I have to admit to leaving this blog to the last minute (i.e. forgetting the new Friday deadline)…but, serendipitously…
…it allows me to paraphrase…’Ding Dong, the Wizard has gone!’
Obviously Cyclops was not to know, but the (perhaps) most famous CLUELESS OLD-ETONIAN and LADIES’ man (well, Dorries’-man) and sex-PEST has used some SELDOM-seen political INSTINCT and given us a news SPLASH this evening, OFFERING his resignation, and claiming to the Commons committee PROBE that he behaved TRUTHFULLY, whilst they have given him an EMPHATIC verdict…so long, Boris, and THANKS for all the MISGOVERNMENT…looking forward to seeing you IDLE for a long time…I’m sure he’ll be BANKING a few cheques for a while yet, before PC PLOD catches up with him…
The second best thing about this puzzle is that there is no mention of Ronald T Dump, although it would seem his chickens are coming home to roost as well…
Otherwise, a nice mix of establishment targets and smuttery…presumably the Phil of 6A is the late Prince Philip rather than the Scofield variety; 8A and 24A don’t bear too much analysis; Sunak (twice) and Fox News are name-checked, plus a Brexit reference at 23A.
My favourite was probably the ‘film star’s signature’ for T. HANKS…and let’s hope that 2D is not a subtle hint…
My thanks to Cyclops, as usual, and I hope all is clear below…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 6A | CALIPH | One’s onto Phil, outrageously to the right of Conservative old leader (6)
C (Conservative) to the lefts of A (one) + LIPH (anag, i.e. outrageously, of PHIL) |
||
| 8A | SOMEONE | Bigwig shot semen (two rounds) (7)
anag, i.e. shot(!), of SEMEN + OO (two round letters) |
||
| 10A | OLD ETONIAN | As PM Boris and many of his cabinet produced nation on dole? No getting away from it (3,7)
subtractive anag., i.e. produced, of NATIO( |
||
| 11A | DUTY | Sunak’s first to abandon explosive study – respect! (4)
subtractive anag., i.e. explosive, of ( |
||
| 12A | IDLE | Pootle as Cyclops would, leading ‘The Mexican U-turn’ (4)
ID (I’d, from Cyclops’ point of view) + LE (el, the, definite article in Mexican, u-turned) |
||
| 13A | ENDEARMENT | Close attention, chaps: Times leader is just sweet talk (10)
END (close) + EAR (attention) + MEN (chaps) + T (leading letter of Times) |
||
| 14A | MISGOVERNMENT | What the country’s suffered under Sunak, Truss, Johnson and May initially – before useless Mr Gove sent in (13)
M (initial letter of May) + ISGOVERNMENT (anag, i.e. useless, of MR GOVE SENT IN) |
||
| 17A | TRUTHFULLY | ‘Time to join Ginsburg’ – altogether not how Fox News would have presented it? (10)
T (time) + RUTH (Ruth Ginsburg, former US Supreme Court judge) + FULLY (altogether) |
||
| 20A | PEST | Pope’s terrible housing bother (4)
hidden word in, i.e. housed by, ‘poPE’S Terrible’ |
||
| 22A | ROTA | Balls on a course (4)
ROT (balls, rubbish) + A |
||
| 23A | RESOLVABLE | Problems post-Brexit may well not be, er, over, like this crossword? (10)
RE (er, over) + SOLVABLE (like this crossword, hopefully!) |
||
| 24A | BANKING | Book on masturbation? Not wife’s job (7)
B (book) + ( |
||
| 25A | LADIES | Convenience of election-deniers assertions about a Democrat (6)
L_IES (election-deniers’ assertions) around A + D (Democrat) |
||
| Across | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1D | PC PLOD | About to break doddery old president (twice): it’s the law, jokingly (2,4)
P_PLOD (anag., i.e. doddery, of OLD + PP (president, twice), around (broken by) C (circa, about) |
||
| 2D | CLUELESS | Stupid advice to overworked Cyclops? (8)
If Cyclops is overworked, perhaps he should CLUE LESS?!… |
||
| 3D | FOUNTAIN | Awful fun to own Scottish jet (8)
FOUNT (anag, i.e. awful, of FUN TO) + AIN (Scottish, own) |
||
| 4D | SELDOM | ‘Olde’ variations in S&M? Hardly ever (6)
S_M (S and M!) around ELDO (anag, i.e. variations, of OLDE) |
||
| 5D | INSTINCT | Feeling popular court upholds fools (8)
IN (popular) + CT (court), all around (holding) STIN (nits, or fools, up) |
||
| 7D | PROBE | Prince puts on dress for a poke (5)
P (prince) + ROBE (dress) |
||
| 9D | MIDDLE-CLASS | A certain key girl’s rather bourgeoise (6-5)
MIDDLE C (a certain key on a musical keyboard) + LASS (girl) |
||
| 14D | MARJORAM | Herb‘s right to get stuck into ex-PM with a mace, though no expert (8)
MA_JOR (John Major, ex-PM) around (stuck into by) R (right), plus A + M( |
||
| 15D | OFFERING | Present unsatisfactory sort of reign (8)
OFF (unsatisfactory) + ERING (anag, i.e. sort, of REIGN) |
||
| 16D | EMPHATIC | PM’s working with the CIA – stressful (8)
anag, i.e. working, of PM with THE CIA |
||
| 18D | THANKS | Film star’s signature “cheers“? (6)
Film star Tom Hanks might sign his name as T HANKS! |
||
| 19D | YALTA | Conference venue sexual partner rolled up with a brief 18 (5)
YAL (lay, or sexual partner, rolled up) + TA (brief version of 18D – Thanks!) |
||
| 21D | SPLASH | Senior Whip outside Penny’s shower (6)
S (senior, as in SCR – Senior Common Room) + LASH (whip), around (outside) P (penny) |
||
Thanks for a great blog, did not realise what you meant at first, have just checked the BBC now for the news. A shame in some ways, it would have been nice to have a 10+ day expulsion, see the Tories squirm on whether to vote it through, a recall petition and then a by-election. Can only conclude the report has completely damning evidence.
Great puzzle , MISGOVERNMENT sets the tone and the criticism is relentless, a few good subtractions which I always like .
Very minor underlining issues ( sorry , I do not know myself how to underline ) 6Ac I think OLD leader and 5D FEELING .
I really enjoyed this one and had no trouble solving it till I stuck on the last one: 22A
No matter how I thought of “course” I couldn’t think of a word that fitted -O-A and unquestionably fitted the wordplay.
There are so many foodstuffs (courses), and racing, golf and other sports (courses).
In the end I left it till the next day when a different way of looking at it, i.e. thinking what synonyms Cyclops uses for “balls” (a lot) might work before ROT was spotted.
In the end I still wonder how ROTA equates to COURSE, via a list I suppose.
Thanks for the blog. Got stuck on 1D.
beermagnet@2 — Chambers defines ROTA as “a roster: a course, round, routine, cycle, of duty, etc.”
Thanks for the comments so far – especially the eagle-eyed Roz at #1…a few minor formatting issues, caused by lateness of blog and consumption of red wine on Friday evening…all duly corrected, I think.
Jax at #3 – the second definition of ‘plod’ in Chambers references PC Plod as the policeman in the Noddy stories, by Enid Blyton (although I think he was actually called Mr Plod?). I’m not sure which came first, the character or the slang, but it seems to be a reference to the good old days when they actually walked the beat, rather than just Go-ogling the solutions to crimes, as most TV detectives seem to do these days…
John E at #4 – you beat me to it! I got to Balls rot almost straight away, having discounted ‘Ed’. But I had to check in Chambers to confirm rota course.
10ac, OLD ETONIAN: I didn’t examine the fodder properly and didn’t realise it needed NO removing, so wondered about the final phrase. Der!
17ac, TRUTHFULLY: Alan was the only Ginsburg I knew of, so I was stumped till I googled the name.
22ac, ROTA: like beermagnet, I’m not sure about ‘course’ as definition.
1dn: your spellchecker seems to have turned ‘doddery’ into ‘doggery’.
2dn, CLUELESS: loved this one
9dn, MIDDLE-CLASS: “a certain key” was excellent. Lovely clue.
16dn, EMPHATIC: excellent anagram giving a great surface
21dn, SPLASH: senior for S seems dubious. You can’t normally just pull one letter from a three-letter abbreviation to serve your purpose: there would just be too many possibilities. I’ve looked in three dictionaries and none gives single S as an abbreviation for Senior.
Should have refreshed before commenting; them I would have seen John E’s explanation.
Mc@5: I’m pretty sure Enid Button was the original
Tony @ comment #6. Your point about S for Senior is interesting. I didn’t worry at all when solving the clue that S = Senior was valid, but now you point it out – you’re right! I thought I would be able to find S for Senior somewhere in a dictionary, but cannot. Only as part of a longer abbreviation like that. Senior on it own is abbreviated to Sr.
Beermagnet@7, yes, I didn’t notice at the time of solving either — just assumed ‘ah, S must be a std abbrev for Senior’. It was only when I read the ‘SCR’ explanation that I doubted and looked into it.
Tony Collman at #6 – re. 1D doggery/doddery – I suspect that was the red wine talking again!…
[Mc, are you being dodded by typos wherever you go?]
Greetings, I enjoyed this one. I have only just found this site as I am struggling with 4d in Cyclops 755. “I will be back” as someone (Gen McArthur, and was it the Terminator?) said, when the blog is updated.
755 doesn’t seem to have appeared on the website yet. Anyone know what’s going on?
As you were. I must have pressed some wrong buttons
andyf at #12 – nice to see a new name here…most of us stumbled across this site at some point in the past, and for many of us it has changed our (solving) lives for the better.
Just as a point of order, there is a convention not to make any comment, however innocent, indirect or anodyne, on any individual clues or the general hardness/easiness of ‘live’ puzzles. Tony Collman’s comments at #13 & #14 about the logistics of getting hold of a puzzle are OK, but anything more specific is frowned upon.
The blog for 755 should be on here in the early hours of next Saturday morning, after its entry deadline of next Friday.