Some very fine clues in this crossword I thought.
Some well hidden definitions masquerading as wordplay, and slick surface readings to suggest unassociated subjects meant this was another pleasure to solve.
Particularly with clues that would surely be editted out of any crossword apart from the Eye, such as 6D.
It wasn’t too tricky to get stuck in. 20D went in on first reading providing the gateway to almost half the grid filled on the first pass. But the last few took a while but were fun. (Well, mostly – I still can’t see why I was so stuck on 17D)
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 7 | TURKEY | Represented by Erdogan‘s utter failure (6) Double Definition. Good job Cyclops isn’t a Turk, eh. If he was he’d probably be joining many of his journalist mates in the depths of choky in Istanbul for that clue’s surface reading. |
| 8 | SCENARIO | Negotiated raise? Con! – imagined situation (8) (RAISE CON)* AInd: negotiated |
| 11 | PLUMP | Pence left US President’s majority right wing in possession of a corporation (5) P[ence] L[eft] [tr]UMP (US President’s right wing, most of it). |
| 12 | HINDSIGHT | Bum’s position: sense it makes you appreciate what might have been (9) HIND (Bum’s position) SIGHT (sense) |
| 13 | SAFETY-NET | Splayed feet: nasty thing to fall into (6-3) (FEET NASTY)* AInd: Splayed |
| 15 | AMBER | Light American beer pointless (5) AM[erican] BE[e]R (pointless = remove one of NSEW). I agree with that clue surface. |
| 16 | BLOW IT | Butt to be presented before sex? I can’t be arsed (4,2) BLOW (butt) IT (sex). Butt as in hit. Last one in, but had to be once I had the W from 17D |
| 18 | TANTRA | “Tartan Revolution” – a religious tradition (6) (TARTAN)* AInd: revolution |
| 20 | SOBER | Such are judges‘ robes, pants? (5) (ROBES)* AInd: Pants. Judges are well know for being sober of course. Mind you they also do a lot of sitting. That’s my excuse for pencilling in “SAT IN” on the first pass |
| 21 | PREGNANCY | Labour to end this publicity agency deviously recruiting Corbyn’s right wing (9) PR (publicity) (AGENCY [corby]N)* AInd: deviously |
| 23 | INSOMNIAC | One who fails to get off with Simon about to get back in with Bill (9) SIMON* AInd: about, IN< (in, back) AC (bill) |
| 24 | CAJUN | Half a month in the nick, cooking Southern-style (5) JU[ne] or JU[ly] (half a month) inside CAN (the nick) |
| 26 | THE STAGE | Luvvie’s place – getting Mark between endlessly rumpled sheets (3,5) TAG (mark) inside (SHEET[s])* AInd: rumpled |
| 27 | STATES | “America‘s utter shambles” (staggers off) (6) STATE (utter) [shamble]S. Remove shamble (stagger) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | AT A PUSH | If one’s forced to, one thanks press (2,1,4) A (one) TA (thanks) PUSH (press) |
| 2 | URDU | Tory grandee ditching leader with initially upturned tongue (4) (Douglas) [h]URD U[pturned]. Was a time when the current Baron Hurd of Westwell was the only Tory who was his own rhyming slang, but now we have Jeremy Hunt |
| 3 | DESPOT | Trump’s on the way to being this Democrat with drugs bank? (6) D[emocrat] Es (drugs) POT (bank) |
| 4 | INK STAIN | Mark of a writer: getting Nina’s kit off (3,5) (NINA’S KIT)* AInd: off |
| 5 | DRUGS BARON | Leader of dopey organisation producing round, G bras (5,5) (ROUND G BRAS)* AInd: producing. Had me thinking Doc was involved in the wordplay (Doc was the putative leader of the seven dwarfs, that included Dopey) |
| 6 | HOOTER | Snitch‘s 50% bust (6) Snitch = nose = hooter, and bust = breasts = hooters, so 50% of that is 1 hooter. |
| 9 | CONSTITUENCY | Tory plonker in ‘EU sync’ fiasco – MP’s responsibility (12) CON (Tory) then TIT (plonker) inside (EU SYNC)* AInd: fiasco |
| 10 | PHONE-TAPPING | Trump’s unsubstantiated claim of mobile money-extracting? (5-7) PHONE (mobile) TAPPING (money-extracting) |
| 14 | FILIBUSTER | Office worker grabs one by tits to delay legislation (10) I, BUST (one, tits) inside FILER (office worker) |
| 17 | WORKMATE | What a pain, getting up wanton market colleague (8) Def: colleague OW< (what a pain, getting up, i.e. reversed/rising in a down clue) (MARKET)* AInd: wanton. The clue I was stuck on the longest. |
| 19 | GYMNAST | Fit type polished off many G&Ts (7) (MANY G[&]TS)* AInd: polished off |
| 20 | SHIRTY | Hirst’s pickled pussy tail irritated (6) (HIRST)* AInd: pickled, [puss]Y |
| 22 | NICETY | Politician extremely good at first? A fine point (6) NICE (good), then T[or]Y (politician, extremely) |
| 25 | JUTE | Old German bag material (4) Double definition |
Eye blog so final joke should go here – but I can’t do better than – “Strong and stable leadership” – cracks me up every time – after all, that’s you what get from donkeys.
For 27a I think it’s HAMBLES (verb meaning limps or stumbles) that has to be removed to leave the S.
I agree, Gazza. If you remove ‘shambles’ (as in ‘staggers’) there is no ‘s’ left!
While I agree that “staggers” is nearer “shambles” than the singular “shamble” (though see below) I had never heard of hamble, and, looking it up can find only one dictionary with that meaning:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hamble : “to limp or stumble in walking”
Would Cyclops be thinking of an American meaning!?
Everywhere else has the true blue bloodthirsty British meaning with which even the older version of Websters concurs
http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/hamble Webster’s 1913 Dictionary Hamble “To hamstring.”
The phrontistery is more explicit http://phrontistery.info/h.html “to mutilate a dog by cutting of the balls of its feet”
I’m much happier with the idea that even one shamble involves more than one stagger.
And what’s a spare S between friends anyway
“Hamble” is very English. OED’s first citation is from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Its original meaaning was maim, cut dock; and specifically the removal of the balls of dogs’ feet to make them unfit for hunting: synonyms “expeditate” and “law”. In 1728 you could forfeit 3/4d to the king for having an unexpeditated “great dog”. Or, at least earlier, you could pay a foot-gelde to keep one within a forest. Its “limp” sense is recorded only as Yorkshire dialect. And both senses are marked obsolete.
So, although I’m sure Cyclops does use Americanisms — cf “can” and “snitch” (which was new to me) in this one — I’m on the stagger side.
After such gruesomeness, what distraction? Well, No.598 is already for download. I surprised myself by getting through it before today Tuesday lunchtime, which is rather too early in the week for my liking.
Indeed! About the spare ‘s’!!! I was so glad to get the answer I didn’t get too deeply into the full explanation.
As for 598, rather disappointingly, I took the advice above and shot through it very quickly and have left myself with nothing t look forward to for some time!!!