Solving was one of those times when a couple of hasty wrong answers put the kibosh on a quick solve.
At the first pass I only had gaps at the top left and top right – but in reality I had more to do than I thought.
First thing I wrote in was BEWARE at 7A, followed swiftly by GO SLOWLY at 13A. This meant I could not solve the top right quadrant. At least not until I found the long answer at 8D – it had to be something Affairs – Current resolved those issues.
Nevertheless, that corner wasn’t the last to fall.
In the top left I was stymied by 1D which I was convinced was going to be some phrase meaning “within reason”. One to kick myself about when the hidden answer was seen. But I’m not giving the top clue award to that because the last answer solved provided the best PDM when I saw “Un-dies”. OK – Maybe I should have got that sooner – it’s a classic pun.
So overall, a good one
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 6 | ENCHANT | When husband goes, women only cry “Delight!” (7) [h]EN (women only, e.g. hen party, -H[usband], goes) CHANT (cry) |
| 7 | BEACON | Live with a Tory? Danger warning! (6) BE (live) A CON (a Tory). First thing I wrote in the whole puzzle was BEWARE as BE W[ith] A RE (Tory?) thinking I’d work out how RE was derived later |
| 9 | DISTILLER | Date with Cyclops and Ben, who’ll produce the booze? (9) D[ate] I (Cyclops) [Ben] STILLER. Ref. this US film and TV man |
| 11 | RULE | Markedly rigid length (4) Cryptic Definition. I almost said Single Def. except that makes it sound too simple. The clue certainly fooled me until I had both crossing letters. This was the last answer solved in that corner |
| 12 | GENIUS | Cyclops in class, a real clever bastard (6) I (Cyclops) in GENUS (class) |
| 13 | GO STEADY | Court – proceed with care (2,6) Double Def. Not “Go slowly” which I wrote in first – that might fit the 2nd def., but I was (over-) thinking of the early stages of dating as a time to “proceed with care”. |
| 14 | HOSPITALITY | After Henry’s awful A-list typo, Cyclops entered guest area (11) H[enry] (A LIST TYPO + I (Cyclops))* AInd: Awful. Hospitality as a place rather than an action. This appears to be the only anagram in the entire puzzle! |
| 18 | CLOSE-RUN | Crappy leader, one doomed to fail against countries in league, gets tight (5-3) C[rappy] LOSER (one doomed to fail) UN (countries in league) |
| 19 | GUFFAW | Roar “Balls needs a wise head!” (6) GUFF (Balls) A W[ise] |
| 21 | DIPLOMACY | Statecraft requires certificate – Corby gutted (9) DIPLOMA (certificate) C[orb]Y write-in |
| 22 | SLEIGH | Means of conveying audible disappointment about the French (6) SIGH (audible disappointment) around LE (the, French) |
| 23 | STIR-FRY | Dish produced when prison has to use the electric chair (4-3) STIR (prison) FRY (use the electric chair) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | ON A DIET | Within reason, Adie tried to be less ‘weighty’ (2,1,4) Hidden inside reasON ADIE Tried. Exceptionally well hidden – one of the very last in |
| 2 | THE SHIP OF STATE | One’s country, rather grandly now heading for the rocks? (3,4,2,5) I thought this could be described as a sort of a Double Definition with an overall Cryptic surface reading. Then I found from Wikipedia it is a metaphor found in Plato’s Republic ! |
| 3 | UNDIES | Rises from the dead? Pants! (6) UN-DIES (rises from the dead) Last one in, and for me the clue of the puzzle for the laugh it gave me on the penny-drop moment |
| 4 | REPRISAL | Trump, finally right, is into ‘non-fake’ retaliation (8) [trum]P R[ight] IS inside REAL (non-fake) |
| 5 | INCLUDE | Admit hot cryptic clue must contain “Dolly’s top” (7) IN (hot) D[olly] inside CLUE (cryptic? – I thought this would be an anagram indicator till I realised the letters of CLUE are in order here – very cryptic) |
| 8 | CURRENT AFFAIRS | Facts about what our politicians are up to, etc? Fashionable scandalous pairings (7,7) Double definition upon “news” and the sexual connotation of “affairs” (I’m sure there is overlap between those two) |
| 10 | LIGHTEN UP | Relax – put the squeeze on Tory leader to give way to Left (7,2) TIGHTEN UP (put the squeeze on) swapping leading T (Tory) for L (Left) |
| 15 | PARADIGM | Example of ‘short soldier’ taunt by male (8) PARA (soldier, sort) DIG (taunt) M[ale] |
| 16 | FLORIST | Closed hand round – blimey! – bloomers here (7) LOR! (blimey!) inside FIST (closed hand) |
| 17 | LAWYERS | Bands keeping women’s briefs (7) W[omen] inside LAYERS (bands) |
| 19/20 | GROWTH AREA | Commercial expansion here in the lap of excited male? (6,4 Double Definition with one of them cryptic/literal |
Woke up in hospital to find the bloke in the next bed saying
“It’s a braw bricht moonlit nicht the nicht”
“Hoots mon”
“Och Aye”
etc.
I asked the nurse “Am I on a mental ward?”.
“No” she said “This is the burns unit”
Hiya beermagnet’
I had growth rate for for 19d/20a which stumped me for days until I took a stab at 2 down with other letters I had, although I had never hear heard of this phrase, so thanks for the Plato’s republic info. I kicked myself for not getting florist much earlier. I was too quick in putting pole in for 11a because I seem to remember from my schooldays that a pole was a measurement of some kind.
Thanks for the post. Like the Burns joke 🙂
Tony
Thanks beermagnet! Like Tony, I hadn’t heard of the phrase in 2D and only googling at the time of completion solved it for me.
5 down is still puzzling for me it seems that either the word “cryptic” is superfluous or ”clue”. I’m probably missing something though.
I liked 17d.
Franko @2. Try visualising the cryptic ‘clue’ as a crypt-like enclosure with a ‘d’ inside.
…except “must contain” already fulfils that purpose.
My guess is that Cyclops drafted it intending to replace ‘clue’ with a synonym before publication, but did not for some reason.
As beermagnet pointed out, the word clue is out there in plain sight, mischievously preceded by the word cryptic to fool people into looking for something more complicated. 5D made sense to me after I looked at the various definitons of cryptic, one of which (in Chambers) is ‘protectively concealing’. ‘Must contain’ seems slightly verbose (‘contains’ would be enough), but that’s a minor stylistic point.
Surprised to hear people have never heard “The Ship of State”, although I confess I didn’t know its origins, just thinking it was a grand metaphor. Interesting to see how its essentially autocratic meaning has been lost. I have heard before that ‘democracy’ for the Greeks was akin to ‘mob rule’ and used a bit like some nowadays refer to ‘anarchy’ to mean a system that should never have to be endured. Captain Farage anyone?
I thought Vlad’s version of the UN-DIES pun in Guardian 27,459 (3dn) was better: Comes to life again in bra and panties (6)
Thanks John E @3 I see the point you are making. I had not thought of Cryptic in that sense. Following Pajodr @4 , perhaps ‘must contain’ could have been replaced with ‘has’. Anyway I can’t question the great Cyclops’s work .