Times Cryptic Jumbo 1441 – not a palindrome of Ipswich

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
This was fairly standard Jumbo fare I thought, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  It took me about 50 minutes all told.  First in was AIR RAID and last was the WOOD part of the ANEMONE.  There are a number of Britishisms which I’ll try and explain for our overseas solvers.

If any of my explanations don’t make sense then feel free to ask for further elucidation..

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
Car part collected in metropolis, familiarly (5,4)

BRAKE DRUM – RAKED in BRUM, a colloquial term for Birmingham (West Midlands, not ALABAMA)

6
White knight bitter having rescued itinerant earlier (7)

ALBUMEN – N (chess notation for knight) preceded by BUM in ALE

10
Taking portside tack, a gamble for ship (5)

SLOOP – POOLS (UK betting on football results) reversed.  Anyone know any sloops other than John B?

13
Attack Irish resistance in a charity (3,4)

AIR RAID – IR[ish] R[esistance] in A AID

14
Old actor in series about political extremists (7)

CHAPLIN – CHAIN around P{olitica}L

15
Strip featuring London university, fully established (4-3)

WELL-SET – WELT around L[ondon] S[chool of] E[conomics]

16
Seemingly forever, while stock temporarily unavailable? (4,3,4,4,4)

TILL THE COWS COME HOME – DDCDH.  Is this expression peculiarly British? Is there an equivalent in America, Oz, India, Kenya?  It’s also the title of the autobiography of the delightful Sara Cox, who is from Bolton (qv.)

17
Energy coming from exercising quietly (3)

PEP – P[hysical] E[ducation], P[iano]

18
Do leave church (6)

FLEECE – FLEE, C[hurch of] E[ngland]

20
Carnivorous plant requiring warmer moisture (6)

SUNDEW – SUN (warmer), DEW.  It lures, captures and digests insects, small birds and mammals and the odd unwary hiker.

21
Applying pressure, rough up characters in central Lisbon, finally (9)

SANDBLAST – S AND B (from {li}SB{on}), LAST

23
Slug sandwiches infiltrating Spanish tapas starters, frantic! (10)

DISTRAUGHT – DRAUGHT around (sandwiching) I{nfiltrating} S{panish} T{apas}

25
Last of four cracks disappear after fix that’s cosmetic (4,7)

NAIL VARNISH – {fou}R in VANISH after NAIL.  My daughter is doing a degree in cosmetic science and through her I’ve learned that “cosmetic” has a very specific legal definition when it comes to regulation of production, packaging, advertising etc: A “cosmetic product” shall mean any substance or mixture intended to be placed in contact with the various external parts of the human body (epidermis, hair system, nails, lips and external genital organs) or with the teeth and the mucous membranes of the oral cavity with a view exclusively or mainly to cleaning them, perfuming them, changing their appearance and/or correcting body odours and/or protecting them or keeping them in good condition.

29
Full — all holes? (5)

ROUND – DD, one golf-based

30
Keeper on second team originally unknown (8)

STRANGER – RANGER on (after in an across clue) S[econd] T{eam}

31
Location of pavement, incidentally (2,3,3)

BY THE WAY – DDCDH

34
Garment to criticise, notice twists in it (4,4)

KNEE SOCK – KNOCK around SEE reversed

36
Very cold, having unfastened zip (8)

FREEZING – FREE, ZING

37
Top cake’s back with fewer calories (5)

ELITE – {cak}E, LITE

39
Try to win European woman’s heart with single flower (4,7)

WOOD ANEMONE – WOO, DANE, {wo}M{an}, ONE.  if you can never remember whether it’s anenome or anemone all you need to do now is remember the wordplay in this clue.

41
One would be transported by this musical after various dances (5,5)

SEDAN CHAIR – HAIR after (dances)*

43
See fabric stuffed in bag (9)

BRIEFCASE – (see fabric)*.  You wait ages for an anagram and two come along at once.

45
Fight to get sheep onto public transport (4-2)

BUST-UP – TUP on (after) BUS

47
Common tease, darling turning back (6)

VULGAR – reversal of RAG, LUV

49
Ace in pontoon essential (3)

ONE – hidden

50
Turn from the shadows – and cheer up? (4,2,3,6,4)

LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE – DDCDH

52
Commie figure in vehicle to the left? (7)

MARXIST – reversal of SIX in TRAM

53
Prisoner wearing hat for work in the field (7)

TILLAGE – LAG in TILE (a word for hat you only see in crosswords these days)

54
Looking back, I delivered packages perfect for African capital (7)

NAIROBI – A1 in a reversal of I BORN

55
First performance not entirely good, correct program (5)

DEBUG – DEBU{t}, G[ood]

56
I regret snatching it back, a huge area of land (7)

EURASIA – reversal of I RUE around S[ex] A[ppeal], A

57
Car insurance carried excess? (5,4)

SPARE TYRE – DDCDH


Down

1
Damn rotten, start of mission (5-3)

BLAST-OFF – BLAST, OFF

2
Borrowing rate one pound a month (5)

APRIL – A[nnual] P[ercentage] R[ate], I, L for pound as in LSD as in Libra, Solidus, Denarius

3
Sat with delicate pants — like knickers? (11)

ELASTICATED – (sat delicate)*

4
More claret — the same served up? (6)

REDDER – RED and RED reversed. The QM is doing a lot as claret seems to be doing double duty – as part of the definition and providing the first half of the wordplay. Complete crap.  It’s just a palindrome.  Thanks to Keriothe.

5
Delicate operation adding dash of ginger in my curries, or otherwise (12)

MICROSURGERY – G{inger} in (my curries or)*

6
A plank in sea, collected (7)

AMASSED – A, ASS in MED

7
Team no world-beaters unfortunately, relegation finally accepted (6,9)

BOLTON WANDERERS – (no world beaters)* around {relegatio}N.  A very clever clue but a sad one.  Bolton, once one of the top teams in the country, have hit hard times on and off the pitch and have been tumbling down the leagues, due to a combination of points deductions and the inability to pay top players.

8
Formal clothes to get a day before important case (6,4)

MONKEY SUIT – MON, KEY, SUIT

9
Force man to keep wife in Crawley, say? (3,4)

NEW TOWN –  NEWTON (force man, geddit?) around W{ife}

10
What might be used as capital punishment in wood (6,5)

SILVER BIRCH – SILVER, BIRCH.  “The birch”, being a rod (not necessarily from a birch tree) applied with force to the shoulders, back or buttocks, was a form of corporal punishment

11
Channels Iago hopes to manipulate (9)

OESOPHAGI – (iago hopes)*

12
Sound of one gently stepping in bread and butter (3-1-3)

PIT-A-PAT – PITA, PAT

19
Bon vivant, Argentine ultimately still missing tango (7)

EPICURE – {argentin}E, PICtURE (T for Tango omitted)

22
To kill queen, cold tea served up (8)

MASSACRE – reversal of E.R. C[old], ASSAM

24
Counting number — sixty legs on those? (3,5,7)

TEN GREEN BOTTLES – number as in song. Green bottles, being flies, being insects, have six legs each. TGB is Britain’s shorter, more sober version of 99 bottles of beer.

26
On a cruise, five of you initially getting on (8)

VOYAGING – V, O{f} Y{ou} AGING

27
Tomboy in Scottish island lair (6)

HOYDEN – HOY, DEN.  I recalled this word from previous puzzles.

28
European city where two vessels capsized (6)

KRAKOW – reversal of WOK, ARK.  Neat.  I’ve never been but I understanbd it’s a beautiful city.

32
Trouble in faction expressing sorrow (7)

WAILING -AIL in WING

33
Part of horse where hamstrings injected with measure of fluid (12)

HINDQUARTERS – HINDERS around QUART

35
Supporter tipping out hot drinks (11)

SCAFFOLDING – Reversal of OFF (out) in (drunk by) SCALDING.

37
Channel for waste a ship put out into river (7,4)

EXHAUST PIPE – (a ship put)* in EXE

38
US maestro, one carrying a crop? (4,6)

COLE PORTER – DDCDH

40
Pub rogue beginning to open up a shade (5,4)

OLIVE DRAB – reversal of BAR, DEVIL, O{pen}

42
When one’s not working on the house, shed put up (4,4)

FREE TIME – FREE, EMIT reversed

43
Hiding between the sheets, menace came out (7)

BLOOMED – LOOM (menace) in BED (hiding between the sheets)

44
A school set up, and support — child taken care of (7)

ADOPTEE – A, POD reversed, TEE

46
Some actress met an American composer (7)

SMETANA – hidden.  Don’t be fooled, he was Czech.

48
Nation everyone can see on borders of Georgia? (6)

UGANDA – U (film classification) on G AND A, the first and last letters on Georgia.  True story, my uncle met Idi Amin in Abu Dhabi.

51
White as a Welshman? (5)

IVORY – DDCDH in the style of the Uxbridge English Dictionary

10 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1441 – not a palindrome of Ipswich”

  1. We say “till the cows come home”, too. DNK plank=ASS, SUNDEW, HOY. I only knew of the BOLTON WANDERERS thanks to one of our regular solvers. And I did not know, and had to guess, TEN GREEN BOTTLES, which was my LOI, after finally biffing DISTRAUGHT, which I never figured out. Liked SEDAN CHAIR.
  2. Judging by all the scribble on my copy of this I found it somewhat harder than our esteemed blogger did. I don’t tend to record times and with jumbos it is a bit of an effort of the memory to recall.
    Liked 22dn.
  3. I don’t usually do the Jumbo, but someone who does tipped me off that I might find one of the clues of interest. It didn’t take me long to find 7d a, a terrific clue incidentally, and I then ran through the rest of the puzzle with tears in my eyes. My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? I can’t look on the bright side until the cows come home, and they never will. For the record, I thought this was a good puzzle which I finished in about the hour. I hope, setter, that you have broken the curse with your COD. Thank you to you and to Penfold for reminding me of the glory days, seen through four generations of our family.
  4. I was all but done in 40 minutes but then the last few took me more than 10 minutes more. LOI and my COD was NEW TOWN as I didn’t realise Crawley was one and rather belatedly saw NEWTON was the Force man. I also liked KRAKOW, MARXIST and the sad but true BOLTON WANDERERS.
    As for SUNDEW, did you mean “it eats insects and small mammals”? I never knew they ate anything bigger than an insect.
    1. There was a joke in there somewhere but most of the explanation appears to have been lost. I’ll edit later.

      Edited at 2020-06-06 10:04 am (UTC)

  5. 36:11, which counts as medium jumbo difficulty for me.
    I think the point of 4dn is just that REDDER is a palindrome (the same served up), so there’s no double duty.
    1. Thanks K, you’re right. I’d used up my daily palindrome spotting quota with Notlob.
      1. I was going to ask about the blog title, but then I eventually worked it out. I’m impressed with your in-depth pstittacene knowledge!

        Edited at 2020-06-06 12:49 pm (UTC)

  6. “I could dance with you till the cows come home. Better still, I’ll dance with the cows and you come home.”

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