Private Eye/Cyclops 569 Instant Academy

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A mid range Eye puzzle.  Nothing terribly hard, nothing terribly easy, but some lovely smutty surface readings to the clues as usual.

Eye569

Across
1 SAVE Head of Tesco abandons staff cut back (4)
S[t]AVE
3 ASSAILANT Aggressive type of idiot TV presenter full of trouble (9)
AIL (trouble) inside ASS, ANT (idiot, TV presenter) Last one in.
9 GUINEA Ill-begotten gain involving EU pig of sorts (6)
(GAIN EU )* AInd: ill begotten First one in.  The anagram indicator and fodder were very clear and the type of “pig” just leapt out
10 POLYGAMY Simultaneous coupling makes institution very smelly (8)
POLY (institution) GAMY (very smelly)
11 THESPIAN Luvvie‘s panties off – front of house captivated (8)
(PANTIES H[ouse])* AInd: off.  Great clue surface
12 ITCHES The thing is stifling iconic South American passions (6)
CHE (iconic South American) inside IT’S (The thing is)  Second last in – I found this clue tricky
13 GRANDEE Gender a problem for Tebbit now? (7)
(GENDER A)* AInd: problem.  Norman Tebbit is now a “grandee” of the Tory party.
15 ISOLATE Writer’s forsaken prick (oxygen-dead) cut off (7)
[pen]IS O[xygen] LATE (dead)
16 ACADEMY Rogue drug taken by late pop star – that’ll teach you (7)
CAD (Rogue) E (drug) inside AMY (late pop star).  For a while I thought the rogue was Jack CADE but he is a rebel rather than a rogue
18 INSTANT Mo elected with half of comedy act (Tory leader) (7)
IN (electd) STAN (and Ollie) T[ory].
22 LOW-LYING Base, Archer-style, liable to go under? (3-5)
LOW (base) LYING (Archer-style)
24 DUCKLING Nothing on, Heather’s an ugly little thing, maybe (8)
DUCK (nothing) LING (heather)
25 NOTARY Lawyer causes negative delay, right away (6)
NO (negative) TA[r]RY
26 SEGREGATE “Rocky agrees to take top off” scandal – don’t join! (9)
(AGREES)* AInd: rocky, then something GATE.  Hang on, that’s too many As …
… the top is off the “agrees” and the scandal is just GATE:
([a]GREES)* AInd: rocky, then GATE.
27 INCH Creep Nick lacks power (4)
[p]INCH
Down
2 VENISON Flesh out Vince – “not Cameron’s main disciple” (7)
(VIN[c]E)* AInd: out,  SON (disciple?)  “not Caneron’s main” tells us to lose the C from Vince.  Is a SON really a disciple?
4 SUPINE Laid back Ukip leader playing with penis (6)
(U[kip] PENIS)* AInd: playing
5 ALL PISS AND WIND The whole beer plus roll, as so often passes Trump’s lips? (3,4,3,4)
ALL (The whole) PISS (beer) AND (plus) WIND (roll).  (Forebears from complaining yet again about beer being described in such a derogatory manner. Also from commenting on the astonishing stupidity and hypocrisy of Trump. )
6 LOGICAL Reasoned: “Maybe go with CIA to split liberal leaders” (7)
(CIA GO)* AInd: maybe, inside L and L (a couple of liberal leaders)
7 NUMBER TEN A screw that eluded Ed Miliband? (6,3)
Double Def. A Number 10 is a pretty standard screw size
8 CABINET MEETING A big enticement, blowing up Cameron’s lot all in one place? (7,7)
(A BIG ENTICEMENT)* AInd: Blowing up
14 RECTITUDE Political correctness puts end to the Conservative dickhead in rough surroundings? (9)
[th]E C[onservative] TIT (dickhead) inside RUDE (rough surroundings)
17 DRINKER Tosspot Duke skating on thin ice here with Brenda? (7)
D[uke] RINK (thin ice here) ER (Brenda).  I have no idea how thin the ice is at a rink.  I thought it would be quite thick
19 TRY IT ON Have a cheeky go at screwing Tory nit (3,2,2)
(TORY NIT)* AInd: screwing
20 PLIGHT Dire Straits, lacking capital, escape, f-off, following pressure (6)
P[ressure] [f]LIGHT
23/1/21 NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE Hire out shit DVD on dancing that sets Brits apart (5-5,6)
(HIRE OUT SHIT DVD ON)* AInd: dancing

I have recently discovered the poetry of Brian Bilston, “the poet laureate of twitter”.
Here is his award winning poem in the form of a Venn diagram


His other work is well worth a look. See here:      https://twitter.com/brian_bilston
and the kickstarter for his book on Unbound       https://unbound.co.uk/books/brian-bilston

Your welcome

14 comments on “Private Eye/Cyclops 569 Instant Academy”

  1. Love that poem but I see you’ve had the same problem posting the image that I had on another site. Must be a permissions thing.

    And I agree – ‘son’ for ‘disciple’?

  3. Will: Are you saying you cannot see the image (Venn diagram poem)? I can, but then I put it there. If anyone cannot it is the first thing seen on his twitter page https://twitter.com/brian_bilston
    

    
Liv: I thought the Japanese suffix honorific was "-san"?

  4. Now the site is back to rights what I actually said was:

    Will: Are you saying you cannot see the image (Venn diagram poem)? I can, but then I put it there. If anyone cannot it is the first thing seen on his twitter page https://twitter.com/brian_bilston

    Liv: I thought the Japanese suffix honorific was “-san”?

  5. I found this one unusually troublesome, so this blog is appreciated in showing me where I went wrong.

    One thing I still don’t get relating to 20D: FLIGHT becomes LIGHT because of “f-off”, so where is “lacking capital” used? My excuse for not getting this one was that there seemed to be too many instructions. (I have no excuse for the other bunch I missed.)

  6. You’re right Steve, now I look at it again I agree there are too many instructions to “behead” FLIGHT.
    It might be argued that the definition could be extended to be “Dire straits, lacking capital”, but I suspect the reality is the clue was left in mid-edit.

  7. Thanks for the corroboration. Makes me feel less inadequate regarding that one. 🙂

    Never mind; subscription is here so time to start again!

  8. I eventually arrived at a reconciliatory parsing of 20d. I took “lacking capital” as a way of transforming “Dire Straits” to “Dire straits”. I suppose it will and can be argued that case, like punctuation, can normally be ignored. In this case, however, if you retain both, you’d misleadingly refer, in the definition, to the musical combo. So it’s a semantic thing. Does that wash?

    Speaking of meanings, I too was slow to pick up 12ac. Isn’t “itch” a synonym of a few synonyms of “passion”, rather than a straight synonym?

  9. lemming, I’ll have to bring you my laundry, because that explanation for “Dire Straits” works very well.
    I’m clearly capitalisation -blind, I even “corrected” it in Comment #6 without realising as I retyped it.

    On the other hand I am quite happy with the ITCH/PASSION synonym though I would agree there is a large difference in strength if not quality.

  10. Am I being too sensitive to object to the ‘him’ and ‘her’ in the poem? If Tim were Kim , it could easily be the other way about!!!!

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