Times Cryptic Jumbo 1481 – send in the clouds

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
I thought this was a moderately tricky puzzle with some smart misdirection and a few peculiarly British elements that might have overseas solvers chewing their pens. Probably an hour’s worth of solving and parsing including time wasted in the NE thanks to a gaffe at 6a.

First in was EAVESDROP but I must have been distracted as I didn’t note, and can’t remember, where I finished up.

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 L[eft];


Across

1
What happens in autumn with departure of the first bug (9)

EAVESDROP – lEAVES DROP.  What a lovely way to start.  Neat wordplay and I’m a fan of clues where the part of speech of the definition differs between the surface and cryptic readings (bug being a noun in the surface and a verb in the answer).

6
Cut usual storm when going round cloud (13)

STRATOCUMULUS – (cut usual storm).  A little knowledge proved to be a dangerous thing for me.  I know enough about clouds to know that strato, stratus, cumulo and cumulus all appear somewhere in the full set of cloud types.  Trouble is, I “frankensteined” CUMULOSTRATUS from the fodder, and was then unable to solve any of the danglers (apart from 12d) for way too long.

13
Annoyance with firework not starting (5)

ANGER – bANGER.  Do y’all have bangers where you are?  Not the most sophisticated firework. They just go BANG.  Same as a firecracker or do they jump about a bit?

14
When there’s no drink to be had in bar (11)

PROHIBITION – I think this is intended as a DD but as the whole could also be a clue to the answer it almost ends up not being cryptic at all.

15
Foreign food delivered by ship, mostly around America (5)

SUSHI – SHI{p} around U[nited] S[tates]

16
One who manages to dispatch branch email (11)

CHAMBERLAIN – (branch email)*.  A posh foreman.

17
School has short novel about a Royal Navy battleship sunk in 1943 (11)

SCHARNHORST – SCH[ool] and (short)* surrounding A R[oyal] N[avy]. This is a great example of “lift and separate, as the ill-fated Scarnhorst was a German battleship.

18
Turmoil at head of British mint? (7)

POTHERB – POTHER, B{ritish}

20
Shut. Shot (5-2)

CLOSE-UP – DD

21
Current spinner is cheered at Lords at first appearance (7)

TOPICAL – TOP, I{s} C{heered} A{t} L{ords}

23
Painting those people on bridge, often man has left in informative details (3,7,2,3,4)

THE MONARCH OF THE GLEN – THEM, ON, ARCH, OFT, HE, L[eft] in GEN.  A handsome 1851 painting of a handsome stag by Sir Edwin Landseer.  It’s very famous here but I don’t know if it’s as familiar to Americans and Aussies say as Whistler’s Mother and Rolf Harris’s Dingo are to us.

27
A church service (3)

ACE – A, C[hurch of] E[ngland].  Tennis.

28
Get back control, eclipsing General Assembly (6)

REGAIN – REIN around G[eneral] A[ssembly].  Spookily, as I was typing the foregoing, the Spotify playlist I’m shuffling decided to play a jazz cover of The Beatles’ Get Back.

29
About twelve, going round? (6)

ZODIAC – Superb &Lit, C[irc}A I DOZ[en] reversed

31
Perhaps Morse not working has time for female (9)

DETECTIVE – DEFECTIVE with T[ime] replacing F[emale]

34
What attracts magazine into London borough (3,6)

BAR MAGNET – MAG[azine] in BARNET

35
Emotional shock when former president nearly accepts answer (6)

TRAUMA – TRUMA{n} around A[nswer]

36
Silence about clip being wide open (6)

GAPING – GAG around PIN

39
Maturity regularly displayed by hangmen (3)

AGE – {h}A{n}G{m}E{n}

40
Badly clueing “thin”’ as “elvery” for quiz (10,9)

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE – (clueing thin as elvery)*.  TV quiz between university teams which may not be known beyond these shores.

42
Piece of text fool inserted into episode (7)

PASSAGE – ASS in PAGE.  I “um”ed and “ah”ed over what to underline.  I think “episode” is a better fit for “passage” than for “page”, despite the Yodaesque cryptic grammar.  You may disagree.

43
Noisily get round girl with sex appeal (7)

GALUMPH – GAL, UMPH

45
Replayed point before sad disappointment (7)

LETDOWN – LET (tennis again), DOWN

47
Organised site in mine to store uranium, a radioactive element (11)

EINSTEINIUM – (site in mine)* around U[ranium]

49
One trying to impress modern paper with editing (4-7)

NAME-DROPPER – (modern paper)*

51
Happen to rain heavily around cricket club, cutting off parking (5)

OCCUR – pOUR around C[ricket] C[lub]

52
Bury coins in crossroads (11)

INTERCHANGE – INTER, CHANGE

53
Earliest of dialects of rough intonation, classically (5)

DORIC – &Lit, initial letters

54
Spar shows, mind, terribly good use of steel (13)

SWORDSMANSHIP – (spar shows mind)*

55
Naval ship Thalaba, for instance (9)

DESTROYER – DD. Thalaba the Destroyer is an 1801 epic poem composed by Robert Southey.  That’s the sort of thing you want to get boys interested in poetry, bot bleedin’ daffodils and skylarks.

Down

1
Freer duty list with picture and title put up (11)

EMANCIPATOR – reversal of ROTA, PIC, NAME

Old lady found in vessel, wandering (7)

VAGRANT – GRAN in VAT

3
Get rid of Bush (5)

SCRUB – DD

4
Game to tolerate including impudent children’s hero (6,4)

RUPERT BEAR –  R[ugby] U[nion] BEAR around PERT. Another that may cause problems for non-Brits.  Rupert Bear (middle name THE) is a comic strip character whose “adventures” have appeared in the Daily Express newspaper since 1920.

5
Ordinary professionals are initially in charge (7)

PROSAIC – PRO[fessional]S, A{re}, I[n] C[harge]

6
Solstice got in eccentric spiritual believer (13)

SCIENTOLOGIST – (solstice got in)*

7
Cried following rail services starting late, beset by bad weather (9)

RAINSWEPT – WEPT after {t}RAINS

8
Tons cut hard work for music (4,3)

TRIP HOP – T[ons], RIP, H[ard] OP[us]. Music?  OK.

9
Trick rodent trapped by gluttony, note praise (12)

CONGRATULATE – CON, then RAT in GULA (Latin for the deadly sin), TE

10
Girl has cut quill crooked (9)

MISSHAPEN – MISS, HAs, PEN

11
Strong light beer — good to be small (5)

LASER – LAGER with G[ood] replaced by S[mall]

12
Their vessel transported army material? (11)

SHIRTSLEEVE – (their vessel)*.  “ARMY” in an Uxbridge English Dictionary way.

19
Titillating material ripped up by art institute (7)

EROTICA – TORE reversed, I[nstitute of] C[ontemporary] A[rts]

22
Fusion fuel has appeal over charged particle (9)

COALITION – COAL, IT (sex appeal), ION

24
Keen nature of silver eagles in European sierra (9)

EAGERNESS – AG, ERNES in E[uropean] S[ierra]

25
Laugh with little time left in tedious job (7)

CHORTLE – T[ime] L[eft] in CHORE

26
Put a stop to rodents turning up in a particular area (7)

ENDEMIC – END, MICE reversed

30
Quality of work key with crew in at least three boats (13)

CRAFTSMANSHIP – MAN in CRAFTS, SHIP

32
Man allowed string of beads (7)

CHAPLET – CHAP, LET

33
Discrimination in working isn’t Times’ aim (4-8)

ANTI-SEMITISM – (isn’t Times aim)*

34
Godless queen’s killer, on edge in short loose jacket (11)

BLASPHEMOUS – ASP, HEM all inside BLOUS{e} (or blous{on}?)

37
Supplier of gram accepted by naïve leather-clad youth wanting kilos (11)

GREENGROCER – G[ream] in GREEN ROCkER

38
Look of snowfield‘s extremity, poorly reflected in mountain route (10)

PALLIDNESS – END ILL reversed in PASS

40
Lacking change, central fund haggled without pence (9)

UNALTERED – {f}UN{d}, pALTERED

41
Coastal area sailor damages with wash that hasn’t existed? (4,5)

SALT MARSH – SALT, MARS, wasH

43
Menu, perhaps, has information about something sparkling (7)

GLISTEN – LIST in GEN.  Who knew that GLISTEN could be a noun?  My Chambers app has gleam as the nounal definition of glisten and if I look up gleam it gives a few nounal definitions that are close enough to “something sparkling”

44
Man that’s lost house key outside car (7)

HOMINID – HO[use], D (music) outside MINI.  Nice definition.

46
Rich border hotel invested in gold quarry (7)

ORPHREY – H[otel] in OR PREY.  Gold or rich embroidery the like of which I have on my best velvet dressing gown.

48
Snack served in Vienna chophouse (5)

NACHO – hidden

50
Architectural style of edging with no breadth (5)

ORDER – BORDER missing B[readth]

16 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1481 – send in the clouds”

  1. A plethora of DNKs: SCHARNHORST, Thalaba, TRIP HOP, ORPHREY, ICA. [on edit: and ‘gula’; I had CONGRATULATE all parsed except for ‘gula’, which I’d never come across. Can I expect to see ‘cupiditas’ in a clue?] I had a ? at GLISTEN. Never twigged to SHIRTSLEEVE until Penfold mentioned Uxbridge. Does BLASPHEMOUS mean godless? I would think that your average bit of blasphemy presupposes the existence of god(s). COD to EAVESDROP, or ZODIAC.

    Edited at 2021-02-13 06:49 am (UTC)

    1. Hi Kevin. Can I take it from your list of unknowns that you’d heard of the peculiarly British painting, cartoon bear and quiz show?
          1. Which reminds me–as I always say when it comes up–it’s a little learning, not knowledge, that’s dangerous.
  2. I have always used CUMULOSTRATUS rather than the alternative. It, too, held me up for a while. Otherwise OK and liked SHIRTSLEEVE.
  3. 26ac ENDEMIC. ‘Rodents turning up’ would be ECIM but the answer requires EMIC. Another Times slip-up?

    34dn BLASPHEMOUS. I think your first parsing has to be the correct one because BLOUS{on} requires removal of two letters and the convention on removals (here indicated by ‘short’) is only one letter unless otherwise specified in the clue.

    38dn PALLIDNESS. This describes something that’s pale and unattractive, which seems a very odd description of the look of a snowfield!

    35ac TRAUMA. I forgot the Times rule about dead people which left me unable to account for the final A. I had TRUM{p} (former president) [nearly] contains [accepts] A (answer).

    Edited at 2021-02-13 07:11 am (UTC)

  4. I seem to have rather breezed though this one in 35 minutes and small change. I do remember being held up, like sawbill, by assuming CUMULOSTRATUS, which is as good an anagram.
    Like the setter (and the editor) I didn’t notice that the ENDEMIC clue doesn’t work. Must be something to do with that phenomenon where yuo cna utp lla het lettres ni het worng odrer adn stlli eb legblie.
  6. I like your format Penfold. If I ever end up doing one of these again I may borrow it if you wouldn’t mind. For some inexplicable reason I still remember a Rupert Bear episode where he comes upon a mare sitting in a nest up a tree.
  8. 11 comments already! A good omen, since I am down to blog today’s.
    I have lost my hard copy of this one but I remember thinking it was a good one. I also liked 1ac, and went the wrong way with 6ac, but I am diffident about my cloud knowledge so it soon got sorted.
    And for once in a blue moon, I spotted the mouse error too..
    P I think that in 42ac it is “Piece of text” that needs to be underlined, the rest being wordplay.
    The less said about Rolf Harris’s dingo, the better

    When I was young, back in the days when everyone sold fireworks to anyone, we would buy hundreds of bangers each year .. little ones were 1d, bigger ones 2d or even 3d. Throwing them near to people was popular, as was popping them into a bicycle’s handlebars. Possibly hundreds were killed or maimed, but I don’t remember ever having a problem or hearing of one..

    Edited at 2021-02-15 12:45 pm (UTC)

  9. This took a breezy (for me) 39 minutes. Luckily I thought of STRATOCUMULUS before the alternative. LOI TRIP HOP which I’d never heard of, preceded by the excellent ZODIAC. I had a MER at GLISTEN as a noun, so looked it up to check. DNK GULA, Thalaba, PALTERED or ORPHREY either. After ZODIAC I liked the fully reversed EMANCIPATOR and “army material” best. Thanks Penfold and setter.

    Edited at 2021-02-13 02:27 pm (UTC)

  10. Since I really never complete the 15×15, it beats me why I find the Jumbo so much more enjoyable.

    Also considered CUMULOSTRATUS.

    COD ZODIAC (also LOI)

  11. Must have missed the blog last week, so thanks to merlin for showing me it is OK to post after a week. I worked my way through this one in under two hours, but with one pink square for EMANCIPATER — with an E — which was ridiculous, knowing it was ROTA backwards if nothing else. But I’m still pleased with myself for everything else. FOI EAVESDROP very nice and then – yes, me too – CUMULOSTRATUS. I thought PALLIDNESS was odd, as above, but plenty to like. COD SHIRTSLEEVE

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