When you have Charles, Brenda, Trump, Clinton, May, Boris, Thatcher, Corbyn and (Jeffrey) Archer all making appearances in the clues, it has to be a Cyclops!
Quite light on the smut-tery for a change, and some nice surface reads, except for the mental image at 23A, which is not pleasant…12A/11A evokes a bygone age when you could approach a bobby on the beat and ask them the time…
I thought there was a little laziness/sloppiness – not sure if by setter or editor – with ‘large body’ used twice (23A and 18D) to indicate ‘UN’, and the hidden word clue at 5A not really scanning/making sense, as there should probably be a ‘to’ between ‘ought’ and ‘stop’, which would then interrupt the hidden word?!
Grateful for any suggestions on the parsing of 28A, which has eluded me so far. **Sorted, thanks to AdamH – see below!
Apart from those minor quibbles and my failure with ‘foreigner’, a pleasant and none-too-challenging solve…thanks to Cyclops, and hopefully all is clear below.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | CLOSE BY | Corbyn, working with LSE, dismisses New Right? Not far off (5,2) | not far off / anag, i.e. working, of CO( |
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| 5A | NOUGHTS | Some person ought stop casual additions to fat cats’ bonuses? (7) | casual additions to fat cats’ bonuses / hidden word in, i.e. ‘stopping’, ‘persoN OUGHT Stop’… |
|
| 10A | FREEDOM OF | & 25ac. Disheartened Trump: “Oh! Foresee Feds dismantling a Constitutional right” (7,2) | a Constitutional right / anag, i.e. dismantling, of TR( |
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| 11A | TIME | see 12ac. (4) | see 12A / see 12A |
|
| 12A | THE RIGHT | & 11ac. Possibly hardline Tories’ moment, as revealed by helpful policeman? (3,5) | (something that might be) revealed by (a) helpful policeman / THE RIGHT (possibly hardline Tories) + TIME (moment) |
|
| 13A | REWARD | Compensation attraction: Brenda overthrown! (6) | compensation / DRAW (attraction) + ER (Elizabeth Regina, Brenda to PEye), all overthrown to give REWARD |
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| 14A | GOTCHA | Forgot Charles has buried dubious headline (6) | dubious headline (in the Sun, during the Falklands War) / hidden word, i.e. buried, in ‘forGOT CHArles’ |
|
| 16A | CORPSE | Ballet dancers collectively needing energy to get stiff? (6) | stiff (dead body) / CORPS (group of, eg. Ballet dancers) + E (energy) |
|
| 19A | FODDER | Expendable people’s forte: more rum (6) | expendable people (i.e. cannon fodder) / F (forte) + ODDER (more strange, or rum) |
|
| 21A | PUEBLO | Trump finally turned blue – “Nothing for Native American community!” (6) | Native American community / P (last letter of trumP) + UEBL (anag, i.e. turned, of BLUE) + O (zero, nothing) |
|
| 23A | UNWIND | Relax large body and fart (6) | relax / UN (United Nations, large administrative body) + WIND (fart) |
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| 25A | THE PRESS | see 10ac. (3,5) | see 10A / See 10A |
|
| 27A | LAST | & 6dn. Maybe May’s Brexit ultimatum falters badly, holding back a key department (4) | Maybe (Theresa) May’s Brexit ultimatum / LAST _FER (anag, i.e. badly, of FALTERS) around (holding) OF (FO, or Foreign Office, key department, back) |
|
| 28A | FOREIGNER | Not a Brit’s sort of job? (9) | double def’n (depending on your perspective, I guess!)/
From a UK-perspective, anyone who is ‘not a Brit’ is a FOREIGNER; and Chambers has a use of FOREIGNER as a bit of work ‘on the side’, without one’s employer’s knowledge…a bit like Boris running the Brexit rebellion when he was supposed to be running the Foreign Office?! |
|
| 29A | FERRARI | Forced rear into weekday vehicle (7) | vehicle / F_RI (Friday, weekday) around ERRA (anag, i.e. forced, of REAR) |
|
| 30A | CHASING | Following section of speech, as in “garbage” (7) | following / hidden word in, i.e. section of, ‘speeCH AS IN Garbage’ |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 2D | LEFT HOOK | Felt nuts bend round – quite a blow (4,4) | quite a blow / LEFT (anag, i.e. nuts, of FELT) + HOOK (bend round) |
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| 3D | SWEAR | Damn Southern habit (5) | damn / S (Southern) + WEAR (habit, attire) |
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| 4D | BODYGUARD | Stiff? Keep getting protective agent (9) | protective agent / BODY (stiff, corpse) + GUARD (keep) |
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| 6D | OFFER | see 27ac. (5) | see 27A / See 27A |
|
| 7D | GO TO WASTE | Be unused to gas – ‘owt wrong with energy? (2,2,5) | be unused / GO TO WAST (anag, i.e. wrong, of TO GAS OWT), plus E (energy) |
|
| 8D | TIMBRE | What Archer did about British quality (6) | quality / TIM_E (prison sentence, what Jeffery Archer did!) around BR (British) |
|
| 9D | EMETIC | Mention Cyclops has an erection, causing puking (6) | causing puking / CITE (mention) + ME (Cyclops, the setter), all up (having an erection!), gives EMETIC |
|
| 15D | CHORISTER | Awful wretch Boris heads off to be a singer (9) | singer / anag, i.e. awful, of ( |
|
| 17D | REPLENISH | About Dick imbibing last of alcohol and heroin – top up (9) | top up / RE (about) + P_ENIS (dick) around (imbibing) L (last letter of alcohoL), plus H (heroin) |
|
| 18D | CLOSE-RUN | Conservative no-hoper with large body gets tight (5-3) | tight / C (Conservative) + LOSE R (no-hoper) + UN (large body, again?!) |
|
| 20D | RETORT | “Margaret” or “Thatcher”? The answer lies within (6) | answer / hidden word in, i.e. lies within, ‘margarRET OR Thatcher’ |
|
| 22D | INHALE | Clinton said he never did fit after being elected (6) | (something Bill) Clinton said he never did / IN (elected) + HALE (fit, healthy) |
|
| 24D | DEFER | Put on ice, surrender! (5) | double def’n / DEFER can mean to delay, or put on ice; and also to cede, or submit, to someone, i.e. to surrender |
|
| 26D | RANKS | Prince to abandon antics and rows? (5) | rows / ( |
|
A foreigner, I think, is a bit of extra work taken on outside your normal work hours, for someone other than your regular employer.
Thanks, AdamH – straight in at no. 3 in the Chambers list of definitions of ‘foreigner’! And there was me complaining about sloppy setting/editing…hoist by my own petard (if I may borrow a word from a specific group of ‘foreigners’…)
I almost wondered whether there was something going on I was missing – two uses of “large body” for UN, two answers starting “CLOSE”, two uses of “stiff” for CORPSE/BODY. Not sure if it was laziness or a some kind of wink.
On the other hand, I liked many well-disguised hidden answers. “ought stop” is OK – slightly dialectal/poetic, but with ought, the “to” is optional (in grammatical terms, it can take the full infinitive or the bare infinitive).
I noticed the repeat use of “large body” for UN, but not the other repeats noted by Schroduck. I also agree “ought” can be used without following “to”. I did think about it a bit at first, but I’m sure it does occur (perhaps as S suggests only in poetry or dialect, but possibly also archaic).
I did know that use of “foreigner” from having worked in software, where a foreigner was always a welcome addition to funds.
SWEAR and damn aren’t quite synonyms, are they?
Altogether, now: https://youtu.be/zLhwRXkn8uo?t=79
I too was not hugely thrilled by repetitive words and clues but that’s how it goes, I suppose. And ‘damn’ is surely a swear word? Or is it my Calvinistic Methodist upbringing.
I also saw 12A/11A as a double definition, rather than parsed as above….but I guess it doesn’t matter how one sees it so long as one gets the correct answer.
Got to give a shout out to ‘replenish’ too…my favourite this time.
Winsor,
‘Damn’ is a swear word, yes. A ‘swear’, though?
Btw, Winsor, thanks for the info about AcrossLite the other week. I used it to get this one.
No modern practical grammar textbook would allow ‘ought stop’ as a valid alternative to ‘ought to stop’. As for poetic licence, I would be interested to see examples of well-known poets using ‘ought’ rather than ‘ought to’ in positive contexts. (I know that ‘ought not’ is often used without ‘to’ in negative contexts.)
Tony….do they have to be synonyms? If I swear, I might say ‘Damn’. So, if someone says, Swear! I would say Damn! And Cyclops loves to use mixed punctuation to confuse. If he’d written “Swear! Southern habit.”. it would have been too easy …or, at least, easier!!!
Apologies – I have been busy with things, and not responding to comments – thanks to Shroduck, Tony, Winsor and John E for keeping things lively!
I’m still not convinced on ‘OUGHT (TO)’ – Cyclops isn’t particularly known for using/indicating obscure/poetical forms/usages of words, but hey ho. (At a school meeting this week for parents, to discuss revision and general learning behaviours, one speaker suggested this advice for teenagers struggling with setbacks: ‘If it isn’t going to be important to you in 5 years time, don’t spend more than 5 minutes worrying about it now’…my new maxim!…)
As for ‘damn/swear’ – Chambers has ‘damn’ as an intransitive verb: ‘to utter curses’, so I think it is fair enough to use as a synonym for ‘to swear’, as opposed to its use as a swearword in itself. Damn right it is! I swear it is!
Thanks, mc.I think you have roundly quashed my objection to damn=swear. John E’s challenge has left me doubting my assertions about “ought” as well. I’ll leave it to Schroduck to try and provide a contrary example.