Cyclops is on the cusp of yet another numerical milestone…an octo-centenary!…
…but has he gone early with the celebrations?!
I solved this fairly head-down/blinkers on, without thinking of or noticing the Nina-friendly unches (unchecked cells) around the outside.
A pretty standard Cyclops, I thought – a bit of skoolboy smuttery; a bit too much Trumpery for my liking, although at the moment and unfortunately that also applies to the ‘real’ world; and a few of the usual other targets – Brian/Charles, Ed (Balls), Labour leader.
My favourite was probably 20D ACROSS (this clue isn’t!), followed by 26A ATLAS (heavens his load), and, grudgingly, 7D ON COURSE, with the reference to the chainsaw-wielding un-diplomatic Ronald T Dump’s style of twee-x-ting in ALL CAPS…
Then, when I was typing this up and creating the grid, using PD’s excellent utility, I clicked, as I always do, on the ‘Nina helper‘. This is a clever bit of functionality which helps to reveal any hidden material in diagonals, unchecked rows/columns, and the perimeter. And round the outside we had:
EICHTHONDRYMCROSLWORDS
which looks suspiciously like:
EIGHT HUNDRED CROSSWORDS!
I wonder if Cyclops had been experimenting with this grid for the next puzzle, but then decided on some other way to mark the occasion, and decided to use this one anyway, with a bit of rework to try and hide the Nina?
Or maybe we are just being warmed up, in that the Nina indicates it is nearly ‘eight hundred crosswords’?
(Either way, I hope I haven’t stolen the thunder or the surprise from any celebratory device in the next puzzle, which my esteemed colleague beermagnet will be blogging…a fortnight is a long time in crossword-land, so hopefully most of us will have forgotten by then…)
My thanks, as usual, to Cyclops, plus congratulations on his imminent octo-longevity, and I hope all is clear below.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 8A | MANHOLE | Bloke, arse that would lead you to the sewer? (7)
MAN (bloke) + HOLE (arse) |
||
| 9A | REIGN | Downfall said to be undergone by our Brian (5)
homophone, i.e. said – King Charles (Brian to the Eye) is ‘undergoing’ his REIGN, which sounds like RAIN, or downfall |
||
| 10A | SIFT | In tears, if trousers strain (4)
hidden word in ”tearS IF Trousers’ |
||
| 11A | PERCUSSION | Penis scour involved for group of players (10)
anag, i.e. involved, of PENIS SCOUR |
||
| 12A | DEFACE | Balls rotated by mug, subject to injury (6)
DE (ED, Ed Balls, rotated) + FACE (mug) |
||
| 13A | STANDARD | Norm‘s resistance against a Republican and Democrat (8)
STAND (resistance) + A + R (Republican) + D (Democrat) |
||
| 15A | CHISEL | Cheat in church is elusive (6)
hidden word in ‘churCH IS ELusive’ |
||
| 16A | STAPLE | Hackneyed coverage of presidential debut – “fix!” (6)
STA_LE (hackneyed) around (covering) P (the first, or debut, letter of Presidential) |
||
| 19A | RAINFALL | Spots Roger in a rough dive? (8)
R (roger, signalling/radio communications) + AIN (anag, i.e. rough, of IN A) + FALL (dive) |
||
| 21A | RIOTER | Maybe Capitol attacker from big city, getting stretch? Not quite (6)
RIO (big city) + TER( |
||
| 23A | ON THE ROCKS | Really poor? Not he? Awful balls! (2,3,5)
ON THE (anag, i.e. awful, of NOT HE) + ROCKS (slang for testicles, or balls) |
||
| 25A | ARTY | Maybe Labour leader’s gone ‘creative’ (4)
( |
||
| 26A | ATLAS | Heavens his load is ultimately endless! (5)
AT LAS( |
||
| 27A | BEELINE | Direct route of piss: right off course (7)
BEE( |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1D | EMPIRE | Peer: “I’m sadly what Britain lacks now” (6)
anag, i.e. sadly, of PEER IM |
||
| 2D | INITIATION | Cyclops has sex with one in the country for a start (10)
I (Cyclops, our setter) + N_ATION (country) around IT (euphemism for S-E-X) + I (one) |
||
| 3D | COMPLETE | Absolute lousy leader enters contest (8)
COMP_ETE (contest) around (entered by) L (leading letter of Lousy) |
||
| 4D | HEIRESS | Maybe Paris is sheer chaos (7)
anag, i.e. chaos, of IS SHEER [Paris Hilton, heiress to the hotel chain m/billions, for our younger solvers!] |
||
| 5D | TRAUMA | Cheerleader’s skirt half concealed by belly – a shock (6)
T_UM (belly) around (concealing) RA-( |
||
| 6D | HIPS | Cool? Start to smoke joints (4)
HIP (cool) + S (first letter, or start, of Smoke) |
||
| 7D | ON COURSE | Trump’s habitual situation: “FOLLOWING CORRECT ROUTE” (2,6)
punning double defn.? – Ronald T Dump is habitually found ON (a golf) COURSE; and if you are following the correct route, you are ON COURSE |
||
| 14D | DIPLOMATIC | Capitol, mid riots – not how Trump comes across (10)
anag, i.e. riots, of CAPITOL MID |
||
| 15D | CHAINSAW | Links with a wife that might be followed by massacre (8)
CHAINS (links) + A + W (wife) |
||
| 17D | THRASHER | One who licks ends of shit Danish bacon (8)
TH (ends of ‘shiT danisH’) + RASHER (bacon) |
||
| 18D | PLACEBO | Sham medicine? Spot a personal problem (7)
PLACE (spot) + BO (body odour, personal problem) |
||
| 20D | ACROSS | This clue isn’t a burden (6)
A + CROSS (burden) [this is a Down clue!] |
||
| 22D | ESTEEM | Drugs abound – respect! (6)
ES (Es, Ecstasy tablets, drugs) + TEEM (abound) |
||
| 24D | HILL | Hard Dicky’s uprising (4)
H (hard) + ILL (dicky) |
||
Thanks for the blog , I think you are right about the message . I always look at the perimeter of a sticklebrick grid , the Christmas Specials always use this , and did wonder if I had gone wrong when the HUNDRED was slightly out . The rest is far too much of a coincidence .
Very good puzzle , all the usual suspects for politics and schoolboy humour .
I did wonder about the capitals for ON COURSE , now I know .
Once, when I was still very new to crosswords, I noticed every letter except V had been used, idly wondered if that meant anything, and shortly afterwards (correctly) semi-guessed a solution that ended “tive” rather than “tion”. And then, in that day’s FS blog, I learned about Pangrams.
So now I always keep an eye out for them – but rarely for Ninas.
Sod’s Law: this time I spotted E I _ H T at the top, and W O R D S up the left-hand side. And thereafter spent a stupidly-long time trying to make 3D start with a G.
Oh well.
Chalk that up as a first encounter with a different form of Setter-deviousness.
Got there in the end, though, so am bloodied but unbowed.
My faves were BEELINE, ATLAS, ACROSS and the surface of 14D.
Mind you, one of the reasons I do crosswords is to escape, for a little while, the horrors of current life. It’s therefore a shame that the chief horror (viz. 14D) crops up so often in them….
Many thanks Cyclops and mc_r
I thought the same as Wellbeck re 2D. I thought it was INITIATIVE, incorrectly parsing “in the country” as NATIVE.