Time: 59.34
I found this a reasonably middle-of-the-road offering in terms of difficulty – I have not been doing the Jumbos for very long, but an hour is about my par time at the moment.
In terms of the clues, I thought there were four or five crackers here, which I have picked out below. FRIEND OR FOE probably my pick of the bunch though I loved the groan-worthy PHARAOH.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | A youngster joining teams that may need dressing (4,5) |
| SIDE SALAD – SIDES + A LAD | |
| 6 | One highlighting item checked for errors made impervious to attack (13) |
| BULLETPROOFED – BULLET (One highlighting item) + PROOFED (checked for errors). | |
| 13 | Space explorers left as the hooter sounds (5) |
| NASAL – NASA +L. | |
| 14 | Handing over deeds, live alone looking seriously at first housing board (9) |
| BETRAYALS – BE + ALS around (housing) TRAY (board).
Superb literal. When I came to write this up, having solved it a week earlier, I got stuck again here, scratching my head as to what the setter was getting at. |
|
| 15 | Force bishop to visit aged and sick (3,4) |
| OLD BILL -OLD + B + ILL. | |
| 16 | Proverbial advice to surgeon not to delay closing incision? (1,6,2,4,5,4) |
| A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE – Cryptic, or maybe a double definition with a cryptic limb. Answer is the same either way. | |
| 18 | Work that’s better-paid perhaps, but not all at once (8) |
| OVERTIME -Double definition of sorts, the second limb requiring a break between OVER and TIME to be a property phrase. | |
| 20 | Viola plays in this a lot, changing opening briefly (4,4) |
| ALTO CLEF – Anagram of A LOT followed by CLEF(T). | |
| 21 | Not compact, igloo seems in need of trimming (5) |
| LOOSE – Hidden | |
| 23 | Pilgrim returning to follow the Andalusian prophet (6) |
| ELIJAH – Reversal of HAJI following EL | |
| 24 | Caught men recording crow (6) |
| CORVID – C + OR + VID. | |
| 25 | Suffering acute flu, parking quantity of drink (9) |
| TEACUPFUL – (ACUTE + FLU + P)* | |
| 28 | In a while employing dull-witted (but not British) idler (5-5) |
| LOTUS-EATER – I struggled with this one, knowing the expression but unfortunately not able to bring it to mind, and struggling to get the middle bit of the clue which is OBTUSE without the B. That goes inside (employing) LATER (in a while). | |
| 29 | Foreign woman united with religious brother (4) |
| FRAU -FRA + U. | |
| 30 | China, maybe needing time to replace leader, becomes unstable (7) |
| TOTTERY – POTTERY with T replacing the P. Lovely surface. | |
| 32 | Knock about football at last, next to our room for games? (7) |
| PARLOUR – Reversal of RAP + L (last letter of football) + OUR (in plain sight). | |
| 34 | Rejected objections, small part remaining (4) |
| STUB – Reversal of BUTS. | |
| 35 | Keep out of sight in Togo, it is suggested (2,2,6) |
| GO TO GROUND – Reverse cryptic. “Ground” is an anagram indicator so if you apply that to “Go to” you get TOGO. | |
| 38 | Escape hole in gentle radiation (9) |
| LAMPLIGHT – This was my LOI. Limelight also fitted and although it didn’t fit the w/p I couldn’t see the parsing of LAMPLIGHT immediately. Eventually I clocked PLIGHT for “hole” and assumed (correctly) that LAM is a synonym for “escape”. It is – apparently US slang. | |
| 39 | Reluctant potholers initially going east (6) |
| AVERSE – Our potholers are CAVERS from which you delete its initial letter (initially going). You then add E for east. | |
| 40 | No way I compete up front in such skiing (6) |
| NORDIC -NO + RD + I + C (first letter of compete).
Not quite Sweden, but we certainly visited Ikea for this construction. |
|
| 43 | A hole in the head is wrong and useless (5) |
| SINUS -SIN + US. US for “useless” is a comparatively recent addition to my ken, and it does come up from time to time. | |
| 45 | Regularly keeping home neat, ultimately with elegance (8) |
| DAINTILY -DAILY (regularly) outside IN + T (last letter of neat). | |
| 47 | Queen playing Act I or IV (8) |
| VICTORIA – (ACT I OR IV)*. Loved this. | |
| 49 | Same housing estate often trashed in annual report (5,2,3,5,7) |
| STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE – Remarkably, a clean anagram (trashed) of the first four words of the clue. Clever setter. | |
| 52 | Not that good an effort in Boat Race, we are told? Say “Tut!” (7) |
| PHAROAH – Homophone of “Fair row”. I am sure this has been seen before but not by me. Absolutely loved this one as well. | |
| 53 | Not expected in concert to introduce one new verse (9) |
| UNINVITED – UNITED (in concert) goes around I + N + V. | |
| 54 | Learning about current in river abroad (5) |
| LOIRE -LORE around I. | |
| 55 | Unscrupulous sort of bicycle salesman? (7-6) |
| WHEELER-DEALER – Double definition, one off-beat. | |
| 56 | Girl, avoiding Irish, meeting a Welshman where he might have lived? (9) |
| GLAMORGAN – From GIRL you remove IR then add A followed by MORGAN for our Welshman making a nice change from the other staples (Ivan, Dai etc). “Might have lived” because the County was abolished in 1974. I was slightly surprised by that but the name remained familiar as the cricket team. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Popular break in very old country (9) |
| SINGAPORE -The IN + GAP of this is clear. That is contained within …well it must be SORE for “very” with the definition “old country”. Certainly as an adverb SORE can mean “very much”. SINGAPORE is no older than many other countries but I guess the “old” bit is needed for the surface. | |
| 2 | Lovely girl, almost a certain age, grabbing newspaperman to gossip maliciously (4,3,4) |
| DISH THE DIRT – DISH (lovely girl) + THIRT(Y) around ED. Other ages can apply. | |
| 3 | First to leave during a little rain break (5) |
| SPLIT – L inside SPIT (here as a noun meaning a light fall of rain or snow). The verbal use is common enough, the nounal meaning rather less so, I’d suggest. | |
| 4 | Work at the opera house, struggling to walk, drinking endless tea (2,6) |
| LA BOHEME – LAME around BOHE(A). Bohea is actually a trade name, the tea more correctly known as Wuyi tea, a category of black and oolong teas grown in the Wuyi mountains of China. | |
| 5 | Foolishly loving pet, possibly with metal implant (6) |
| DOTING -DOG containing TIN. | |
| 6 | Arab’s vital struggle for capital (10) |
| BRATISLAVA -(ARABS + VITAL)* | |
| 7 | Displeased, releases two examples of these tenants (12) |
| LEASEHOLDERS – The idea here is both “displeased” and “releases” contain the word LEASE, and are therefore LEASEHOLDERS. | |
| 8 | Cause a jam in three directions and peer round (7) |
| ENSNARL -Our three directions are NSN which are contained within EARL. | |
| 9 | Genuine part that cannot be reduced (6,8) |
| PROPER FRACTION – Not sure that I had come across this expression, though I guess I must have done at some point, though it didn’t ring too many bells. Genuine = PROPER and part = FRACTION. The definition seems to be that a proper fraction is where the numerator is lower than the denominator. An improper fraction is where the opposite is the case, or where there is a combination of a whole number and a proper fraction. On that basis I can see that a proper fraction can’t be reduced further (unless one argues that, say, 6/8 can be reduced to 3/4). | |
| 10 | Service book is unremarkable, with one line changed for another (7) |
| ORDINAL – Unremarkable is ORDINARY from which you take RY (one line) and replace it with another (L). | |
| 11 | One fired for failing challenge (6,2,3) |
| FRIEND OR FOE – (ONE + FIRED + FOR)*. A fourth superb clue. | |
| 12 | Toy, about 67 cents? (4) |
| DOLL – Two-thirds (about 67% ) of a DOLLAR gives us the answer. | |
| 17 | Set out, stripped of all devices, you might say? (8) |
| DEPLOYED – Device can mean a PLOY and if you have no PLOYS you might be said to be DE-PLOYED. | |
| 19 | Drink to the ladies, say, standing to embrace daughter that grows up in the woods (9) |
| TOADSTOOL – We TOAST a reversal (standing, in a down clue) of LOO and put it around D for daughter. | |
| 22 | A bit of relaxation disturbed in the middle in largely rural area (8) |
| SOMERSET -SOME REST has the antepenultimate and penultimate letters reversed (“disturbed in the middle”). | |
| 25 | Rugby team said to suffer defeat? (8) |
| TOULOUSE – Homophone of “to lose”.
Possibly a toughie for folks from outside the British Isles and/or those uninterested in Rugby. |
|
| 26 | Be the most loquacious, to the ultimate degree (9) |
| UTTERMOST – UTTER MOST. | |
| 27 | Frightful hag with deformity, or quite the opposite? (5,9) |
| FAIRY GODMOTHER – (HAG + DEFORMITY + OR)*.
Okay, it’s a five-way tie at the top for my COD. Another great clue. |
|
| 28 | Edges round county briefly, having this to face? (3,5) |
| LIP GLOSS – You apply LIP GLOSS to your face, which gives us the definition and answer. The w/p is LIPS (edges) around the short version of Gloucestershire (GLOS). Hard and one of my last two or three in. | |
| 31 | After love, contraceptive to alleviate unwelcome prospect (5,3,4) |
| SUGAR THE PILL -SUGAR (love) + THE PILL. | |
| 33 | Protest as broadcast torments ear (11) |
| REMONSTRATE – (TORMENTS EAR)* | |
| 36 | Assuming responsibility for dangerous piece of driving (11) |
| UNDERTAKING – Double definition. I couldn’t say whether undertaking is considered dangerous/illegal everywhere in the world but you certainly shouldn’t be doing it in the UK. | |
| 37 | On good terms always? Fancy that (4,1,5) |
| WELL I NEVER – WELL IN means “on good terms”. Add EVER for always. | |
| 41 | Clean home furiously — it may become a different colour (9) |
| CHAMELEON – (CLEAN HOME)* | |
| 42 | Moderate line by BBC and others (3,5) |
| VIA MEDIA – I stared at _I_ MEDIA for a while, trying to think of a three-letter synonym for “line” before realising I should be looking at the nondescript “by” to provide VIA. MEDIA for “BBC and others” gives us the rest of the answer. | |
| 44 | Cast off as stage backdrops collapse, just missing the lead (3,4) |
| SET SAIL – SETS (stage backdrops) + (F)AIL. | |
| 46 | Tip from Bow: not polite to barge in (7) |
| INTRUDE – (H)INT + RUDE. For newbies, if there is a reference to Bow or East End or Cockney, you are likely to be required to remove the H from the beginning of a word. | |
| 48 | Departs on journey, getting a lift; I’m grateful to have that good military ID (3,3) |
| DOG TAG – D on top of a reversal of GO (getting a lift) on top of TA (I’m grateful) on top of G. Back to Ikea. | |
| 50 | Sudden applause greeting shortened opening of opera (5) |
| SALVO -Greeting is SALVE from which you remove the last letter and add the first letter of opera instead. Usually a burst of artillery but a burst of applause is also one of its definitions. | |
| 51 | Eject from small seat (4) |
| SPEW -S + PEW. | |
DNK the rugby team, but didn’t have to. DNK that Somerset was largely rural, but didn’t have to. Didn’t understand how 39ac worked, because I dnk (or had forgotten) that a pothole could be a cave. 49ac is an impressive anagram, but COD to FAIRY GODMOTHER.
I found this mostly easy although I used aids for the first word in VIA MEDIA as I didn’t know the Latin expression.
My only query was the wordplay at 1dn SINGAPORE. I accounted for SO as clued by ‘very’ (as it so often is) which left me wondering where RE came from. I suppose ‘very / SORE’ works (I’m sore afraid) although I think of it as an Americanism and not something I would use myself, but an entry in Collins suggests it may be from the German sehr / very.
I would think ‘sore’=’very’ is either archaic or dialectal, certainly not a general Americanism.