I thought this was going to be over too soon.
I swept through most of the top half after getting 1a and 4 with ease delivering all those first letters, (I wondered about 1d Coroner wordplay but didn’t doubt it was correct while solving) and the bottom half wasn’t giving too much trouble either till I found myself looking at the last two: 22 and 18.
It took all the crossing letters to get both these. 22 Eightieth purely from the crossing letters it couldn’t be anything else. And as for 18 Domain, I kicked myself when I saw the wordplay “Do Ma in” because I’m sure I’ve seen that before. [Later: yes Tees in the Independent last August https://www.fifteensquared.net/2018/08/13/independent-9932-by-tees/ ]
There is one query on the wordplay of 1d CORONER: I cannot see how “£” makes R
As usual there are some great clue surface readings here. For the truly appalling surface reading my favourite clue has to be 26Ac.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CURDLE | Clot‘s way to get into clue cracking (6) RD (way, road) inside CLUE* AInd: cracking |
| 4 | ISOBAR | Pressure line one consequently attached to engineered bra (6) I (one) SO (consequently attached) BRA* AInd: engineered |
| 8 | PRESS CONFERENCE | Opportunity for Trump to attack questioners and urge party, er, to go into Wall alternative? (5,10) PRESS (urge) CON (party) ER inside FENCE (wall). Is a wall a fence? Trumps wall is – mostly. |
| 10 | NON-PERSON | Macron’s end is linked to working with sex-grabbing, former president, who’s out of favour, politically (3-6) [macro]N ON (working) then S[ex] inside PERON (former president) |
| 12 | DRIFTS | Democrats leader cracks and goes off course (6) D[emocrats] RIFTS (cracks) |
| 14 | Y-FRONTS | They give easy access to a member (1-6) Cryptic definition |
| 16 | SOLDIER | Private association of The Sun with dire consequences (7) SOL (the sun) DIRE* AInd: consequences |
| 18 | DOMAIN | Get rid of mater and all she commands? (6) Last one in. DO MA IN (Get rid of mater) |
| 20/17 | HARD RIGHT | Aroused appropriate extremist element (4,5) HARD (aroused) RIGHT (appropriate) |
| 22 | EIGHTIETH | Special occasion? Mass doesn’t start before one? The bastard! (9) [w]EIGHT (mass, doesn’t start) I (one) ETH* AInd: bastard |
| 24 | CONTEMPT OF COURT | Scam by Trump, etc: “Foot distorted Tommy Robinson’s wrongdoing” (8,2,5) CON (scam) (TRUMP ETC FOOT)* AInd: distorted |
| 25 | FLYING | May’s final fling’s all over, in the air (6) [ma]Y inside (FLING)* AInd: all over |
| 26 | ASSENT | Thumbs up Trump’s behind – not much amusement (6) ASS (Trump’s behind, Americanism), ENT[ertainment] Gruesome surface reading |
| Down | ||
| 1 | CORONER | Phwoar! £1! That’s official (7) COR (phwoar) ONE R (£1) Surely £1 would be ONE L ? I cannot see how a £ makes R |
| 2 | RESENTFUL | A sort of dash, in drunken fluster, for bitter (9) EN (a sort of dash) inside (FLUSTER)* AInd: drunken. |
| 3 | LUCRE | Honolulu creamed housing cash (5) Hidden in HonoluLU CREamed |
| 5 | SEEING RED | Understanding “commie” being furious (6,3) SEEING (understanding) RED (commie) |
| 6 | BREAM | Focus of Tony Blair is on papers, which is altogether fishy (5) [tony]B[lair] focus = central point, REAM (papers) |
| 7 | RACISTS | Bigots: “It’s about terrorist organisation being embraced by assholes” (7) C (about, circa) IS (terrorist organisation) inside RATS (assholes) |
| 9/11 | NASTY MESS | Amnesty broadcast with two seconds description of Brexit situation? (5,4) (AMNESTY + SS)* AInd: Broadcast |
| 13 | SPIDERMAN | Action hero sprained balls, going round mountain top (9) M[ountain] inside (SPRAINED)* AInd: balls |
| 15 | NUMBER ONE | The chief leak (6,3) Double definition |
| 16 | SLAG OFF | Run down two fellows east of Lagos, being pissed (4,3) FF (two fellows) after (LAGOS)* AInd: being pissed |
| 19 | INHERIT | The woman’s into trendy sex, so come by! (7) HER (the woman) inside IN (trendy) IT (sex) |
| 21 | DITTY | Bandit-type housing shanty? (5) Hidden in BanDIT-TYpe |
| 23 | TOFFS | Swells? Embarrassingly soft when female enters (5) F[emale] inside (SOFT)* AInd: embarassingly |
BBC4 is great. There was an excellent documentary on how the Titanic was built. It was rivetting
In 1d COR (Phwoar!) is followed by ONER (£1). ‘Oner’ is rarely used these days, unlike ‘tenner’ (£10) or ‘fiver’ (£5). The old banknote clearly had a bit more character than the coin that replaced it. I had to think a bit about this one before the penny finally dropped (so to speak).
I was puzzled by 25 across. The clue (and your explanation) both suggest that an anagram is involved (“all over”), but in reality the answer is Y in FLING, and no rearrangement of the letters is required. It was so non-cryptic that I thought the answer must be something different.
Strictly speaking, flying is an anagram of yfling, so the clueing and the parsing are technically correct. Maybe 25ac was intended to be this crossword’s easy starter clue.
Thanks John – I’m sure I’ve seen “Oner” before but had completely forgotten about it.
For FLYING; both bridgesong and John’s explanations have their merits, but whichever way you look at it what I wrote in the blog is wrong.
I assumed “all over” was an anagram indicator and didn’t notice that the FLING letters were still in order.
On balance I prefer “all over” being described as an inclusion indicator. Frankly there’s nothing in it.
I was bowled over by ‘domain’, I must say. I also got into trouble for a while when I had ‘depose’ as this answer. That gave me untold difficulty for ‘number one’! Not many words with n?p??e!!! I was trying to force nipple , nipper and all sorts.
In 1D I didn’t have a problem with ONER, but I’m sure I’ve seen it more often as ONCER. But I may be aging.
Simon @6. One-pound note is one of the definitions of ‘oncer’ (but not one of the definitions of ‘oner’) in Collins. One-pound note is one of the definitions of both ‘oncer’ and ‘oner’ in Chambers.
Beermagnet@4, that’s how I read it; all of FLING is ‘over’ (containing) Y.
Winsor@5 Nipple-forcing sounds painful.
I found this one harder than I’m used to from Cyclops though I’m not sure why. It all made perfect sense in the end. Very enjoyable.