Times Cryptic Jumbo No 1602

10 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo No 1602”

1. Didn’t care much for this one, either. I have ‘feh’ written next to a number of clues I found especially poor as surfaces: 40d, say. DNK ‘streetcar’ was an Americanism. DNK REITER, OTTER SHREW.

   1. The UK equivalent of ‘streetcar’ is ‘tramcar’ or simply ‘tram’. Trams were mostly abolished during the 1950s although some provincial towns retained them, and over recent decades new systems have been built in a number of places because they are (or were) considered environmentally friendly.

2. I was also finding this easy so I subconsciously wrote LENGHTY at 8dn and gave myself a load of headaches solving 17ac and other clues in the NE where checkers from 17 would have helped.

3. My copy says “Easy and straightforward, all in one session bar a handful in the SE.”
   Also nho otter shrew – which is neither an otter nor a shrew, it transpires. Still, if the clue had said “Afrotherian mammals of family Potamogalidae, related to the tenrec” it would not have helped me very much..

4. Er, not that easy. I’m pretty sure I enjoyed working steadily through this one, in a time that was not particularly fast. But I don’t recall much else.

   For Jumbos I usually write my comment straight after finishing, and post it when the blog appears two weeks later. Or everything just evaporates

5. I did this in just over 13 minutes, but made a silly error. I put in RUSTIFY, for reasons I can’t now fathom. Annoying!

6. Well … that was an adventure!!

   Popping into the site I saw our esteemed blogger John’s comment on the Front Page that this was processional and, having never tried the Jumbo Cryptic before, decided to give it a go.

   A couple of clues went in the NW, a couple more somewhere over in the NE but it really wasn’t that processional to me. I kept on going through and finally finished reading the clues around 25-mins (noting now that John took 21 to solve it!) and had perhaps 7-8 answers filled in. I gave it another five mins and then put the tablet down and went back to sleep until 11:30am!!

   This evening I returned to give it another go.

   About 5-10mins in, it occurred to me that, being a crossword with a submission button meant there was probably some kind of Prize available and therefore, more importantly, John wouldn’t have blogged the answers today but those from last week 🤦‍♂️ I’d been doing #1604 from 18th March.

   I found the correct grid and tried again. This time the NW immediately gained three answers and I felt processional. But the crickets were hiding just over and across; in fact, all round the top half.

   Hitting the lower region I began to find some answers and spot an anagram or two and made headway. About an hour in I’d filled the bottom half with just VOICE outstanding.

   The top half continued to be problematic and I finally gave into doing a Check at 1hr45 to find almost everything I’d put was right. The one sore point was “Have ant in one’s pants” where I’d unhappily plumped for “Your” because, well, I just never think of “one’s” when I’m doing these things.

   I was beginning to lose faith in ever finishing but then PALLID appeared which led to SPONSORSHIP, STREETCAR (PDM) and SINFONIETTA (an anagram I was sure I wouldn’t know when I had only a couple of bland checkers).

   Another check at about 2hr10 highlighted a couple of errors and then I was into the final stretch until the final three of VOL-AU-VENT, SPEARS (long ignored from alphabet trawling) and PREMATURE (LOI) were typed in.

   One man’s processional is another man’s official 2hr27 on the clock 😆😆😆 There were a good 10-15mins of stops in there and what better way is there to spend a Saturday night ?!?

   Thanks for the blog John. I parsed most of it along the way but needed it for SIAMESE, the late ones I BIFd to get to the end and the NHO ANA. Thought of you when I finally remembered your local tribe the ICENI (although I dithered about whether they might be the Ineci!)

   1. Well done on sticking it out to the end. ANA is one to remember is it crops up regularly in cryptics. ICENI seems to come up quite often too. You reminded me I’ve been meaning to check up on what happened to the Iceni Brewery in Ickburgh, just across the border in Norfolk. I was surprised to see it is 10 years since it’s plant was sold and it’s now a much smaller-scale operation at Elvedon.

7. Always think of “one’s”, never of “your”.

   1. I will do 👍 Hasn’t come up often up to get ingrained yet but it will eventually

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