Private Eye (Cyclops / 796) Saccharin Affability

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A nice solid puzzle in this issue.

Not too hard, except for the last clue – funny how it’s always the last clue solved that’s tricksiest.
Most was filled in on the first pass, but a handful resisted till the end.
Top clue award goes to 17d:I wonder how long Cyclops has had that Prescott+A anagram waiting to be deployed.
Honourable mention for 28a – it is rare to find such a well-hidden hidden answer.
Last on in did cause a few minutes consternation.  H-N- looks so much like it will be HANG, but that is quite the opposite of the clue’s definition! The light (or in this case, sound) dawned after a few minutes.
In the end the whole thing was done ‘n’ dusted within a half hour so I suppose it counts as one of the easier puzzles overall.

Across
1 MEASURE Establish the dimensions of Bill? (7)
Double Def.
5 PISS OFF Be an arsehole, making beer unavailable (4,3)
PISS (beer) OFF (unavailable)
10 PARIS Who went off with Helen‘s capital? (5)
Double Def. with an ancient Greek feel
11 RIDICULE Take the piss out of Starmer’s right wing? Cyclops would, with one filthy clue! (8)
[starme]R I’D (Cyclops would) I (one)(CLUE)* AInd: filthy.
12/15 DON’T GIVE UP THE DAY JOB Advice to the untalented ambitious: keep slogging away 9 to 5? (4,4,2,3,3,3)
Double Def.  -ish.
13 HONK Get horny? (4)
Cryptic Def.  Last one in. It’s what a horn sounds like, those that sound like a goose anyway
14 DISTANT Tits and bum – cool! (7)
(TITS AND)* AInd: bum.   Cool clue, man.
16 CHERISH Prize face-ache, Rishi? Mostly (7)
Hidden in aCHE RISHi.  Rishi?  Who he?
18 ENTEBBE African city‘s been wrongly holding back stake (7)
(BEEN)* AInd: wrongly, around BET< (stake, back)
20 ASUNDER Kamala at the end: second, in an inferior position and in pieces (7)
[Kamal]A S[econd] UNDER (in an inferior position)
22 ASDA A summons opened by prosecutor, which should come up with the goods (4)
A S[ummons] DA (prosecutor)
24 AFFABILITY High bailiff at end of day shows warmth (10)
(BAILIFF AT)* AInd: high, [da]Y
27 MISJUDGE Underestimate and omit to get end away with arbitrator (8)
MIS[s] (omit, end away) JUDGE (arbitrator)
28 ENACT Perform in between activities (5)
Hidden in betweEN ACTivities
Well hidden
29 RHUBARB It’s often forced, Luvvie-style background conversation (7)
Double Def.
30 STATURE Reputation of peer throttling trade union leaders (7)
STARE (peer) around T[rade] U[nion]
Down
2 EXPLOSION Blast, former political organisation is on rocks! (9)
EX (former) PLO (political organisation) (IS ON)* AInd: rocks.
Haven’t heard from the PLO for a long time (reminds self not to tempt fate.)
3 STRUT Swagger is way to be in an enduring state of sexual arousal (5)
ST[reet] (way) RUT (to be in an enduring state of sexual arousal)
4 RUSSIAN As Putin‘s short-lived PM lacks time to meet the editor (7)
[t]RUSS (short-lived PM, lacking T[ime]) IAN [Hislop] (the editor)
6 IN DEPTH Screwing tip: end with husband being thorough! (2,5)
(TIP END H[usband])* AInd: screwing.
7 SACCHARIN Bag by Brown: fashionable, sweet thing (9)
SAC (bag) CHAR (brown) IN (fashionable)
8 FELON Iron Lady’s first to get over being criminal (5)
FE (iron) L[ady] ON ([to get] over)
17 SPECTATOR One bagged by brazen Prescott, getting Gove’s rag (9)
(PRESCOTT + A (one) )* AInd: brazen Top clue!
19 BLADDER It’s worse getting round lobby’s entrance – peer should vacate it (7)
L[obby] in BADDER (worse!)
21 SUBJECT One of King Brian’s themes? (7)
Double Def.
23 SWISH Sun: “Fancy Posh!” (5)
S[un] WISH (fancy)
25/9 FEEL FREE Have experience on the house? Be my guest (4,4)
FEEL (have experience) FREE (on the house)
26 LEAPT Criminal finally given elastic tape, executed a caper (5)
[crimina]L (TAPE)* AInd: elastic.

Whatever am I going to find to put in at the end …
… maybe one of you commenters could provide a chuckle this time.
I’m fresh out of bananas, I mean laughs.

See Comment #11

16 comments on “Private Eye (Cyclops / 796) Saccharin Affability”

  2. Thanks for the blog , I agree that SPECTATOR is a stunning clue , allusions to the famous punch and a great definition .
    Helen from 10Ac is an unusual SI unit like the kilogram in that the base value has a prefix, the milliHelen is the standard unit of beauty , a face to launch a single ship.

  4. Yes, loads of great stuff here.

    Elsewhere, there are quite a few Grauniad setters where I often find the first few clues the hardest, and work back to the NW from the bottom.

    Thanks all.

  5. HONK was my last one, too. In the end I put it in because, of all the words that fitted, it seemed the least-worst. Wasn’t very confident about it though.
    On the other hand, SPECTATOR was brilliant & ENACT neatly-hidden.
    Many thanks to Cyclops and beermagnet, and to Roz for introducing me to the milliHelen.
    No crossword-related gag comes to mind – but I was told this one yesterday, and it’s still making me smile:-
    If 666 is the Number Of The Beast, what’s 668?
    The Neighbour Of The Beast.

  6. I suspect a cosmic string event last weekend as both this and the prize had ENACT in the same place.
    As usual, a pleasant way to spend some time. Thanks to both.

  7. > both this and the prize had ENACT in the same place.
    Good Lord I hadn’t noticed.
    That could certaily cause a cosmic singularity catastrophe.
    I expect someone reversed the polarity of the neutron flow to avoid it.

  9. I enjoyed the milliHelen (of which I was aware since the 60s but had forgotten),
    and the Look North item too.
    How do you tell a stoat from a weasel?
    Well, a weasel is so weasily distinguishable, and a stoat stotally different.

  10. A stoat can be told from a weasel by the fact that its tail is blacked and its figure is slightly the bigger .
    In fact stoats are quite a lot bigger , weasels are really tiny.

  11. This blog has descended into an edition of “know your mustelids” which is only to be expected. (These things happen.)
    So I will slip an identification diagram comparing weasel, stoat, ferret size at the end of the blog for future reference.
    Also for future reference, and I think you should know by now, do not put any of these prime carnivores, or other of their ilk, on the inside of your trousers. It will never end well.

  12. I bought two issues of Eye this time to give my lovely friend who wanted to learn cryptics one and she’s done great with some help, though there were some annoyances for me as usual with this one.

    I’d somehow missed Cyclops’s beer/piss thing till now, causing me to dismiss PISS OFF until it simply couldn’t be anything else — at least now I know for the future.

    Wasn’t happy with the “simpler” definition of ASDA, also causing me to dismiss it until the very end.

    What really got me though was the “simpler” definition of BLADDER — am I missing something or is “peer” just a typo? I could get from “peer” to “pee” or ⟨P⟩ via any number of cryptic tricks, but where it is in the clue it scans weirdly IMO. EDIT: I griped about it to her and she spotted it instantly. “One who pees”. Facepalm, etc. That said it’s not how I’d use “vacate”…

    Other than that very enjoyable — had to use an online solver for ENTEBBE at the very end as it wasn’t in my lexicon, and reading through a list of the largest African cities twenty times hadn’t helped. Suspect my friend will get everything but that filled in in her grid by tomorrow.

  13. Update: all was indeed complete by last night, with the exception of ENTEBBE which I saved her the hair-tearing on by getting her to Google the hijacking. I see that 797 has a similar one that I’m not going to get easily…but I’m not going near it till I’ve figured out why the penultimate answer, 10A, is what I think it is…

  14. Hi, I’m new here and to Private Eye. Why is beer piss? And what does Alnd: mean in your explanations? Thank you

  15. AInd: Stands for “Anagram Indicator” – the word in the clue that shows the solver that some other parts of the clue must be anagrammed to get the answer.
    I persist using it, hopefully to encourage other bloggers to use it to explain how the clue is parsed.
    Also HInd: for “Homophone indicator”

    As for why beer = piss …
    I fear Cyclops, like me, can remember the days of Watneys Red Barrel and the like, where the standing joke was that the beer tasted so awful and weak that the handpumps on the bar were connected directly to the drains of the gents – i.e. you never bought beer, merely rented it.

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