Another diverting solve from our one-eyed friend.
Solving proceeded in a stuttering manner with about half done at the end of the first pass with solutions entered all over the grid so the rest of the second and subsequent attempts at the remaining clues were aided by plenty of crossing letters. So the rest fell in place quite readily and there was nothing dreadfully hard that held me up except possibly the last solved 21d whose answer was clear from the crossers but I had to engage brain to get the wordplay.
There might be something going on with the top and bottom row unches: PGA GOT NHS EDL
But I assume it is just random.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 7 | WISH LIST | Desiderata is cutting whilst screwing (4,4) IS inside (WHILST)* AInd: screwing |
| 8/24 | RUNNER BEAN | An erection in the garden for this old copper (live one)? (6,4) RUNNER (Old copper, ref Bow Street Runner) BE (live) AN (one), and a typically evocative Cyclopean definition. I wonder what the clue would be for Purple Sprouting Broccoli |
| 10 | AD LIB | Off-the-cuff remark from old politician following promotion (2,3) AD (promotion) LIB (old politician) |
| 11 | IN BAD FORM | Adventurous sailor, topless on bench, not socially acceptable (2,3,4) [s]INBAD (the sailor, adventurous) FORM (bench) |
| 12 | RE-ELECTION | Spin: once it worked to attain Trump’s objective (2-8) REEL (spin) (ONCE IT)* AInd: worked |
| 14/27/20/7d | THE WORSE FOR WEAR | Pissed by how bad a garment chosen online, say, looks when actually on you? (3,5,3,4) Double Definition |
| 16 | ROYAL WE | Lawyer arranged to take round “one”, as the queen once put it? (5,2) O (round) inside (LAWYER)* AInd: arranged. |
| 18 | GLENCOE | Where ‘disloyal’ Scots were tragic victims of devious con in fun (7) (CON)* AInd: devious, inside GLEE (fun). Ref. the Massacre at Glencoe |
| 22 | WORLD POWER | UK no longer gives pledge to recruit Labour leader by force (5,5) WORD (gives pledge) around L[abour] POWER (force) |
| 25 | SCHOOLKID | Little learner Jimmy, possibly taking left during out-of-control manoeuvre (9) [Jimmy] CHOO + L[eft] inside SKID (out-of-control manoeuvre). Tricksy clue with a cute definition |
| 28 | ONSIDE | Being in irons, I deem it’s OK to score (6) Hidden in irONS I DEem |
| 29 | OVERTURN | Obvious run out – flip! (8) OVERT (obvious) (RUN)* AInd: out |
| Down | ||
| 1 | PSALTERY | Pissed players taking time to show this old instrument (8) (PLAYERS T[ime])* AInd: pissed |
| 2 | GLOBAL | Sadly, ‘Big Lola’ lacks one that’s spherical (6) (BIG LOLA – I)* AInd: sadly. |
| 3 | ASTI | Drink when getting it up (4) AS (when) IT< |
| 4 | GUIDANCE | “Leadership from government useless!” industry heads ball (8) G[overnment] U[seless] I[ndustry] DANCE (ball) |
| 5 | ON FOOT | Regarding former party leader’s rambling? (2,4) ON (Regarding) FOOT (Ref. Michael Foot) |
| 6 | TRUMPETER | One who proclaims POTUS should be stuck against tree, perhaps (9) TRUMP (POTUS), then (TREE)* AInd: perhaps |
| 9 | ABRIDGED | In the sack, holding grid carelessly, gets cut (8) ABED (in the sack) around (GRID)* AInd: carelessly |
| 13 | CLEAR SKY | Maybe Clare the broadcaster gets stars on show? (5,3) (CLARE)* AInd: maybe SKY (the broadcaster) |
| 15 | PROFUSION | Specialist union’s extravagance (9) PRO (Specialist) FUSION (union) |
| 17 | LAW LORDS | Dollars we endlessly wasted securing the top legal team? (3,5) (DOLLARS W[e])* AInd: wasted |
| 19 | CHEERFUL | Gay revolutionary, er, not quite satisfied (8) CHE (revolutionary) ER FUL[l] |
| 21 | REHASH | Ray’s alternative drug? Same old stuff, hardly changed (6) RE (Ray’s alternative, in Do-Re-Mi Solfa) HASH (drug). Last one in. Took a while to see the wordplay |
| 23 | ONWARD | Where a patient could be making advances (6) Double Definition |
| 26 | DIVE | Democrat: “One has to take a header” (4) D[emocrat] I’ve (one has) |
Football season is upon us again and I hear Spurs are considering opening a microbrewery at their new stadium.
Apparently they already have 11 experts in bottling it
My easy starter in this crossword was 1d — not unconnected with the fact that I own a few Bob Stewart LPs (usually bought from him after gigs in the Bristol/Bath area in the 1970s).
https://www.discogs.com/artist/2880168-Bob-Stewart-4
Many thanks to both for the usual mixture of unknown (from my distance) politicos and sneaky smirks from the past. Especially thanks Beermagnet for parsing REHASH as I could not. This one took me a couple of sessions as other things got in my way. All good fun.
The Massacre at Glencoe is not really part of my GK, though I think I must have read about it before. However, I did recognize GLENCOE, when I saw it in the anagram fodder, as having some significance in Scottish history so looked it up and confirmed it as the answer to 18ac.
In 4d, the surface doesn’t really make sense, does it, although it does if you replace “ball” with its homophone ‘bawl’, so I wonder if the clue should really end with something like ‘industry heads bawl loudly’?
In 26d the definition is, I believe, “to take a header”, not just “a header”. Otherwise what is “to take” doing?
Thanks beermagnet, I now realise I never bothered to understand 21D properly and you have cleared that up.
I found this quite tricky for a Cyclops and took a while to get there, having to check that bench = form for my LOI (I am vaguely familiar with something being considered bad or good form but have never heard IN bad form, only ON referring to an individual’s general mood/level of affability – but have heard IN bad taste of course) – however liked the Sinbad ref.
I agree with Tony Collman’s last 2 points above and even then it is perfectly possible to take a header without diving (at least in the footballing sense, am i missing another meaning?). Spent a while trying to find some anagram to make 14/27etc more than just a weak and wordy dd. But Trumpeter, Runner Bean and more were excellent – SCHOOLKID took ages despite having the K so agree with your assessment!
Gazzh, a header is (informally) a dive, so to take a header is to take a dive or, more simply, to dive.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/header (7)
Thanks Tony, I have never seen or heard the word used in that sense (of falling headlong). And am slightly worried if Cyclops is now going to rely on the nth definition in a particular dictionary to justify clues – although the usual level of euphemism and slightly archaic slang will be fine of course!
Gazzh….I think you are being a little harsh on Cyclops with that comment. I was fully aware of doing a header or taking a dive….maybe it’s the rather low level of society in which I travel!!!!
Winsor, I think your remark possibly betrays a slight niggle with the clue in that it tends to be (as you say), take a dive but do a header.
My bad…. I should have written more in my text……I think one can also take a header……not as a voluntary thing but one can say that so and so took a header into the dung heap…or similar.
Winsor and Tony (and beermagnet) I think this is just an instance (IN bad form possibly another) where my own experience/knowledge of idiom does not match Cyclops’, maybe because we are of different ages and backgrounds (or maybe not). So I apologise to him for any offence that I may have caused. As a non-Chambers-owning solver I generally feel aggrieved at failing to get a clue or element of wordplay because it relies on what I consider to be an obscure/archaic abbreviation or meaning, even if the “bible” deems it legit. On the other hand perhaps I should just put a dictionary at the top of my Christmas list and try to be a good boy for the next few months! Have a good weekend all.
Talking Pictures TV has just been repeating Lytton’s Diary (the 1980s Thames TV series about a Fleet Street gossip columnist). I was amused to see that the scriptwriters chose Cyclops (which had no cruciverbal association at that time) as their name for a Soho-based satirical magazine run by a pair of disreputable hacks.
I once teased Cyclops for not putting a message around the perimeter of a grid that was fully encircled by unchecked letters. He replied that it was hard enough to fill the grids with the topical and suggestive entries already, and trying to hide additional messages would be much too difficult.
Finding at least one online synonym list pairing header and dive was enough for me with 26d. Any residual qualm about the clue’s ok-ness was then dismissed by a quick google search combining the two words, when I saw dive/diving being explicitly treated as a subtype of header by people with good domain knowledge.