Times Jumbo 882

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 are, however, happily discussed by request, please comment if required.

Another more-or-less straightforward Jumbo. The long ones (which are often the key to a really fast solve of these puzzles) held me up for longer than usual, so it wasn’t an exciting sprint, but a perfectly pleasant stroll.

Across
1 COUNSEL =”council”, while in English law, a barrister is often referred to as one’s “brief”, by a process of metonymy.
5 LAS VEGAS – VEGA in LASS.
14 ASHRAM – A(rea) + R(esistance) in SHAM. Well-disguised, this, as it was my last in, while I searched for a geographical sort of bluff.
17 HAIRNET – HAIR + (TEN)rev.
18 DOODLEBUG – DOODLE + BUG; very novel, this, I’ve never thought of the V-1 as an early cruise missile.
19 CHA CHA CHA – i.e. CHA(in) x3.
25 TWEENAGER – (ARENTWE)* around G(auch)E provides the ghastly neologism which nobody needed until marketing conquered the world.
27 ANGUISH – (L)ANGUISH.
34 FUNCTIONARIES – FUNCTION (=do) +ARIES, the star sign for anyone born on April 1st; good disguise, as I was deceived into looking for Fools everywhere.
37 RAMPANT – RAMP (slope) + ANT (soldier).
39 RED CARPET – REDCAR + PET; I’d never really thought of Redcar as a seaside resort, but I guess that’s because I think of it as a venue for racing (if I think of it all). More good deception allowed by the use of “resort” which in 90% of cases leds to an anagram, but doesn’t here.
42 ELITE – double def.; if there’s a possibility that there’s a printing-related meaning to a word, it probably exists. In the daily puzzle I blogged recently, the same applied to “nonpareil”, which is a 6-point type size; “elite” type equates to 12 characters per inch, apparently.
43 HASID – i.e “HAS I.D.”; I’d not seen the proper noun before, but the adjective “Hasidic” is well-known enough.
50 RIPPING – (T)RIPPING.
52 PAINE =”PAIN”; I was being more expansive and looking for a name that sounded like “palsy” to begin with.
55 MOVE THE GOALPOSTS – (LOVEGAMESTOPSHOT)*; a metaphor which can presumably refer to any sort of football – rugby, American, Australian – so I’m assuming isn’t just British in usage?
56 SEMITE – M.I.T. in SEE.
 
Down
3 SPINACH – A in [SPIN + C(old), H(ot)].
5 LIQUIDATE – LIQUID (running) + (M)ATE.
6 SHEEN – SHE + EN (French “in”); as I have pointed out before, this novel is presumably known to vast numbers of regular crossword solvers, not one of whom has ever read it. For other things which live on only in crosswords, see also the actor Tree. It’s a little cheeky giving Polish a capital in mid-sentence, but not actually wrong, I suppose.
10 RUSTLED – (B)USTLED with a new first letter and a cryptic def.
11 GARIBALDI – G(eorgi)A + RIBALD 1.
15 POOR MANS WEATHERGLASS – (ALONGEARTHWORMPASSES)* provides the alternative plant name.
24 ALSATIA – ALSATIA(n); I must admit I didn’t know this area of London, but it was easily deduced from the obvious dog.
26 RENEW – R(ud)E + NEW, as one does with loaned library books, or footballers.
28 GIRONDE – RON in GIDE gives the department of Gironde.
30 FLAIR =”FLARE”; I always offer to light the fireworks on November 5th, as I have a flare for it. I thank you.
32 MESSAGE – MESS + A(nswer) + (E.G.)rev. It took me forever to realise that MISTAKE couldn’t be justified, and I had the wrong part of the clue as definition.
33 TAG LINE – TAG(which may be called something entirely different, depending on your location – it was always “tig” when I were a lad) + LINE (“calling” as in career, as in “What’s My Line?”).
40 DETERRENT – T(ime) in DEER (i.e the plural of doe, a deer, a female deer) + RENT.
51 PSHAW – P(ressure) + SHAW. A rather old-fashioned sort of word, though I suppose it indicates a noise rather than a real word, and noises never go out of fashion. Very much the sort of word you normally hear spoken, rather than see written down…

2 comments on “Times Jumbo 882”

  1. Could someone please explain 12d, DEMOGRAPHER. In the clue “People en masse characteristically seen in his study” I can only spot a single, slightly cryptic definition. Is there more to it?
    1. Nope, you’re not missing any hidden subtlety (at least as far as I can see). A demographer studies the characteristics of large groups of people and…er, that’s it. Sometimes, even in the Times, a cryptic clue turns out to be possibly not as cryptic as the setter intended.

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