Times Jumbo 1002

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
39:48 on the club timer – as this appears to be precisely 7 seconds more than the last Jumbo I blogged, I can only conclude it was of a similar degree of difficulty, which would be higher than average. And whoever the setter is, they like their cunning letter replacement clues, not to mention long anagrams! Enjoyably chewy, possibly like 47 down.

With Jumbos I generally confine myself to discussion of answers which I think might be a) less straightforward for inexperienced or non-UK based solvers, or b) especially elegant / questionable. However, as always, if a particular clue is not discussed, please feel free to raise it in comments for explanation or discussion.

Across
1 SODDEN – SOD(=grass) DEN(=earth, as in a fox’s earth).
4 HOUSE PLANT – HOUSE(=family, as in House of Tudor) PLANT(=works). Even I’ve heard of this one, and I regard myself as botanically illiterate.
14 TIMEPIECE – (EMIT)rev. + “PEACE”
15 PREFABRICATED – (BRIDERAPTFACE)*.
16 SANGRIA – SANG(=celebrated, as in Mass) + aRrIvAl.
17 TERRIER – ERR in TIER; for the benefit of non-UK solvers, members of the Territorial Army (TA) might be referred to as “Terriers”.
18 EMOTION – (NO.1 TOME)rev.
19 INTERIOR DECORATION – IN, CO. in (1INDOORRETREAT)*.
26 PASTICHE – PAST(=over), Herd in ICE. I eventually worked out that “ice” and “reserve” are nouns here, having tried to make “in reserve=”on ice”, which doesn’t quite work out, neat device though it would be…
35 INFATUATION – INFLATION with Liberal replaced by AT University.
37 ALLEGORY – ALLEY + GORY.
39 INVENTOR – IN VENTNOR minus Note, with the definition referring to Alexander Graham Bell.
40 SCARP – Small CARP.
43 ELSE – thE rousseL symphonieS arE. A coda is the last element of a musical piece, so in this context is the last letter of each word.
44 OVERSIMPLIFICATION – (IMPORTFACILEVISION)*. Given the limitations of a regular daily grid, I can’t imagine one-word anagrams this long crop up more than a couple of times a year!
47 SPANNER – SPAR with ANNE instead of A.
54 UNIMAGINATIVE – UNI,MAGI,NATIVE.
52 DALMATIAN – Died (ATANIMAL)*.
54 ESTIMATION – (TESTIMONIAL)* without the Length.
 
Down
1 SATISFIED – a rare triple definition.
3 EMPEROR – (PRE-ROME)*.
5 OVERT – COVERT.
6 SUPERSCRIPT – SUPERS (policemen, i.e Superintendents) + R.I.P. in CourT. I liked “grave message” for R.I.P.
7 ALACRITY – Rand in A LA CITY. Obviously Durban could be anywhere, but it suits the surface with “rand”.
9 THREESOME – (METHEROES)*. The Three Fates are from Greek mythology; I think this would have been easy to deduce even without knowing anything about them.
11 TUTTI FRUTTI – TUT(=”Tsk!”) + IT, TURF IT(all rev.)
13 METAMORPHISM – (PROM)rev. in (THEIMAMS)*.
20 DISTASTE – DId STAg STEw.
22 HALCYON – HALT + [pygmY in CON]. Halcyon is the Latin name for the kingfisher, and now the scientific name of the genus.
25 FRONTAGE – FatheR ONSTAGE.
28 CONFETTI – a cryptic definition, and rather a good one, I thought.
31 INTERMINABLE – IN TERMINI ABLE.
33 MOLESTATION – MOLE(=spy),STATION(=base).
34 CANNIBALISM – C, HANNIBAL, ISM.
35 INEXPEDIENT – another nice substitution clue, this time [IN EXPERIMENT] has RIM replaced by Diameter, 1.
36 IMAGINATION – I’M A GINA, (NO IT)rev.
38 RIVERSIDE – customeR + (DERISIVE)*.
45 AIRMAIL – IRMA in AIL. “High-flown writing” is another nicely allusive definition.
47 SQUID – Succeeded + QUID.

One comment on “Times Jumbo 1002”

  1. 64′. Couldn’t figure out 11d, but at least it had to be TUTTI FRUTTI; but I’m not sure I’ve got it yet. Liked 35ac and 20d, and a number of others had very nice surfaces (4ac, for instance, or 30ac; although I didn’t know ‘prom’ in this sense). I was a bit surprised to see 36d and 51ac in the same puzzle.

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