Hello again. This Jumbo was a steady solve. It had some good clues but seemed to have an extraordinary number of clues where alternate letters are removed, and similar. What did you think?
Please, do feel free to ask questions or comment as required.
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
| 1 | Fish extra tasty essentially in small portion (5,4) |
| DOVER SOLE – OVER (extra) + (ta)S(ty), in DOLE (small portion). I think of dole as meaning unemployment benefit, but it actually has a much wider meaning, according to Collins: “a small portion or share, as of money or food, given to a poor person “ | |
| 6 | Persian cleaner’s emergency transport (7) |
| MEDEVAC – MEDE (Persian) + VAC (cleaner, as in the wonderful, never to be forgotten TV advert for “Shake ‘n Vac.”) | |
| 10 | Knot restraining the Spanish in the hold? (5) |
| BELOW – EL in BOW, a form of knot indeed. On shipboard, if you go below you might be going to the hold. More likely the wardroom in my case, where the gin is.. | |
| 13 | BA staff interchanged good correspondence (7) |
| POSTBAG – POST (staff) + BA + G(ood). Is a staff a post? The latter is fixed, the former not, it seems to me. | |
| 14 | 1 in 55 obstructing animal rescue (7) |
| DELIVER – I in LV, ie 55, in DEER, your animal. | |
| 15 | PPE item finished with a fringing of laurel (7) |
| OVERALL – OVER (finished) + A + L(aure)L | |
| 16 | Dear campers: with energy shortage, propane’s used up practically (2,3,7,3,8) |
| TO ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES – I struggled to parse this. I think that TO ALL IN TENTS =”Dear campers.” Then “and purposes” comes from *(PROPANES USED), with one E removed. | |
| 17 | Scoundrel getting pass for green assistant (6) |
| CADDIE – CAD + DIE, what people used to do, before they passed, or “fell asleep.” Most caddies would object to the idea that they only helped on the greens. | |
| 18 | For instance, bone comprises optimum insulating material (8) |
| ASBESTOS – BEST (optimum) in AS (eg) + OS, a bone. | |
| 19 | Sailor in bed rolled edges of cacao leaves (7) |
| TOBACCO – AB (able seaman) in COT then both reversed, + C(aca)O | |
| 22 | Where one is cast as a WWII Commander (10) |
| EISENHOWER – *(WHERE ONE IS) | |
| 23 | Words at back of US magazine Time for long-term residents (4,8) |
| LIFE SENTENCE – (Time)-LIFE, + SENTENCE (words) | |
| 27 | Bone sample from hospital useful (5) |
| TALUS – hidden, as above | |
| 29 | Takes in Charlie and small bird in retirement (7) |
| ASSUMES – ASS (a charlie) + S EMU, rev. | |
| 30 | One in tank perhaps a printer when out of joint (8) |
| TERRAPIN – *(A PRINTER). | |
| 32 | Over-active lover of Zeus with new god (8) |
| HYPERION – HYPER (over-active) + IO + N. Io was a lover of Zeus, which led to her having a difficult life, much of it spent as a heifer. Hyperion was a Titan, who fathered three children on his sister: the sun, the moon and the dawn. Lively folk, those Greek gods. | |
| 34 | Register hair in pickled fillet (7) |
| ROLLMOP – ROLL (register) + MOP (hair). Pickled fish, not my favourite food. | |
| 36 | Hard slippery things might be painful footwear (5) |
| HEELS – H(ard) + EELS, slippery things. Why anyone wears stiletto heels is a mystery to me. | |
| 39 | Grandly changing silver for United in a generous way (12) |
| MUNIFICENTLY – MAGNIFICENTLY, with the Ag (silver) replaced by U. I suppose U(ranium) wouldn’t make a lot of sense, not that the clue as written makes much either. | |
| 41 | Most rough thickets spread across empty estuaries (10) |
| SKETCHIEST – E(stuarie)S in *(THICKETS). | |
| 44 | Singer brought back separate gin for Roland? (3-4) |
| RAT-TRAP – RAT (singer, as in grass) + PART (separate) rev. | |
| 46 | Container joint force west of state uncovered (3,5) |
| HIP FLASK – HIP (joint) + F(orce) + (a)LASK(a), the denuded state. | |
| 48 | Editor replacing intro to book to make safe for consumers (6) |
| EDIBLE – ED(itor) + (b)IBLE. Not sure if edible and safe are quite the same thing? | |
| 50 | A definition of “Irregularity” in Chambers (11,12) |
| VENTRICULAR FIBRILLATION – an irregular heartbeat. The chambers mentioned are cardiac ones, the ventricles. But it still seems a strange clue, to me. In what sense is it a definition? | |
| 53 | Protective garment is burnt periodically before match (7) |
| SUNSUIT – (i)S (b)U(r)N(t) + SUIT, though not quite sure how that = match. Struggling to think of a sentence you could substitute one for the other in. | |
| 54 | Drink over in prison mostly good for one’s blood (7) |
| NEPOTIC – TOPE (drink) rev. inside NIC(k), prison mostly. Nho nepotic but it is only a very short leap from the more familiar nepotism. | |
| 55 | Hollow bamboo cut down regularly near city (7) |
| BOLOGNA – B(ambo)O + LOG (cut down) + N(e)A(r). Where the sausage comes from.. | |
| 56 | Sluggish speech from doctor with boring instrument (5) |
| DRAWL – DR + AWL. A QC escapee. | |
| 57 | Eggs close to grass repelled ungulate (3,4) |
| ROE DEER – ROE (eggs) + REED, grass, rev. | |
| 58 | Mistakes spoiled Cleo’s one text message (9) |
| SOLECISMS – *(CLEO’S I) + SMS, the “Short Messaging System” or text. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Chicago station record framed by Mark (5) |
| DEPOT – EP (record) in DOT, a mark. Apparently Americans sometimes call railways or bus stations depots. And sometimes, not.. the only one I actually know about is Grand Central, er, Station. Been there, and it is indeed Grand. | |
| 2 | Monitor what initially Stroud Vehicles takes north (6,7,4) |
| VISUAL DISPLAY UNIT – VDU is hidden, rev., in stroUD Vehicles. I remember them .. they tended to have green screens and would look extremely antiquated, nowadays. | |
| 3 | Revolting skinned birds before large feline (9) |
| REBELLION – (g)REBE(s) (I guess) + L LION | |
| 4 | Church features in gold with difficulty lifted (6) |
| ORGANS – OR (a heraldic term for gold) + SNAG, rev. | |
| 5 | Infinity cryptically written as NES (11) |
| ENDLESSNESS – so, endless ness would be NES. | |
| 6 | Driver’s shirt grabbed by scraggy lemur (8) |
| MULETEER – TEE (shirt) in *(LEMUR). Scraggy means rough, unkempt, so just about passes muster as an anagrind. If you squint. | |
| 7 | Freak hollow swallows street in Naples (7) |
| DEVIANT – VIA (Latin, and thus Italian, for street) in DENT, a hollow | |
| 8 | Greenish coin bearing six horses? (11) |
| VIRIDESCENT – VI RIDES (six horses) + CENT. This being a down clue, the coin can be said to be bearing the equines. Unclear why anyone would ever use this word, when greenish works just as well. | |
| 9 | Game shot late ultimately for bite to eat (9) |
| CROQUETTE – CROQUET (game) + (sho)T + (lat)E. A processed food, usually potato, best avoided. | |
| 10 | Bishop shoulders barrel we pour intermittently in boozer (7) |
| BREWPUB – B(a)R(r)E(l) W(e) P(o)U(r) + B(ishop). | |
| 11 | Escapes earth rising within bodies of water (5) |
| LEAKS – LAKES, with the E rising up a bit. I haven’t seen E as an abbreviation for Earth, but Collins has. | |
| 12 | Blimey! Part of wheel and pole articulate (4-6) |
| WELL-SPOKEN – WELL! (blimey) + SPOKE (part of wheel) + N, the pole that isn’t S. | |
| 17 | Chicken at first laid onto warm foil (5) |
| CHEAT – C(hicken) + HEAT (warm). I guess if you foil someone’s efforts they may feel cheated.. | |
| 20 | Spanners, tin & titanium left always with Jeff? (10,7) |
| CANTILEVER BRIDGES – CAN (tin) + TI(tanium) + L(eft) + EVER, + BRIDGES as in Jeff, member of a US acting family. I guess the Forth rail bridge is the best known cantilever bridge. | |
| 21 | Language really applied to African country (6) |
| SOMALI – SO (really, ie very much) + MALI. | |
| 24 | Slight change of units across back of wall (6) |
| INSULT – (wal)L in *(UNITS) | |
| 25 | Criticise loud music when first husband’s away (5) |
| TRASH – T(h)RASH, a kind of heavy metal music. | |
| 26 | Note travellers climbing without principles (6) |
| AMORAL – LA (a note, to follow SOH) + ROMA, gypsy travellers, all rev. The song do-re-mi is quite clever in that each of the notes is sung on the pitch it represents. | |
| 28 | Different females carrying a bundle (5) |
| SHEAF – A, in SHE + F (different females) | |
| 31 | Standing on set with heart of steel (6) |
| REPUTE – RE (on) + PUT (set) + (st)E(el) | |
| 33 | Cool refusal from Norman city blocking opportunity (11) |
| NONCHALANCE – NON (refusal, in French) + LA (city) in CHANCE, your opportunity. | |
| 35 | Leaves outline of what HS2 does (less so now) (5,6) |
| MAKES TRACKS – A DD, one whimsical, hopefully .. although since the scope of the project has shrunk, it is indubitably true. | |
| 37 | He composed king exiting edgy comedy (5) |
| SATIE – SATI(r)E | |
| 38 | Better bandaging is made up (10) |
| IMPROVISED – IS in IMPROVED | |
| 40 | Drug mainly lining gaoler’s storage device (9) |
| CAPACITOR – ACI(d) (drug, mainly) in CAPTOR (gaoler) | |
| 42 | Labour with dual winch, alternately operated by fluid (9) |
| HYDRAULIC – HYDRA + dUaL wInCh. I struggled to understand why labour = Hydra, but slaying the Hydra was the second labour of Hercules. | |
| 43 | Cold Lane maybe starts in the empty ruined arcade (8) |
| CLOISTER – C + LOIS (Lane, Superman’s stalker) + T(he) E(mpty) R(uined) | |
| 45 | Whale question in exam right at the start (7) |
| RORQUAL – R + QU (question) in ORAL (exam) | |
| 47 | Old kipper swimming around crusted item (4,3) |
| PORK PIE – *(O KIPPER) | |
| 49 | Lass biting Chuck in comprehensive (6) |
| GLOBAL – LOB (chuck) in GAL, a lass | |
| 51 | Jack aboard Christopher’s ship fighting artist (5) |
| NINJA – J in NINA, one of Christopher Columbus’ three ships: The Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria. La Niña , which means little girl, was the ship’s nickname. Her real name was Santa Clara. | |
| 52 | In part, bhuna answers meal choice (5) |
| NAANS – hidden, as above. Naan is a cross between bread, and cardboard. | |
I see I failed to parse several clues. DNK VDU, needed aids; DNK MEDEVAC. I don’t get ‘gin for Roland’. I rather liked VENTRICULAR FIBRILLATION.
Gin is a rather unpleasant trap (“a trap for catching small mammals, consisting of a noose of thin strong wire”), and Roland is an informal name for a rat. This is because of Roland Rat, a hugely popular puppet on TV-am: “After a couple of months on TV-am, Roland took the audience from 100,000 to 1.8 million. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Rat .. Wikipedia has it, but it seems to have failed to reach the dictionaries as yet.
Thanks. I knew ‘gin’, of course, but the only Roland I could think of was Olivier’s buddy. Totally NHO the rat.
Mostly straightforward but I had one error with MEDIVAC having made the assumption that the unknown form of transport’s name would be derived from ‘medical’. Silly me! If ever I knew Mede as Persian I had forgotten it.
I didn’t understand Chicago at 1dn, having assumed it had to be more than a general American indicator since I know they have stations. Perhaps a question mark might have allayed my misgivings.
I can’t decide whether the ENDLESSNESS clue was clever or an act of desperation.
One man’s Mede is another man’s Persian.
Did this on a long flight to LA, took a few hours but got there in the end.
VDU was very late, but I did know it, coming across my first one at school in 1978.
NHOS RORQUAL, SATIE, TALUS, VIRIDESCENT, NEPOTIC.
What on earth are Stroud Vehicles? The Internet seems not to know of them.
I don’t think they are anything specific at all.
Fortunately, they don’t have to be..
Re 11d, E is the abbreviation for earth when you’re wiring a plug.
Same as jack here- all correct apart from one letter from the Persian! So close