I found this relatively gentle, with not too much obscurity or convoluted wordplay. It was revealed at the recent championships that Jumbos are largely under the custodianship of Deputy Editor Colin Thomas (our own mauefw) so maybe the extra complexity that has been creeping into the daily puzzles won’t seep into this domain.
Thanks again to Galspray for deputising for me five puzzles ago and to the wider TfTT community for helping me get to grips with the technical changes at The Times and resultant new blogging scripts and whatnot.
First in was CABLE CAR and last was STILETTOS.
If any of my explanations don’t make sense then feel free to ask for further elucidation.
The technical stuff:
Clues are in blue with the definition underlined. 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 C[old]
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | ABC clear about transport that’s suspended (5,3) |
| CABLE CAR -(ABC clear)* | |
| 5 | Measure valley cycling with half of this (6) |
| LENGTH – GLEN cycled so that G is at the end, then TH{is} | |
| 9 | Cliff record spun as “more collectable”? (7) |
| SCARCER – SCAR, reversal of REC[ord]. I don’t recall seeing REC for RECORD in a Times puzzle before. | |
| 14 | Worker, freezing cold, isolated air on the move (11) |
| ANTICYCLONE – ANT (worker), ICY, C[old], LONE | |
| 15 | Animated sailor’s girl born near farm gets offer of peace (5,6) |
| OLIVE BRANCH – OLIVE (OYL) (Popeye’s squeeze), B[orn], RANCH. I was always surprised when Popeye regularly acquired a tin of spinach from out of nowhere, but of course nobody expects the spinach acquisition. | |
| 16 | Dip wood with son in place of bishop (5) |
| SALSA – S[on] replacing B[ishop] in BALSA | |
| 17 | The other brave naked national (7) |
| ITALIAN – IT (the other as in nookie), {v}ALIAN{t} | |
| 18 | Stick with these kids essentially somersaulting by steps (9) |
| STILETTOS -TOTS with the OT flipping after STILE. It took a while to figure that out. | |
| 19 | German article by medic about analgesic option (7) |
| CODEINE -EINE by DOC reversed | |
| 20 | Choice to cover empty Scots Tory media event (5,10) |
| PRESS CONFERENCE – PREFERENCE around S{cot}S CON[servative] | |
| 22 | Stone fringing small fireside lacking a hot flame (10) |
| SWEETHEART – ST[one] around WEE HEARTH minus the second H[ot] | |
| 23 | Attraction Greek characters let me see around east (6) |
| MUSEUM – MUS UM around E[ast] | |
| 25 | Pass over fish that sailor’s left (4) |
| SKIP -SKIP{jack} | |
| 28 | Poor day visiting college’s production site (14) |
| UNSATISFACTORY – SAT[urday] in UNI[versitie]’S, FACTORY | |
| 30 | Fear stifling place concerning, you might say (2,2,4) |
| AS IT WERE – AWE around SIT, RE | |
| 32 | Spooner’s family panic applying exfoliants? (8) |
| SKINCARE – Spoonerism of KIN SCARE | |
| 34 | Flowers a lecher arranged for academic (8,6) |
| RESEARCH FELLOW – (flowers a lecher)* | |
| 37 | Tonnes invested in whale project looking for intelligent life (4) |
| SETI – T[onnes] in SEI (a kind of rorqual (a what now?), also known as a sei whale, apparently) | |
| 38 | Delivered edition in a feeble manner (6) |
| WEAKLY – sounds like WEEKLY | |
| 39 | Energy-packed beef up and down Welsh location (10) |
| CAERPHILLY – E[nergy] in CARP, HILLY. Cue the cheese jokes | |
| 43 | Cook noodles and dice Ugli fruit (6,9) |
| GOLDEN DELICIOUS – (noodles dice ugli)* | |
| 45 | Drink a lot of Joy’s booze (7) |
| CHABLIS – CHA, BLIS{s} | |
| 47 | Drunk stripped felt and wire in tent? (9) |
| TIGHTROPE – TIGHT, {g}ROPE{d} | |
| 49 | Crew member advanced sole and shellfish (7) |
| ABALONE – A[ble-]B[odied seaman], A[dvanced], LONE | |
| 51 | Wait around shelter having swapped markers for taps (5) |
| HOVER – COVER with C[old] replaced with H[ot] | |
| 52 | Inspect erection on right that’s assembled (11) |
| RECONNOITRE – (erection on R[ight])* | |
| 53 | Scavenger wheels by city with cap getting back to front (7,4) |
| CARRION CROW – CAR (wheels), RIO, CROWN with N moved to the front. | |
| 54 | Staff snare after last couple lost skunk in Maine (7) |
| POLECAT – POLE, CAT |
|
| 55 | Tests opponents at table, for example, by end of class (6) |
| ESSAYS -E[ast], S[outh], SAY, {clas}S | |
| 56 | Stay fed moving around America for Fourth of July? (5,3) |
| FEAST DAY – (stay fed)* around A[merica] | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Nameless groups like this race (7) |
| CLASSIC -CLANS minus N[ame], SIC, for any of the English horse races known as the classics. | |
| 2 | Turn key and turn another inside lock to get uniform (6,5) |
| BATTLE DRESS – TAB reversed then DEL reversed in TRESS | |
| 3 | Bread and wine with Brussels fish on India Street (9) |
| EUCHARIST -EU, CHAR, I[ndia], ST[reet] | |
| 4 | Machine half lifted within vaults ahead of guard (10,5) |
| ARCHIMEDES SCREW – reversal of DEMI in ARCHES, SCREW (UK slang for prison warder / guard) | |
| 6 | Make-up of Apple vessel theoretically announced? (8) |
| EYELINER – sounds like iLiner, an imagined cruise ship. | |
| 7 | Worn-down escort left trapping river rodent (6,8) |
| GROUND SQUIRREL – GROUND, SQUIRE L[eft] around R[iver] | |
| 8 | Acknowledge band members, “unpleasant shower” (10) |
| HAILSTONES – HAIL, (Rolling) STONES | |
| 9 | Series of notes supports female enforcer (7) |
| SHERIFF -RIFF under SHE. I recently tried to understand the difference between Sheriffs, Marshals and other US law enforcement officers / agencies but gave up. | |
| 10 | Lawn cut after first-class match (5) |
| AGREE – GREE |
|
| 11 | Tense infiltrating fools against new eastern ruler who converted (11) |
| CONSTANTINE – T[ense] in CONS ANTI N[ew] E[astern] | |
| 12 | Altered grass infused with different grass (8) |
| REHASHED – REED around HASH | |
| 13 | Exercises on mat mostly upset American painter (4) |
| GOYA – reversal of YOG{a}, A[merican] | |
| 20 | Outlaw normal with the first person I see (6) |
| PARIAH – PAR, I, AH! | |
| 21 | Award titles periodically after alcohol (7) |
| ROSETTE – T{i}T{l}E{s} after ROSE | |
| 22 | Vegetable and game between two (6) |
| SQUASH – DD | |
| 24 | Incorrectly label hares ceramicist fabricated (15) |
| MISCHARACTERISE – (hares ceramicist)* | |
| 26 | Dear children carried by those hiring racers (14) |
| STEEPLECHASERS – STEEP (dear as in expensive), CH[ildren] in LEASERS | |
| 27 | Surfacing fish means room to wriggle (6) |
| LEEWAY – EEL reversed, WAY | |
| 29 | Touchy animal climbing part of roof? (7) |
| TACTILE – CAT reversed, TILE | |
| 31 | Splinters from dense undergrowth picked up (6) |
| BREAKS – Sounds like BRAKES, nho but BRAKE can mean fern or bracken. | |
| 33 | Iago upset with cold lie regarding beliefs (11) |
| IDEALOGICAL – (Iago cold lie) | |
| 35 | Fifty regulars in Ripley exist on wine and chicken (4-7) |
| LILY-LIVERED – L, {r}I{p}L{e}Y, LIVE, RED. Ripley was a fabulous recent Netflix series based on The Talented Mr. Ripley. | |
| 36 | Where one’s employment is on the line (4,6) |
| CALL CENTRE – CD | |
| 40 | Recruits male relatives to fence drained ditch (9) |
| HEADHUNTS – HE AUNTS around D{itc}H | |
| 41 | Silver computers forward possible fake news (8) |
| AGITPROP – AG, IT, PROP (rugby) | |
| 42 | Reformed Roman Church close to every ruling family (8) |
| MONARCHY – (roman)*, CH, {ever}Y | |
| 44 | Quitter in sulk after drive over (7) |
| DROPOUT – POUT after DR[ive], O[ver] | |
| 46 | Spread out cold bit of lunch agent’s gathered (7) |
| SPRAWLY – RAW, L{unch} in SPY | |
| 48 | Medicine thrown up at home, breaking bed (5) |
| TONIC – reversal of IN in COT | |
| 50 | Fine artist’s seedy side? (4) |
| OKRA – OK, R[oyal] A[cademician] | |
DNF
I never got STILETTOS, AGREE. Also failed to parse ARCHIMEDES. Penfold, you’ve got a typo at 30ac and 37ac (rorquaL). I liked OLIVE BRANCH; not for the clue, for the comment.
Thanks for reading it all Kevin, typos fixed.
What Kevin said… a fittingly awful pun at 15ac there, Penfold!
Total disaster here. I cheated to get BREAKS (NHO brake in this sense) and in any case had two stupid mistakes I am too embarrassed to tell you about.
Love the awful dad joke, I will of course be stealing it.
We got stilettos without quite understanding the rationale. So well done for untangling that one. That’s a horribly contorted clue!
Also not keen on Sprawly – don’t see much opportunity to use that word in conversation today. But at least the clue was clear.
I loved iLiner, and also kin-scare.
Thank you for the blog. I didn’t get stilettos, sprawly, or brakes at 31d.
Favourite: 12d for the fun word play.
Least favourite: 17a. Having ‘The other’ to mean ‘sex’ to mean ‘it’ seems like one step too many from clue to answer, as well as being a strangely coy way of speaking, is it from Carry On films from the 60s and 70s? Also wasn’t a fan of reconnoitre as a synonym of inspect.
I realise I’m a few days late to the party here, but I’ve only just noticed I had an error on this one – 13 down. This is a travesty of a clue. How is one supposed to tell it’s yoga (with yog reversed) to give Goya, and not Goya (with goy reversed) to give yoga??! Outrageous!
A few days later, but my thoughts exactly Lou.
Fortunately I was clever enough to stuff up another one (BRIARS instead of BREAKS) so it didn’t really matter in the end.
Ahead of you there – I had CETI instead of SETI and SPARCER instead of SCARCER, neither of which are actual words. And now that I look at the YOGA/GOYA clue again, I see there’s a pesky ‘American’, which – I think, hard to be sure of anything after my efforts here – means I have nothing left to be indignant about.
Yes, I was going to say that the cryptic reading wouldn’t work for the answer YOGA. Mostly and upset are next to “exercises on mat” so it’s YOGA that has to be Truncated and flipped, not the painter.
But what if Goya was secretly American?
Then you’d have a point 😁
Actually, wait: American + painter gives AGOYA, and mostly upset yields YOGA. You could argue that you have to upset the letters before taking most of them, but I see no reason that “mostly upset” can’t mean “upset most of these letters”.