Times Jumbo 1077

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
28:16 on the Club timer, which suggests a pretty straightforward puzzle. Perfectly good entertainment for the weekend without living long in the memory.

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
1 WHITECHAPEL – HIT, European CHAP in WELL.
7 DIK-DIK – KID(rev.) x 2. Even if you don’t know the antelope, the wordplay and the checkers give you all you need.
10 LOAF – double def., one as in “use your loaf”.
14 ADORING – ADORNING without one of the Knights (N in chess notation).
15 AUGMENT – A University, Millions in GEN, Technology. Nice lift-and-separate to reveal that there is no IT involved at all.
18 HIGH FLIER – HIGH(“on a trip”), FLIER(i.e FLYER=”notice”, but with an I(“eye”) instead of a Y).
19 TONGA – boaT ON GAnges. I only knew the country, not the light two-wheeled carriage found in India.
21 DARJEELING – JEEP in DARLING; the hill-station from which the famous tea originates.
26 CAPITAL LETTERS – where you need to see”I”s, rather than “is”.
29 DISHRAG – DISH(“lovely”), RAG(“guy”, as in the verb meaning “to mock”).
41 BOOT CAMP – CAMP(“affected”) after BOOT(“kick”).
43 SLIP ON – (PILS)rev., ON(=”bowling”, the obligatory cricket reference). Another good lift-and-separate.
48 VANCOUVER – VAN(“leaders”), [United in COVER(“report on”)].
49 PRIME MINISTER – PRIM, English, MINISTER; the tricky bit is spotting the reference to Andrew Bonar LAW, who was PM in 1922-23 (the shortest tenure in British history).
51 BODEGAS – (AGED)rev. in BOS. The only explanation I can see for BOS is that BO is a man’s name, and there are two of them, though that seems a bit weak to be honest (see comments for amended view).
53 DILEMMA – 1 Line, in Dumas, “EMMA”.
54 ERSE – PER SE, minus the P.
56 DANGER MONEY – [New GERM, ONE] in DAY.
 
Down
1 WHATNOT – WHAT?(“come again”), (ON)rev., Time
2 IRONMONGERS – (RINGSNOMORE)*.
3 ELIAN – 1 in ELAN. Just in case anyone hasn’t come across it, “Elia” was the pen-name of essayist Charles Lamb, and this is the adjective from it; to be honest, I fear it may have reached the point where it goes from crossword staple to outdated chestnut.
4 HIGGLEDY-PIGGLEDY – practically my last one in, which shows that the simplest clues can often be the hardest to see.
9 INDIGO – INDIA minus A, GO(“as in make a go of it”).
11 OUTSIDE LEFT – OUT(“blooming”), SIDE(“pretension”), LEFT(“socialist”). For a supposedly simple game, football has had a lot of different ways to describe formations; these days, the likes of the outside-left and centre-half have been superseded by false 9s and liberos.
12 FOR FREE – FREnch in FORE.
20 ANTARES – A New Testament, ARIES ignoring the I.
25 GIDDY UP – it took a while to spot the definition “it’s said to make hack go”.
28 PLASTIC SURGEON – (STARINGUPCLOSE)*; very good surface.
31 SPUTTER – (P.S.) rev., UTTER(“say”).
38 DRAUGHTSMAN – double def.
42 SHOEHORN – (SOONHERHusband).
46 STREAKY – Republican in STEAK, saY.
47 AVESTA – grAVE ST Andrew; the sacred writings of Zoroastrianism.
49 PSEUD =”SUED”, more, I think, in the sense of “sue for peace” rather than “take to court”.

10 comments on “Times Jumbo 1077”

  1. BO came up in another puzzle recently – can’t remember which but I don’t think it was a Times one. Chambers: (US slang) familiar term of address for a man. Though I suppose it can also work in the way that you mention.
    1. Aha, thank you. I know setters are entitled to use the full range of words and definitions, but my own view would be that if something only appears in Chambers, and not in either OED or Collins, maybe it should be kept for the Mephisto and not a daily cryptic.
      2. To be fair, it is in ODO too: “used as a friendly form of address. Origin early 19th century: perhaps an abbreviated form of boy.”
  2. Smarting over this crossword rather, because after submitting, it showed 2 errors.. on investigation, now the solution is available, it claims I wrote “SODEGAS” for 51ac. I dispute this since the b and s are nowhere near each other on the keyboard.. but c’est la vie

    Edited at 2014-02-23 09:51 pm (UTC)

  3. Hey, you missed this out! The answer seems to be SUNTRAP (=hot spot), but I can’t see how it works.Can anyone help?
  4. Please could you parse this as it is omitted in your blog? Thanks
    Linda Lofthouse
    1. Linda, it’s substitutions, but using less common meanings, i.e.

      “give” = PLAY, as in “there’s too much play in that rope
      “back” = SECOND, as in “I second that motion”
      “massage” = FIDDLE, as in “massaging his expense claims”

      hence PLAY SECOND FIDDLE, “as underling may do”.

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