Times Jumbo 977

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Jumbo Cryptic
A solving time of 28 minutes, so not the most difficult puzzle, but a very fine one in my view: lots of clever stuff and pleasing penny-drop moments, including two clues in particular which I think are classics.

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
5 VISIBLE – SIB in VILE. I’ve never actually heard anyone refer to their “sibs”, but this doesn’t make it a bad word.
9 BIOSCOPE – BIO(graphie)S + COPE. One of the predecessor technologies to the mdoern cinema.
13 EUROVISION SONG CONTEST – (CONNOISSEURSGOTVOTEIN)* is an elegant long anagram. Those outside Europe may consider the description of the event and wonder why we bother (as do a lot of British people). The selection of that dangerous young rock ‘n’ roller Engelbert Humperdinck as the UK entrant this year tells you how odd it’s become…
14 BACHELOR – BACH + (ROLE)rev. Nice concealed definition in “A single”.
16 ERRANT – Right Reverend in [English ANT].
17 ACCOUNTANT – COUNT in A CANT; as a one-time member of the profession, may I take mild umbrage at the suggestion that all accountants do is penny-pinch and bean-count?
20 VICAR GENERAL – ER in (CALVINRAGE)*; I wasn’t familiar with the office but it was reasonably easy to deduce from the likely letters and checkers.
26 STEADY ON – STEAD(=place, one taken by another) + YON(=that). More cunning wordplay.
29 OLD SCHOOL TIE – cryptic def. In British circles, a way of suggesting that the country is run by a loose association of men who all have the same background. Obviously this is a totally obsolete idea, and belongs to a bygone age; I mean, it would be ridiculous if we were governed by a small handful of privileged people who all went to top public schools and Oxford, and – wait, what did you say?…
32 PEA SHOOTER – [A SHOO] in PETER. Not sure if they exist these days, other than in Dennis the Menace comics.
36 LONG STOP – LONGS TO Play. The obligatory cricket reference; the long stop is a fielder who stands directly behind the wicket-keeper, so you won’t see one in a Test match, but in olden times, when the bounce of pitches was far less true (and in lower-grade matches, such as those I generally play in, where the keeper is not certain to stop more than half of what comes his way) it was a valid way of cutting off runs.
38 OBLATION – OBLIGATION(=duty) without G.I.(rev.).
39 EDDY – D.D. in (YE)rev. Also Mary Baker EDDY, founder of the Christian Science movement.
41 PUT IN THE BOOT – double def.; I think in real life, the phrase is far more likely to be “put the boot in” than “put in the boot” but this is a crossword, not a scientific experiment. This clue obviously makes no sense in North America, where cars have trunks instead of boots.
43 CLERESTORY – CLass Excitement RE:STORY; the church architecture lesson is here.
44 PUNIER – PUN + I.E. + listeneR.
46 ASPIRIN – ASPIRING.
48 STUDENTS – (ED)rev. in STUNTS.
51 VESTMENT – INVESTMENT without the IN.
52 LADETTE – [A Daughter] in LETTER. Only real quibble of the day for me – is it really the defining characteristic of a ladette that she is unhelpful? Boisterous, hard-drinking, loud, for sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean unhelpful in my book…
 
Down
5 VISOR – VISITOR without the IT.
7 BASKERVILLE – double def.: the character assisted by Sherlock Holmes, and the font.
8 ENNUI – pEn aNd iNk qUIt.
11 CHEERLEADER – where “hip” starts the chorus of “Hip hip – hooray”.
19 ALECOST – (A CLOSET)*; as usual with plants, unknown, but more likely sounding than ACELOST or ASELOCT.
21 CASHPOINT – cryptic def. for an ATM. A quick Google doesn’t reveal this to have been used before, so if this is a genuine original, the setter has made a brilliant spot.
22 ELEMENTS – He is Helium and I is Iodine, which are both elements, as live wires would be if they were found in a light bulb. Very clever, and hard to spot.
27 OPEN ORDER – [0 + RD] in OPENER.
31 ACEROSE – cryptic def, as one can imagine the winning rose would be an Ace.
33 SIGNIFICANT – I started off assuming this would be something to do with a variation on dictation, but it’s far cleverer, imagining a situation where the boss says to his secretary (“I’ll sign my letters normally, but you) sign if I can’t”. Second brilliant clue of the day.
34 ALLITERATED – ALL + ITERATED; took me a while to realise the meaning of “annoying announcements” was irrelevant, and I only needed to look at the first letters.
40 BENUMBED – NUMBER in BED.
42 ULULATE – [ETA + LULU]all rev.
45 RUCHE – EH(=what) CUR(=dog). Lawn is a sort of linen or cotton, without knowing which you might find this as hard to spot as I did at first.
47 PIPAL – PI(=holy) PAL(=chum); again, I didn’t know the sacred fig of Buddhism, but the wordplay was fairly clear.
48 SIEVE – [EVE IS]all rev. I shall leave it to feminist theologians to argue about the fairness of characterising Eve as the sinning woman.
49 TASTE – ASTI in TEA.

4 comments on “Times Jumbo 977”

  1. 57′, the end of my 3-Jumbo ‘streak’ of under-an-hour solves.41ac was my LOI; having the U, for some reason I couldn’t see past ‘out’ (not only do we say ‘trunk’, Tim, but we don’t say ‘put the boot in’, which may have caused all the more trouble for N. Americans). Irritatingly, I had 42d and 33d early on, but couldn’t justify them (miscounting 33d’s squares didn’t help). COD to OBLATION. Thanks for explaining RUCHE; never got the ‘what’=EH. But I don’t get 26ac: what indicates YON?
    1. Sorry, Kevin, mistyping on my part: YON is simply “that”, rather than “there”, but with the same sort of meaning, i.e. “I can see the farmer in yon field over to the west”, say.
  2. Cherestory is a better fit I think – C(lass-first) H(int of)E(xcitement) RE STORY

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