TIMES JUMBO 1231

Author   PenfoldPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic

Nothing to scare the horses here and some fun along the way.

First in was BEER MUG and last was TREE RING.

Away we go then.


Across

1
BEER MUG  – ER + MUG (features as in face) after (on in an across clue) B{ronz}E

5
ANTE-POST – {c}ANTE{r} plus SO reversed in P.T.

9
BARSAC – BARS (boozer is UK slang for pub and, incidentally, battle-cruiser is CRS for boozer) + AC

13
MANAGING DIRECTOR – MAN (staff) AGING DIRECT O.R.  I guess MD and CEO are broadly interchangeable but these days the boss of a company is more likely to be a CEO and I tend to come across “managing directors” who are heads of department in banks.

14
SCYLLA – (scally)*.  The only thing I know about Scylla is that it’s not Charybdis.

16
SWAN SONG – WAN SON in S{ibling}G. “On vacation” as a wordplay indicator for taking the guts out of a word seems to be pretty standard now

17
COPE – COP + (crocodile)E

18
TRANSEPTS – (protestants)* without OT

20
BRATTISH – the now clichéd BRA for supporter then IS after TT with H for husband tacked on the end

21
LOCUM TENENS – (deterioration)N in (muscle tone)*

24
EXOPLANET – (loneexpat)*

25
RING ROAD  – LING LOAD with the Ls swapped for Rs.  Nice.

26
BEET – BESS SETS with all 4 esses dropped.  Another interesting device

30
TIME MACHINE – Time as in porridge as in bird as in prison sentence.  I guess it’s a CD but the two elements could be read separately I guess.  Anyway, it made me smile.    I heard a really good time travel joke tomorrow.  I also bought a dalek egg timer. After three minutes, it shouts “Eggs Terminate!”

31
HORS D’OEUVRE – B(devour)* in HORSE.  It’s tricky to get all those vowels in the right order, especially if you normally pronounce it “horse’s doovers”

33
BANANA SPLIT – BANANAS + P{a}L{m}I{s}T.  Today’s earworm, and if you’ve ever wondered, it’s Fleagle, Bingo, Drooper and Snork.

36
GRAND MASTER – GRANDMA + STER{n}

38
ALTO – OFFENCE with X replacing one of the Fs

39
PULPIEST – ES in PULPIT

41
SOUP SPOON – SO UP  + SPOON, a term for a simpleton (or mug) I hadn’t come across before.  What a spoon

44
VISCOUSNESS – VISCOUNTS without NT (National Trust) plus NESS

45
OLD FLAME – CO CO (firms) + NUT (crazy) + PALM (conceal)

49
NOES – sounds like NOSE, for which HOOTER is UK slang.  CRS for hooter is apples and micro scooter. (Not really)

50
ADMONISH – (humanoids)* without U(s)

52
UNISEX – S(outh) E(ast) in UNIX, just off the top of my head, a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, developed in the 1970s at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others

53
WET BEHIND THE EARS – WET + BEHIND + HE in TEARS

54
SHERRY – SH + {m}ERRY

55
CAREFREE – C(riminal) A(dvocacy) + REFEREE with its centre missing (centre-left.  Ho-ho)

56
HOT DATE – DD, one jokey


Down

1
BEMUSE – DD, the second based on the premise that being a muse is acting as inspiration for summat

2
ENNEAD – {m}EN {o}NE {l}AD. An ennead is a set of nine things.  The dictionary doesn’t say what things

3
MAGISTRAL – MAGI + a reversal of (magica)L and ARTS 

4
GIN AND TONIC – (doncaningit)*.  Not exactly what one would consider a cocktail but technically it is one

5
AIDE – DE(an) after A1

6
TURBOCHARGE – CHARGE after TURBO{t}.  SOUP UP is a brilliantly disguised definition

7
PACKED LUNCH – Spoonerism of lacked punch

8
SPORTS CAR – reversal of RAC STROPS (pets as in hissy fits rather than hissy kits)

10
ACCOSTED – ACTED around COS (because commonly, innit?)

11
SELF-PRESERVATION – S(on) + P(arking) in ELF RESERVATION.  Made I larf 

12
CHASSIS – lift & separate required, MOUNTING is the def, derived by inserting ASS into CH(urch) I S(tumbles).  Equine for ASS caught me out in another puzzle recently so I was ready for it this time

19
MISTRIAL – The clever definition is INVALID HEARING and it’s I(infirmary) inside MISTRAL

22
VERTEBRA – VERT for green + {z}EBRA

23
COMMUNITY SERVICE – a “punishment” whereby young tearaways spend a few days planting bulbs on roundabouts and the next spring when the daffodils emerge they spell out F**K OFF BARNSLEY.  VICE after (mutecronyism)*

27
TREE RING – my last in and a cryptic def which looks like it has some wordplay. I didn’t get anywhere near to solving this without all the checkers in place

32
ROADISDE – (isadored)* with dicky as the anagrind

34
SPUN SILK – SPUN (put favourable slant on) SILK (QC).  My initial stab had the wrong tense for the first bit and I just assumed that yarn might be a verb meaning to spin silk

35
TREASONABLE – (NO)T + REASONABLE

36
GET-TOGETHER – clever anagram of GEORGETTE H(eyer) around T(ime)

40
PHENOMENA – P(ansy) H(ollyhock) on top of ANEMONE reversed

44
VAPOURS – VA POURS

46
PINATA – hidden and we’ll call it an &Lit as well.  We never did this at parties for our kids but you hit a woven thing with a stick thing and sweet things fall out

47
CHASTE – CHAS + T{h}E

51
KNEE – {s}K{i}N{n}E{d} + E(lbow)

 

10 comments on “TIMES JUMBO 1231”

  1. I actually forgot about BRA at 20ac; not particularly pleased to recall it for the solve, but. Did a lot of biffing and post hoc parsing: 13, 36, 46, 53, 55 ac. In keeping with my slowth in spotting hiddens, 15d was my LOI. I wondered about 41ac, as spoon=mug was new to me; the closest I’d come was ‘spoony’, in Dickens.
  2. Tough one for me, errors all over the place.

    Hey Penfold, I’m fascinated by your parsing of 3dn. Hardly anyone around here pronounces MAGISTRAL to sound anything like fine-toothed comb!

    1. Oh Bum. Fixed. You and I both know what happened so let’s keep it as our little Jumbo bloggers’ secret eh?
  3. 27:39, but with MAGESTRAL. I can’t remember but I assume I half-parsed this and thought the sorcerers were MAGES.
    It says MANAGING DIRECTOR on my business cards and I don’t really manage anything, never mind being a CEO. But as you say the city is funny that way: you can’t throw a brick in our place without hitting an MD.
    I’ll see your terrible time travel joke and raise you:
    What do we want?
    A time machine!
    When do we want it?
    Well I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

    Edited at 2016-10-29 09:15 am (UTC)

  4. Had initially wrote SPIN SILK before l realised it was wrong.A tough one this but completed.
  6. Sorry – bit late I’m afraid – Alto, offence with X replacing one of the Fs. Still stuck, but what else could it be. +1 for the biffer.
    1. …er, I should have explicitly stated… if anyone could give me a really basic explanation it would be really appreciated 🙂

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