A crossword built around the grotty state of the current political establishment, including a number of Tory names.
There may be enough politics – for titillation there are just a few salacious points here. We don’t need to use much of our imagination to know might be hard in a harem, and there is one nipple to be uncovered. I bet that’s far fewer than found on a Westminster laptop.
There are a couple of very long clues. We’re not going to attract the modern youth who aren’t used to reading longform prose. Some might not get to the end of a clue like 12a or 6d. They would just say “TL:DR”.
I’m probably being oversensitive . It’s a sore point with me at the moment. At work my manager asked me to cut down the length of the Mails/WhatsApps/Teams/Slack messages and other documentation I produce.
“People look at that slab of text and give up reading. Can you be more concise” He said.
I was dumbfounded for a moment but then gave him a very concise answer.
Of course Cyclops is well known for his short clues too, and there some good example of those here.
Solving seemed like a repeat of last time I blogged the Eye. Starting with the accessible anagram at 18d after failing to get 1a, 1d or 5a. Then working across the bottom, up the right and ending back at 1a and 1d as my last clues in the grid. Although it didn’t qualify as a “one-pass solve” it wasn’t far off. There were no clues that gave me much trouble once a few crossing letters were in place. I had to do a double-take at 15d TORY PARTY – at the time I thought “it can’t be that obvious” and suspected I had been fooled into entering the wrong answer. But no, the definition was as clear as that.
I will nominate 27a CARTRIDGE as a mildly tricky one, probably baffling if you didn’t know the top person at the Beeb is the DG.
And a shout out for 30a for pointing out Kemi B’s surname’s chilling possible derivation.
There is one where I cannot pin down the wordplay correctly: 25a PROGRESSIVE. Help please.
Given the inhabitants in the rest of the crossword, the mention of “Progressive” seems somewhat out of place.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SHEPHERD | Guardian puts pressure on the woman to reside in Slough (8) P[ressure] HER (the woman) all inside SHED (slough) |
| 5 | SPARED | Held back spread balls (6) (SPREAD)* AInd: balls. Somehow this minimal anagram was surprisingly misleading |
| 10 | ROVER | Dog collar’s finally done with (5) [colla]R OVER (done with) |
| 11 | GOALPOSTS | They provide an opening for balls to pass through (9) Cryptic Def. |
| 12 | WESTMINSTER | Private Eye is onto small-time government member rejecting independent political assembly (11) WE (Private Eye) S[mall] T[ime] MIN[i]STER (government member, rejecting I[ndependent]) |
| 13 | TAR | Flipping arse salt (3) RAT< (arse, flipping) |
| 14 | GROTTY | Balls displayed in automobile yard – not pleasant (6) ROT (balls) in GT (automobile) Y[ard] |
| 16 | POLITIC | Advisable to change topic about Nigel and Meloni finally getting together (7) (TOPIC)* AInd: to change, around [nige]L and [melon]I |
| 19 | APPAREL | Paper stuffed into a large dress (7) (PAPER)* AInd: stuffed, making PPARE, inside A L[arge] |
| 21 | NIPPLE | A bit of a tit gets leg over: “Excuse not finishing” (6) PIN< (leg, over) PLE[a Edit: Excuse = PLEA (not plead) |
| 23 | TUT | Institutional centre that’s reprehensible (3) Hidden, middle of InstiTUTional (Edited) |
| 25 | PROGRESSIVE | One gets out of supporting hostile reformer (11) A G (One gets??) removed from (out of) PRO (supporting) AGGRESSIVE (hostile) This wordplay does not look correct but it’s the best I can come up with Edit: See comment #3. The missing G is a clueing error |
| 27 | CARTRIDGE | BBC chief involved in erratic, mishandled case (9) DG (BBC chief, Director General) inside (ERRATIC)* AInd: mishandled. Top clue |
| 28 | LEGAL | The French miss being constitutional (5) LE (The, in French) GAL (miss) |
| 29 | EMBRYO | Labour follows its development more by accident (6) (MORE BY)* AInd: accident. |
| 30 | BADENOCH | Cabinet minister, evil when united with familiar old stirrer of racial divisions (8) BAD (evil) ENOCH (familiar old stirrer of racial divisions) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | SCRAWL | Sun has to grovel – it makes terrible reading (6) S[un] CRAWL (to grovel) |
| 2 | EAVESDROP | House projection – decline to listen in (9) EAVES (House projection) DROP (decline) |
| 3 | HAREM | Hard member captivates English wives altogether (5) H[ard] ARM (member) around E[nglish] |
| 4 | REGENCY | With right gene modification, gutless Cleverly would show some style (7) R[ight] (GENE)* AInd: modification, C[leverl]Y |
| 6 | PAPER CLIP | It secures an attachment from the Daily Mirror, say – ‘Conservative leader on the brink!’ (5,4) PAPER (Daily Mirror, say) C[onservative] LIP (the brink) |
| 7 | RESET | To return to its original state, earth needs to enter lull (5) E[arth] inside REST (lull) |
| 8 | DISGRACE | Detective’s last in bullying contest – “shame” (8) DI’S (Detective’s) [bullyin]G RACE (contest) |
| 9 | LAPTOP | PC sex club dancer might make use of this T-shirt perhaps (6) LAP (sex club dancer might make use of this) TOP (T-shirt perhaps) |
| 15 | TORY PARTY | Boris-style work event that’s very unpopular with voters? (4,5) Double Def. though the first really just defines PARTY, made to read as a single barely cryptic definition |
| 17 | TALKING-TO | ‘Bollocking’ or ‘engaging in intercourse’ (7-2) Double Def, (a ticking off, and not that sort of intercourse) |
| 18 | PASTICHE | Artwork and its cheap reproduction (8) (ITS CHEAP)* AInd: reproduction. |
| 20 | LLOYDS | Dolly’s bust: it has a number of names (6) (DOLLY’S)* AInd: bust. I’m pretty sure Dolly Parton isn’t one of the Lloyd’s Names. |
| 21 | NORIEGA | Negative Republican source that is dominating state’s disgraced leader (7) NO (negative) R[epublican] IE (that is) GA (state, Georgia). Manuel Noreiga wiki Best part of 33 years since he was deposed, and 6 since he pegged it, yet he pops up here. Cyclops does have a long memory |
| 22 | WEALTH | Breaking the law brings prosperity (6) (THE LAW)* AInd: breaking. I’m sure I’ve a very similar clue in the past. |
| 24 | THROB | Nick, after unfinished article, is beat (5) ROB (nick) after TH[e] (article, unfinished) |
| 26 | SOLVE | Sun very eager initially to finish off Cyclops? (5) SOL (Sun) V[ery] E[ager] |
I passed a man on the street. He was mumbling “One, three, five, seven, nine… One, three, five, seven, nine…”
I thought, how odd.
I didn’t even notice the unaccounted-for G in PRO [A(G)]GRESSIVE. Could it be a setting slip-up?
Thanks for the blog, thought this was very good , BAD ENOCH is a great spot, Braverman was called a “Poundshop Enoch Powell ” this week.
I agree with your thoughts for PROGRESSIVE and like Tony@1 I did not notice the missing G at the time .
Your explanations for clues are a model of precision and concision .
Very minor blog issue for TUT , instiTUTional has gained an extra t , I only noticed because I was doing a count to check it was right in the middle.
Yes, my error in the PROGRESSIVE clue, I’m afraid – I’d blame my checker, but since she’s my wife …
Thanks, Cyclops for the puzzle and also for dropping by and clarifying on PROGRESSIVE.
Thanks, beermagnet for the detailed blog.
NIPPLE
A minor point
Would PLEA not represent ‘excuse’ better than PLEAD?
Also ‘not finishing’ generally indicates the removal of just the last letter.
Chambers:
PLEA
An excuse
PLEAD
To offer in excuse.
Thanks to Cyclops for clarifying , very easily done , I had missed the stray G completely until I read this blog.
I’d agree with KVA@4 that it’s PLEA that ‘isn’t finishing’, not PLEAD
Thanks Roz at #2 I will correct the instiTUTional – I too checked that this was the dead centre when solving, then let my fingers do the spelling when typing
Also Cyclops at #3 for explaining the rogue G. It is difficult to get the staff these days.
Kva is also correct. Clearly PLEA makes more sense.
For some reason I thought of PLEAD first, and when parsing the wordplay noticed that 2 letters had to be dropped but didn’t think much of it. I will lose the “d”.
Thanks beermagnet and Cyclops. Rd 25a, usually when I can’t fully parse a solution it’s because I’m missing something in the word play. So thanks for clearing that up.
My faves were 29a, 24d and 26d.