Cyclops is working the last few Trumpian references out of his system and into his clue wordplay, before Ronald T Dump is finally consigned to the S-bend of history, in a couple of puzzles’ time…
…in fact the barbaric narcissist Trump only makes two appearances in clues, but there are several other US election references, reflecting events at the time of setting, maybe? An ex-presidential hopeful at 25D; a P-I-T-A Democrat leading a Republican at 15A; and someone wanting to overturn a lead at 26A – crying ‘FIX’!
The surface reads of 23A DISREPAIR and 13D NARCISSISM brought a Carry On-ish/schoolboy-ish smirk; those for 22A JUPITER and 18D STADIUM a groinal wince!
Hard to pick a favourite – the ‘digital’ V-SIGN? The ‘nail in the coffin’ CIGARETTE?
All in all a pleasant diversion – for which, thanks to Cyclops – maybe a tad easier than the last couple of puzzles?
Anyway, the usually-fiendish Cyclops Xmas special must be almost upon us – I wait with pen poised!
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 7A | PRINCIPLE | Canon making a royal take pill, oddly left out (9) | canon / PRINC_E (a royal) around (taking) IPL (anag, i.e. oddly, of PIL( |
|
| 9A | V-SIGN | ‘FU’ in digital terms (1-4) | CD / using your digits to make a V-SIGN can be construed as meaning F**k You (FU) |
|
| 10A | RIGHT | & 2dn. & 17dn. Trump: “Proper success” “Good father” (very low in star ranking) (5-4,8) | Trump (Ronald T Dump) / RIGHT (proper) + WIN (success) + G (good) + POP (father) + ULIST (if you are a low-ranking star/celebrity, i.e. not on the A-list or the B-list…but not quite Z-list, you might be on the U-list!) |
|
| 11A | CIGARETTE | Another nail in the coffin with Conservative leader screwing up – get irate (9) | another nail in the coffin / C (leading letter of Conservative) + IGARETTE ( anag, i.e. screwing up, of GET IRATE) |
|
| 12A | TENSION | Is No. 10 written off? It’s stress (7) | stress / anag, i.e. written off, of IS NO TEN |
|
| 14A | HUSBAND | It’s hard on Private Eye gang, mate! (7) | mate / H (hard) + US (Private Eye) + BAND (gang) |
|
| 15A | DRAG | Pain-in-the-arse Democrat leads Republican with a lot of money (4) | pain-in-the-arse / D (Democrat) + R (Republican) + A + G (grand, £1000, a lot of money) |
|
| 16A | BIG | & 19dn. Vast whorehouse almost at end of tether, as seen on TV (3,7) | (programme) as seen on TV / BIG (vast) + BROTHE( |
|
| 17A | PAGE | Penny wants to get on courtier (4) | courtier / P (penny) + AGE (get on) |
|
| 20A | TWISTER | Times head writes awful lot of wind (7) | lot of wind / T (head, first letter of Times) + WISTER (anag, i.e. awful, of WRITES) |
|
| 22A | JUPITER | Jack, having an erection, tries recklessly cutting end off – God! (7) | (Roman) God / J (jack) + UP (having an erection) + ITER (anag, i.e. terribly, of TRIE( |
|
| 23A | DISREPAIR | Sid’s turned on by boobs? It’ll lead to ruin (9) | ruin / DIS (Sid, turned) + RE (on, regarding) + PAIR (boobs, derogatory/slang for breasts) |
|
| 24A | LIGHT | Fair, being an easy pick-up (5) | fair / double defn? / LIGHT coloured hair can be ‘fair’; and if something is LIGHT in weight it should be easy to pick up! |
|
| 26A | UPSET | In the lead? Fix! Overturn! (5) | overturn / UP (in the lead) + SET (fix) |
|
| 27A | IN RESERVE | Having been elected, Kitty’s set aside (2,7) | set aside / IN (having been elected) + RESERVE (kitty, cash pot) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | OPERATE | Work time? Almost put away handle (7) | handle / OP (opus, music, work) + ER( |
|
| 2D | WING | See 10ac. (4) | see 10A / see 10A |
|
| 3D | SCATHING | Cutting Bill’s inverted whatsit (8) | cutting / SCA (a/c, account, or bill, plus possessive ‘s, inverted) + THING (whatsit) |
|
| 4D | HEDGEHOG | He would say “Back, swine!”, being a prickly character (8) | a prickly character! / HED (he’d, he would) + GE (e.g., for example, or say, back) + HOG (swine) |
|
| 5D | DISTRAUGHT | Is Trump beginning to be trapped in current upset? (10) | upset / D_RAUGHT (current) around (trapping) IST (is, plus T – beginning letter of Trump) |
|
| 6D | UNREADY | Holding back, like our old monarch? (7) | double defn. / if you are holding back from doing something, you may be UNREADY to do it; and Ethelred the UNREADY was an English king) |
|
| 8D | PECAN | Just one nut – exercise on toilet (5) | just one nut (as presumably they usually come in multiples?) / PE (exercise) + CAN (the toilet) |
|
| 9D | VIRUS | By way of abandoning a right, America creates Covid-19? (5) | Covid-19? / VI( |
|
| 13D | NARCISSISM | You’ll really admire yourself having this combination of bloomers and S&M (10) | You’ll really admire yourself having this / NARCISSI (bloomers, flowers) + SM (S&M!) |
|
| 16D | BARBARIC | Uncivilised Spike ‘misused’ cigar – not good (8) | uncivilised / BARB (spike) + ARIC (anag, i.e. misused, of CI( |
|
| 17D | POPULIST | See 10ac. (8) | see 10A / see 10A |
|
| 18D | STADIUM | Balls could get kicked here, but nudist’s failed to start playing with a ‘scrotum base’ (7) | balls (e.g. footballs, rugby balls) could get kicked here / anag, i.e. playing, of ( |
|
| 19D | BROTHER | See 16ac. (7) | see 16A / see 16A |
|
| 21D | TWEET | Message from Times taking the piss (5) | message / T_T (time, plural) around (taking) WEE (the piss!) |
|
| 22D | JUROR | Jack reformed our party at the heart, being one to pin the blame? (5) | one to pin the blame / J (jack) + URO (anag, i.e. reformed, of OUR) + R (middle letter, or heart, of paRty) |
|
| 25D | GORE | Act bullish, as ex-presidential hopeful? (4) | double defn? / if you acted bullish, you might GORE something or someone; and Al GORE is a former US (unsuccessful) presidential candidate |
|
Thank you mc!!!! I couldn’t get the parsing of ‘stadium’ to save my life. I had st from nudist along with ‘a’….but could not see how dium was another word for scrotum!!!!! I enjoyed ‘juror’, ‘narcissism’. ‘distraught’ and ‘principle’ for the delightful constructions in various ways but mostly applaud ‘operate’ for the way operate could mean work or handle and therefore the clue structure misled one into starting with a t (for time) and then trying to bring the rest into order….whilst knowing from the crossers that the answer was ‘operate’!!
Thanks MC_RAPPER & Cyclops. I found this a bit tougher than recent puzzles which I also found a challenge. I starred 23d on my copy as a fave. Like Winsor I found 1d tricky to parse. I had thought work =op and time = rate but this left a pesky e. It took a good while for me to get to the solution above. Nice to have that confirmed as I was still not 100% sure.
*23a
Hi Winsor and Franko.
Glad to have been of help with ‘STADIUM’!
My slight issue with 1D was the ‘overlap’ – where the A of ERA was parsed out and then replaced with the A of ATE. Seemed a tad contrived? Interesting that we all seemed to have interpreted it, initially at least, in different ways!
Yes 23A was lovely – and poignant in its evocation of Sid James and a certain famous ‘pair’ belonging to the lovely Barbara Windsor, who sadly passed away last week… (I’d already typed up and queued the blog before then, and forgot to tweak it (oooh, matron!) to mention that.
Thanks mc_rapper, I had the same struggle with OPERATE and STADIUM took a while too.
I wondered about the replication of Jack in 22A+D – here it makes things easier by clearly indicating the obvious first letter that each word has in common, but with a tweak could have been used to mislead (if for example Jack was a definition for one or the other). At first I thought this was lazy or an oversight but now I think it might be very clever as for a while I tied myself in knots anyway, not knowing which of the possibilities was true (especially as I had the central R of Juror and tried to find a word starting TAR.. for the down clue).
My favourites DISREPAIR and CIGARETTE.
Thanks, Gazzh at #4 – interesting that all the focus seemed to have been around STADIUM and OPERATE – a case of great minds thinking alike (or fools seldom differing? (;+>)
Good point on the juxtaposition of the Jacks being used in the same way for the same crossing letter – possibly an oversight, although J has very few direct indicators. Maybe a Japanese judge reading a journal could have made an appearance in the JUROR clue?
Nice. Is “boobs” really derogatory? Or just slang?
Tony Collman at #7. I agree ‘boobs’ is just slang, albeit maybe outdated slang. I was referring more to ‘pair’ being a derogatory term – in the Carry On/Sid James context, rather than in the anatomical and mathematical observation that they usually come in twos… I’ll stop digging now, before I make a right t1t of myself!
Can’t help asking…if everyone makes a right tit of themselves, where do the left tits come from?
Winsor, once people have made a right tit of themselves, they still often go on to make another boob.
Does Cyclops 692 have an error in it? 46 down has two words (4,4) but the grid only has four spaces.
Ah! The clue should be 46/32 down but it has been printed as 46 down.
I’ve just noticed that there will be no AcrossLite version this time……for those who are waiting for one!!!
Thanks, David Williamson and Winsor – I’m afraid we have no connection to Private Eye, so can’t help with these issues, but useful information if anyone is looking for clarification.
The linked clues 46D/32D should be easy enough to work out, as David W did – once he spotted inconsistent enumeration, and the reverse reference at 36!
I’m not a regular AcrossLite user, but I did notice the disclaimer. I presume this is because AcrossLite can’t cope with the 27×27 grid? The Eye crossword page isn’t interactive, nor is it very printer-friendly…hopefully people can get it printed out to work from, if they don’t have the published copy.
Usually there is a gif for the grid on the site where the puzzle can be picked up to go into AcrossLite. I solved my problem by copying the grid (pointer on grid, right click then copy) and then pasted it into word from which I was able to print the grid. The clues I again copied into word and printed too. Hope this helps and sorry if Grannie already able to suck eggs!!!!
mc, I think it’s maybe not so much the 27 x 27 size as the irregularity caused by having the quote go round the outside. As I’ve said before, I haven’t got a working printer and normally do Cyclops by recreating the grid using Crossword Compiler and entering the answers there. Unfortunately that is not possible (as far as I can tell) with this grid, due to the special status of squares on the perimeter. To clarify, if this were a normal grid, the square in the top left corner would be numbered ‘1’ and be the first letter of 1ac. If anyone knows how to represent this grid in Crossword Compiler, I’m all ears.
Actually, having written that, I think that if you put blocks in all the squares on the perimeter which aren’t part of any solution, then it will work. I’ll try it and report back here, in case anyone else is using this method. I’m afraid I can’t think of any such trickery which would work with Across Lite.
Winsor@15, that’s how I used to create a printable version every week when I still had a working printer. At one point, I think I started using Across Lite, but found I didn’t like the way it represented linked clues and went back to my original method.
Ah, Tony Collman at #16 – I suspected all this talk of printers would bring you out of the woodwork…maybe Santa will bring you one for Xmas, if you have been a good boy? Good luck with your Crossword Compiler workarounds!
Winsor at #15 – that sounds like a workable method. I copy/paste the clues from the site into Excel to do my blogs… (Other word-processing and spread sheet software is available (;+>)
Yep, that works. Reduce the size of the squares to 6.00mm and the whole grid fits on the screen @100%. Thanks, Winsor, for making me look at this again. I’d resigned myself to not being able to do it.
Tony Collman at #16, I used Crossword Compiler to set the puzzle and got round the square numbering problem as follows:
In Edit mode, put the cursor in the top left corner square
Key Alt + Enter to get the Square Properties dialog box
Under ‘Numbering/corner text’, tick ‘no across clue’ and ‘no down clue’ boxes
Repeat this for the bottom left and top right corner squares.
If you put bars to mark the end/beginning of words in the quotation, as I did, then you also have to suppress clue numbering in those squares too – a real pain!
Acrosslite can’t cope at all with special numbering as far as I can tell. It can’t cope with linked clues either, so normally, I have to produce a non-linked version of the CCompiler puzzle in order to expport an Acrosslite file.
I hadn’t realised how ‘non-printer-frindly’ the online Eye crossword is. I’ll look into doing something about that.
All the best with your solving everyone!
Cyclops….thank you for your efforts throughout the year and especially the Christmas package. I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy new year.
Cyclops, thanks very much for explaining how to do that. I still haven’t started solving so I’ll give it a go. Assuming I manage to finish it, it will mean I won’t have to write out all the solutions in my email entry*; I’ll be able to just export the solution to pdf and attach it. I’ve never actually had cause to use the Square Properties function, but I’m interested to learn that that’s how I can put in a bar as well, as I like to do that on paper for multi-word entries and never managed to work out how to do it with CC. Wishing you all the best for the season and thanks for all the fun.
* I don’t know whether you looked in the week we were discussing the relative merits of postal and email entries. Someone said you had mentioned a long time ago that whoever judges the comp at the Eye flips a coin to decide whether to make a random selection from the postal entries or whether from the email entries. I wonder if that is still the case, given that email is probably a lot more popular now and post a lot more expensive? I think even if I were solving in the magazine, I’d take a picture of my solution on my smartphone and email it in.)
Yes, I have been aware of comments made here and elsewhere about the selection process between postal and email entries. In the coin-tossing days, the number of entries for each mode of submission were about the same. I’m sure the proportion of email entries has increased over the years but don’t know what effect this has had on selection.
I’ve made a note to contact the Eye office about it, after the present ’email entries only’ situation reverts to normal.
BTW, I don’t think you can insert bars via Square Properties. I simply double-click on the grid line I want to convert.
I solved 692 in the traditional way using the published magazine and a pencil. I intend to submit my entry as a list in plain text (in the same order that the clues are listed) in the body of a email.
Thanks, Cyclops. I decided to put the bars in as well and have also shaded the perimeter squares. One thing you forgot to mention is that before putting the bars in, you have to switch off symmetry (which I had set to ‘normal’ while filling in the blocks). Just hope I can solve it after all that faffing about!
I hadn’t realized they were only accepting email entries now, because I always use the online puzzle.
David @12, thanks very much for explaining the error
Thanks for all the updates – we seem to have segued from being a crossword blog to an IT HelpDesk, but it is all Cyclops/Eye-related, and it is providing a community service, of sorts!
Cyclops – thanks for your technical advice to Tony Collman (and any other lurkers with the same issues) and the insights on the ‘e-mail vs. postal entries’ conundrum! I believe your posts on here are quite infrequent, so we are honoured by your presence. (Does that put me ahead of Winsor in the running for an OBN (;+>)
John E – I solved in pencil on a scanned copy of the magazine, then transcribed in ink to the original, and will submit a JPEG scan of my grid attached to an e-mail.
May the best (luckiest) man (person of any gender) win!
(Shall we close this correspondence now? I am about halfway through the blog for 692, and it will appear on Monday 4 Jan, as the current issue covers three weeks, rather than the usual two.)