Times Jumbo 815 (May 16)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
Solving time 33:15, so a fairly straightforward Jumbo as I wasn’t really rushing. I can see from the Tippex on my solution that I originally started 13A off with BET YOUR… (really should know better by now, check the anagram fodder), but otherwise I don’t recall any holdups.

Across
1 BUCCAL – C in (a club)*. A word I knew from somewhere so it went straight in as the first entry.
5 ENGAGED – ENG (our tongue) + AGED. A bit naughty not to indicate the abbreviation of English.
9 FOR KEEPS – KEEPS (guards) following FOR (behind, i.e. supporting)
13 BET ONE’S BOTTOM DOLLAR ON – (On a roll, booted Tom’s bent)*
14 DAD’S ARMY – DA + DS + ARMY. Classic British sitcom.
15 TITANIC – TIT + A + NIC(k). Cockney rhyming slang, half-inch = pinch.
16 HUSSAR – hidden in alternate letters reversed, in “RoAdS aS mUcH”.
17 OPTIMISTIC – (MIST + I) inside OPTIC
20 EUGENE ONEGIN – EUGENE O’NEILL minus ILL (badly lacking), + GIN. An opera by Tchaikovsky.
23 FLAK – double definition.
24 FORSWORE – (rows or)* inside FE.
26 LATITUDE – ALTITUDE with the L moved to the front.
29 STARS AND BARS – STAR SAND BARS, the American Confederate flag.
30 TAPE-RECORD – ERE (before) + CORD (guy, i.e. rope), next to TAP (strike).
32 OUT TO LUNCH – double definition.
34 WINTER PALACE – ER inside (new capital)*. The palace of the Russian tsars in St. Petersburg. Now part of the Hermitage Museum.
36 ROBINSON – BINS inside (R + O + ON). As in The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.
38 THEISTIC – HEIST inside TIC
39 KNIT – cryptic definition, instructions that would probably get you lost at sea!
41 DEAD-BALL LINE – (labelled in a D)*
43 SAW-TOOTHED – SAW TOO THE D(eal)
44 RECESS – E’S (i.e. Ecstasy tablets) in RECS
46 GEARBOX – GEAR + BOX
48 PALME D’OR – PALMED + O.R. (other ranks = men). Top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
50 GARDENERS’ QUESTION TIME – cryptic definition for the long-running Radio 4 programme. Overseas solvers might be puzzled.
51 ESSEX MAN – hidden in “joblESS EX-MANager”. A great bit of stereotyping from Chambers: “an archetypal SE English working-class male without cultural interests or good taste but with a large disposable income which he spends freely, mainly on consumer goods and entertainment”.
52 MISUSED – IS inside MUSED.
53 ZODIAC – two of its members anyway – LIBR-A-RIES. Can “some” in this context mean as few as two?

Down
2 UMBRA – U (classy) + R.A. around M.B.
3 CITY SLICKER – CITY (Smoke, i.e. London, which is nicknamed “The Smoke”) + SLICK + RE reversed.
4 LAND RAIL – LAND + RAIL
5 ESSAY – “S.A.”, or Sex Appeal.
6 GNOSTIC – (casting)*, with the A changed to O.
7 GO TO THE DOGS – double definition.
8 DEMON – M.O. in DEN
9 FOOD CANAL – (fluid, coal)*
10 RALPH – R(iver) ALPH, from the first few lines of Coleridge’s poem:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
11 EUROSCEPTIC – CEP inside (croute is)*
12 PUNJABI – P(ower) + (JAB in UNI)
18 POLITBURO – LIT + B inside POUR + O
19 TRODDEN – ODD inside TREN(d)
21 GREETINGS – (Grieg’s ten)*. It doesn’t look like the composer wrote any works with “Greetings” in the title, so where’s the definition?
22 OUTCROPS – OUT + CROPS
25 SPAGHETTI – 1 TT + GAPS reversed, around HE
27 DIRECTIVE – IRE + CT inside DIVE
28 BALLISTA – LIST inside BALA
31 PREVIEW – REV + 1 inside PEW
33 THIRD DEGREE – DEGREE (masters, perhaps) after THIRD (musical interval).
34 WHEREABOUTS – WA + B(enefactor) around HERE, + OUTS (reveals).
35 LIKE THE WIND – (THE + WIN) inside LIKED
37 NILE GREEN – hidden reversed in “veNEER, GEL INtensifies”
40 GOLLANCZ – Z underneath (LL can go)*. Well-known publishing house, now an imprint of Orion.
42 EMERGES – E-MERGES, using the method of sticking an E- in front of any verb to imply that it’s done electronically.
43 SEXISTS – SIX reversed inside SETS, &lit.
45 STEAM – T inside SEAM. Another cricketing term, a seam bowler isa fast bowler who attempts to land the ball on the seam to get movement off a straight line.
47 ASSAM – A S.M. (NCO, Sergeant Major) around S.A. (“it”, more Sex Appeal). Twice in the same puzzle is a bit careless, even if it is a Jumbo.
48 PLIED – LIED (song) under P(ressure).
49 OPERA – (b)OA(r) around PER. Falstaff was Verdi’s last opera

4 comments on “Times Jumbo 815 (May 16)”

  1. Probably a good point at which to remind newer solvers that The Times policy is to only allow examples such as BET ONE’S BOTTOM DOLLAR and not BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR.

    I’m not 100% sure what the reasoning is, but suspect it has something to do with choosing one of the two possibilities and making it the consistent choice for fairness (since a cryptic def or double meaning clue would be of no help in choosing the right one).

  2. Grieg did write a song called “Greetings”. I was sure I’d heard of it so checked. Opus 21. Makes the definition OK
    1. I was actually blissfully unaware that Grieg wrote something called “Greetings”: the definition is actually “His” as in “more than one hi”, but I now like to think that subconsciously I was thinking of the work!
  3. Crosswords always seem to use ONE’S rather than YOUR. It may have been different in times gone by but I think YOUR would now be used in natural speech nine times out of ten at the very least. I guess the survival of ONE’S is not entirely unconnected with its more friendly nature when looking for intersecting words…

    This was an excellent puzzle, not too difficult.

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