Is there something missing from the Eye crossword this time?
There weren’t as many references to politicians, either here or elsewhere, which suits me just fine. There are certain individuals we have seen and heard quite enough of for one lifetime, and the joke that is their ignorance is wearing thin.
Interesting to see HIGNFY as a “word”. I wonder if people who don’t watch this programme had trouble with clue. It is definitely in use in both writing and speech (“Hignify”) derived from the acronym for the long running show. I doubt it is actually in a dictionary yet.
I had no trouble and gave a little surprised chuckle when I saw it. Overall the puzzle seemed a touch trickier than usual. Only about half filled in after the first pass, the rest eventually succumbed thanks to crossing letters finally ending up with a crossing pair 6d and 3a with non-descript crossers. 6d was the first to go of them after I stopped trying to use “crackers” as an anagram indicator. Then the F made 3a solvable, but I still don’t like that axe/fire association.
Favourite clue goes to 13a 25a for the smooth, sensible (meaningful!) surface reading.
Edit: Typed the wrong clue number!?
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | MITE | Just a bit of power reportedly (4) Homophone “Might” (power) HInd: reportedly. |
| 3 | CROSSFIRE | Pissed off with axe, causing lively exchange (9) CROSS (Pissed off) FIRE (axe, as in dismiss) Last One In. I didn’t immediately equate axe with sacking |
| 9 | OUTBURST | “Admittedly gay Republican caught in raid” storm (8) OUT (admittedly gay), R[epublican] inside BUST (raid) |
| 10 | GIRDLE | Miss hugging date with elasticated top, figure-flattering wear (6) D[ate] inside GIRL (miss) E[lasticated] |
| 11 | INSOLVENCY | Elected to do what you should do with vacated city’s ruinous state (10) IN (elected) SOLVE (to do what you should, i.e. us crossword solvers), C[it]Y Where’s the N? |
| 12/23 | WEST WING | Admission of promiscuous couple grabbing president’s butt in Oval Office location (4,4) [presiden]T in “WE SWING” (admission of promiscuous couple) |
| 13 | ENSIGN | Ken’s ignoring housing standard (6) Hidden in kEN’S IGNoring |
| 15 | SONAR | Issue with a king’s batty aid (5) SON (issue) A R (a King). Bat’s use a method of sonar to fly and catch their insect prey without hitting things |
| 18 | CHEAP | A snip procedure finally accepted by Guy (5) [procedur]E inside CHAP (guy) |
| 20 | EASING | Going topless, tantalising and giving relief (6) [t]EASING (tantalising, topless) |
| 23 | MEDICATION | Drugs supplied by alternative comedian – half shit (10) (COMEDIAN [sh]IT)* AInd: alternative. |
| 25 | ENMITY | Anytime one goes berserk, there’s hostility (6) (ANYTIME – A)* AInd: berserk. |
| 26/4 | APPROVAL RATINGS | Month going without pee (vital organs affected): Starmer’s pretty low at present (8,7) APR[il] (month) around P (pee), (VITAL ORGANS)* AInd: affected. |
| 27 | HYPOCRITE | Sod all entered in unfinished cryptic he ballsed up – fraud! (9) O (sod all) in (CRYPTI[c] HE)* AInd: ballsed up. |
| 28 | SHOE | Trainer – ball-crushing female? (4) O (ball) inside SHE (female) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | MOURNING | Grievous action, first of many, getting Private Eye’s name in Grauniad leader (8) The act of grieving. M[any] OUR (Private Eye’s) N[ame] IN G[rauniad] |
| 2 | TABOO | Banned from also receiving a couple of exam grades (5) A and B (a couple of exam grades) inside TOO (also) |
| 5 | SAGGY | For example, filled with goods, like an old chest? (5) GG (G[oods], plural so more than one) inside SAY (for example) |
| 6 | FIREWORKS | Give a whole factory the sack? Crackers! (9) FIRE (sack) WORKS (whole factory) |
| 7 | RELISH | Taste, in horror, Eli’s hard-on (6) Hidden in horroR ELI’S Hard-on |
| 8 | PROVINCE | Ulster‘s for and against screwing – nice? (8) PRO (for) V (against) (NICE)* AInd: screwing. |
| 14 | INCOGNITO | Not really oneself, smearing gin and tonic on ball (9) (GIN TONIC)* AInd: smearing, O (ball) |
| 16 | NO ESCAPE | People against limitation on energy that you’d expect from a black hole (2,6) NOES (People against) CAP (limitation) E[nergy] |
| 17 | ANNOTATE | Marginalize Number Ten at a disturbance outside? (8) NO (number, i.e. no.) with (TEN ATA)* AInd: disturbance, around it (outside) |
| 19 | PODCAST | Conservative party, overthrown, appearing in a tense streamed programme (7) C[onservative] DO (party) all reversed (overthrown) in PAST (tense) |
| 21 | HIGNFY | Short, topical TV show, nigh impossible and extremely funny (6) (NIGH)* AInd: impossible, F[unn]Y |
| 23 | MAYOR | Ex-PM getting nothing right – official! (5) MAY (Ex-PM) O (nothing) R[ight] |
| 24 | TOOTH | Temperature inside excessively hard canine? (5) T[emperature] inside TOO H (excessively hard |
I thought I was going mad last night in the kitchen. I thought I heard two onions singing a Bee Gees number. I opened the fridge door and found it was just the chives talking.
Thanks for the blog , very enjoyable puzzle , HIGNFY has passed me by so I was relying on the wordplay and the grid and to luck , only realised what it was when I read acronym in your blog . Definitely fair enough for an Eye puzzle . I liked the batty aid for SONAR ( needs an underline ) and the sod all = 0 in HYPOCRITE ( needs to lose a C ) .
INSOLVENCY I could not find the N either , NanCY not quite right for vacated .
NO ESCAPE , don’t tell the tachyons .
We were a bit surprised to see FIRE repeated in 3a and 6d, clued similarly (meaning dismiss from employment). Left us wondering if we’d missed something behind the scenes – crossfire? Fire escape?
Thanks to both S and B.
Thanks Roz, I fixed a few things
Thanks beermagnet and Cyclops. 21d was my last one in. I wouldn’t consider it a word, and I don’t watch the programme, but it was gettable from the wordplay and after looking at it blankly for a while the lightbulb finally came on.
Hignify can take its place alongside Isirta and Isihac.
I got the N for 11 across from NYC ( New York City).
Sorry Matt. I cannot see how “vacated city” implies New York, and even if it did we are not looking for NYC but NCY
DNF. 21d HIGNFY. I like the programme and would have got ISIHAC but was unaware that H was routinely reduced to an acronym. Oh well, enjoyed the rest and have added HIGIFY to my Cheating Machine.
The editor of Private eye is a team captain on hignfy, so most PI readers will be aware of the much used HIGNFY acronymn.
I thought it was a nice crossword, mourning and insolvency the last in. I am keen to know if anyone managed to parse the N from 11a. Perhaps it was a rare error.
I don’t think anyone has yet fully justified the missing N from 11a.
Here is another attempt – but I don’t think this fully works either:
CLUE: Elected to do what you should do with vacated city’s ruinous state (10)
WORDPLAY: IN (elected) SOLVE (to do what you should, i.e. us crossword solvers), N (from ‘N’ for “and” as in Fish’n’chips, from with), C[it]Y
Sometimes Cyclops appears and puts us straight or holds his hands up.
Thanks beermagnet. ‘n from the with. It’s a stretch but I’ll buy it. I can sleep at night again now.
Crosswords are strange things, having had the last 4 eye crosswords started but half finished for the last 8 weeks or whatever, I finished the last third of two of them including this one yesterday in an hour.