Cyclops 714 – Parliamentary Conspiracy

19 comments on “Cyclops 714 – Parliamentary Conspiracy”

1. What a superb introduction to the blog! The members’ behaviour could presage some sort of ORAL VICE.
   This all fell into place nicely.
   Thanks both for the puzzle and blog.

2. Thanks for the blog, I also love the introduction with so many connections. Great puzzle with so many fine clues, will just name CONSPIRACY THEORY and BAGPIPES as special , PANTS being trousers for once.
   Two very minor quibbles, CUR is in twice with the same synonym. ECLIPSE – two bodies are always in alignment , you actually need a third viewing body in alignment to have an eclipse, although the clue does work fine really.

3. A lovely anniversary crossword and more difficult than some of the recent ones. Thank you very much. I enjoyed ECLIPSE, as well as Roz’s quibble. There are some early risers commenting today!

4. Morgan, that time was not early for me but late in the afternoon – time zones and all that. It is now tomorrow morning for me.

5. Thanks mc_rapper67, what a tour de force of a blog! Enjoyed the crossword and agree that Roz makes a very good technical point, although I think the presence of a human observer as the third point is implied in order for the eclipse to occur. I thought KEATS was a good clue in the Eye style.

6. Thanks for the various comments and feedback – much appreciated.
   Nothing to ruffle the feathers too much…as Roz says, the arse/cur repeat is a minor quibble…if I had to keep one, I think I prefer the concept of an ‘arse girdle’ at 8D! And, as Gazzh says, the logistics of an eclipse could require the terra-centric presumption that the human observer is the third point.
   (Not really my area of expertise, but otherwise wouldn’t there be a billion billion eclipses happening all over the universe all the time, without anyone noticing them?…if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, etc.)

7. I was not over complaining , the clue just about works. My point was that the sun and moon for example are always aligned , as are any two bodies To make an eclipse the Earth also needs to be aligned and we still only get umbra on a small fraction of the surface. Eclipse , in this sense , is basically hard to define in a short clue and we really call it an occultation .

8. Great intro. I actually parsed 4D (now realise incorrectly) as ST (tip of STaff) and IFFY (filthy place) but, hey, worked for me

9. Got completely tangled with 3D, which I was convinced was ‘DISSECTED’, as in ‘cut off’ – ‘Dissed’ (put down) but with no sane or logical excuse for the outstanding ‘ect’!

10. Roz, with respect, I think that’s nonsense. To ‘align’ is to bring into line. Two bodies can’t be brought into line with one another (unless each has a directionality which can be aligned one with the other, like car wheels), because, as you say, a line can always be drawn between two bodies, however they are disposed in space (many lines really, of course, unless they are bodies of zero dimension, i.e. points). To align them is to bring them into line with a third (the observer in the case of an eclipse), surely?

    Here’s a question, the answer to which will probably surprise some: if a person is livid with anger, what colour has their face gone? (Now look in a dictionary).

11. Try reading the clue Tony, it says ” two bodies in alignment ” as the sun and moon always are and try not to take such a geocentric view of things.

12. So is it an eclipse when any three bodies in the Universe are aligned, or just when two are aligned with an observer (whether on Earth or, hypothetically, in outer space)?

13. Tony it is three bodies aligned , let us take Earth , moon and sun but it is much rarer than you think because the lunar orbit is tilted . Only full alignment once in 20 months.
    Second condition , the cone of the shadow from the middle body must pass over the observing body. This is much rarer , if the moon was smaller or slightly further away we would never get total solar eclipses , in many ways we are very lucky.
    Another type of alignment is called TRANSIT , Venus passes directly between Earth and sun about once every 80 years. Not an eclipse , the shadow cone is nowhere near Earth, We see a black dot moving quickly across the solar surface. This method can be used to detect exo-planets around other stars, we do not “see” anything but detect a slight dip in the star’s intensity.
    This is also rare , in three dimensions three moving points will not align very often.

14. Roz — as you said in your first comment on 1ac, “the clue does work fine really”. Perhaps in some parallel universe there is a peer-reviewed crossword for astronomers, with very long clues and lots of footnotes.

15. Right then, move along now, move along now…nothing to see here…this puzzle has now been eclipsed by Cyclops 715 (;+>)

16. It took me some time to clock and, to a very limited extent, justify 16a’s anagrind ‘FLAGRANTE’, by falling back on the original Latin meaning (and archaic original sense of FLAGRANT) : blazing. ‘Blazing’ doesn’t obviously connote to me any rearrangement of letters — it’s rather about damage and destruction — and I had to search through several extensive online anagrind lists before finding one that included it or any fire reference. What did others think?

17. lemming, I didn’t think about it at the time, but I think you make a fair point.

18. flagrante – blazing – going down in flames…crashing…all muddled up?… I guess the surface read was supposed to imply ‘in flagrante’, but both ‘in’s are in use elsewhere?…

19. I think “in flagrante [delicto]” is obviously being refered to, but don’t see where that would get us; unless perhaps the English equivalent, something like “caught in the bleedingly obvious act”, is taken to be an anagram indicator. I wonder then what the penalty on conviction might then be. 🙂

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