57
They make better notes — doesn’t respond to them? (8)

REMEDIES – RE, ME, DIES (doesn’t respond to remedies)

58
Kindly leave the car running after parking, finally (7)

GERTCHA – {parking}G, (the car)*.  Gotta love Chas n Dave.  There were first on the bill when I saw Led Zeppelin at Knebworth in 1979 and I enjoyed them more than the other support acts including Fairport Convention and Todd Rundgren’s Utopia.  Gertcha was the song used in the Courage Best ads.

Down

1
One’s often up in the air, however not turning to shrink (6,5)

BUTTON QUAIL – BUT, NOT reversed, QUAIL.  Not a bird I knew and my image of quail is of birds pecking around on the ground rather than flying.

2
Barb’s letter from Kefalonia — not on vacation (5)

TAUNT – TAU, NoT

3
Judge has way of sitting after drink (7)

SUPPOSE – POSE after SUP

4
Wartime lines repeated do haunt memory of the wounded (6,3,6,5)

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH – (do do haunt memory of the)*.  Clever anagram.  Wilfred Owen, natch.

5
Oarsman to do exercises inside part of church (4-5)

ROOD-TOWER – ROWER around (to do)*.  I got caught out by the related ROOD LOFT the first time I entered the championships, going for ROOD PORT instead.

6
What future holds: new and drastic change (1-4)

U-TURN – {f}UTUR{u}, N[ew]

7
A certain posturing no longer holds a Spanish artist up (5,4)

HATHA YOGA – HATH (old version of has/holds) + A GOYA reversed. I think I just invented four new yoga poses trying to get a chocolate chip cookie that I dropped under the table.

8
Short withered crack masking very good condition of skin (7)

SERPIGO – SER{e} GO around PI

10
Brother murdered by a doctor turned theologian in France (7)

ABELARD – ABEL, A D[octor]R reversed. Pierre Abélard, (1079 – 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian, and preeminent logician.  Him and Sorel played at centre back for PSG.

11
Hummingbird that’s flown high we hear and notice (9)

SWORDBILL – homophone (to some) for SOARED + BILL

12
A new purpose for developing devastating missile perhaps (11)

SUPERWEAPON – (a new purpose)

15
Tell Tom off as a result? (3,3,3,3,2,3,3)

LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG – Another one of those traight def / cryptic hint combos

20
Sort of parent, the Spanish patriarch (7)

ISHMAEL – ISH, MA, EL

21
New entrant’s pay ultimately fair (7)

INCOMER – INCOME, {fai}R

24
Take orders from wizard perched on stone (7)

DEFROCK – DEF as in wizard as in spiffing + ROCK.  Clever definition.

26
Can’t stand up in corset: a hindrance (5)

HATES – reverse hidden

28
Old actor appreciated on tours one reflected (7)

GIELGUD – Reversal of DUG, LEG (on side in cricket) around (touring) I

30
Broadcaster of the truth used to be cut short (5)

SOWER – SO, WERe

32
R-refuse to admit Grace possibly upset county (7)

GWYNEDD -reversal of D-DENY, W.G.  No, not that sort of grace / fate / fury / muse but the beardy cricketer

33
In which host briefly holds British artist? (7)

EMBRACE – B[ritish] R[oyal] A[cademician] in EMCE{e}.  Quirky &Lit, Yorkshire band.

34
Nursemaid’s extraordinary parsimony, saving pennies (4,7)

MARY POPPINS – PP (pennies) in (parsimony)*.  I wasn’t terribly impresssed with the remake / sequel thingy.

36
Dessert poor, sadly, containing essence of weakened spirit (5,6)

BAKED ALASKA – BAD, ALAS around {wea}KE{ned} then KA

38
Through journey is hard, crossing river like the Amazon? (9)

VIRAGOISH – VIA, GO, IS, H[ard] around R[iver]

40
Strange, tailless goat, mostly seen over Eastern China (5,4)

QUEEN ANNE – QUEEr NANN{y} E[astern]

41
Plain clothes police at centre totally in the dark? (9)

OBLIVIOUS – OBVIOUS around (clothing) {po}LI{ce}.  Track one of my favourite album.

44
Stop and figure it out? Not at first (7)

STATION – STAT, I{t} O{ut} N{ot}

46
What would be for Queen Elizabeth I? (5,2)

ROYAL WE – CD, worded YODA-like.  For Queen Elizabeth (II), I is the “royal we”.

48
Champion mater and pater, with Independent Schools Council for a time! (7)

FISCHER – FATHER with I[independent] S[chools] C[ouncil] replacing A T[ime].  Great definition.  Bobby Fischer of course, one of the great chess grandmasters.

51
Patches of red and green, last three to turn up (5)

NAEVI – NAIVE with the last three letters reversed. Plural of naevus, a nonspecific medical term for a visible, circumscribed, chronic lesion of the skin or mucosa.

53
Survivor’s ordeal: his CD Ignoring the Odds (5)

RELIC – {o}R{d}E{a}L{h}I{S}c{d}

12 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1371 – From the mountain tops, down to the sunny street.”

  1. Yes tricky .. as was last week’s which I’ve only just got round to finishing.
    I always assumed tarsus would be one bone, plural tarsi but no, it turns out tarsus is a collection of seven of the wee things.
    The thing about Chas & Dave was that they were actually very good musicians. They had this lovable cockney knees-up sort of persona (though neither of them was cockney) but when you listen, you realise just how talented they were. There was a long documentary about them on TV not so long ago and the list of celebrities queuing up to praise them was quite impressive.
    1. Last week’s… that will be mine to blog then (well I nearly have it completed). See you here again then!
  2. Didn’t care for NAEVI, and really didn’t care for GERTCHA, which of course I’ve never heard of. (Or Chas and Dave, for the matter of that.) Had trouble with ROQUEFORT, because where I come from it does not sound like ‘rock a fort’; but wotthehell. I’m glad Penfold shares my doubts about the flying of quail; running, rather.
    1. The homophone is rock a four, not rock a fort, which sounds pretty close to me.
      1. I actually read this as a homophone of ROCK FOUR, with FOUR being indicated by ‘a square’.
        1. I guess either would work, with your interpretation getting closer to you the true French pronunciation, and mine being the Ted Heath version.
  3. I found this very tough but also really rewarding. However after struggling my way through all the unknowns I fell at the final hurdle with GWYFEDD. I didn’t know GWYNEDD and must have been thinking of Dyfed. Defy for refuse seemed OK at the time. In short, drat.
    I assumed that OARWEED must be medicinal – hence ‘simple’ – but any such properties aren’t significant enough for the usual dictionaries to mention them.
  4. Royally screwed this one up with a desperate ROOF TOWER and also had a typo at REMEDIES with a D at the end instead of an S which also knackered the previously correct OBLIVIOUS. I found this tough and needed help with a NAEVI. 1:28:00 with 3 errors. Thanks setter and Penfold.
  5. I remember while struggling with thinking “I’m glad this is Penfold’s to blog, rather than mine”, but I got there in the end. No time recorded, which must mean I did it over more than one session and failed to restart my timer, but I’m guessing it was well over an hour. Some very clever stuff here that I enjoyed a lot… such as NOT SE for north west at 17A with 7 exclamation marks on my paper copy meaning too many to list. Several questionmarks indicating I failed to understand (e.g. ROQUEFORT). So thanks, and well done, Penfold for explaining it all! I had SCOOBYDOO for 35A initially… Mr. Squarepants coming some time after I stopped watching children’s TV. COD from an impressive bunch to the Champion mater, FISCHER. Thanks Penfold and setter.
  6. I just thought seaweeds were fairly simple, compared say to bushes and trees and flowers and such.

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