A reasonably swift solve for this Eye puzzle
I nearly managed my first ever “complete on first pass” but it was not to be.
( I define the end of the first pass as when the last unattempted clue is read. )
First clue read (1D) was almost a write-in from the definition and letter count, the wordplay for it soon confirmed. Quickly I had the whole left hand side of the grid filled in. I thought the same might happen with the right hand side after seeing that old chestnut at 9A RAN CID, but I fell foul in the top right corner where there were three crossing lights that would not be solved without more prompts from crossing letters. In particular I went blank (bald?) on 14A despite understanding the direction of the clue the word initially eluded me.
From 12D we get a good idea of when this crossword was constructed. It’s great that Cyclops puts topical political references in the puzzles and I hope he long continues to do so. In these turbulent times it is difficult to keep up.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 8 | OUTLOOK | Abroad, throne comes before king, which shows attitude! (7) OUT (abroad) LOO (throne) K[ing] |
| 9 | RANCID | Was in charge of police force, being obnoxious (6) RAN (was in charge) CID (police force) |
| 10 | SMARTEN UP | Trump sane? Rubbish! Get wise! (7,2) (TRUMP SANE)* AInd: Rubbish |
| 11 | ASHES | Whips dump leader – should get a trophy! (5) [l]ASHES (whips, with no first letter) |
| 13 | OUTING | Revealing someone’s gay, that’s spin (6) Double Def. : Go for a spin / go for an outing |
| 14 | ALOPECIA | No shock when you get this (8) Cryptic Def. One of the last clues solved even though I was wise to the shock/hair reference, and even considered baldness, I couldn’t get the answer until I got a few crossing letters |
| 16 | LEBANON | Land of the French: Boris at first gets a Macron rejection (7) LE (the, French) B[oris] A NON (a “no” in French as referenced by Pres. Macron) |
| 18 | ESCAPEE | Defector‘s case collapses – going on the piss (7) (CASE)* AInd: collapses, then PEE (piss) |
| 20 | RELIGION | Faith needs large one, being in the zone (8) L[arge] I (one) inside REGION (zone) |
| 22 | GAUCHE | Awkward Hague’s failure to rope in Conservative leader (6) (HAGUE + C[onservative])* AInd: failure |
| 25 | STRAW | Former cabinet minister, not a pretty sight, making a comeback (5) Reference to Jack Straw. Wordplay: WARTS< (not a pretty sight, reversed) |
| 26 | MENDICANT | Darn! One hasn’t the power to be a vagrant (9) MEND (darn) I CAN’T (one hasn’t the power) |
| 27 | EDISON | Miliband’s currently appearing? He had a profitable lightbulb moment (6) ED (Miliband) IS ON ( ‘s currently appearing) |
| 28 | MR MAGOO | Character with a problem seeing minister initially getting arm twisted and shit (2,5) M[inister] (ARM)* AInd: twisted, then GOO (shit) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | HOUSE OF LORDS | Oh, so EU’s experimented with France’s top sporting venue for a legislative chamber (5,2,5) (OH SO EU)* AInd: experimented with, delivers HOUSE O, then F[rance] LORDS (sporting venue). First clue read/first clue solved |
| 2 | STUART | Shock surrounding unlikely origin of royal family (6) U[nlikely] inside START (shock) |
| 3 | COTTON ON | Bed not to be rocked about, understand? (6,2) COT (bed) NOT< (not, reversed/rocked) ON (about) |
| 4 | SKINT | Impoverished family gets in way (5) KIN (family) inside ST[reet] |
| 5 | PROPELLED | Peer involved with poll: duke put in motion (9) (PEER + POLL D[uke])* AInd: involved |
| 6 | ENCAMP | Spots elevated politician make a pitch? (6) ACNE< (spots, reversed) MP (politician). Last one in. |
| 7 | NIGHTCAP | Capital cover for old-fashioned retiree (8) Crypic Def. referring to your head as a capital, and referencing a nightcap as old-fashion bedwear |
| 12 | SNAP ELECTION | Boris finally gets “some rest, etc – fantastic, no lie!” But his plan for one was thwarted (4,8) [bori]S NAP (some rest) (ETC .. NO LIE)* AInd: fantastic. Looks like Cyclops should’ve waited another week before carving this clue. |
| 15 | INFORMANT | Currently playing well, with false tan – that’s Judas (9) IN FORM (currently playing well) (TAN)* AInd: false |
| 17 | BELGRADE | Bed large deviant? Capital! (8) (BED LARGE) AInd: deviant |
| 19 | CHARISMA | Daily aims thwarted, Gove has little going for him (8) CHAR (daily) (AIMS)* AInd: twisted |
| 21 | GO WEST | Advice to ambitious young man? “Snuff it!” (2,4) Double Definition |
| 23 | CHARGE | Offensive levy? (6) Double Definition |
| 24 | GNOME | Proprietor’s gone round grabbing millions (5) (GONE + M[illions])* AInd: round. For the uninitiated – Lord Gnome is Private Eye’s putative owner |
New research: 5 out of 6 statisticians conclude Russian roulette is safe.
Just wondering about the parsing of 3D. Forgive my ignorance, but why does ON mean ABOUT? I wondered whether “no to be” leads to “not on” which when ‘rocked about’ gives the anagram. Never commented on this site before -though a frequent and grateful visitor – so go gently with me…
Thanks beermagnet.=As usual you found that solve a lot easier than I did. Tombo@1 you can have “on” in the sense of about. A couple of examples, 1 a broadcast ON unemployment, 2) a book ON haberdashery.
I like your alternative parsing, which seems to work as well.
Tombo @1. ‘On’ can be short for ‘on the subject of’.
@Tombo, welcome. “On” for “about” has been around for some time in a scholarly type of context. Remember Sherlock Holmes’ monograph on the types of tobacco ash: “Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos”? (‘Upon’ really bigs up the seriousness.) More recently: “In his 1966 book, <i>Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword</i> (reissued 2001), he laid down rules that he claimed should be present in all good crosswords.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Somerset_Macnutt . Plenty of current search hits on “our issue on” too.
I too was struck by the near effortlessness of the first half of the puzzle — I normally have to hunt around in hope of a starting point. I suppose that’s going to happen by chance, once every ten years or so.
@beermagnet, if I may be so bold, in your opening monologue “5A” should be “6A” and “12A” should be “12D”.Like others I got off to a flying start but slowed down towards the end. 26A was the last in simply because I wasn’t familiar with the definition.
An unusual feature of this puzzle I noticed was that there were no split answers. There are usually quite a few in a Cyclops, aren’t there?
On my printout I have underlined “was thwarted” in 12d and noted “You can tell when this was written”. A gift to future historians of the crossword puzzle! Having the anagrind (fantastic) in the middle of the fodder (etc no lie) is unusual and perhaps a bit shaky?
I don’t think ‘vagrant’ is a a very good def for MENDICANT. Certainly, a Venn diagram of the two classes of person would show significant overlap but nothing like one-to-one correspondence or total inclusion.
Beermagnet, in 7a, “capital” is an adjective, meaning ‘of/relating to the head’ (L. caput, capitis, head), more than a reference to “your head as a capital”, I think. The sort of retirement meant is retiring to bed for the night, of course.
Why are people who retire called retirees, I wonder? Why not retirERs? It’s like attendees. They should be attenders. The -ee form is usually for the direct object of a transitive verb, like ‘payee’, ’employee’, etc.
I was interested to see that 1d was the first clue you read, Beermagnet. Presumably, that was so that if you cracked it, you’d have all those first letters? I always start with the first across clue and work my way through to the last down clue before I turn back for a similar second pass with the benefit of any crossers. After that, it’s look for the lights where there’s the most help. That’s probably not the most efficient way to solve though.
[Another one is ‘addressee’: a oerson addressed. I always get irritated by the lyrics to the Elvis hit Return to Sender, because he sings “She wrote upon it: ‘Return to sender. Address unknown'”. It should be ‘addressEE unknown, surely? That’s what you write on a letter that’s sent to your adress with the name of someone who doesn’t live there, isn’t it? ‘Address unknown’ would only be written by the Post Office or its US equivalent, surely?]
Tony @7 — Actually:
“Return to sender, address unknown.
No such number, no such zone.”
Tony: Thanks for pointing out clue number errors in the intro. I often fail to spot my own errors like that during proof reading. Now fixed.
I can’t help it but typically opt for the easiest path and start with clues that will deliver lots of lovely first letters for other answers, wherever they appear in a puzzle.
I too have had to return post “address unknown” sometimes. In my road there is weirdly no number 39, there is not even a gap between 37 and 41, I have often wondered why, and as I live at 79 I sometimes get post for 39 (the postie makes his best guess), for people I don’t know, so have no option but to return it “address unknown”.
(No. These letters are never for Regulus Black.)
<beermagnet says: November 12, 2019 at 11:44 am Tony: Thanks for pointing out clue number errors in the intro.>That was Will. 😉
John, good point! I will enjoy that song all the more now. Thanks.
Beermagnet, actually it was Will who pointed out the clue number typos.
I used to like to read through all the clues in a crossword in order, just ‘listening to’ the surface sense at first, marking up the grid for multi-word answers, before returning to the top to start solving. I don’t often do that now, but still go in that order. I’d probably finish my puzzles quicker if I adopted your line of attack.
Strange house-numbering in your street. Not sure what you mean about Mr Black but I gather he’s a character from Harry Potter.
Will, you beat me to it!
@Tony: I wish I’d waited now… Thanks anyway!
@Tony……not sure I would enjoy finishing quicker. It is lovely to finish, of course….compared to my ‘starter’ target of completing half of all clues!!! But I finish and then starve for two weeks till I can get another fix.
I’ve asked before…but can anyone recommend an alternative crossword available for use with AcrossLite to fill in the gaps?
beermagnet you absolutely made my day with your Regulus Black comment! Thank you!
Tony, he’s a Harry Potter character whose house is invisibly hidden between the two neighbouring houses.