Times Cryptic Jumbo Special. Published Sunday 17 September 2023 in the GOOD UNIVERSITY GUIDE supplement

12 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo Special. Published Sunday 17 September 2023 in the GOOD UNIVERSITY GUIDE supplement”

1. From curryowen:
   20 September 2023 at 2:37 AM

   Pretty straightforward- slowed down by YEAR THIRTEEN, UCAS and INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD but they went in eventually along with everything else. Probably around 25 minutes.

2. From Countrywoman1:
   23 September 2023 at 11:39 AM

   Completed but not altogether easy. Rather too many anagrams, as far as I was concerned. LOI SYMMETRY. Liked UNDERPIN, WIGWAM, RENEWAL.

   Quite difficult for a student, perhaps. Though in the sixties I remember a young chap who would do the whole Telegraph cryptic in his head on a short tube journey.
   Thanks all.

3. From L-Plates:
   20 September 2023 at 3:16 PM

   I quite enjoyed that taking around 49mins with one mis-spelling . As to whether it will appeal to students, I’m not sure. While I got the first two across clues and the first down – I didn’t really get going until the last few lines of the grid and the ones in the NE were last in. I’m not sure whether 18-year-old me would have been willing to go all the way through the clues with that lack of success.

   Letter to the editor may be required for referring to my local team AFC Bournemouth as “Bournemouth FC”. Back in 1971 they changed name from Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic to the AFC version in the expectation it would put them ahead of Arsenal and Aston Villa when it came to any index of Football League teams! Sadly no-one ever complies with this.

4. From Martinů:
   21 September 2023 at 4:27 PM
   Some easy, many enjoyable – think I must pass on four (including 14a, no help from L-Plates above!) which I hope isn’t too bad. NHO 25d, I think? MER at 9a, COD 13a, very clever. Hope no spoilers there. Thank you, John, for the heads-up (learnt that phrase in a QC some months ago).

   From Martinů:
   22 September 2023 at 10:36 PM

   Down to two now, though NHO 14a or 8d (comments will follow). Still stuck on 41 and 42.

5. This was OK. Not our usual fare, but it’s not meant to be. Still, like L-Plates, I wonder if it will appeal to the younger set. Well worth a try. I learned to do the Telegraph crossword when I was at school. (No. I’m certainly not the young chap Countrywoman remembers).

   A confused start with the access issues, some progress on screen, then a switch to a paper print-out, so I’m not sure about my time. I reckon between 45 and 50 minutes which is a personal best for me for a Jumbo by 5 minutes or more.

   Not totally sraightforward though. For example, I didn’t know what the “school leavers” were doing there in the HOODIES clue. TREMENDOUS took ages to emerge, despite the clear anagram. Does anyone say WATER CLOSET nowadays? SYMMETRY, my LOI, must have taken 5 minutes at the end.

   At 43ac (ROAD SAFETY) I wondered if “fast” should be part of the definition – How one should travel fast – where “fast” means secure and by extension safe. That’s a bit of a stretch, though, and “fast” is anyway part of the wordplay. So yes, it looks like something’s wrong.

   I always enjoy the ones like A STEROID and SURF ACE. I also liked OUTSTARES and ENDLESS and my favourite the EX UBER ANT

6. I think I’m now allowed to post my comments! Got those last two eventually, so solving time = nearly a week. NHO connexion between HOODIES and school leavers, but Mrs M had, so ok. Ditto RAM (24), HACKS and MAIL MERGE. But we both NHO SCHMO – sounds Yiddish, but I see this is disputed – certainly US, anyway; nor CHERRIES (is that really GK???); but both had to be.
   FOI INCENTIVE, LOI EMERSON, “liberated by” (to borrow LindsayO’s phrase in the QC today) POI YEAR THIRTEEN. Lots of fun here – thank you, setter.
   Must record one MER: you can say “off key” or “out of tune”, but OUT OF KEY does not exist.

   1. Heaven knows why I, a football nescient, knew that the Bournemouth team are known as The Cherries – it could be from my occasional days working for the BBC 5Live sports team – but I dredged it up from somewhere and was absurdly pleased with myself for doing so! Agree with OUT OF KEY…

      1. Thank you – and I love your word nescient (I, too).

   2. I had similar misgivings over ‘out of key’ but it returns many hits on Google including several in reputable dictionaries, if not the ones that we usually rely on as Times sources.

7. I don’t normally do the Jumbos, as I spend enough time on the daily ones to make me feel guilty about further procrastination, but Jackkt’s heads up encouraged me to have a go. And it was indeed quick – quicker, on average, than most of my daily cryptic times. Only unknown was SCHMO, which really couldn’t be anything else, but I’ve always known the term as ‘schmuck’ in Yiddish. I assumed it was a ‘youth’ thing. INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD was, thank goodness, an anagram, or would have taken a lot longer. Mostly I worked down from top to bottom. I did have a bit of a MER at ROAD SAFETY and isn’t RONALDO still alive? Ah, but I see it came out on a Sunday, so presumably OK then. Fun, and encouraging, hopefully for its target solvers, too.

8. Very enjoyable and hopefully will serve as an encouraging introduction to more young people. Had to work at some of the more contemporary terms eg Schmo and fell into a few traps eg 1a toupee but couldn’t parse until a PDM came; 50a your/ones; 41a I had thirteen but couldn’t figure out why that was right, but I’m def out of touch with contemporary education; and missed the hidden in 42d which would have helped!

9. Thank you for drawing my attention to this. I have never done a Jumbo before…. they always look far too hard for me…. but I completed this in 1:08:26. That may sound a long time to most but it made me very happy!! I struggled most with “Year Thirteen” despite working in a school for years and having a granddaughter who has just completed it and gone off to uni. MM

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