Cyclops 580: J-exit / resignation honours

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After a momentous few weeks of Brexit, political resignations and shenanigans (et tu Gové?!), and Cameron’s lavender list, the 15×15 world has been rocked by its own J-exit – the resignation of JetDoc from the Cyclops blog. I have the honour of following in her esteemed footsteps, and hope I can fit the bill. So, what does Cyclops have in store for us this fortnight?…

A lot of references to political leaders present and past – Salmond, Sturgeon, Blair, Cameron, Pitt, May, Mr Mili-bean, Mr Cor-bean… and the would-a could-a should-a(?) has-bean-a political leader Boris. All with the word RESIGNATION looming large, centre stage, as well as ARSE AROUND, EASY OPTION and COLD-SHOULDERED – pretty scathing stuff.

And surprisingly little smut, for a Cyclops – a ‘Phwoar’ at a Sun spread in 24A; a masochistic MP ‘kissing the rod’ in 23A and a male ‘peer’ giving it a shake, in 16D. Oh, and a ‘penis’ in the anagram for EASY OPTION! As you were then, maybe an average smut quotient after all!

Some excellent surface readings too – 15A sets the tone; 2D tips its hat to Blair and Chilcot (TB did approach that process fairly grudgingly and resentfully); and 5D/14D hints at Corbyn’s initial honeymoon/love-in giving way to (maybe) the cold-shoulder treatment.

 

Cyclops 580

All in all, fairly standard current-ish affairs and politician-bashing fare from Cyclops, with a smattering of smut, so all is well with the world! Any comments, corrections or omissions gratefully received.

 

(Just to introduce myself, I have been reading Private Eye as long as I care to remember, as my father was a subscriber long before I was, and I have been solving/submitting the Cyclops crossword since pretty much the beginning, with a couple of £100 wins along the way! So in a way this is the culmination of a cruciverbal journey, on a par with the one opportunity I got to blog an Araucaria puzzle – Genius 118 back in 2013.

I also blog the Telegraph’s Enigmatic Variations every four weeks, the Saturday no-longer-Prize Indy every 5 weeks, and the Grauniad monthly Genius every six months. So one week soon there will be a perfect storm where I end up having four blogs to prepare and post…good job I haven’t got any hair left to pull out!)

 

Across
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
6A ALLEGRO Fast arranged by old failed candidate and member with alternative backing (7) Fast, arranged (musically) /
AL (Al Gore, old failed presidential candidate) + LEG (member) + RO (or, alternative, backing)
7A ALMONDS Scottish leader’s first to go far right – nuts (7) nuts /
(S)ALMOND(S) – Alex Salmond, Scottish leader (ex-leader?), with first letter moving to the far right!
9A/3D ARSE Prats do “Cyclops-like ears” (4,6) (what) prats do /
‘EARS’ could be clued cryptically (Cyclops-like) as ‘ARSE, AROUND’
10A UPSTANDING Ethical – so finished being a candidate? (10) ethical /
UP (finished) + STANDING (being a candidate)
12A UNITED Not like Miliband to have magnetism, agreed? (6) agreed /
UN_ED (if something was not like (Ed) Miliband, it could be ‘UN ED’) around (having) IT (attraction, magnetism)
13A RICH SET It certainly has the money to distribute Boris etching – boing, gone! (4,3) it (they) certainly has (have) the money /
anag, i.e. distribute, of (BO)RIS ETCH(ING), minus the letters of BOING
15A RESIGNATION Response of some leaders to Brexit crisis might be put into words as “We’ll just have to lump it” (11) &lit/CD-ish double defn?! /
A number of political leaders resigned after Brexit; and ‘we’ll just have to lump it’ is an indication of being resigned to one’s fate.
19A PITFALL Danger when PM misses Brexit climax and collapse (7) danger /
PIT(T) – former PM, missing the last letter, or climax, of ‘brexiT’ – plus FALL (collapse)
20A MULLET Rejected grass, um … as a hairstyle (6) hairstyle /
TELL (grass on) + UM – all rejected to give MULLET
21A KISS THE ROD Welcome a beating, as masochists might do affectionately at the opening of parliament? (4,3,3) double defn /
to KISS THE ROD is to submit to punishment, as a masochist might do; and at the opening of Parliament an affectionate MP might kiss (Black) Rod
23A/17A EASY A tempting alternative, possibly, to a penis, without a call for attention (4,6) a tempting aternative /
EAS_PTION (anag, i.e. possibly, of TO A PENIS), around (without) YO (call for attention)
24A UNCORKS Sun spread including “Phwoar! Knickers capital!” gets it in the neck? The opposite (7) gets it in the neck (of a wine bottle)? The opposite! (Gets it out of the neck…) /
UN_S (anag, i.e. spread, of SUN) around COR (smutty interjection along the lines of Phwoar!) + K (capital letter of Knickers)
25A URGENCY Haste of press to stand against Cameron’s ultimate hollow “clarity” (7) haste /
URGE (press) next to (standing against) N (ultimate letter of CameroN) + CY (ClaritY, hollowed out)
Down
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
1D BLARING Blair in trouble – no good sounding off! (7) sounding off /
BLARI (anag, i.e. in trouble, of BLAIR) + NG (no good)
2D RESENTMENT Dispatched soldiers again – Tony’s main grudge (10) grudge /
RE-SENT MEN (dispatched soldiers again) + T (first, or main, letter of Tony)
3D AROUND See 9ac. (6) see 9A /
see 9A
4D CLEAR-CUT Conservative purveyor of nonsense before poll – that’s plain (5-3) that’s plain /
C (conservative) + LEAR (Edward Lear, purveyor nonsense verse) + CUT (poll)
5D/14D COLD Corbyn, at first getting on, taken responsibility for – now frozen out (4-10) frozen out /
C (first letter of Corbyn) + OLD (getting on) + SHOULDERED (taken responsibility for)
8D DONATE Help the party – party Corbyn finally chewed up? (6) help the (political) party /
DO (party) + N (final letter of CorbyN) + ATE (chewed up)
11D STRANGLER One who needs to get a firm grip, Labour’s leader, being in ever weird situation (9) one who needs to get a firm grip /
STRANG_ER (ever weird) around L (first letter, or leader, of Labour)
14D SHOULDERED See 5dn. (10) see 5D /
see 5D
16D IN A SHAKE How a male peer’s task is completed quickly (2,1,5) quickly /
A male pee-er, one peeing, might shake to ‘complete the task’…enough said!
17D OPTION See 23ac. (6) see 23A /
see 23A
18D SEASICK Main conclusion of Boris: “Yuk! What one gets from boat-rocking!” (7) what one gets from boat-rocking /
SEA (main) + S (concluding letter of BoriS) + ICK (interjection expressing disgust, Yuk! – ‘ick’ not in Chambers?)
20D MODERN May, getting reduced party backing, er, needs new go-ahead (6) go-ahead /
M (May, reduced) + OD (do, or party, backing) + ER + N (new)
22D SCOT Senior Corbynite starts to put over Sturgeon? (4) (Nicola) Sturgeon? (for example) /
SC (first letters, or starts, to Senior and Corbyn) + OT (to, put over)

16 comments on “Cyclops 580: J-exit / resignation honours”

  2. Welcome mc! Was it just me or was this cyclops a little on the tough side? 23/17 was particularly nasty. I had SOFT OPTION at first which seemed to fit the wordplay as a DD. Again it didn’t help.

  3. I thought this one was tougher than recently too. But I eventually got going. Also, ‘in a flash’ was one of my early ones which didn’t help around and about.
    MC … I would say welcome but you’ve been here much longer than me. But thanks very much anyway for taking up the cudgels on one of my favourite blog sites.

  4. The SW was tough. I didn’t know 21a and I got stuck on 24a and the last word in 16d which I also guessed as “flash” but had toyed with as jiffy.
    I’ve been submitting the solution by email since January 2010 which is over 6.5 years but I’ve never won the ton. Anyone else won it?

  5. I toiled for ages over this one, but have just surprised myself by completing the next one (581) in record time, i.e. straight after opening the post, and without even pausing to put my glasses on!

  6. Thanks for the various comments and feedback (and the ‘welcome’s from Tony and Winsor!). I forgot to mention that I would be in a field in a camp site in the middle of the new Forest when this was published, so might be slow to respond. Back in the world of wifi and internet now…

    Seems like the general consensus was that this was a tougher-than-average – although it didn’t seem overly so to me when I solved it a week or so ago…probably helped by the fact that I avoided/didn’t even see the red-herrings of IN A FLASH and SOFT OPTION, which complicated things for some of the commenters above…

    Bamberger – I can’t remember how I discovered this, but a couple of years ago I read somewhere that the Eye toss a coin each fortnight to decide whether to pick the prize winner from postal entries or e-entries for that issue. (Or maybe they do it alternately, e-mail one fortnight, post the next?) I guess they think it is too fiddly/time-consuming to try and mix them together and select from the whole entry? Since then, I have scanned and e-mailed my solution, then put the original in the post as well! However, both my wins were long before this, so my attempt to improve my odds has not been fruitful…yet!

  7. I hope it is not true about the exclusion of one category of entries from alternate prize draws! All of my own (unsuccessful) entries have been sent by email as plain text (in the way that the solutions are printed in the magazine).

  8. John E – my story may be apocryphal! If not then, as long as they do it by tossing a coin to decide which ‘pot’ to dip into, rather than alternate goes, I guess either method is initially in with a chance…(my university maths in statistics and game theory is all a little rusty these days!)

    When I first started to e-mail in, I used to type all the answers out manually in an e-mail, as you describe, but then I got bored of doing that and decided to e-mail in a scanned copy – not sure if this is a valid method either, to be honest – the rubric is not very definitive either way…

  10. I do the crossword using the Across Lite software (if you haven’t tried it, it’s good) and used to email the completed .puz file. I don’t know if that’s valid but I haven’t bothered for a while anyway.

  11. Is there a chance someone form the Eye might comment and give the best way to send by email? I did it once and wrote all out as per JohnE but I can see that it would be a complete ballache to judge. I’ve not bothered since (ignoring that complete solutions were once few and far between for me!!!).

  12. All they have to judge is the first correct entry they open on the appointed day. Hardly arduous unless there are lots of incorrect entries.

  13. True! But one would wish to make it as simple as possible. But I also note you found 581 easy so presumably you have it. Mine hasn’t arrived yet and it is not in the internet either as far as I can see. That’s another reason I don’t enter!!!

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