Times Jumbo 1112

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
Solved in just under 31 minutes, and usually I reckon anything under 35 on a Jumbo is about par for the course in terms of difficulty. Lots of nice clues, though.

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 HAPPY MEDIUM – HAPPY(one of the 7 Dwarfs), MEDIUM(a bit bigger than dwarf).
7 CHAOS THEORY – [(ETHOS)*,Old] in CHARY(=cautious).
13 TILDE – Daughter in TILE. The tilde is the little ~ symbol which you’d find over the n of senorita if you were printing in Spanish.
14 DOMINIC – MINI in DOC. This is starting to look like a dwarf obsession…
16 REORDERED – (ROE)rev. in (RED)*, then another RED.
17 REAL ESTATE – [ALE in REST], ATE(=”worried”).
22 SALERNO – Southern, [LargE in ARNO]. With all those mentions of Italy, I suspected red herrings and it would be a “lift and separate” and just a city, but that in itself turned out to be misleading.
26 WATCH THIS SPACE – double def., one relating to the literal process of solving.
30 ROCKABILLY – A BILL in ROCKY(“difficult”).
35 OIL RIG – [1,L] in (GIRO)rev. Girobank was the public sector banking operation set up in Britain in the 60s – as a result, and even after it’s been absorbed into the private sector, and most payments happen by electronic transfer, people still talk about “getting their Giro” when they mean receiving some sort of benefit.
37 GRAND – where a monkey is slang for £500, so a pair would be £1000.
39 HOT WATER BOTTLE – HOT WATER, as in “finding yourself in hot water”, BOTTLE(“nerve”). Appropriate in the UK, where we have just reached central heating season again.
41 ASTATINE – A STATIN, E.
44 AMPHORA – CAMPHOR, A. The ancient Greek jug.
47 LAP DANCING – Piano, DAN(as in the character from the Dandy) in LACING.
49 POMPADOUR – POMP(“display”) A DOUR(“severe); the sort of ‘do which was popular in pre-revolutionary France.
53 RETRIEVER – RE TRIP, EVER.
54 NOODLES – rameN, OODLES. Very nice.
 
Down
2 PULL OUT ALL THE STOPS – double def., though I wasn’t really convinced, because surely the metaphorical meaning derives from the literal one?
3 YIELD – again, slightly unconvinced, because you can surely yield without chickening out? I yield to the setter’s reading of the word, but that isn’t necessarily cowardly, I’d say…
5 IMMODEST – I’M MODEST. An unusual name in English, less so in Russian.
6 MINERAL WATER – firE in (LIT,NEAR,WARM)*. Nicely concealed def. in “sparkler”.
7 COCKATRICE – COCK(as in cocking one’s head), A TRICE.
9 SPOTTED DICK – at first I thought the setter was being enormously rude, but the solver in question is a detective – Philip Marlowe appears to be the first person referred to as a “private dick”. Later on, Shaft, of course, is the black private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks.
10 HALITOSIS – [LIT(=”drunk”), (SO)rev.] in HIS. I took a while to parse this correctly because I was sure that the drunk had to be a SOT.
11 ORGY – nO matteR staG partY. Another elegant clue.
18 ROYAL LEAMINGTON SPA – (LAY)rev. in (MONGOLIAPARENTS)*.
19 BLUE-EYED – “the blue-eyed boy” would be the favourite, Sinatra was Ol’ Blue Eyes.
21 NARWHAL – (RAN)rev., Wife, HAL. HAL is three-quarters of HALF, and three-quarters of a half is three-eighths. Very good.
27 CANNABIS – NAB(“seize” in CANIS, Latin for dog i.e. “classical setter”. Again, very good.
28 MASTHEAD – [AS THE] in MAD.
31 BIG BANG – BAN(“outlaw”) in BIGGS. Ronnie Biggs, possibly most notorious of the Great Train robbers despite his rather minor part in the actual crime.
32 DIALLING TONE – (IN,DETAIL,LONG)*. The people who don’t like “pants” being used in its modern sense of “rubbish” won’t like it being used in that sense as an anagram indicator. Luckily I am not one of them.
34 OVER AND OVER – i.e. OVER ANDOVER. Never been to Andover but I’m sure it’s very pleasant.
36 GOSPEL MUSIC – GO(“work”), (SUCHSIMPLE)* minus the Hard.
38 AT VARIANCE – [TV(“broadcaster”), ARIAN] in ACE. You don’t need to be an expert theologian to be aware of the Arian controversy, since it crops up very frequently in these parts.
43 FLIP FLOP – FLIP(“toss”), FLOP(“lemon”).
48 NORMA – the opera by Bellini, because the obvious corollary to be deduced is “neither Pa nor Ma”.

5 comments on “Times Jumbo 1112”

  1. 33 mins. I was held up slightly at the end by the TRAVEL/CANNABIS and DIALLING TONE/LAP DANCERS pair of crossers.
  2. Probably my fastest Jumbo, although there were a couple of clues I couldn’t parse, such as NARWHAL; now I get it, it’s probably my COD. I don’t mind ‘pants’–I rather like it–but the surface reading of 32d is. DNK Biggs, but guessed correctly that he was involved in the famous robbery. I hadn’t thought of flip-flops as shoes, but wotthehell.
  3. Hello,TT,please explain the above clue which you omitted,I dont understand the wordplay.
    C.ONG’ARA,
    NAIROBI,KENYA.

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