Times Jumbo 975 (14 Apr 2012) – The Gallic trend continues…

Posted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
Solving time: None recorded.

I was spending a rare weekend with my family when this came out, so my Dad and I attacked this together and we finished maybe a third of it. I finished it myself in fits and starts over the next few days. It seemed on the tough side to me, and I suspect my total time spent on it was probably more than average. I can’t remember now which ones my Dad got, but there were quite a few, so thanks to him for that.

There seemed to be a slight French theme going on – Albert Camus, Jean Rimbaud, The Dreyfus affair, Camembert cheese, plus a few words of French origin – ORGANDIE, CHAPERONE & CORTEGE. Probably unintentional, of course. Having said that, there have been a number of comments recently about the sudden prevalence of French departments and other Gallic references. So maybe it isn’t just a coincidence…

There were quite a few unknowns for me, which probably contributed to the length of my solve – CAMUS, MUSQUASH, COPAL, RIMBAUD, GIBUS & SCIPIO.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 CA(MEMBER)T
6 LORD JIM = LORD + “GYM” – Joseph Conrad’s tale of naval abandonment
10 CELEB = rev hidden in araB ELECtions
13 Predators + RATTLE
14 ASSAM = A + MASS rev – Always worth bearing in mind that it’s not just the US that has states
15 IGNO(RA)BLE
16 LAUGH ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK – dd
17 GREGOR = G + ROGER rev
18 ORGAN + DIE – ‘cut out’ = DIE in the sense of a machine stopping.
19 MAESTRO = (SOME ART)*
22 BOOKKEEPER = BOOK (work) + KEEPER (one in the field – a wicket-keeper, that is)
23 MARLINSPIKES = MAR + PIKE in SS all about NIL rev
27 SUMAC = CAMUS rev – I was vaguely aware of this small tree/shrub, which was fortunate as I was ignorant of Albert Camus, a French author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
29 SEDUCER = EDUCE in SinisteR
30 BUZZ + ARDS – I couldn’t see ‘high’ = BUZZ at first, but both can be strong feelings of pleasure or excitement. The Ards peninsula is the strip of land north and east of Strangford Lough in the extreme east of Northern Ireland.
32 JANE EYRE = AN (article) in JE (in French I) + EYE (look at) about Russian
34 P(END)ANT
36 LE(W)IS
39 ADULTERATION = ADULT + RATION about Environmental
41 HAVE IT MADE – dd – My LOI. This took me ages to come up with – there are just too many words that fit *A*E!
44 DREYFUS = (FREUD’S)* about Y – The Dreyfus affair was a french political scandal around the end of the 19th century.
46 MU + SQUASH – Never heard of a musquash, only a muskrat (they’re the same thing apparently), but got it from the wordplay.
48 ANNE + eArL
50 NOTHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT – dd
53 TOSCANINI = (IN ACTION’S)*
54 CHAR + Telegraph
55 AVIATOR = A + VisITOR about A
56 NI(valuE)CE
57 GREEN(I)E
58 C(H)APER + ONE
Down
1 China + OPAL – a guess from the wordplay
2 MEASURE FOR MEASURE = MEASURE (action) x2 about FORt – although I’m sure how ‘set’ fits in to the wordplay.
3 MATCH + BOOK – one of today’s better definitions.
4 EVENt + LegendarY
5 TRACTOR FEED = whaT + (CREATED FOR)*
6 LAS VEGAS = (V + EG) in LASS – V for ‘see’ is something of an old chestnut that people often ask about. It is an abbreviation for the Latin word vide (meaning literally ‘see’) sometimes seen in print to refer the reader to another part of the text.
7 RIMe + BA(U)D – A 19th century French poet
8 JOIN THE CLUB – dd
9 MINUTE + MAN
10 COR(TEG)E – A teg is a two-year old sheep. I was trying to put TUP (another three-letter sheep term) into something for ages.
11 LIBRA – dd – an ancient Roman pound (of weight) and a sign (of the zodiac)
12 BLEAK HOUSE = B (book) + HOUSE (store) about LEAK (to give away), so ‘novel’ is the definition and not ‘book’
17 GI + BUSt – never heard of a gibus, but it couldn’t really be anything else.
20 TAKE DOWN A PEG OR TWO = (POET + AWKWARD ONE GOT)*
21 M + EASiLY
24 AI + RING
25 Possibly + EARL – An Earl is the British equivalent of a European Count, although I’m not sure if that really makes them synonymous.
26 SCIPIO = (COP IS)* about I – There were lots of Scipios in Ancient Rome, but Scipio Africanus was the general famous for his defeat of Hannibal.
28 CLEFT = C + (FELT)*
31 ZIT + HER
33 EX + TEMP + O + RISE
35 ANAESTHETIC = (IN EACH STATE) – I got this early on, but didn’t put it in as I thought there was an anagram of THEATRES involved, and I didn’t have an R, but ‘A number of theatres’ is the clever definition.
37 SPELL – dd
38 PADDING + Tracking + ON – I had CHATTERTON to start with, which is bound to be a station somewhere, surely.
40 RE + SIGNING
42 TENTATIVE = (AT EVENT IT)* – very cleverly hidden wordplay in a natural surface – my COD
43 SUIT + CASE – a playing card suit and a legal argument.
45 F(RIG)AT + E
47 SA(RACE)N
49 I + M(PAL)A
51 TASTE – dd
52 TERSE – hidden in waTER SEarched

One comment on “Times Jumbo 975 (14 Apr 2012) – The Gallic trend continues…”

  1. 53′, speedy for me for a Jumbo. Haven’t we had 41ac recently? For some reason I didn’t twig to the clue for 6ac; thanks, Dave, for pointing out what shouldn’t have been that hard for me.

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