Times Jumbo 802 (Saturday Feb 28th)

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Weekend Cryptic
I knocked this off in two sittings, having given a quick inspection on the day of publication before coming back to finish off in time to submit my entry (not that I expect to be a winner but if I’ve finished it anyway, there’s no such thing as too many books…) The first look was to make reasonably sure I wasn’t going to come to write my critique and then find it was horribly tricky and I didn’t understand half the solutions 🙂

Fortunately not the case, as I thought this was mostly straightforward; and as we deliberately don’t post until the solution is published anyway, I’ve confined any detail to anything which a) provoked a metaphorical nod of approval or frown of concern, or b) might remain puzzling even when the answer is revealed.

Across
9 HACKSAW – good use of “saying” as a deceptive definition.
14 RACHMAN – Rachmanite isn’t such a common epithet today (but it’s easier to fit into a puzzle than Van Hoogstraten).
16 RETICULATED – Excellent surface. I can’t remember hearing the word used to describe anything but a python, which just cries out for a Monty Python related clue. It’s an anagram of “Idle, a cutter” for a start…
17 OVERCROWDED – Hmmm. Many jails are also “American” or “High securiy” or “built in the reign of Queen Victoria”, but they aren’t the answer…
26 SEAT OF THE PANTS – Younger or non-Commonwealth readers may not be familar with the Fat Owl of the Remove
29 RIOTER – RIO + (RET)rev. RET being another word rarely used outside the world of crosswords today.
33 LIGHTHOUSE – LOUSE round (e)IGHTH.
36 TONED – ED as “flanks of ExpanD” is good, I thought.
38 NON-DESTRUCTIVE – being shamefully non-scientific by training, I worked this out without knowing it was a specific scientific term.
42 MYSTIC – I like MY=goodness.
55 LAERTES – alternate letters of LeAvEbRoThErS give Ophelia’s brother, Hamlet’s nemesis.
 
Down
2 COUNT-ERIN’S-URGENCY
8 PRIME – P + RIME becomes obvious when you think of icing as “frosting”.
11 SQUAD – at first I thought this was a rather slack “some letters of ‘equalised’ mixed up” before realising it was the rather elegant SQUA(re)D.
18 TRAMPOLINE – TRIMLEAPON* with a nice &lit.
22 LINCOLNS INN FIELDS – splendid use of Collins not as a reference but as the part of the solution – INCOLLINSFINDLENS*.
23 WEIRDO – I always like an oblique definition such as WEIR = “stakes in stream”.
32 MALVERN HILLS – last to go in, even though I could see the partial anagram, as it took me ages to spot that “A range” was the definition.
41 SLUGGARD – S(on)+LUG+(DRAG)rev was a pleasing match of surface and solution.
45 DORSAL – DORS + A(ctress)L(eft). I imagine that if asked to name a blonde actress from Swindon these days, more people would think of Billie Piper, whose name might equally lend itself to future inclusion…
49 NOTED – Sylvia Plath was, of course, married to Ted Hughes. Not sure if I’m being over-sensitive in feeling that the jokey charade (preumably someone meeting her and exclaiming “What! No Ted?” doesn’t quite sit with the rather grim facts of that part of her life…

6 comments on “Times Jumbo 802 (Saturday Feb 28th)”

  1. This was a fairly easy puzzle but the clue that really stumped me was 44 ac (“Organ class”). I normally do the Jumbo without access to a dictionary, and though KIDNEY looked a likely answer from the checked letters. I left it unfilled until I could check COD, which did not throw any light on the matter. Eventually I found “sort, kind” in Chambers.
    Where in the UK is ‘kidney’ used to mean ‘kind’?
    2. The compact Oxford (see link on this page) has “archaic: nature or temperament” for kidney, so I guess the concise version must have that much, at the least. I would regard the phrase as uncommon, but not actually rare
      1. The Concise Oxford does have “nature or temperament” and Collins has “class, type, or disposition”; neither says it’s archaic. Nor does Chambers, which says “temperament, humour, disposition; sort, kind.”
  2. I see that these are a range, and an anagram of VERNAL H in MILLS, but that seems to leave us with “of sources” unexplained.

    As usual I am ridiculously late posting this, but having just discontinued my FT subscription, I hope now to catch up on my backlog of T crosswords.

    John in USA.

    1. For anyone who’s forgotten the clue, it was “A range of sources adjusted vernal hours in factories”. The definition is “a range of sources”, as the Malvern Hills “are famous for their natural mineral springs and wells, and were responsible for the development of Great Malvern as a spa in the early 19th century” [Wikipedia].

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