Times Jumbo 1042

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
41:49 on the Club timer, which rightly suggests something a bit trickier than usual. This was a tremendously good puzzle, I thought, with very smooth surfaces, some tricky definitions, a wide range of required general knowledge, and a few traps for the unwary. Nice work, setter.

With Jumbos, which attract a far smaller audience than daily puzzles, I generally confine myself to discussion of answers which I think are a) less straightforward for inexperienced or non-UK based solvers, or b) especially elegant / questionable. In other words, unless it’s an exceptionally interesting puzzle, the coverage is unlikely to be 100%; however, as always, if a particular clue is not discussed, please feel free to raise it in comments for explanation or discussion.

Across
6 CHAFF – Husband in CAFF. It may be a peculiarly British thing to abbreviate cafe to caff.
9 DE FACTO – ACT in DEFOE.
13 SOLON – SOLONG; famously wise law-giver of pre-classical Athens, who may not be as familiar as later compatriots.
14 PROMISE – PROM IS Encouraging. Topical as the First Night of the Proms was yesterday.
15 INCURSIVE – IN + CURS I’VE; lift and separate required on “attack dogs”.
18 FORBAD – FOR(in the service of) BAD(evil); “forbade” is what I would have expected, but either is acceptable.
19 TOREADOR – TORE, ADO, Right. “Killer facing charges” is a fine definition.
21 TASMAN – i.e. take MANTAS, cut it in half, and rearrange the two halves. Tasman will obviously be very straightforward for our Antipodean solvers.
26 BREAD AND BUTTER – READ in [B AND B], UTTER.
28 ISLAY – Large in I SAY! Islay malts are famously peaty; here endeth the extent of my whisky knowledge.
29 PLIANT – I in PLANT; “supply” as adverb in the definition, of course.
33 LOCKSMITHS – cryptic def.
36 STATE – I spent ages thinking this must be something to do with the words themselves, but in fact the answer is so obvious it seems hardly cryptic (when you get it, that is) i.e. the first two are states as well as cities, which the other two aren’t.
40 NOSE RING – some people won’t like this, as it requires very specialist knowledge of The Owl and the Pussycat, to wit their purchase (for a shilling i.e a bob) of the ring through a pig’s nose to use at their wedding ceremony.
42 KNIGHT – cryptic def.: in chess, the only piece on the back rank which can make an opening move is the knight.
47 SIDE STREETS – [ID EST] in STEERS(rev.).
53 IN ERROR – IN(=governing) English, 0 in [RRR], where “educational foundation is “The 3 Rs”.
54 DARBY =”DERBY”, the most prominent of the English racing classics. One half of the proverbially contented married couple.
57 PORTRAYAL – RAY in PORTAL(“way in”).
 
Down
1 BOSUN – BONUS with partners North and South swapped.
2 MILITARY POLICEMEN – Run in (POLITICALENEMYIM)*. Not the obvious sort of MPs.
5 CROSSBOW – different, and differently pronounced, BOWS – one which you might shoot with, the other being the part of a ship across which the shot might be fired.
7 AMERINDIAN – Name in A MERIDIAN.
10 FIRING SQUAD – (IF)rev., RINGS QUADrangle. Not the sort of shooting party you’d want to be invited to join, really.
11 CAIRO – inflated company, as produced by putting AIR in your CO.
12 ODENSE – 0 DENSE; very tempting to put in ODESSA, which isn’t northern, and doesn’t fit the wordplay.
18 FRITILLARY – TILL in FRIARY; I thought a fritillary was only a butterfly, but obviously I was wrong.
20 REASONED – theatRE AS ONE Does. They say that if a hidden word clue is one of the last in, it’s a good one of its type, and this one certainly met that criterion for me.
22 ALTERNATIVE ENERGY – GREEN strategY is an anagram of (i.e. alternative) ENERGY, and an &lit.
23 DELPHI – (LED)rev. + PHI; brilliant &lit. clue, as the oracle at Delphi gave famously opaque advice, which was open to misinterpretation, hence the adjective “Delphic”.
24 TROY WEIGHT – TROY(=city of Paris) With EIGHT(cube of 2). The surface is clearly meant to deceive the solver by suggesting it has something to do with, say, the official kilogram, which is found in Paris.
31 ACTION – I(=current in scientific notation) in ACTON(part of West London).
34 SMORGASBORD – (GRABSROOM)* in Swedish Domicile. Making it Swedish rather than, say, Spanish or Senegalese, adds a nice &lit. element to the clue.
37 FLY FISHING – (IFSHY)* in FLING.
45 ASKANT – AS KANT. As with FORBAD, I always thought ASKANCE was the only correct version, but this is, again, a perfectly valid alternate form.
46 FAIRER – i.e. this is the comparative adjective of “FAIR”, which can mean any one of “fine”, “blonde”, “just” or “beautiful”.
48 DATUM – Trade Union in DAM(=current stoppage) gives the rarely-used singular of “data”.
49 EASED – EASEL(=”support for artist”) with the final L(=50 in Roman numerals) changed to D(=500).

7 comments on “Times Jumbo 1042”

  1. A very enjoyable 20 minutes. I did like NOSE RING and did indeed have to explain the wordplay to a fellow solver ‘over the pond’
  2. I didn’t time this but I remember it was a very good puzzle. Well, except for NOSE RING, which I thought bordered on the unfair. I only got it after resorting to aids once I realised it was probably something to do with The Owl And The Pussycat.
  3. No idea of the time, well over an hour I’m sure, with NOSE-RING as LOI, thrown in not because I finally remembered ‘The Owl and the P’ but because I was sick of the damn thing.I don’t know if this counts as adding to your whisky knowledge, Tim, but Islay scotches are also fantastic. (Or some of them, anyway; my introduction to Islay was rather disappointing. But since I found it in a Japanese supermarket, at least I knew not to say ‘Izlay’.)
  4. A very enjoyable four days worth. Explanation of solutions very helpful. My only caveat is that they contain no mention of 35 across.
  5. Very slightly irritating that the 2 clues I couldn’t solve you regard as too easy to include – 36 down and 44 across. My apologies for being so dumb.
    Steve Rourke
    1. Steve

      36dn SPELL(read letters in) BINDER(file) = SPELLBINDER (gifted orator)

      44ac LIEN (from OED “a right to keep possession of property belonging to another person until a debt owed by that person is discharged” i.e. right, to lawyer) in CT. (=Court) gives CLIENT (employer of professional)

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