The last puzzle I blogged in this slot was notably difficult, but here the balance is redressed – my solving time of 19:49 was rather less than several normal daily puzzles since then, and (though I don’t keep carefully annotated records of these things) probably about as fast as I’ve done a Jumbo for this blog, and possibly ever. As I regularly point out, there’s not necessarily a link between difficulty and enjoyment (there was plenty to like about this one), but I’m afraid an easy puzzle does leave fewer items of interest to talk about, so forgive me if this turns out to be a somewhat laconic review. As per the usual disclaimer below, please raise any which merit a mention.
With Jumbos I generally confine myself to discussion of answers which I think might be a) less straightforward for inexperienced or non-UK based solvers, or b) especially elegant / questionable. However, as always, if a particular clue is not discussed, please feel free to raise it in comments for explanation or discussion.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 6 | INDICTS – (CID in ST NI) all rev.; I liked this for using “pressed” to indicate “included in”, and thus making the lift-and-separate necessary before you realise the definition is just “charges” rather “pressed charges”. Also because I was distracted by wondering whether it would be RUC or PSNI which would be the Northern Ireland police before realising it was neither. |
| 15 | ATHLETE – LET in [A + THE]. |
| 17 | IDEALLY – IDE + ALLY. The ide, a fish found occasionally in Europe and Asia, but much more frequently in crosswords. |
| 32 | GOLF COURSES – (GCESFLOORUS)*; nice anagram around exam time. |
| 36 | NOSTALGIC – (GNOSTICAL)*. Several nice anagrams in today’s puzzle. |
| 38 |
DREAD – R |
| 39 | FAIR DINKUM – (IFIAMDRUNK)*. One for our Australian confreres. |
| 41 |
GAINSBOROUGH – [O |
| 53 | GASCONY – GAS + CONY. I think “cony” refers to the fur, so technically a rabbit only becomes a cony when it’s dead… |
| Down | |
| 1 |
APPLAUD – (DUAL PP + A |
| 3 | TRACE – double def. The horse-related one is described here. |
| 4 | ON THE QT =”ON THE CUTIE”. I know I’m not the only person who doesn’t like seeing “words” like “QT” being enumerated as if they are normal two-letter words. There again, the QT here turns out not to be an acronym, as I think I’d assumed, but an abbreviation of “quiet”. It’s still not a word, of course, but…not sure what my point is, really. |
| 5 |
SIR – S |
| 9 |
SERVILE – E |
| 10 | DESPERADO – (ROADSPEED)*. Bravo in this context sounds like a word more likely to be familiar to aficionados of Westerns (not me, I’m afraid). |
| 19 | OMNIBUS – NIB in (SUMO)rev. |
| 24 | AILMENT =”ALE MEANT”. |
| 25 | BORACIC – (1 CAR)rev. in COB. Though the actual boracic lint has long vanished from daily use, this bit of Cockney slang is still widespread. |
| 27 | EFFUSE – “EFF” (i.e. the letter F, read out loud)+ USE (go through, as in “I’ll go through the usual channels”; I was convinced I had the right answer long before I could see exactly why… |
| 29 | ASUNDER – AS UNDER. Brief and elegant. |
| 31 | LATTICEWORK – (CLERKTOWAIT). Another wonderfully unlikely looking anagram. |
| 37 | A RAINY DAY – cryptic def.; should you not have twigged, July 15th is St Swithun’s Day. |
| 43 | HALCYON – double def. |
| 45 |
CHARY – C |
Well, soon: ‘bravo’ isn’t a word one would come across often in Westerns, but rather in 19th- or 18th-century novels.
Like you I was initially slightly worried about the enumeration of ON THE QT, but my doubts subsided when I realised that I’d write it as “on the QT”.
Although according to the (online) OED the earliest recorded usage of “cony” is for the fur, its usage for the whole rabbit (dead or alive) was recorded not long after.
(rewritten to correct embarrassing howler I’ve only just noticed)
The indefatigable Oxford online dictionary has for coney/cony: “British & Heraldry: a rabbit.”
How did you manage to rewrite your comment Tony? I see no edit button..