Hello again. This Jumbo I found to be a steady solve, though there did seem to be quite a few clues, CDs and DDs where once you have the answer it is obvious, but if not, it is not..because no wordplay. What did you think?
Please, do feel free to ask questions or comment as required.
I use the standard TfTT 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 | Sharp operative admitting fluff (6) |
| SNAPPY – NAP (fluff) in SPY, an operative. A bit of a definitional stretch to start us off, does “fluff” really equate to nap? But Collins says “any similar downy coating” so I suppose it squeaks in. | |
| 4 | One of these routes he found in gamble (10) |
| BROADSHEET – ROADS + HE in BET, a gamble. The clue harks back to the days when The Times was indeed a broadsheet. | |
| 10 | Jerk — square one? (5) |
| START – a DD | |
| 14 | On waves, great to come up again (9) |
| RESURFACE – RE (on) + SURF (waves) + GREAT (ace) | |
| 15 | Literal holy sin? (8,5) |
| CLERICAL ERROR – another DD I think, a literal being a typo. I suppose you could argue that the second is wordplay: CLERICAL (holy) + ERROR (sin). | |
| 16 | Descriptive of final shot good egg hit back (7) |
| PARTING – all reversed: G(ood) + NIT (egg) + RAP (hit). | |
| 17 | Line with edges in middle of deep, plane curve (7) |
| ELLIPSE – L(ine) + LIPS (edges) in (d)EE(p). I would say it’s a conic section myself, but it may well be a plane curve as well. | |
| 18 | Spark as it happens in penny, when head and tail scratched off (7) |
| ENLIVEN – LIVE (as it happens) inside (p)ENN(y). | |
| 19 | Pauli’s scientific idea: variant of penicillin cures pox (9,9) |
| EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE – *(PENICILLIN CURES POX). Always nice to see a bit of science here; and this particular bit won Pauli the Nobel Prize for physics. | |
| 21 | Notional full-moon day that is curtailed (4) |
| IDES – ID ES(t) that is, ie. Any connection with the actual full moon must have been notional indeed, even in Roman times, but the calendar was a bit more provisional in those early days. | |
| 24 | Data — lying either way? (5) |
| STATS – Just a reference to its palindromic nature, unless I’m missing something. | |
| 26 | Stick broken pot in grit (8) |
| GUMPTION – GUM (stick) + *(POT IN) | |
| 27 | Fantastic Four copied fancy dress (8) |
| FROUFROU – *(FOUR), twice. | |
| 29 | 32 across for landlord’s attention? (2,3,6) |
| TO THE LETTER – ie absolutely correct, as per 32ac. | |
| 30 | The other details? (5,2,4) |
| FACTS OF LIFE – A CD. “The other” in that sense, nudge nudge, know what I mean? | |
| 32 | Absolutely correct tense attached to oath (4,7) |
| WORD PERFECT – WORD (oath) + PERFECT, a tense | |
| 35 | Following wicket, a team unit and I desperately hang on (4,1,6) |
| WAIT A MINUTE – W(icket) + *(A TEAM UNIT + I) | |
| 37 | Concerned with ship on stormy seas, take another look (8) |
| REASSESS – *(SEAS), in RE SS, concerned with ship | |
| 39 | Italian star cut inside wingers (8) |
| GENOVESE – NOV(a) (star, cut) inside GEESE, your wingers. | |
| 40 | Gold on gun, killer plated? (5) |
| GATOR – GAT (gun) + OR (gold). “Gator” is US for a crocodile. “Gat” is US for a gun. | |
| 43 | Slippery customer in EastEnders, say? (4) |
| SOAP – Still, here we are back in the East End. A jocular DD. | |
| 44 | Packed — with coal? (8,2,3,5) |
| BURSTING AT THE SEAMS – Another CD. Coal comes in seams (and not sacks as I always thought). Hard for your poor blogger to add value, here! | |
| 47 | Funny doctor sharing treatment? (7) |
| COMEDIC – As in co-medic. | |
| 48 | Just running PC (5-2) |
| RIGHT-ON – RIGHT (just) + ON (running) for politically correct, the bane of our times. | |
| 50 | Pigeon in sink gobbling insect (7) |
| FANTAIL – ANT (insect) inside FAIL (sink). Plenty of pigeons in our garden but no fantails, they are a “fancy” breed. | |
| 51 | Negotiate bend in rally? (4,3,6) |
| TURN THE CORNER – Another DD. | |
| 52 | Soldier waiving right to adopt name from Caribbean island (9) |
| GRENADINE – N(ame) in GRENADIE(r), a soldier. From Grenada, specifically. | |
| 53 | Bitter pill of loss and regret, originally (5) |
| POLAR – first letters of Pill Of Loss And Regret. | |
| 54 | Scottish isle’s beauty queen perhaps tracks preacher (10) |
| MISSIONARY – MISS IONA (your beauty queen) + RY, railway tracks. | |
| 55 | Sunny above the horizon before eclipse (6) |
| UPBEAT – UP (above the horizon, as in sunup) + BEAT, eclipse, outdo | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Fasteners securing underwear ultimately on top of shoulders? Not so! (9) |
| STRAPLESS – (underwea)R, in STAPLES (fasteners) + S(houlders). The wordplay and def. overlap here. | |
| 2 | Modern composition attracts brain, though not popular, surprisingly (8,3) |
| ABSTRACT ART – *(ATTRACTS BRA), but not the IN (popular)… | |
| 3 | Almost flawless, place for hangout (7) |
| PURLIEU – PUR(e) (flawless, almost) + LIEU, place as in “in lieu/place of.” A purlieu is a strange word, originally from Old French, and originally meaning the area surrounding a forest but still subject to forest law. Now the usual meaning is just a neighbourhood, a haunt. | |
| 5 | Passage of free verse, official once (5) |
| REEVE – hidden, as above | |
| 6 | What may release gas in cola caterer shook up (11) |
| ACCELERATOR – *(COLA CATERER). Gas meaning petrol, although my new car releases mainly electricity.. | |
| 7 | Comic book supervillain, stage writer and Lothario (11) |
| STEPPENWOLF – STEP (stage) + PEN (writer) + WOLF (lothario). This word always makes me think of Born to be Wild, and Magic Carpet Ride, great rock music. But it means other things too, such as a novel by Herman Hesse and (I discover) a DC Comics supervillain. | |
| 8 | Half crushed by giant pest (8) |
| EPIDEMIC – DEMI (half) inside EPIC, giant. No sure about the def. here. Pestilence might be OK. | |
| 9 | Itinerant clerk guzzling marrow in gravy (9) |
| TRAVELLER – (g)RAV(y) in TELLER, a bank cashier. Lucky if you can find one of those, these days. | |
| 10 | Greyish-blue fish in hole (6) |
| STEELY – EEL (fish) in STY, a hole. My grandson’s bedroom, for example. | |
| 11 | Something to say as Italian leaves rolled in wild rice (11) |
| ARRIVEDERCI – ARRIVED (rolled in) + *(RICE). I found this easier to solve than to parse! | |
| 12 | European city where wind fuelled by current (5) |
| TURIN – I (current, electrical term) in TURN, wind. | |
| 13 | Kisser, jolly good listener (8,4) |
| LAUGHING GEAR – LAUGHING (jolly) + G(ood) + EAR, a listener. Two slang words for the mouth. | |
| 20 | Talk about mantra — it’s unimportant (2,6) |
| NO MATTER – OM (mantra) in NATTER, to talk | |
| 22 | Love to play the accordion? (7) |
| SQUEEZE – “Squeeze box” is a rather dismissive way to refer to an accordion, and an equally dismissive reference to a lover. The latter meaning appears in Collins, but not the former. | |
| 23 | First of larvae fed to gasping chick (8) |
| PUFFLING – L(arvae) in PUFFING, gasping. Puffling, a lovely word for a lovely bird, a baby puffin | |
| 25 | Ashamed to discover rats round hospital (8) |
| SHEEPISH – H(ospital) in SEE (discover) + PISH, rats. I have never, ever, heard anyone say “pish!” | |
| 28 | Office in London for example almost finished after business heading up west (8) |
| OCCIDENT – Struggling to parse this .. I think it is OC (business, heading up) + DEN, an office (?) in CIT(y). Clunky, if I’m right. | |
| 29 | Facing drunk holding gut up (7) |
| TOWARDS – DRAW (gut) on SOT (drunk), both rev. If you aren’t sure why gut = draw you must look it up yourself, I’m too squeamish. | |
| 31 | Changeling, one squaring the circle, for example? (5-7) |
| SHAPE-SHIFTER – another DD, one jocular | |
| 33 | Officer, delicate creature replacing duke with a king (4,7) |
| REAR ADMIRAL – I think this is a reference to a red admiral butterfly, with AR (a king) replacing the D(uke) in the first word. | |
| 34 | Old picture, selfie with Elvis? (3,4,3,1) |
| THE KING AND I – Yet another jocular DD. The second being no longer possible I didn’t underline it.. | |
| 35 | Plastic worn, it contains crude, malleable material (7,4) |
| WROUGHT IRON – ROUGH (crude) in *(WORN IT). I’m not sure if wrought iron is all that malliable. Once wrought it stays wrought, as (eg) the Clifton suspension bridge will attest. | |
| 36 | Militant sailor in bright blue (11) |
| ULTRAMARINE – ULTRA (militant) + MARINE (sailor) | |
| 38 | Something funny about our slightly acidic food (4,5) |
| SOUR CREAM – OUR in SCREAM, somethong funny. | |
| 41 | One filling in Listener cryptic — tough! (9) |
| RESILIENT – I in *(LISTENER). Nice clue! | |
| 42 | University mock missing page creating great interest (8) |
| USURIOUS – U + S(p)URIOUS. | |
| 45 | Finally, coin and note thrown in reservoir — a tanner? (3-4) |
| SUN-LAMP – (coi)N + LA, a note to follow soh, in SUMP, a reservoir. | |
| 46 | Checker somewhat misinterpreted it originally (6) |
| EDITOR – hidden, as above | |
| 47 | Upset dice? (3-2) |
| CUT-UP – yet another DD. | |
| 49 | Monarch overthrown, wanting a republic (5) |
| NIGER – REGIN(a) a monarch, rev. and missing an A. | |
DNF, with knobs on
Failed on SOAP (never occurred to me that a slippery customer would be a thing). Put in CARDINAL ERROR, whch made STEPPENWOLF impossible (would have got it from the checkers, but nho the supervillain). Never got OCCIDENT, could make nothing of the clue; still can’t. NHO LAUGHING GEAR. DNK ‘squeeze box’, but knew ‘main squeeze’, which was enough..
I also had “cardinal error” for a long time rather than “clerical error”. And I got stuck after putting in “Shape-changer” not “shape-shifter”. But a good puzzle, and thanks to the JerryW for the explanations
Another CARDINAL ERROR here.
Easier than some Jumbos of late, I thought. I still can’t see SOAP as ‘slippery character’ although something or someone of a slippery character might be said to ‘soapy’. One example was the conman played by Wilfrid Hyde-White in the Peter Sellers film Two Way Stretch who was known as “Soapy” Stevens. He helped organise a diamond heist whilst pretending to be a clergyman.
I knew FROUFROU only from ‘Le Comte de Froufrou’, a minor character in Blackadder The Third co written by Ben Elton who also gave us PUFFLING pants in Upstart Crow.
I thought this was an excellent puzzle. A combination of stuff I didn’t know and well-disguised definitions made it very biff-resistant, which always makes for a more interesting solve.
I think you have 28dn right, J. ‘Office’ for DEN seems a little bit loose to me but it’s directly supported by Chambers.
A quite horrible crossword, perhaps the worst my wife and I have ever tried in 50 years of puzzling. Loads of unfathomable clues even after we had guessed the answer. Amazed we tried to finish it.
Empathy .. I feel your pain. If any clues are still “unfathomable” please let me know which.
I can find no support for IDES being connected to the full moon, unless it has something to do with tides, but what exactly?
OCCIDENT is a mystery.
Really? Here is wikipedia:
This fixed calendar bore traces of its origin as an observational lunar one. In particular, the most important days of each month—its kalends, nones, and ides—seem to have derived from the new moon, the first-quarter moon, and the full moon respectively.
And here is the OED:
In the ancient Roman calendar (Julian and pre-Julian): the third of the three marker days in each month, notionally the day of the full moon, which divides the month in half, i.e. the 15th of March, May, July, October, and the 13th of the other months.
but I really struggle to see how the dates could have been accurate, given that their months were not 28 days..
I found this. The clue says ‘notional’ as pointed out in the blog so it seems fine to me.
There’s a historical connection between the “ides” of a month and the occurrence of a full moon, particularly in the context of the ancient Roman calendar. Here’s a breakdown:
Roman Lunar Calendar:
The ancient Roman calendar was originally based on lunar cycles.
Key points in the month were marked by:
Calends: The first day of the month, coinciding with the new moon.
Nones: A point roughly corresponding to the first quarter of the moon.
Ides: A point roughly corresponding to the full moon.
The Ides:
The “ides” originally signified the full moon.
The dates of the ides varied, but they generally fell around the middle of the month (the 13th or 15th).
Specifically:
The ides fell on the 15th of March, May, July, and October.
In other months, they fell on the 13th.
Connection to Full Moon:
Therefore, the concept of the “ides” was intrinsically linked to the observation of the full moon.
In essence, the Roman calendar used lunar phases to structure its months, and the “ides” served as a marker for the full moon phase.
A bit of an odd mix – I really like clues like Facts of Life, or Word Perfect, but then there were a couple of clunkers too.
I never like clues relying on deletion, like “almost finished” for “cit” … seems like a cop-out for the setter.
Also not keen on “bitter” meaning “polar”, although the wordplay made it clear.
Thank you Jackkt for the Blackadder reference!
Lies, damn lies, and statistics …(24 across)