Times Jumbo 847

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
The usual Jumbo rubric: as the solution is available alongside (or indeed before) the blog, comment is confined only to references that might remain obscure to overseas / inexperienced solvers even with the answer visible, or anything I thought notably good or deserving a question mark; other clues happily discussed by request, please comment if required.

Good straightforward puzzle, I thought; I got 1 across and 8 across almost straightaway, which always puts you into a good solving rhythm. Apart from a couple of obsure-ish words, and a homophone which I suspect has been the cause of compliant before from those who get exercised by sloppy soundalikes, I didn’t find much to call for excessive praise or blame.

Across
1 CAMERA OBSCURA – (AMACABRESOURCE)*; the does indeed come from the East.
15 DRAUGHT – the game of draughts is what American solvers will know as “checkers”; to feel the draught is to encounter the cold realities of economic conditions such as those prevailing now.
17 SENSITISER – (SISTERINSE)* I’m not familiar with the various processes involved in the developing of photos, but the anagram scarcely allows anything else.
18 ALEGAR – from stALE GARlic, first of the words I thought might be less widely known; I’ve been to enough pubs where the cellar is badly kept to be familiar with what it means, sadly.
30 MACKEREL – MACK + R(aise) in EEL. I don’t know how well-known a song has to be to be considered suitable as an allusion in a Times clue, but “Mack the Knife” is unarguably a “standard”; my own library contains only the Bobby Darin version, and I’m grateful not to have known till now that Westlife have recorded it.
34 ISLANDER – for those not completely understanding the reference, the island of Rum is off the west coast of Scotland; its neighbour Muck has also proved useful to setters before now.
35 BELL PULL – at first I parsed “BELL” as simply “ring” before realising that this is the “telephone man”, of course.
39 GRANTCHESTER – (General) GRANT + C(aught) + HESTER; Grantchester was the subject of one of Rupert Brooke’s most famous poems. More recently, Araucaria crafted a beautiful anagrammatic clue from the source material, to wit: Poetic scene has, surprisingly, chaste Lord Archer vegetating (3, 3, 8, 12)
45 CANDID – sounds like “CANDIED”, presumably. Lots of regular daily solvers would absolutely hate this clue, I guarantee it (in fact I’m sure it has been debated before, though I can’t find it in the archives). I’m normally not bothered about homophones which aren’t totally precise, but I’m afraid I have to concur: CANDID is simply not pronounced the same as CANDIED in my household.
54 APOCRYPHA – (POACHPARRY)*; Judith is one of several books regarded as Apocryphal, though I think only Tobit joins her as likely to have been used for crossword purposes.
56 TITLE PAGE – TITLE (=right) + PAGE who is a character in “The Merry Wives of Windsor”.
 
Down
1 CHARIVARI – CHAIR with the I moved to the end + VA. + RI.; a slightly cheekily capitalised sedan, as the name appears to have nothing to with the place. Not the most common word – I mainly remember it as part of the title of Punch magazine, which used to be The London Charivari…
6 UNIONIST – UNI + IS in ONT; it seems odd to find Oxford being used to clue UNI, when it nearly always points towards the “less obvious” meaning of “shoe”…
10 CHARTER PARTY – CHAR + TER(m) + PARTY; I got the answer well before I was able to parse it, mainly as I wasn’t 100% sure what a charter party actually was; once I realised that “deed” was the simple definition, it made more sense.
11 NEGUS – N(utritiv)E + GUS; I’m fairly certain Gus the Theatre Cat has appeared on my watch before.
12 OUTER HEBRIDES – another slightly more complex bit of working, (ROUTE)* + H.E. (=governor) + B(ritish) + RIDES, with lifting and separating required to discover the simple definition “Isles”.
23 CROMLECH – C(onservative) + L(eader) in ROME + CH(urch) gives the final word for today that I’d regard as on the obscure side of average.
28 REVERENT – REVERE + N.T.; I had to force myself to remove all thoughts of David Hasselhoff from my head, and get the correct horseman. One for the colonials, there.
32 UNATTRACTIVE – more careful parsing reauired for UNA + T(u)T(o)R + ACTIVE (voice, as in the grammatical sense).

2 comments on “Times Jumbo 847”

  1. 41d: Carrier an ugly old woman provided with land SADDLEBAG

    An ugly old woman = BAG and land is somehow SADDLE? I’m not seeing it. Please enlighten me! Thanks.

    1. Your supposition is correct, at least as I read it, with the “saddle” = “land” as in “getting landed with something” = “getting saddled with it”. Admittedly not the strongest definition, but the meaning works in that sort of substitution…

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