Cyclops taking his usual side-swipes at the establishment, with a spoonful of smuttery and cultural zeitgeist…
The big ticket clue is a nice composite anagram, incorporating DISCOURAGEMENT into NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT – OK Harvey Weinstein may be yesterday’s fish’n’chip paper, but the use of NDAs by the not-so-great and not-so-good continues nevertheless.
Some (maybe) relevant references to the current Tory leadershit erection, sorry, leadership election. BORN LEADER, IN SUSPENSE…each presenting their BIOPIC as ABOVE BOARD and hoping their PROPOSAL doesn’t FALL ON DEAF EARS. I’m not sure either of them went to HARROW though.
The surface reading of 15D made me wince; 1D was not much more pleasant! 5D was more innocent, with King John drunkenly signing the MAGNA CARTA whilst tipsy on Arnagnac!
Thanks to Cyclops, and I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did. Any errors or omissions below, please comment…
Across | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
6A | PROPOSAL | Support like this overturned failed presidential candidate’s motion (8) | motion / PROP (support) + OS (so, like this, overturned) + AL (Al Gore, failed presidential candidate) |
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7A | HERALD | Announcer heard waffling about “lousy start” (6) | announcer / HERA_D (anag, i.e. waffling, of HEARD) around L (starting letter of Lousy) |
|
10A | GREEN-BLUE | Maybe Philip gets depressed in shade (5-4) | shade / GREEN (maybe |
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11A | FUNKY | Fashionable sport, knocking the stuffing out of Kerry (5) | fashionable / FUN (sport) + KY (K |
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12A | TRADE-IN | Being pissed, I daren’t do a commercial deal (5,2) | do a commercial deal / anag, i.e. being pissed, of I DAREN’T |
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14A | BRIOCHE | F-off, tucking into cheese roll (7) | (bread) roll / BRI_E (cheese) around (tucked into by) OCH (Scottish interjection expressing ‘contemptuous dismissal’, so could mean F-off?) |
|
16A | NON-DISCLOSURE | & 24 New sort of discouragement, or else covering up sin ultimately: Weinstein’s secret weapon? (3-10,9) | (Harvey) Weinstein’s secret weapon / N (new) + ON DISCLOSURE AGREEME_T (anag, i.e. sort, of DISCOURAGEMENT OR ELSE), around N (ultimate letter of siN) |
|
20A | IN ERROR | Mistakenly elected – dread being without leader (2,5) | mistakenly / IN (elected) + ( |
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21A | HOSTAGE | TV show presenter takes on mature detainee? (7) | detainee / HOST (TV show presenter) + AGE (mature) |
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22A | PROOF | Academic takes sod all for establishing evidence (5) | evidence / PRO_F (professor, academic) around (taking on) O (zero, sod all) |
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24A | AGREEMENT | See 16ac. (9) | see 16A / see 16A |
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26A | CIRCLE | See 1dn. (6) | See 1D / See 1D |
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27A | CONSERVE | Devastated party: minister to keep back (8) | keep back / CON (Conservative, devastated party) + SERVE (minister) |
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Down | ||||
Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
1D | COME | & 23 & 26 Orgasm complete, rotate and go back to the start (4,4,6) | go back to the start / COME (orgasm) FULL (complete) CIRCLE (rotate) |
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2D | BORN LEADER | A natural for PM role? ‘Boris is out’ (Guardian’s last editorial) (4,6) | a natural for PM role? / BOR (BOR |
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3D | FALL ON | & 4 & 25 Tory ex-cabinet minister failing, as feared – as will pleas to politicians to sort Brexit? (4,2,4,4) | as will (happen to) pleas to politicians to sort Brexit! / FALL ON ( |
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4D | DEAF | See 3dn. (4) | see 3D / see 3D |
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5D | MAGNA CARTA | John had to sign it after Armagnac drunk, thanks (5,5) | (King) John had to sign it / MAGNA CAR (anag, i.e. drunk, of ARMAGNAC) + TA (thanks!) |
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6D | PIGSTY | Scoffs: “politician lacks alternative – dump!” (6) | dump / PIGS (scoffs, eats hungrily) + TY (T |
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8D | DAYBED | For use of hospital patients not in the dark? (6) | CD? / Cryptic definition(?) – the whole clue referring to a DAY-BED, something that hospital patients use during the day, i.e. not in the dark) |
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9D | GERBIL | ‘Pet’ Nigel, recklessly blowing top, holds back Britain (6) | pet / GE_IL (anag, i.e. recklessly, of ( |
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13D | ABOVE BOARD | Frank’s too grand for meal provision (5,5) | frank (open, honest) / ABOVE (too grand for) + BOARD (meal provision) |
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15D | IN SUSPENSE | Wrinkled penis … uses round end of iron … waiting anxiously! (2,8) | waiting anxiously / IN SUSPE_SE (anag, i.e. wrinkled, of PENIS USES), around N (end letter of iroN) |
|
17D | SCREAM | Cry “Piss off!” when bored by European head (6) | cry / SCR_AM (be off with you!) around (bored into by) E (head, or first letter, of European) |
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18D | BIOPIC | The shot tale of a celeb? (6) | CD? / Cryptic definition(?) again – a BIOPIC is the filmed (shot) tale (life story) of a celeb(rity) |
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19D | SETTLE | About time lefties outed, if going for a seat (6) | a seat / SET_LE (anag, i.e. outed, of LE( |
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21D | HARROW | Where to learn to move the earth? (6) | double defn. / HARROW can be the school, ‘where to learn’; and to HARROW can be to plough/till, or to ‘move the earth’) |
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23D | FULL | See 1dn. (4) | see 1D / see 1D |
|
25D | EARS | See 3dn. (4) | see 3D / see 3D |
Thanks for the review. I was hoping for a better explanation of the OCH in 14a because as a synonym of F-off it seems weak.
The Tory Fallon in 3d is Michael (Tim is a Lib-Dem).
5D: Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain? That brave Hungarian peasant girl who forced King John to sign the pledge at Runnymede and close the boozers at half-past-ten Is all this to be forgotten?
Gazza @1. Some would say that F-off as a synonym for OCH is a bit strong. The last time OCH turned up in Cyclops (641) it was ‘bloody waste of time’. The last time OCH was used by Brummie (Cyclops’s alter ego) it was ‘I’ve run out of patience’ stuffing cheese to produce another brioche (Guardian 27240). Before that it was ‘get away’ (Guardian 24742).
Gazza at #1 – good spot, Michael Fallon, Defence Secretary who had to ‘fall on’ his sword due to accusations of sexual impropriety…duly updated
Jan at #2 – I enjoyed your Hancock reference yesterday, as I went to donate blood…’a pint?! that’s nearly an armful!…’
Gazza and John E – Chambers has ‘och’ as expressing ‘impatience’ or ‘contemptuous dismissal’ – the latter could possibly be interpreted as ‘F-off?’, but I agree it is a bit of a leap, given the usual innocence of the clichéd ‘och aye the noo!’… unless we have all parsed it wrong and there is a better explanation?…
I did have ROYAL BLUE in for 10a at first, thinking of another Philip. I wondered about ‘och’ too but it had to be, and I checked it out in Chambers as mentioned by mc_rapper. I thought the Weinstein clue was very clever (and that I was very clever to solve it, of course). I see, @mc_rapper, you’ve written it properly (per Chambers) as DAY-BED in your notes (8d), though it was enumerated as “(6)” in the puzzle.
[@Jan, I liked the Hancock, too. Didn’t he go on to mention Beethoven next?]
Tony – good point re. DAYBED/DAY-BED – I obviously missed that in my double-checking…although I now see my Android Chambers app has it as DAY BED, so (3,3) rather than (6) or (3-3)!
I think I only put GREEN-BLUE in as I already had several crossers forcing it to be G?E?N – the phrase/combination GREEN-BLUE isn’t actually in my e-Chambers…or in my colour-blind/colour-ignorant brain!
I gave the setter the benefit of the doubt on DAYBED as one word. The two-word term DAY BED is very hospital-specific, so I assumed he was using the single-word description of a type of furniture to make the clue seem a tad more cryptic.
Had 27 across as PRESERVE. SPREE (party) and REV (minister) devastated, to keep back.
Rather blocked the bottom right corner though.
@Clive, I doubt Cyclops would write a clue using two indirect anagrams (or even one).
I’m not at all sure that I’d balk at @Clive’s construction, given that the putative anagrams are consecutive. And that’s despite the fact that I can’t even bring to mind a crossword instance of anagram_of(synonym_of(X)).