On the face of it I can simply reiterate the comment that I seem to have made a lot this year, that I normally reckon 35 minutes is about par for my Jumbo solving, so a time of 33:17 suggests a typical solve. However, that disguises the fact that this puzzle was what, in cricket pitch terms, I’d call two-paced i.e. I flew through about three-quarters of it in double quick time, then had to wrestle with some clues which I found really tricky, so my time may have been about normal, but it was very unevenly distributed.
I’ve also just noticed that I got one wrong, so to some extent my solving time is irrelevant…
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 | |
|---|---|
| 9 | PHLEGM – P{ower}, [LEG(=”on” as in the side of the wicket in cricket) in H.M.] |
| 14 | CROTON – C{aught} ROT ON. Entirely from wordplay as I’d never heard of this plant, as usual. |
| 17 | IDLE – {R}IDLE{Y}, one of the Oxford martyrs. |
| 18 | SNARE DRUM – SNARED(=captured), RUM(=spirit of the W.I.); for obvious reasons of misleading surface, STEEL DRUM is enormously tempting. |
| 21 | CHINESE WALL – CHINE(=deep ravine), SEW(=darn) ALL(=complete). Chinese Walls are the theoretical barriers which prevent people in different departments of financial institutions discussing sensitive information e.g. people working on a takeover not revealing its existence to share traders. I’m sure we are all entirely confident that these people are naturally so scrupulous that regulation is barely necessary. |
| 24 | COIFFEUSE – (SUE)rev. in (OFFICE)* &lit. |
| 26 | PERM – E.R. in P.M.; more hairdressing. |
| 29 | LOCAL COLOUR – LOCAL(=pub) COLOUR(=blush). |
| 31 | STAY THE PACE – STAY(=support) THE(=article) P{age} ACE(=1). |
| 33 | COMPACT DISC – COMPACT(=agreement) DISC{ount}. |
| 36 | POSTER PAINT – (TOPPINTSARE)*, which took me straight back to my early schooldays. |
| 39 | LA BOHEME – fLAt oBOe tHEMEs. |
| 41 | ROCK CRESS – T{ons} removed from ROCK CRESTS to give another plant I’d never heard of. |
| 44 | PRIVATE LIFE – PRIVATE(=soldier), LIFE(=prison sentence); I put in PRIVATE TIME, which seemed a bit weak, but I forgot to go back and re-examine it later. |
| 50 | SHANGHAI – HANG(=wait around) H{ours} in SAI{l}; an old term for press-ganging. |
| 53 | REMOTE CONTROLLED – REMOTE(=aloof), CONTROLLED(=repressed); the term for remote controllers varies from home to home, but I think “zapper” is one of the most common. My mother refers to “the doings”, a term which can apply to a variety of gadgets. |
| 56 | HOME RUN – HOME(=in), RUN(=work), with the cryptic sporting definition “achievement by a sporting all-rounder”. A Christmas present to solvers in the US, who are normally given baffling cricketing allusions instead of baseball. |
| Down | |
| 1 | CREAMY – {T}EAM in CRY; ivory as in the colour of wedding dresses rather than actual bits of elephant. |
| 3 | SQUARE OFF – SQUARE(=old-fashioned), OFF(=annoying); “raise dukes” as in “put your fists up”. |
| 4 | CHIAROSCURO – (HAIROCCURSO)*. |
| 6 | TRENDSETTER – R{egina} in TENDS, {B}ETTER without B{readth}. |
| 8 | CROSSBILL – CROSS(=hybrid), B{lack}, ILL(=green about the gills). |
| 10 | HARDENED – ARDEN in HE’D. I had to look this up, as I could only see some connection with Shakespeare. Turns out I didn’t know enough about John Arden, though to be fair to me, he seems to have generally fallen out of favour. |
| 15 | SAFE SEAT – SAFE(=strong cabinet), SEAT(=House of Lords, as in the country seat of a nobleman rather than politics). |
| 19 | CICERONI – C.E. in (IRONIC)*. Plural of cicerone, which also crops up round here on occasion. |
| 21 | SCILICET – CILICE in S{hir}T. I’d expect seasoned solvers to be familiar with “scilicet” as the abbreviation “sc” often appears in clues, indicated by “say”; meanwhile the term “cilice” may have been given new life by appearing regularly in “The Da Vinci Code”. |
| 27 | MAESTOSO – (SEAM)rev., TO S{erve} O{verseas}. |
| 32 | ANSERINE – A N{ew} SERIN E{merge}. |
| 34 | THANEDOM – THAN{K} with the K{ing} “killed”, (MODE)rev. Macbeth became Thane of Fife and Cawdor. |
| 36 | PLEISTOCENE – (INTELESCOPE)*; literally “the most new” era of geological time, thus encompassing Johnny come latelies such as homo sapiens. |
| 37 | ESCAPE HATCH – hidden in shoES CAPE HAT CHarming; as always, if you don’t spot a hidden word clue immediately, it’s a good ‘un, and I missed this for a while. |
| 42 | CAIRNGORM – C{old} (ROARING)* M{ountain}; lovely and elegant clue. |
| 43 | BACK HEEL – BACK(=champion) HEEL(=lean over); for non-cognoscenti of rugby, the hooker heels the ball backwards and thus out of the scrum (in theory, at least; scrums in practice are often much messier affairs). |
| 44 | POTSDAM – POTS(=corporations) DAM(=hold back); city near Berlin famous for the conference which carved up post-war Germany amongst other things. |
| 46 | THALER – AL{uminium} in THE R{and}. Mediaeval currency from which the modern “dollar” is derived. |
| 51 | POLO – POOL(=jackpot as in football pools) with the L moved up. |
7 comments on “Times Jumbo 1122”
Comments are closed.