An enjoyable offering from Cyclops this time. The clue surfaces were at their story-telling best, in the usual Private Eye style.
The answers appeared readily and the whole thing was over at one sitting. May be too soon over – I would like more like this.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 7 | SMOOCH | Getting low in school snog (6) MOO (low) inside SCH[ool] |
| 9 | ALL HOURS | Lush is spoilt with ‘oral’ 24/7? (3,5) (LUSH ORAL Edit: Corrected wordplay |
| 10 | KNIGHTHOOD | Which entitles board member to associate with criminal (10) KNIGHT (Board member – a chess board) HOOD (criminal – hoodlum) |
| 12 | GRIDLOCK | Elton’s work making him a lot of money – for jam (8) Reference to Ben Elton and his second book Gridlock While that book was widely read I understand most of his millions come from the musicals such as “We Will Rock You” |
| 14 | EVINCE | Reveal end of inappropriate ex-coalition member (6) [inappropriat]E VINCE [Cable] (ex-coalition minister) |
| 15 | SHOW OFF | Braggart giving performance in bad taste (4-3) SHOW (performance) OFF (in bad taste) |
| 17 | SNAKISH | Treacherous as skin that’s wrinkled and hard (7) (AS SKIN)* AInd: wrinkled, H[ard] |
| 20 | SPRANG | Southern ‘blow’ set jailbird free (6) S[outhern] PRANG (‘blow’ as in a car crash) |
| 22 | POP GROUP | Go prop up crooked Police? (3,5) (GO PROP UP)* AInd: crooked. Def. by example thus use of question mark |
| 25 | TOE-CURLING | Foot’s end game: very embarrassing (3-7) TOE (foot’s end) CURLING (game) |
| 27 | SEQUINED | Liberace-like queen Sid screwed (8) (SID QUEEN)* AInd: screwed |
| 28 | CHOIRS | Papers reported church groups (6) Homophone: Quires |
| Down | ||
| 1/24/26 | LONG HARD LOOK | Intense study – of an impressive erection’s appearance? (4,4,4) DD/CD |
| 2 | GHETTO | A quarter got the shakes (6) (GOT THE)* AInd: shakes. Last one in. Using the definite article as part of the wordplay often fools me |
| 3 | BAZOOKA | Bozo, a doubtful king, a destructive thing (7) (BOZO A)* AInd: doubtful, K[ing] A |
| 4 | BLUDGEON | Maybe Tony Hall’s seen in coarse working club (8) DG (Tony Hall – is the Director General of the BBC) inside BLUE (coarse), ON (working) Great wordplay |
| 5 | BOOTLICKER | Sycophant who possibly goes in for tongue-to-tongue treatment? (10) CD: One of the tongues could be in a shoe |
| 6 | FROLIC | Great fun for Loony Left to get in charge! (6) FOR* AInd: loony, L[eft] I[n] C[harge] |
| 8 | MONARCH | One keen on a flutter, Brenda? (7) DD Monarch butterfly and Brenda (who is keen enough on a flutter to win a £50 Tesco voucher) |
| 13 | DOWN-AND-OUT | Bum hair associated with declared gay? (4-3-3) DOWN (Hair) AND (associated with) OUT (declared gay) Top clue |
| 16/11 | FIGHTING TALK | Taking flight, cocked up challenge (8,4) (TAKING FLIGHT)* AInd: cocked up |
| 18 | STUNNER | Balls up with “Tyneside leader’s butt a bit of all right” (7) NUTS< (balls up) NE (Tyneside) [leade]R (leader’s butt) It took till final review of this blog before that wordplay was unravelled |
| 19 | SPREADS | Spears, performing without dimension, gets fat (7) (SPEARS)* AInd: performing, around D[imension] |
| 21 | PLAYER | Footballer, one having a shag under piano? (6) P[iano] LAYER |
| 23 | PAUNCH | Gut of one into drink (6) Single Def? Doesn’t seem very cryptic Edit: Tony at comment #1 has spotted what I couldn’t |
My brother has an amazing magical dog. It’s a new breed: a labracadabrador.
It can make any food disappear!
Hi,
The wordplay of 23 is ‘a’ (one) into ‘punch’ (drink) 🙂
The explanation for 9 across includes ‘snog’ it should be ‘oral’.
Not so good from me this time. I had ‘good’ for ‘long’ which messed up ‘knighthood’ and I wouldn’t have got ‘bludgeon’ in a month of Sundays!!!!
I was confused for a while by 19D. Using “without [d]” to mean “with an extra d” seems sneaky- hadn’t noticed without -> outside angle.
I arrived at the 19d “D” via D for Down (or maybe Depth). Strictly speaking it’s a direction rather than a dimension, but it does connote one unambiguously: eg Down clues extend vertically. I don’t think at all of D for dimension. In the instances I know, such as “2D” or “3D”, it stands for “dimensional” rather than “dimension”, and that seems to me a big difference. But other minds may differ.
But while something can be 2 or 3 dimensional one watches a film in 3 dimensions.