Times Jumbo 1127

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
Slightly out of sequence, as this was one of the bonus holiday puzzles, so I have been overtaken by the subsequent Saturday blog.

A solving time of 37 minutes is only a little bit more than average, but I didn’t really get on with this puzzle. When I talk to people who don’t regularly do cryptics, it’s hard to explain to them that even though setters on a particular paper will all operate to the same conventions and use the same language, the difference in style from one day to the next can be huge. I guess this is what we usually sum up as “wavelength”, and in this case, I basically wasn’t on it; so while I don’t think there was anything wrong with this puzzle, I found it a bit of a chore. Then again, as I wrote it up, I had no such feeling. Funny how these things work, maybe I was just jaded by too many Christmas crosswords. Anyway, on we go.

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 PATERNOSTER – A TERN in POSTER; one of those rather alarming-looking lifts with open compartments going round in a chain rather than a single car.
7 CRAPSHOOTER – SH(=silence) in (CORPORATE)*.
14 GUNSHOT – (SNUG)rev. + HOT. The snug in traditional English pubs is, as the name suggest, a small cosy bar, from the days when there would be a saloon bar and a lounge bar as well.
16 STORMY – M in STORY; M the spymaster created as James Bond’s boss by Ian Fleming, based on the real-world ‘C’.
18 LEAGUES – LEA + GUES{S}.
20 WARDOUR STREET ENGLISH – (WORDINGTHERESULTS)*; I’d never heard of this, but worked it out from the anagram and checkers, and, of course, knowing of the existence of London’s Wardour Street. It appears that before being famous for the film industry, it was a centre for antique shops, so “Wardour Street English” is affectedly archaic…I’m looking at you, Russell Brand. My liege.
24 EAST END – EAS{y} TEND.
28 DAWN – (WAD)rev. + N{ew}. As in a roll of banknotes.
29 TRIBUNAL – BUN{g} in TRIAL.
32 SIMPLY RED – PLY ijn (DERMIS)rev. Despite the convention that living people do not appear in Times puzzles, bands which consist of living people are allowed, thus Mick Hucknall=no, Simply Red=OK.
35 POIGNANCY – O{ld} in PIG, NANCY. Napoleon being the chief pig in Animal Farm.
36 ALLERGIC – GI in (CELLAR)*; an allergic reaction is one which happens when the body is attempting to defend itself against a particular substance.
44 TOOLKIT – L{abourer} in TOOK IT.
45 YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU – i.e. there are good reasons to make a will and leave people your accumulated wealth, because it’s no good to you where you’re going. The film of the same name (which I’ve never seen) is not at all recent (1938), but did win the Best Picture Oscar, so I suppose it has achieved the requisite level of noteworthiness.
49 PERSEUS – PER SE, U.S.
50 BREVIARY – B{ritish} R.E., [I in VARY].
51 ODD LOT – (TOLD DO)all rev. Another unfamiliar term, this time from stockbroking.
54 OTALGIA – (ALOT)* G{u}I{t}A{r}.
55 CHARYBDIS – CHARY, “B,D,Is”.
 
Down
1 PROUST – P ROUST. You don’t often see “roust” compared with, say “rouse”, except in the job title “roustabout”
2 THE WOMAN IN WHITE – novel by Wilkie Collins; 8dn is “ashen”, i.e. white, so the “SHE” in the middle of “ashen” could be cryptically described as a woman in white.
3 REAL MADRID – REAL MAD, RID.
5 TENNESSEE – TENNE{R}S, SEE.
6 REGULAR – (LUG)rev. in REAR. Even if you don’t know the lugsail, you might deduce its existence from the boat called a “lugger”.
19 LUTHERAN – L{ook} U{p}, [RA in THEN].
21 END USER – U.S. in {t}ENDER.
23 BUDAPEST – BUD(=shoot) + APEST; if you imagine someone speaking archaically, then “Thou art an imitator” might be rendered as “Thou apest”. This one took a lot longer to parse than to solve. I had no idea who Ernest Laszlo was (a noted Hollywood cinematographer, in fact) though I suppose the average solver is supposed to recognise that his name sounds quite Hungarian, even if they don’t know it.
25 SANTA – S.A.=sex appeal=”it”, ANT=driver. Again, driver ants are a new one on me, though in principle I am in favour of a bit of variety from the usual “workers” or “soldiers”.
27 CARNAL KNOWLEDGE – (CANWORKENDLEGAL)*, where it took a long time to divine that the definition was the bare “it” (in the sense expressed by Eric Idle in Monty Python’s “nudge nudge” sketch – “You’ve done it, eh? With a lady? Say no more, say no more”.
30 BAYONET – [A YON] in BET(a Yankee being a multi-part accumulator bet) &lit.
33 MAINTAIN – 1 in [MAIN TAN{gent}].
38 MOSHE DAYAN – [SHE, (Sir Robin) DAY] in MOAN; oddly, this central figure of the Six Day War of 1967 – one for the teenagers, there – appeared in two different puzzles in a matter of days, presumably entirely by accident.
42 VIAREGGIO – VIA, [E{nglish}, G,G in RIO] gives the Tuscan resort.
46 EPITAPH – [PI(very good), TAP(=strike)] in EH(what?).
47 SPLIFF – (LIPS)*, FF(extremely forte). “Blow” here being slang for marijuana; it doesn’t bother me especially, but I know several in this community object to drugs and drug paraphernalia being used as clue fodder. If that includes you, please complain to the editor rather than me.
48 STASIS – STASI’S. the Stasi being the defunct East German secret police.
50 BLAST – B(soft as in the terminology of pencils, where H is at one extreme of hardness, B for Black at the other – why not S for soft? I know not) + LAST.

4 comments on “Times Jumbo 1127”

  1. Found this on the hard side. I’m so used to Times crossword music and my own music collection having absolutely nothing in common that my brain only very reluctantly brought SIMPLY RED to the fore (not that I’m particularly a fan, but iTunes tells me I have 3 of their songs, plus they were big during my formative years). Have we actually had (m)any still-functioning bands as answers in the (non-Sunday) Times crossword before? Should I hold out hope that DURAN DURAN will appear as an answer in my lifetime?

    Also struggled with READJUST. WARDOUR STREET ENGLISH cropped up in an Indy Anax last October, which was the first time I’d heard of it.

    1. Aha, I have now found the discussion which I thought I remembered, which involved ABBA being the answer*. The conclusion there was that it was somewhat unusual, possibly unique; certainly I wouldn’t like to say it’s happened again since then, which was a full 7 years ago.

      *It’s puzzle 23801, blogged by jackkt, with comments on the subject from various people who know much more about crosswords than I do.

      Edited at 2015-01-18 10:03 pm (UTC)

      1. Interesting stuff, including the “Times Crossword House Style” post that Peter wrote later that same day. I would be inclined to think that there has been an editorial or setter policy to not allow pop groups as answers, given the dearth of such answers. ABBA is perhaps an understandable exception to that, as they were/are very well-known, but Simply Red seems like an odd one to bend the “rules” for.
  2. As usual, I can’t remember how long this took, but certainly over the hour. LOI 50d, which I finally parsed as Tim does. Failed to parse BAYONET, and now I see why. Never heard of Wardour Street, let alone its English. I liked 49ac; lovely surface.

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