It is nearly 2024 and still Ronald T Dump pervades the headlines and the political landscape in America…and still provides Cyclops with wordplay for the letter T…
…and there was me, at the end of his first (and hopefully only) presidential term, boldly suggesting that our esteemed setter would have to ‘Dump the Trump’. More fool me…
The POPULIST ASSHOLE was forced to TESTIFY in his latest lawsuit, where he claimed to know JACK SHIT about what was going on, showing no REMORSE when we all know he had tentacles in every pie-chart, like an OCTOPUS…hopefully he will be the ARCHITECT of his own DUMBING-DOWNfall…
Meanwhile, at 18A/23A KEIR STARMER gets his own full anagram, with not a Johnson, Sunak or Truss in sight – maybe a harbinger of change to come on this side of the pond?
The surface read of 20A with the country raging at the Tories ‘raking in millions’ is on the money; the image of the Pope using a PERISCOPE at 9A to overlook the crowd in St Peter’s Square is quite amusing; whereas the surface of 19D is a little eye-watering!
All in all, Cyclops up to his usual tricks, with yet again a maybe-slightly-lower-than-usual smuttery quotient.
My thanks to him, and I trust all is clear below…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1A | PASTA | When Democrat finally cuts state food (5)
P_A (Pa, Pennsylvania, US state) around (cut by) AS (as, when) + T (final letter of democraT) |
||
| 4A | OCTOPUS | Far-reaching organisation‘s reckless cop-out against society (7)
OCTOPU (anag, i.e. reckless, of COP-OUT) + S (society) |
||
| 9A | PERISCOPE | Cries off intervening in pontiff’s means of overlooking the crowd (9)
P_OPE (pontiff) around (intervened in by) ERISC (anag, i.e. off, of CRIES) |
||
| 10A | ENSUE | Follow Eye – never starts to instigate a lawsuit (5)
EN (starting letters of Eye Never) + SUE (instigate a lawsuit) |
||
| 11A | LAMPOON | Knock shit and briefly ridicule (7)
LAM (knock, hit) + POO (shit) + N (contraction, i.e. briefly, of ‘and’) |
||
| 12A | DUMBING (DOWN) | & 8 At a loss for words with elected government head and wretched diluting of intellectual content (7,4)
DUMB (at a loss for words) + IN (elected) + G (first letter, or head, of Government) + DOWN (wretched) |
||
| 13A | SECRETIVE | Receives jolt, admitting Trump’s lead is close (9)
SECRE_IVE (anag, i.e. jolt, of RECEIVES) around (admitting) T (leading letter of Trump) |
||
| 16A | SHIT | See 24dn. (4)
see 24D |
||
| 18A | KEIR (STARMER) | & 23 Remark tires out follower of Corbyn (4,7)
anag, i.e. out, of REMARK TIRES [follower in a chronological sense, as Labour leader, maybe not so in an ideological sense!] |
||
| 20A | EAST TIMOR | Country is raging at Tories raking in millions (4,5)
EAST TI_OR (anag, i.e. raging, of AT TORIES) around (raking in) M (millions) |
||
| 23A | STARMER | See 18ac. (7)
see 18A |
||
| 24A | JASMINE | Bush needs Scholz’s agreement – and that of Cyclops – to admit son (7)
JA (German for Yes, so Scholtz’s agreement) + S (son) + MINE (that of Cyclops) |
||
| 26A | DREAR | Dull and tedious Democrat at bottom (5)
D (Democrat) + REAR (bottom) |
||
| 27A | ARCHITECT | Designer chic: treat as perverted (9)
anag, i.e. as perverted, of CHIC TREAT |
||
| 28A | SINCERE | Frank, after that time with redneck extremist leaders (7)
SINCE (after that time) + RE (leading letters of Redneck Extremist) |
||
| 29A | YALTA | One time sexual partner’s back in conference venue (5)
A (one) + T (time) + LAY (sexual partner), all back to give YALTA! |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1D | POPULIST | Possibly Le Pen‘s report on university schedule (8)
POP (report, sound of a gun) + U (university) + LIST (schedule) |
||
| 2D | SCRAM | Press going after Sun? Piss off! (5)
S (sun) + CRAM (press) |
||
| 3D | ASSHOLE | He’s also mistaken for a scumbag (7)
anag, i.e. mistaken, of HE’S ALSO |
||
| 4D | OVERDRESS | Not an item of underwear for Balls to adorn (9)
OVER (six balls, in cricket) + DRESS (to adorn) |
||
| 5D | THERMOS | In fact, her most useful means of keeping things hot? (7)
hidden word in ‘facT HER MOSt’ |
||
| 6D | PESSIMISM | PM misses out, having to accept one negative world view (9)
PESSIM_SM (anag, i.e. out, of PM MISSES) around (accepting) I (one) |
||
| 7D | SLEIGH | It conveys an expression of disappointment about gutless Labourite (6)
S_IGH (expression of disappointment) around LE (LabouritE, gutless, or emptied) |
||
| 8D | DOWN | See 12ac. (4)
see 12A |
||
| 14D | CAESAREAN | Labour finished off somewhat unnaturally by such a section? (9)
CD – a CAESAREAN section is an unnatural way of ending labour at the end of a pregnancy |
||
| 15D | INEBRIATE | Stick one on irate Ben, useless piss-artist (9)
I (one) + NEBRIATE (anag, i.e. useless, of IRATE BEN) |
||
| 17D | GREEN TEA | Lacking experience, starts to tipple exceedingly alcoholic beverage (5,3)
GREEN (naïve, lacking experience) + TEA (starting letters of Tipple Exceedingly Alcoholic) |
||
| 19D | REMORSE | You’ll be sorry feeling that after, er, getting erection, end of todger is in some distress (7)
RE (er, erected, or turned up – for a Down clue) + MO_SE (anag, i.e. distress, of SOME) around R (end of todgeR) |
||
| 21D | TESTIFY | Trial dubious? F-off and provide the evidence! (7)
TEST (trial) + IF( |
||
| 22D | ASIDES | Whispers from presidential staff about ‘sexual initiation’ (6)
A_IDES (presidential staff) around S (initial letter of Sexual) |
||
| 24D | JACK (SHIT) | & 16 Nothing produced by white balls? Slap! (4,4)
JACK_S (white balls, in crown green bowling) + HIT (slap) |
||
| 25D | IDEAL | Fancy Lanvin’s top model (5)
IDEA (fancy) + L (top letter of Lanvin) |
||
Thanks for a great blog, a good set of clues with a mix of politics and smut. TESTIFY took some thinking about . I was not sure of OVERDRESS as an item, only know it as a verb, eventually found it in Chambers in the list of words at the bottom of the page for OVER….
Very minor blog issue, do not know why I noticed but your Down explanations have a heading of ACROSS .
CAESAREAN you have both spellings, perhaps deliberate, Chambers is a real mess for this.
Thanks, Roz – well spotted! The Across/Down thing is a glitch in my Excel blog template, so hopefully fixed going forward…and CAESAREAN/CAESARIAN was simple human error…duly corrected…luckily there was a crossing letter to make it definitive in the grid!
Needed quite a few visits to finish this but got there in the end. Thought CAERAREAN was very clever.
Fantastic crossword, last one in was caesarean as I had kier as a crosser, doh!
Olaf Scholz has no T, unlike sergeant schultz……
The TDR is strong in this one
Has the title changed or have I been dreaming ? Have we been censored ?
Roz at #6 – not censored…a polite enquiry was made as to whether the title was too strong, and in fact maybe breached site policy. Admin pointed out that the word does appear in the puzzle, and the Private Eye puzzle has a tradition of being a bit naughty.
On reflection, and after a quick trawl through the last 10 years of Eye blog titles, I decided that it was probably a little OTT and I tweaked it.
Nothing to get too excited about.
What does TDR stand for?
mc@8 I see , probably a wise decision. Anyone who does Cyclops or reads the blog should know what is coming but I suppose the “headline” is on the main page for quite a few days ans seen by all . I suspect we have had worse.
Thanks, mc_rapper67 and Cyclops. Like Roz, I wondered about OVERDRESS as a noun but lacked lacked her drive to fully research it.
I marked 18/23 as my favourite. In an ideological sense, he may be more of a follower of David Cameron.
There is a slight typo in the explanation of 13a – RECEIVES.
I’m surprised that no-one is objecting to ASSHOLE!!! Got me right in the arse!!!
But thank you to all for a delightful puzzle and blog.
Anthony Chambers at #8 – Trump Denial Response?…(just a guess)
Franko – thanks…corrected
Winsor – I ass-ume you are objecting because it is an American spelling, and Cyclops should have contrived to use ‘@rsehole’?…
Oh my word, i am a beginner in crytic crossword solving, I have never commented here before, but have been appreciating all the lessons in how to parse these crazy clues. I feel like I made a faux pas, sorry if I did…. much love to all the clever posters on here
I didn’t look at this webpage until the Sunday because I hadn’t finished the crossword, which was because my Private Eye arrived 10 days late! So I don’t know what the previous title was that was too OTT for people to see. Guess I’ll never know, unless someone can think of a way of telling me without running the risk of offending anyone!
Anthony at #13 – no faux pas at all – we’ll have to wait to see if Brandon will explain his TLA (Three-Letter Acronym)
MichaelJohn at #14 – the title was originally ‘Populist Asshole’, as per paragraph 3 of the intro…the issue was with the fact that the blog title is splashed across the main site page for a few days, until other blogs appear and push it down the running order…
Many thanks mc_rapper67 @15, now I know – yes, it would be a bit of a surprise to those solvers used to the less risque crosswords
Winsor@11, yeah! Why should a donkey’s nostril equate to a scumbag?