Times Cryptic Jumbo 1451 – I’ll have an onion bhaji and some Bombay potatoes please

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
A perfectly good Jumbo of standard difficulty, for me at least.  I got a little bit stuck on a few at the bottom but still finished in about 40 minutes.  There were some nice touches and a lot of the GK was familiar from previous puzzles. First in was AROUSED and last was EXPONENTS.

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
Athlete runs and runs past point of no return (5)

RACER – R[uns] the R[uns again after ACE.  I liked “point of no return” for ACE.

4
Purpose encompassed by a stick was stirring (7)

AROUSED – USE in A ROD

8
Stupid to accept degree in dialect? (9)

IDIOMATIC – IDIOTIC around M.A.

13
What’s just the thing for the papers? It won’t detain court long! (9)

BRIEFCASE – DDCDH  – a brief legal case hearing would be short.

14
Start off shining, having taken job in tap room? (9,4)

LISTENING POST – gLISTENING, POST

15
There’s no way out of it — this setter’s had his day (7)

IMPASSE – I’M PASSÉ

16
Spectators compete with bets, blowing silver (7)

VIEWERS -VIE, WagERS

17
“Caught in flying saucer”, he claims (7)

ACCUSER – C[aught] in (saucer)*

18
Dog lacking ears helps in coursing (4,7,7)

KING CHARLES SPANIEL – (lacking ears helps in)*

21
Religion without saints returns to African nation (4)

MALI – reversal of ISLAM reversed without S[aints]

23
Fashionable food store with non-U sort of cheese that can’t be got rid of (9)

INDELIBLE – IN, DELI, BLuE

25
Looking back, Gap creator sums up (6)

RECAPS – SPACER reversed

26
Allow fictional computer to become deadly (6)

LETHAL – LET, HAL (from 2001 A Space Odyssey)

28
One on world tour putting foot on ball (12)

GLOBETROTTER – TROTTER on (after in an across clue) GLOBE

30
Sack builder who keeps lighting up compulsively? (4-6)

FIRE-RAISER – FIRE, RAISER

33
Spoke about new education sector that’s free (10)

UNFETTERED – UTTERED around N[ew], F[urther] E[ducation]. Untrammelled is a better word.

34
Fold following disastrous collapse — it encapsulates English (4,2,6)

FALL TO PIECES – F[ollowing], (collapse it)* around E[nglish]

37
Westerly to dry fish (6)

TURBOT – TO BRUT reversed

39
Cash machine charge capped to maximum (2,4)

AT MOST – ATM, cOST. (In case you can’t make that out it’s COST beheaded).  Don’t you hate it when you get to the ATM machine outside the TSB bank and can’t remember your PIN number or the sun is shining on the LCD display?

40
Such as “No standing at the bottom!” in playground? Pupils understood this once! (5,4)

SLIDE RULE – DDCDH

42
Relative‘s ‘angout (4)

AUNT – hAUNT

43
Hung fire, putting life in the balance? (9,9)

SUSPENDED ANIMATION – SUSPENDED, ANIMATION

46
Helping of coffee airline sent back (7)

ABETTAL – reversal of LATTE B[ritish] A[irways]

47
Unleavened bread, brown, for one into self-denial? (7)

PURITAN – PURI, TAN

48
Potato pest perhaps keeping its distance (7)

ALOOFLY – ALOO FLY.  Very good indeed.

50
Would a second cup of this be appropriate? (7,6)

INSTANT COFFEE – CD

51
Make hit plays, then perform opera (3,6)

THE MIKADO – (make hit)*, DO

52
Old writers include two separate notes for those providing explanation (9)

EXPONENTS – EX, POETS with N N bunged in (unadjacent as indicated by separate).  At first I was trying to spot what notes were contained in PENS.

53
Content fits badly in Express (7)

SATISFY – (fits)* in SAY

54
Cultivated meadow’s beginning to go after variable output (5)

YIELD – fIELD after Y

Down

1
Funny parasite found under bone on fish (3-8)

RIB-TICKLING – TICK squeezed between RIB and LING

2
Brisk constable arresting gentleman from the south (5)

CRISP – reversal of SIR in P.C.

3
Don’t put money in plate for rubbish service (6,10)

REFUSE COLLECTION – DDCDH based around a church collection

4
Scared, run away onto a public walk (7)

ALAMEDA – ALArMED, A.  A Spanish term for a tree-lined path or road, remembered from previous puzzles.

5
Set too much store by usefulness of deliveries? (9)

OVERVALUE – DDCDH

6
Movie world‘s barrier against old people? (6,6)

SILVER SCREEN – DDCDH

7
Persisted rudely holding Conservative in contempt (10)

DISRESPECT – (persisted)* around C[onservative]

8
Edited Times articles (5)

ITEMS – (Times)*

9
I found a partner to adopt computer business, and took off (8)

IMITATED – I MATED around I.T.

10
Endless spiritual ceremony, involving smoke rising and charms (6)

MAGICS – MASs around a reversal of CIG[arette].  Charm / magic as a verb.

11
The right way is for everyone to be premier (9)

TAOISEACH – TAO, IS, EACH. Every time I encounter a clue for the auld tea-chuck I promise myself I’ll remember it so I know how to spell the bally word.  Of course I never do.

12
Provide support in early stage of life (11)

CATERPILLAR – CATER, PILLAR

19
Capital movements no longer available, becomes dormant (4,3)

NODS OFF – NODS, OFF. Capital as in “relating to the head”, off as in “baked beans are off”, “I’ll have spam instead of the baked beans then”.

20
Union’s a joke, mounting case with no right (7)

NUPTIAL – PUN reversed, TrIAL

22
Nephew’s 21st perhaps has hallmark of largest party? (8,8)

RELATIVE MAJORITY – When you’re 21 you reach “majority” and a nephew is a relative, so…  RM is an excess number of votes won in an election over a runner-up when no candidate has more than 50%

24
Indian appetizer picked up for one performing lighter work (6)

BARGEE – sounds like bhaji, a lighter being a barge

27
Oil know-how picked up in northern India (6)

NEROLI – LORE reversed in N[orthern] I[ndia]

29
Picked up shirt, left around, to get crown (7)

TREETOP – TEE in PORT all reversed.

31
Devils yield to temptation, sacrificing maiden on island (7)

SUCCUBI – SUCCUMB without M[aiden] on I[sland

32
Abuse of whisky to gobble up 20% of money through regular payment (12)

MALTREATMENT – MALT, EAT M{oney} in RENT.  If you see whisky without the E it shouldn’t lead you to W from the phoentic alphabet.  This is the second time it has led to MALT in recent puzzles.

33
Soldier upholding extremist position in spectrum? (11)

ULTRAMARINE – MARINE under ULTRA.  I bet I wasn’t the only one to biff ULTRAVIOLET and give myself problems in the SW corner.

35
Coppers getting offer in barber’s shop? (7,4)

SWEENEY TODD – DD, “offer” as in “someone who offs’ = killer.  For the uninitiated SWEENEY TODD is the nickname for the Flying Squad (CRS I think).

36
Plan to invade hills in US winds up? On the contrary (10)

DOWNDRAFTS – DRAFT in DOWNS

38
Seconds of bean feast? (7-2)

RUNNERS-UP – RUNNER, SUP

40
Deer at the bottom becomes motionless (9)

STAGNATES – STAG, NATES. I’ve only ever comes across NATES in crosswords.

41
Ball fired at the crease producing report (8)

BULLETIN – BULLET (ball fired), IN (as in batting)

44
German spy’s confession perhaps lacking right figures of speech (7)

IMAGERY – I’M A GERrY.  I spent too long looking for a word beginning ICH.

45
Provincial theatre etc facing up to pressure (6)

STRAIN – N[orthern] Ireland] ARTS

47
Leader of prayers has obligations for devout (5)

PIOUS – P[rayers], I.O.U.s

49
Surround female and male sheep with pen after shearing (5)

FRAME – F[emale], RAM, pEn

14 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1451 – I’ll have an onion bhaji and some Bombay potatoes please”

  1. A number of DNKs, including PURI, FIRE-RAISER, NEROLI (and ‘know-how’ for LORE seemed a bit off), MAGIC, FE. Didn’t understand the ‘coppers’ in 35d. Never got the ‘point of no return’, more’s the pity. COD to ALOOFLY, with RUNNERS-UP the, ah, runner-up.
  2. So .. nho neroli, and always have the same trouble spelling TAOISEACH .. fortunately the wordplay there was helpful.

    Reading the blog, at 35dn I thought “Silly billy, Penfold has got his robbery squad confused with his French riot police.” But no, our esteemed blogger is more au fait with the Met than one might have imagined; the Flying Squad was indeed known as the Central Robbery Squad or CRS for a while, though not nowadays apparently. The Wiki entry makes interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Squad

    1. Ah, that was completely accidental. Whilst you may have read CRS as “Central Robbery Squad” I typed it as “Cockney Rhyming Slang”.

      The Sweeney was my favourite TV programme as a teenager FWIW.

  4. I had SILVER SCREEN on my paper copy and managed to enter SILVER SURFER online, so no chance of a prize for me this week. Grr. LOI DOWNDRAFTS. I had to look up SWEENEY TODD to check – DNK it was CRS for Flying Squad. I too like “point of no return” in 1A, which made it my COD. I liked SLIDE RULE and ALOOFLY too. Remembered NEROLI from a Mephisto, I think, but I see we also had it in a Saturday Cryptic in June.
  5. 28:54, which I think is about my average for a jumbo. A few unknowns, but the wordplay was always clear.
    Ah, ATMs, who remembers those? And cash, remember paying for things with that? Seems an age ago.
    I do actually remember that the Irish premier is TAO IS EACH, but it’s not really of any use because the only time I need it is in crosswords, and the clue invariably spells it out for you. One day it’ll be clued as ‘tea shock’ and I’ll enjoy both the feeling of satisfaction at having learned the spelling and the ensuing row about the homophone.
        1. Well, I suppose ‘teeshəkh’; [x] is the ch of ‘loch’. I’d never heard the word, mind you, just took ODE’s word for it; but I just now Googled and heard someone say ‘tea shock’, so I’ll just bow out of this. In any case, whoever was responsible for romanizing Irish has a lot to answer for.

          Edited at 2020-08-08 12:59 pm (UTC)

          1. Collins suggests the same but with a hard K, so close to ‘tea shook’. I think I’ve heard ‘tea shock’. It seems it would be excellent material for a homophone argument!
  6. I think “tea shuck” would be reasonably close to it – but the word couldn’t be clued as a homophone, I’d say, as that would seem unfair to those not familiar with it, being in another language. Ireland(RoI) has a written constitution, since 1937, and the word is in it as an Irish-language translation of Prime Minister, both terms appearing in the document.

    Thanks to setter and blogger, esp for explaining EXPONENTS. I also focussed on PENS and did not see how it worked till explained here.

  7. … with Indian, Spanish and Irish Gaelic in the mix. Is there a list of languages that are fair game? Perhaps Icelandic next?

    Mrs S and I tend to do the jumbo together and just as well, as quite a lot of GK in this one which usually one of us could dredge up even if the other couldnt. Fortunately we love Indian food, bhajis, sag aloo, puri and all.

    Not sure about satisfy = content, seems to be the wrong part of speech, and Neroli only fell to an alphabet trawl, but otherwise chewy but fair. Just under 45 minutes in all …

    Thanks to Penfold for the blog
    Cedric

Comments are closed.