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In case you’re wondering, ’twas I who had the happy surprise!
For the very first time, I have gone and done the puzzle in one pass!
I suppose through all these years of solving, and measuring my progress in this manner, I have got more proficient (even though it often doesn’t feel like it). Also, I have become extremely familiar with Cyclops’ clues.
I would not characterise this puzzle as “easy”, just that it has more accessible clues than most. But probably the most important factor was that there wasn’t a really gnarly clue that couldn’t be solved once a crossing letter or two was in place.
The whole thing was over too soon, about 35 min including making notes for this blog. In fact here is the Solving order including * against those few clues which I didn’t solve on first reading. Using this solving method the vast majority of answers, apart from typically the initial topmost and leftmost lights, already had at least 1 crossing letter in place before the clue was first attempted.
Solving Order: 4 5 11 6 7 13 12 1d 1a* 10 2 14a 14d 3 18 21 27 22 19 23 23/25 24 9 15 16 26 17 20d 20a* 28 8*
I define “first pass” ends when I tackle (succeed or fail) the last clue read for the first time, so some I don’t cold solve (like 1A) can be re-appraised after I get one or more crossing letters and it still counts as first pass. I don’t think I could cold solve all the clues – indeed that is not the point of crosswords. The most fun is on teasing out the answer when more information is available.
Cyclops only had this one chance to include Liz Truss as PM which I presume she still was at the point this issue was published, and I see “Brian” has now been promoted to Charles now he is finally King.
My favourite clue is for 16 SURPRISE. The surface reading is great and the wordplay involving the word “Slurp” gives it another level of humour.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BRIGHT | Promising Biden’s head? Correct (6) B[iden] RIGHT (correct) |
| 4 | WHIP HAND | Advantage of party enforcer being on assistance (4,4) WHIP (party enforcer) HAND (assistance) |
| 10 | ASPIRIN | It might stop clots screwing in pairs (7) (IN PAIRS)* AInd: screwing. |
| 11 | PERHAPS | Papers falsified to let in hardline leader, maybe (7) (PAPERS +H[ardline])* AInd: maybe. |
| 12 | HIT THE HAY | After smack, write article, then take grass and go to bed (3,3,3) HIT (smack) THE (article) HAY (grass) |
| 13 | SOLAR | Sun-sourced form of oral sex (head) (5) (ORAL S[ex])* AInd: form. |
| 14 | BLEAT | Distilled table ‘whine‘! (5) (TABLE)* AInd: distilled. |
| 15 | MISPLACED | Dodgy, ultimately pathetic deal – PM is lost (9) ([patheti]C DEAL PM IS)* AInd: |
| 18 | NOTEPAPER | Corrupt peer on tap as material for a writer (9) (PEER ON TAP)* AInd: corrupt. |
| 20 | FACET | Central Office extremes involved in gross feature (5) C[entral offic]E inside FAT (gross) |
| 21 | EPSOM | Races (English) as protected by Liz Truss (5) E[nglish], then SO (as) inside PM (Liz Truss) |
| 23/25 | FIRST PAST THE POST | Leading hack’s position when it comes to the electoral system? (5,4,3,4) Double Def. |
| 26 | SMOKING | Having succeeded, after a short time, Charles is fuming (7) S[ucceeded] MO (a short time, moment) KING (Charles) |
| 27 | GUESS WHO | Can you identify the person partly responsible for rogue SS wholesalers? (5,3) Hidden inside roGUE SS WHOlesalers. Hidden indicator: partly |
| 28 | OSTLER | Lost ground by initially eager king, a horsey type (6) (LOST)* AInd: ground, E[ager] R[ex] (king) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | BEACH | To live with a Conservative husband is to get stranded! (5) BE (to live) A C[onservative] H[usband] Def. in the verbal sense |
| 2 | IMPATIENT | Job declaration? Can’t wait! (9) “I’m patient” as biblically said by Job, the prophet. |
| 3 | HARD HIT | Smitten, in a state of arousal – triumph! (4-3) HARD (in a state of arousal) HIT (triumph) |
| 5 | HAPPY | One of seven a bit pissed? (5) Double Def. Ref. 7 Dwarves |
| 6 | PERUSAL | Scrutiny of country’s city going arse over tip (7) PERU’S (country’s) LA< (city, reversed) Perusal is a very lax form of scrutiny, Cyclops must be using a Government dictionary. |
| 7 | AVAIL | After America’s far right victory, get sick benefit (5) [americ]A V[ictory] AIL (sick) |
| 8 | DISCREDIT | Donald’s no.1 is getting recognition – expose as ‘fake’ (9) D[onald] IS CREDIT (recognition) |
| 9 | ON THE MAP | Well known as a place MP on heat roams (2,3,3) (MP ON HEAT)* AInd: roams. |
| 14 | BUNDESTAG | “Budget’s an atrocity” – parliament (9) (BUDGET’S AN)* AInd: atrocity. |
| 16 | SURPRISE | Drink noisily, knocking off litre, get up and stagger (8) S[l]URP RISE (get up). My favourite clue |
| 17 | COCKATIEL | Australian flier‘s todger before it gets soaked with ale (9) COCK (todger), (IT + ALE)* AInd: gets soaked. |
| 19 | POMPOUS | Arrogant, flipping unruly head of hair, pretty obvious useless sources – Boris ultimately! (7) MOP< (unruly head of hair, flipping) P[retty] O[bvious] U[seless], [bori]S |
| 20 | FATUOUS | Absurd UFOs, Utah, almost ‘transmuted’ (7) (UFOS UTA[h])* AInd: transmuted. |
| 22 | SCENE | ‘Indecent’ outside broadcast dropped, causing row (5) OBSCENE (indecent) – OB (outside broadcast) |
| 23 | FETCH | Go for a bit of ‘safe’ Tchaikovsky (5) Hidden inside saFE TCHaikovsky |
| 24 | TIGER | Ferocious type with a lot of money in the bank (5) G[rand] (a lot of money) inside TIER (bank) |
A lot has been written about Karl Marx but nobody ever mentions his sister Onya
She invented the starting pistol.
Thank you beermagnet for the blog and your joke at the end.
[I think 21a should read SO inside PM]
We too were surprised not to see Brian in 26a.
Thanks to Cyclops for the usual fortnightly fun.
Pretty sure Brian will stay as Brian for the bulk of the Eye’s future reportage.
21 across wordplay now fixed
Thanks for the blog and congratulations on your first pass finish. Interesting to see your solving order, you clearly go for first letters when you have them, I use a similar technique for Azed , I think first letters the most useful by far. This grid had a lot of first letters crossing with other clues. I solved it traditionally, think I had about half after one look and then I did the corners.
I was also surprised to see Charles in the clue, I suppose Brenda was queen already when given the name so never a need to change.
For a brief moment I was hoping that your ‘happy surprise’ was to have had your name picked out of the hat!
Thanks beermagnet and congratulations. While 1a was my first and 28a my last in, it was fairly haphazard in between. Same favourite as you plus 10a and 11a.
Some great clues, as ever.
Distilled, in 14ac, seems a slightly iffy anagram indicator
6dn peruse, in its primary meaning, is not so very different from scrutinize, is it?
Congratulations beermagnet, no mean achivement. I had missed the biblical reference in 6d and had convinced myself that “I’m patient” might be something that one might declare at a job interview. Thanks also to Cyclops.
Tony@7 most meanings of peruse in Chambers seem to agree very closely with scrutinise and it is the meaning I use.
It seems to be acquiring a modern sense of just glance over briefly.
Distil – to reduce to essentials by sorting and sifting . Not great but I have seen worse.
Franko@8 Job used to fool me all the time in crosswords, but seen it too often now and it rings alarm bells. Like “wicked” which is not so common these days.
A note in the online OED entry for sense II.4c of peruse v. actually contains “However, peruse has been a broad synonym for read since the 16th cent., encompassing both careful and cursory reading; Johnson defined and used it as such.” If you do a google search on define:peruse you can also find Webster’s calling it a contronym, a word with two opposite meanings.
PS The OED note actually ends (so much for my urge to to be succinct): “The implication of leisureliness, cursoriness, or haste is therefore not a recent development, although it is usually found in less formal contexts and is less frequent in earlier use (see quot. 1589 for an early example). The specific sense of browsing or skimming emerged relatively recently, generally in ironic or humorous inversion of the formal sense of thoroughness.” … nicely agreeing with Roz. I guess you can also sometimes add “equivocal” to “ironic or humorous”.
Roz @9 one to store in the memory banks.
Lemming @10 contronym a great new word for me. As a challenge, I am resisting the urge to google some examples. So far, I can’t think of any.
I’d say dodgy was the anagrind and lost was the meaning for 15A, no?
Franko@12: “sanction” is a good one, or perhaps oversight?
rem: You’re right. For 15a I think both work. Dodgy and Lost are both good anagrinds and either can mean Misplaced. I remember thinking that when solving the clue but forgot when building the blog. I meant to embellish the chat in the wordplay analysis.
Franko@12, quite a few examples here (including in comments):
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2012/jan/12/crossword-blog-when-bad-means-good
Beermagnet@14, is ‘lost’ really a good anagrind? It’s a better definition for misplaced, for sure.
Thanks Rem @13 – sanction (good stuff!) and Tony @15.
Tony #16 & rem. OK. I agree. Lost really is a better definition. I’ve fixed the blog entry.
In 26a, what aspect of the clue allows you to take only the first letter of ‘succeeded’ and ditch the rest? Often in clues we see ‘blah blah heads’ or ‘thingy at first’ but not here.
I had the same thought for a while Tony. But then landed on S for “short””, and “Having succeeded” => KING.
I did at the time find one web reference to “s.” for successor, I think in the context of inheritance of status, but can’t find it now.* Whichever way one takes it, I think there’s been a degree of looseness, in the furtherance of a good surface reading, as sometimes happens, albeit usually coupled, as here, with no doubt that the solution we’ve arrived it is correct.
* This time all I could find was SIFF – Successor IFF (? Successor Identify Friend or Foe), in a Wikipedia list of acronyms, and https://www.beaconsfieldprimary.org.uk/docs/Beaconsfield_Primary_School_SEN_Policy_updated.pdf.
Lemming, “Succeeded” is entry number 6 in Collins online‘s list of meanings for ‘s’ as an abbreviation. I think it’s used in lists of monarchs, as in Charles, s. Elizabeth (?)
Afaik, there is no basis for s = short.
Whew, I can sleep peacefully now. I’m way behind Collins’s curve though, judging by their “succeed” page.
STOL 🙂
STOL? In the same way that you might use ‘prevention’ to clue P (RSPCA)? I think not.
Thanks for the clarification both!
SW then. [wavy emoticon here]
Nope
STM – remember? SMS? These last three examples I’ve given are all in OED.
So much for my STM. I meant four.
Lemming, you can’t just pick one word from a multi-word abbreviation to indicate the individual letter. The only exception is when the same letter stands for the same word in many multi-word abbreviations, like F = fellow (of all those various associations) or R = royal. If you don’t agree, please show me a published clue which contradicts this principle.
I’m new to these prize crosswords— can I ask how you guys are submitting your solutions to Private Eye? They weirdly don’t have any guidance anywhere at all. I am downloading and completing the Across Lite version then using the Print feature in that app to create a PDF with my solution, then emailing that to Private Eye with my name and address. I’ve submitted several solutions in this way and there haven’t been any complaints from them so far at least.
Any advice appreciated! Thanks
Hi Robin,
It’s been years since I submitted a solution.
When I did I used to post a photocopy of the page, then changed to email and simply listed the answers in the same style they give the answers under the next puzzle.
I never ever won anything – unlike some others here I believe.
I gave up when Cyclops told us they alternate between picking from snail mail and picking from email entries each time. That was before it went email only. Maybe I should start again?