[New comment layout] - details here
Nothing to do with shell-less molluscs’ equivalent of Glasto –
… the political fight it seems Cyclops is looking forward to at 5d is unlikely to involve many bare knuckles. Maybe a few white ones.
As Private eye puzzles go, this was pretty tough.
So was the puzzle in the last issue.
Has Cyclops set a new trend?
Will this continue?
Tune in Next issue to find out.
That said I’m not sure I can put my finger on why I found this so hard. Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe it’s the grid and the fact that I failed to cold solve the first two I tried – the left-most down lights – I didn’t get these until late on, indeed 18d was my LOI – so I didn’t get much benefit from given first letters during the solve. Of course, as usual, once solved and the wordplay laid bare, I wonder why I found them so hard.
I started well enough. There are enough approachable clues that I had about half the grid filled by the time I’d read them all in about 20 minutes. But the second half had a lot of stoppages, and a lot of extra time.
Especially in the bottom left corner.
Oh well. I’ll just have to persuade the few remaining braincells to work harder in the future.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 7 | BLAIRITES | Labour party faction wants leader’s debut broadcast to be in short, easily assimilated segments (9) L[eader] AIR (broadcast) inside BITES (short, easily assimilated segments) |
| 9 | HELEN | Brothel encouraged accommodating beauty (5) Hidden in BrotHEL ENcouraged. Hidden indicator: accommodating. First one in. (very accommodating) |
| 10 | ATTIC | Bill grabs tit roughly (very top area) (5) (TIT)* AInd: roughly, inside AC (Bill) |
| 11 | HARBINGER | Sign of what’s to come of cleaner about to leave non-stop boozer? (9) [c]HAR (cleaner, about (c, circa) leaving), BINGER (non-stop boozer) |
| 12 | DENIALS | Fashion deals in rejections (7) (DEALS IN)* AInd: fashion. |
| 14 | EMPRESS | Who ruled those common people with iron (7) ‘EM (those, from them as spoken by “common people”) PRESS (iron). I found this very tricky. |
| 15 | COMMONS DEBATE | In which, routine Sunak opening argument is made? (7,6) COMMON (routine) S[unak] DEBATE (argument) Semi-&Lit |
| 20 | INFLAME | Aggravate fashionable female with male shit (7) IN (fashionable) F[emale] (MALE)* AInd: shit. Stuck on this one misled into thinking of dastardly cads, and various models. |
| 22 | RUN OVER | Knock down, applying bolt to balls (3,4) RUN (bolt) OVER (balls, as in cricket) |
| 24 | CONTINENT | Australia is able to control a leak? (9) Double Def. A clue for the older person? (So why didn’t I get it earlier?) |
| 26 | NERVE | Hardliner very full of gall (5) Hidden in hardliNER VEry. Hidden indicator: full of |
| 27 | LEECH | One who sponges Spike before church? (5) LEE (Ref. Spike Lee) CH[urch]. Not the first Spike that springs to mind. |
| 28 | SKIN-TIGHT | Society family, pissed and very clinging (4-5) S[ociety] KIN (family) TIGHT (pissed) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | FASTEN | Secure senior Tory extremist leaders in the cooler! (6) S[enior] T[ory] E[xtremist] inside FAN (cooler) |
| 2 | PROCLAIM | Paid player to introduce Conservative mail shot for broadcast (8) PRO (Paid player) C[onservative] (MAIL)* AInd: shot. |
| 3 | UTAH | Ramshackle hut getting in a state (4) (HUT)* AInd: Ramshackle, around A |
| 4 | SHRIMP | Being a puny sort, Sunak is doing a U-turn, taking time (6) PM (Sunak) IS all reversed (doing a U-turn) around (taking) HR (time, hour). This one took a while winkling out. |
| 5 | SLUGFEST | Following slimy creature, Farage’s lead, set about creating a political fight (8) SLUG (slimy creature) F[arage] (SET)* AInd: about. |
| 6 | ENGROSS | Topless female only coarse to be of interest (7) [h]EN (female, topless) GROSS (coarse). This one also took a long time to spot. |
| 7 | BRANDY | Brown, as well as Tony, ultimately a follower of Napoleon? (6) BR[own] AND (as well as) [ton]Y (Tony, ultimately) |
| 8 | SURRENDER | County almost meets terrible end – Labour finally to resign? (9) SURRE[y] (County, almost) (END)* AInd: terrible, [labou]R |
| 13 | SENSELESS | Go easy on the feeling, stupid! (9) SENSE LESS (Go easy on the feeling) |
| 16 | OFFENDER | Dicky sat on stopper – criminal! (8) OFF (Dicky) ENDER (stopper) |
| 17 | BANKNOTE | In USA Bill‘s crafty token ban (8) (TOKEN BAN)* AInd: crafty. |
| 18 | LINCOLN | A green old leader (7) Double Def. Last one in. I could only see the answer when all 3 available crossing letters arrived – then went “Doh!” |
| 19 | URGENT | Pressing your lower half against a bloke (6) [yo]UR GENT (a bloke) |
| 21 | ALIGHT | Get off with a blonde? (6) A LIGHT (a blonde). Out of the final few clues I solved, maybe this one qualifies for the “should have got it earlier” badge. |
| 23 | VIRAGO | A sign one enters for Amazon? (6) A (one) inside VIRGO (a sign, zodiac) |
| 25 | TWIT | Bird’s outside with plonker (4) W[ith] inside TIT (bird) |
10A reminds me of the pair of entries in Dr Johnson’s dictionary:
ATTIC: The very top room in a house
LOFT: The room above the attic
Thanks, Cyclops and beermagnet (super blog)!
Loved EMPRESS, CONTINENT and BRANDY!
Thanks for the blog, I agree that it was a bit tougher again , perhaps more normal clues ( not political or smutty ) I did think it was a very good standard.
There is a unit of beauty called the milliHelen, a face to launch a single ship .
Thanks beermagnet, my experience was very similar to yours and on many of the same clues, can’t always put my finger on why but eg LINCOLN – there are many old leaders, and “A Green” is nicely misleading as it doesn’t point directly to a shade (eg Camberwick, Eva…), and even then unless you live and breathe Robin Hood i wouldn’t put LINCOLN top of my list. So I think we can both go easy on ourselves and enjoy the weekend – well I intend to, hope you do too! (My only quibble was DEBATE meaning the same in both clue and solution for 15a but i suppose your extended def/semi-%lit label gets him out of jail.)
I think, in 6d, [h]EN should be parsed as Female Only, not just Female. That turned out to be my LOI, but apart from that, I had the same experience with “should have got earliers”, and difficulty in the bottom left corner. I too think they’re getting more difficult, which suits me fine.
MichaelJohn@4
ENGROSS (6d)
Agree with you on HEN: female only.
Thanks beermagnet and Cyclops. I also found it tough, but enjoyable all the same.
Virago was one of those words which I’d heard before but didn’t know the exact meaning. I suppose that’s the beauty of crosswords.
I agree with all the other comments and particularly like Roz @ 2 unit of beauty.
I found it harder than usual and kept putting it aside for another day.
But I was v happy when I finished.
Good LOLs like 19d URGENT, 5d SLUGFEST.
Well done Cyclops and beermagnet.
The only one I couldn’t eventually hammer out was 18D, which was strange given how large he looms here.
Patrick, that’ll be Queens in NY, NY, I suppose, then? You didn’t specify where “here” is.