Times Jumbo 1052

34:33 on the Club timer; in the preamble to my last Jumbo blog, I described my time of 34:36 as “pretty much bang on my average time for the Jumbo (or at least my usual time for an average Jumbo, if you see what I mean)”, so clearly this one was cut from exactly the same cloth. On re-examination, I’d say it was a very pleasant, if unexceptional, puzzle.

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
14	VOLUNTEER – double def.
15	ABERDEEN ANGUS – (ABUSEENDANGERS)*. Breed of cattle which produces excellent beef, and gave its name to those mysterious London restaurants.
17	RISIBLE – SIBLING in RILE. Personally I always say “brothers and sisters” rather than “sibs”, and have never thought there was a pressing need for an abbreviated word meaning the same thing, so perhaps I have too much time on my hands.
18	RETRIAL – i.e. RE:TRIAL, as in “Ooh, she’s a real trial”.
19	BARK UP THE WRONG TREE – cryptic def. in which the boxer is a dog, and the elder is a tree.
24	EMCEE =”M.C.” which can be Military Cross as well as Master of Ceremonies. Ugly word when written down, if you ask me.
26	EREMITIC – EMIT in ERIC (Morecambe). From the same root as hermit.
27	ADVOCAAT – A in ADVOCATE.
32	ADMIRALSHIP – ADMIRE ALL SHIPS. Very nice device, that. Benbow was a distinguished sailor, but is probably most famous because of the eponymous inn in Treasure Island
35	INTRUSIVELY – IN(fashionable), [Society, I’VE] in TRULY.
37	FURBELOW – FUR(coat) BELOW(underneath). Not a common word, but immediately made me think of the phrase “gewgaws and furbelows”, so it’s clearly stuck from somewhere.
40	RHEUM – HE in RUM.
43	COHO – HOOK in COO. A fish with which I am only familiar from crosswords past.
44	CENTRAL RESERVATION – this rang a bell, which turned out to be because it was an answer in Jumbo 932, which I blogged a couple of years ago. At the time I speculated that it might not be called the same thing in other parts of the world, and indeed it appears that “median strip” is the equivalent in North America.
48	PHONIER – HON in PIER. The Mitfords, and their self-coined description from the book “Hons and Rebels” also occur regularly in the crossword.
50	LASAGNE – (GAS)rev. in LANE.
51	DEMONSTRATIVE – [English MONSTER] in DATIVE.
52	DOUBLETON – if you’re wearing hose, you might well have a “doublet on”. A doubleton is two cards in a suit, as singleton is one.
Down
1	SEVERABLE – where “always wearing fur” equates to EVER in SABLE.
2	ALLEGORICAL – AL (Capone), + (LOGICREAL)*. As I never tire of pointing out, now that the awful Beerbohm Tree has been retired, AL is my candidate for “chestnut which should follow it out the door”.
3	MANITOU – oMAN IT OUtranks. Manitou is one of those words that I definitely “knew”, even though I would have struggled to define it.
5	AIRER =”EIRE”.
7	REED BUNTING – European in RED BUNTING.
9	SPEARHEAD – A RHEA in SPED.
11	SIGNIFICANT – SIGN IF I CAN’T. Google is unable to offer me a citation, but I’m certain this clever pun has appeared before. Original or not, it’s still good.
12	OUSEL – CAROUSEL. I am aware that “roundabout” has a variety of connotations, and not always the same in every part of the world.
13	DEPARTMENTAL – DEPART(leave)MENTAL(barking), which is possibly politically incorrect, but undoubtedly correct. The convention is that a setter is at liberty to add a misleading capital (usually to make the surface represent a place name) though not to do the reverse.
22	LITURGY – ITALIAN in LURGY. Is the phrase “the lurgy”, or even “the dreaded lurgy”, meaning some indeterminate malaise, commonplace in other parts of the English-speaking world, I wonder?
23	COURTIER – T in COURIER. It took me a while to think of a courier as a tour-guide rather than someone who delivers a parcel.
25	EXPORTER – REX(King) PORTER(Cole) minus the Right.
31	THUNDERCLOUD – presidenT nkrumaH UNDER CLOUD. Perfect example of how choosing the right words can create a surface which gives you completely misleading ideas about where a clue is leading. Here the setter could use any words ending with “T” and “H”, but picking these ones meant I was baffled for a good while as to what I was looking for.
34	PROTAGONIST – PRO(advocate), TAG ON(in the UK justice system, and presumably elsewhere, lower risk prisoners can serve a sentence of house arrest or curfew, with an electronic tag on their ankle making sure they don’t break the terms of that sentence), IST(German for “is”).
35	IMPERTINENT – (TRIPE,MINT,NE)*. For overseas solvers whose British geography is sketchy, Tyneside is the area around Newcastle in the NE corner of England.
38	OVERPITCH – PIT in [OVER(about), CH(Companion of Honour)].
42	STOPGAPS – [SPAGHETTI, POTS]all rev.
45	ABSOLVE – A BS(Bachelor of Surgery) (LOVE)*.
46	WHINNY – WHEN + HINNY (cross-breed of male horse and female donkey).