Times Jumbo 892

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
I solved this puzzle in a pub in Cheltenham the day before the championship, as a bit of limbering up (not that it did any good), enjoying a pint or two of 6X and the Heineken Cup rugby on the big screen at the same time. All three were very enjoyable…

As always, if a particular clue is not discussed, please feel free to raise it in comments.

Across
1 BALDWIN – BAD WIN round L(iberal); if you were struggling with wordplay, you might have been helped if you knew that Baldwin was actually a Conservative rather than a Liberal, and that bit required a lift and separate.
14 TEMPERAMENTAL – TEMPERA (paint) + MENTAL (bats)
15 NEW FOREST – FORE (golfer’s warning) in NEWS (intelligence) + T(est).
16 BESEECHING – (lin)ES(man) in BEECHING, the man responsible for taking the axe to British Rail in the 60s. He’d have done well in the current government.
17 GUSTAV KLIMT – [(MILK VATS) in TUG] all rev.
18 BISON – [NO SIB(ling)] rev.
21 BRUNEI – BRUNEL, one of London’s various universities, with the L in Roman numbers cut down to an I.
23 APPLE TREE – APPLET + (E’ER)rev. I guess the really big OED will reveal when APPLET first appeared (probably longer ago than I think) but I don’t think a neologism has got proper currency until I’ve seen it in a Times puzzle…
25 EMAIL …and here’s another, backwards in parLIAMEntarian.
26 ENOUNCE – EN (printing measure) + OUNCE; always a cunning trick when the definition is a word commonly used to indicate a particular type of clue, in this case “say”, which had me looking for a cryptic definition which didn’t exist.
38 TRING – TR(y)ING, which I have passed through on a canal boat, having tackled a lot of locks over the Chilterns first.
40 BED HOPPER – E(dward)H(yde) in BOPPER; this seemed to me a rather old-fashioned term, if somewhat classier than “serial shagger”; Googling suggests Prince Philip allegedly described Dodi Fayed as one, which doesn’t settle the matter either way.
44 ASAFOETIDA – (ASIATOFADE)*; my solving companion hadn’t heard of this, which suggests he doesn’t cook enough curries. If he did, he’d also have spotted this as an &lit, since the unpleasant odour of the plant does indeed disappear in cooking. Very clever.
50 GRAND DUCHY – DU(t)CH in GRAND (piano) + (medle)Y.
52 TOP BANANA – cryptic def. based around the slang term for being number one, and the fact that a bunch of bananas is a “hand”.
53 CARRIER PIGEON – CARRIER (such as Ark Royal) + PIGEON (as in “that’s your pigeon”). Made topical by the defence review which will see the Royal Navy do without the current Ark Royal (and will mean there are carriers without planes at some point in the future, though as has been pointed out, that’s better than having planes with nowhere to land…)
55 TREVELYAN – ELY (the see which is always used in crosswords) in (TAVERN)*.
56 AVERTED – AVER (=”say”) + TED (=”put out to dry”, an old farming word for spreading hay out to dry).
 
Down
1 BUTT – double def.
3 WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD – where “fools rush in”, of course – the poem by Pope, and adopted as title of a novel by Forster.
6 INTEGRATE =IN THE GRATE without the H(ot).
7 OFLAG – O(ld) FLAG(stone); specifically Colditz, as this word refers to POW camps which held officers only.
8 ENNISKILLEN – (m)EN + (LINENSILK)*.
9 SO WHAT – i.e. SOW + HAT (as worn by Laurel & Hardy).
11 IBERIAN – (L)IBERIAN, though it could as easily have been SIBERIAN, presumably.
13 WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE – (OKWHENFOURLETTERWORDIS)*. Work is definitely a four-letter word, of course. Lovely long anagram.
27 NAIVE – (EVIAN)rev.
32 DEFORMS – D(efectiv)E + FORMS.
34 NOT A SAUSAGE – (SONATA)* + USAGE; for the derivation of the term Sweet Fanny Adams, see here.
36 IMBRICATION – (BITINAMICRO)*; I came to the conclusion from the anagram that the solution couldn’t be anything else, without knowing the word.
39 GLENGARRY – GLEN + GARY with an extra R(ight) inside (though GARRY with two Rs is a valid, if less common, name in itself). I think we had the Balmoral hat in my last Jumbo blog, so here is its close relative…
41 PATCH TEST – PATCH (=territory) + TEST (British river well-known for its trout fishing).
43 SCUPPER – double def.
45 ANDORRA – AN + [Micawbe)R in DORA].
47 ASLANT – ASLAN + T(urn).
49 EMCEE – i.e. M.C., which can be Master of Ceremonies or Military Cross, awarded for the GALLANTRY of 37dn.
51 ENID – N(ame) in EID.

4 comments on “Times Jumbo 892”

  1. For the first time in ages I finished it – I just haven’t worked out a couple of the cryptic definitions, so I’m gagging to read the explanations. The suspense is killing me. Some of us quiet lurkers may not post much but we can be very keen readers… Come on, topicaltim, put me out of my cryptic misery!
    1. Sorry, I was overtaken by a cold over the weekend; slightly debilitating but hardly fatal. Post will go up in the next hour or two, especially now I know people are waiting so eagerly…
  2. Thank you! 21A had to be Brunei but didn’t see why, hadn’t thought of (or come across before) changing a letter like that: missed that “trying” was the key to why Tring was Tring (doh!), and the last part of 56A was well beyond my ken, amongst other slight puzzles. Still, got there even if I didn’t altogether know why, and the clarification is much appreciated.
    1. You’re welcome! When deciding which clues need explanation, and which are obvious when you’ve got the solution, I was once told that it’s always worth giving detail on missing letter clues (something to do with the way the brain works, so that if you see it, you probably see it straight away, but if you don’t, you may never do so…)

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