Cyclops 625 – Right-Wing Press Clutch at Straws

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A hint of a nod to the Royal Wedding, with ‘Harry’ and ‘Markle’ both making an appearance in the clues…is Cyclops getting a bit soft in his (presumably/relatively) old age?…

…and some American references – TULSA, MEMPHIS and GREENBACK – and of course SCREWBALL, for their current leader. Over here, the RIGHT-WING PRESS are CLUTCH-ing AT STRAWS that this is some sort of revival of the monarchy. What could possibly go wrong with a member of the Royal family marrying an American divorcee…? In fact, maybe GROMMET at 6A is a subtle reference to Wallace (Simpson)? And there is a small AGE GAP (three years?), but nothing that would worry Ronnie Wood.

Anyway, back on topic, as we should be…some nice diversions – Amy Johnson (AVIATOR, or aviatrix?) upstaging Boris at 8A, and 13A possibly the best surface read for a topical/apposite answer I have seen in ages…the surface reading of 26A is an image I don’t really want to gain any MOMENTUM…

I also enjoyed ‘Joanna’s heart’ for MIDDLE C (although I have no idea if there really is a C in the middle of a piano keyboard – answers please, below!)

 

 

Hopefully I haven’t missed anything below – thanks to Cyclops for an enjoyable solve/blog…I hope you are sharpening your pencil for the upcoming Trump visit…

NB. One slight query/clarification – not a complaint, more of a musing… If I have parsed it correctly, 26A has ‘sex’ as an indicator for ‘S’ – which I have seen before/elsewhere and parsed without thinking lots of times, but my various (e/paper) Chambers don’t seem to have ‘s’ as an abbreviation for sex. I’m not sure if it is used here as in ‘gender’, as in ‘nookie’, or as in the Latin for ‘six’…any thoughts?…

Across
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
6A GROMMET C-Cyclops pinched by crap fastener (7) fastener /
GRO_T (crap, rubbish) around (pinching) M-ME (Cyclops, stutteringly)
8A AVIATOR Johnson famously gets one by balls – perverse (7) (Amy) Johnson, famously /
A (one) VIA (by way of) TOR (rot, or balls, reversed, or perverse)
11A GREENBACK Bill wants politician to withdraw (9) (dollar) bill /
GREEN (politician) + BACK (withdraw, back away)
12A HELEN Brothel entrance has classical beauty (5) classical beauty /
hidden word, i.e. has, in ‘brotHEL ENtrance’
13A PUTIN Leader elected after fix? (5) (Russian) leader /
PUT (fix) + IN (elected)
14A SCREWBALL Sod the party crackpot (9) crackpot /
SCREW (sod, as in sod that/screw that?) + BALL (party, dance)
15A MEMPHIS Maine politician belonging to ‘the man’s city’ (7) (the man’s, Elvis Presley’s) city /
ME (Maine, US state, abbreviated) + MP (politician) + HIS (belonging to the man)
17A LINOCUT Artistic print: sod all about sod all – shred! (7) artistic print /
LIN (nil, nothing, sod all, turned about) + O (nothing, sod all again!) + CUT (shred)
19A DRESSDOWN Prepare for a Friday at work and give someone a bollocking (5,4) double defn? /
many companies have a ‘DRESS DOWN’ Friday, usually with a collection for charity; and to DRESS DOWN can mean to give someone a rollicking
22A POUND 1/500th of a monkey’s enclosure (5) double defn? /
a ‘monkey’ is slang for £500, so 1/500th of a monkey would be a single POUND; and a pound can be an enclosure
24A LUGER Carry Brenda’s foreign piece (5) foreign piece (weapon) /
LUG (carry) + ER (Elizabeth Regina, or Brenda, as the Eye calls her)
25A BUTTERCUP Goat nestling up to bit of bra, flower? (9) flower /
BUTTER (goat, one who butts) + CUP (bit of a bra)
26A CORSETS Before sex, Jeremy’s half ready for underwear (7) underwear /
COR (half of Corbyn, or Jeremy) + SET (ready) + S (sex?)
27A INSTANT Flash Brown’s in this month (7) flash /
INS_T (instant, ‘this month’, in formal correspondence) around TAN (brown)
Down
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
1D AGE GAP One scrambled egg followed by a pee, of no consequence to Ronnie Wood? (3,3) (something) of no consequence to (Rolling Stone, and serial cradle-snatcher) Ronnie Wood /
A (one) + GE G (anag, i.e. scrambled, of EGG, plus (followed by) A + P (pee)
2D MOMENTUM Left wing group takes little time getting males on corporation (8) left-wing group /
MO (moment, little time) + MEN (males) + TUM (stomach, corporation)
3D STRAWS See 18dn (6) see 18D /
see 18D
4D MACKEREL Markle’s mixed up with EC leaders – fishy, that (8) fishy, that /
anag, i.e. mixed up, of MARKLE and EC
5D RIGHT WING PRESS “Just Victory. Good Crowd” – Daily Mail etc. (5,4,5) Daily Mail, etc. /
RIGHT (just) + WIN (victory) + G (good) + PRESS (crowd)
7D MAN IN THE STREET Harry, for instance? Yes and no (3,2,3,6) &lit-ish/CD? /
Yes – HARRY could be part of ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’, the men in the street; No – HARRY could be Prince Harry, as far removed from ‘the street’ as it is possible to be!
9D TULSA Source of apple tart turned up in US city (5) US city /
A (first letter, source, of Apple) + SLUT (tart), all turned up.
10D RINGLET Buzz allowed to be a hairy thing (7) a hairy thing /
RING (buzz, telephone, or just buzzing/ringing in the ear) + LET (allowed)
15D MIDDLE C Mean Conservative gains Joanna’s heart (6,1) Joanna’s (piano’s) heart (or middle key?) /
MIDDLE (mean, average – I know, they aren’t necessarily the same thing!) + C (Conservative)
16D SLOBBISH Shambolic BHS involved with Boris (having changed political sides) (8) shambolic /
anag, i.e. involved, of BHS + BO(R)(L)IS (Boris, changing political sides from Right to Left)
18D CLUTCH AT & 3 Act desperately, grab ex-Labour minister by balls, finally (6,2,6) act desperately /
CLUTCH AT (grab) + STRAW (Jack, ex-Labour minister) + S (last letter of ballS)
20D EIGER I agree to get screwed without a peak (5) (European mountain) peak /
anag, i.e. screwed, of I (A)GREE (without A)
21D NITWIT Doin’ it without holding ass (6) ass /
hidden word, i.e. holding, in ‘doiN IT WIThout’
23D DEPUTY Possibly McDonnell’s task to stifle sources of external pressure (6) possibly (John) McDonnell /
D_UTY (task) around (stifling) EP (first letters, or sources, of External Pressure)

 

19 comments on “Cyclops 625 – Right-Wing Press Clutch at Straws”

  3. I haven’t had such enjoyment from a Cyclops puzzle for a long time. I always enjoy it but this one gave more pleasure from being a bit tougher (I thought) but at the end of the four pushes over fur days I had got the lot. Great satisfaction. Last in was ringlet but no huge favourite this time.

  4. Forgot to say that Middle C is the first note to be learnt when learning the piano. All stems from there.

  5. I finished it but couldn’t fully parse 27A. Thanks for the explanation of ‘inst’ in this context.

  6. Re 26a – S is used for sex in internet-speak – eg ASL as a standard abbreviation for Age, Sex, Location.  But it’s not in any of my dictionaries.

  7. Thanks for all the comments/feedback – in summary – MIDDLE C is the metaphorical, if not literal/geographical, ‘heart’ of the Joanna/piano; and S could have various parsings as ‘sex’ , although none of them seem to be in the BRB (big red book, Chambers), yet…

  8. I had emailed the solutions to private eye and sat back with a smug grin on my face expecting to receive a £100 cheque. However, I fell down on 17a because I used LINECUT not LINOCUT. No wonder I couldn’t fully parse it! 15d was my favourite. It’s the only note on the piano I can still remember after a couple of lessons decades ago.

  9. Franco, I forgot to send mine in….not the least coz as far as I could see, the deadline was Thursday this time?

    Might I ask a question too…. is the correct way simply to email the Across Lite solution to crossword@etc. Or should one do something special.

  11. Franko at #8 – you are not alone – my submitted version(s) (see below) had LINECUT hastily Tippex-ed out and replaced with LINOCUT, once I’d checked the parsing for the blog…

    Winsor at #9 – I did notice the submission date was Thursday instead of Friday…not sure if this is a permanent move, or a Bank Holiday-related one. I have on occasion put a place-holder/warning in the blog slot to let people know when a deadline has been shortened, but it slipped my mind this time, and I also forgot to mention it in the blog, so apologies that your efforts were in vain, prize-entry-wise.

    On the subject of submissions (I think have covered this before in one of my early Cyclops blogs) I’m not sure what the exact etiquette is. I used to type the answers out verbatim in an e-mail; I tried but failed to get to grips with Across Lite; and more recently I have just scanned my written-in copy, reduced the image to a sensible size (250 Kb or so) and sent it to the e-mail address as an attachment. If anyone knows anything more prescriptive on this subject, then please comment below.

    I also read/heard/imagined many years ago, maybe an urban myth, that the people who administer this at the Eye toss a coin each fortnight, and then depending on the result either check through the postal entries or the e-mailed entries to find the winner for that puzzle. I guess this is to avoid the effort of rendering them all into a format that can be put into a hat. You’d either have to scan all the postal entries, or print all the e-mailed ones, or allocate them all a number… Anyway, true or not, and given that I am in the UK (I believe Winsor is in more foreign climes, so snail-mail is not an option?) I decided to take the precaution of sending a scanned copy of my entry each time, then posting it as well… Cunning, heh?! Except that I haven’t won the coveted £100 in at least 5 maybe 10 years, so maybe they have spotted my ruse and black-listed me…(;+<)

    Winsor at #10 – see the admin/notices board for an explanation from Gaufrid (site admin) that he has changed the system so the Captcha/sum has disappeared, but some magic behind the scenes is protecting us from being overrun by trolls/bots…

  12. mc_rapper67 at #11 thanks it’s a comfort to know that even the experts can stumble on clues from time to time.

    Winsor at #9 and mc_rapper67 I have never used Across Lite solution method. I did win the prize once a couple of years ago and the method I always use is to send an email with the solutions listed under the heading Across and Down as you might expect.

    I spotted the completion date as Thursday at the last minute and sent the email about 12:30 am on Thursday.  For once I had completed it in the first week but hadn’t got around to sending it. It wouldn’t have made a difference as I had made an error anyway.

     

     

  13. OK…so now it is obvious why I have never won the competition and got my name in the Eye. One in the eye for me (not)!

  14. Just to close this out – I don’t think we are anywhere nearer knowing what the format should be for e-mailed entries (I did once e-mail the Eye asking, but reply came there none), so Winsor may still have a chance with his AcrosLite version – but unless any of us are called ‘John Gullidge’ it is academic for this month at least!

    BTW – Cyclops 626 seems to have reverted to a Friday submission date (8-Jun), so maybe that was a one-off…

  15. I have just spoken to PE on the phone who confirmed that sending an email with the Across Lite file attached is fine for submitting your solution.

  18. Nice work – Will at #15 – straight to the horse’s mouth!…Did you ask them about the coin-toss myth as well?!

    Winsor at #16 – as the lottery ads (used to?) say – ‘you’ve gotta be in it to win it’!…keep sending ’em in…I will and one day our cheques will arrive!…

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