Cyclops 710 – Grim Atrocity

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Cyclops seems to have his gloomy head on this fortnight…

…with a fairly downbeat tone to a lot of the answers – ATROCITY, FARRAGO, SCRAPHEAP, GRIM, MESS-UP, EXPIRING…with TOLERABLE about the most positive one there!

Gove is ‘ghastly; Boris is ‘associated with an appalling mire’; and Trump is ‘unprincipled’…nothing new there then.

Maybe he’s channelling his inner Kenneth Williams – INFER me, INFER me, they’ve all got it INFER me!

Is he suggesting we should AVOID THE ISSUE and all go and get P1SSED?

I think my favourite was 13A STRAIGHT, with the reference to Anthony Blunt’s specialism of Art History, and the irony that Blunt himself was far from ‘straight’. Closely followed by the description of a SCRUMMAGE as a ‘struggle with some groping’, and ABSEIL as to ‘let yourself down’!

My only question mark is the parsing of 9A FARRAGO – where Nigel Farage only has one R. There is a ‘right’ in the wordplay, but it seems to be suggesting the removal of the right-most letter (E), rather than the insertion of an R – right. Otherwise, how do we get rid of the E? Hopefully some better suggestions will be made in the comments below.

Many thanks to Cyclops, and hopefully all (apart from FARRAGO) is clear below…

 

Across
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
1A PISSED Drunk – shown by Sun twice in black and white? (6) drunk /
PI_ED (black and white, e.g. of a horse) around SS (sun – twice)
5A ATROCITY New rota imposed on financial centre is an outrage (8) outrage /
ATRO (anag, i.e. new, of ROTA) + CITY (financial centre)
9A FARRAGO Right-wing pundit, without right ball, is a right mess (7) a right mess /
FAR_AG(E) (right-wing pundit, Nigel, without right-most letter?) + O (ball) – seems to be missing the second R?
10A MESS-UP Cyclops has second drink, resulting in confusion (4-2) confusion /
ME (Cyclops) + S (second) + S_UP (drink)
11A GRIM Ghastly Gove’s just started getting on edge (4) ghastly /
G (starting letter of Gove) + RIM (edge)
12A INDULGENCE Clue ending: ‘nuts’ – pardon? (10) pardon (in a religious sense) /
anag, i.e. nuts, of CLUE ENDING
13A STRAIGHT Blunt: his specialism is doing a U-turn in a sense (8) blunt /
S_IGHT (sense) around TRA (art, Anthony Blunt’s specialism, doing a U-turn)
16A RASHER Some ham actor’s last meeting with actor Jane (6) some ham (bacon) /
R (last letter of actoR) + ASHER (actress, Jane)
18A FLUENT Complaint: medical department running smoothly! (6) running smoothly /
FLU (medical complaint) + ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat, hospital department)
20A EXPIRING On one’s deathbed – former Covid alert has taken one, right? (8) on one’s deathbed /
EX (former) + P_ING (Covid alert), around (taking) I (one) + R (right)
22A FRATERNISE Consort’s potty, after rinse (10) consort /
anag, i.e. potty, of AFTER RINSE
25A PACE US political campaign organisation wants end to the controversial England and Wales legislation (4) controversial England and Wales legislation /
PAC (Political Action Committee, US political campaign organisation) + E (end letter of thE) – PACE = the Police And Criminal Evidence Act
27A ABSEIL Let yourself down with a book about fake news items? (6) let yourself down! /
A + B (book) + SEIL (lies, fake news items, about)
28A STIPEND Grant’s stupid opening hint before climax (7) grant /
S (opening letter of Stupid) + TIP (hint) + END (climax)
29A REPARTEE Peer (rat!) crudely grabbing end of amenable Oscar Wilde’s thing (8) Oscar Wilde’s thing /
REPART_E (anag, crudely, of PEER RAT) around (grabbing) E (end letter of amenablE)
30A REPUTE Standing politician’s against unprincipled Trump’s election introductions (6) standing /
REP (representative, politician) + UTE (introductory letters of ‘Unprincipled Trump Election’)
Down
Clue No Solution Clue Definition (with occasional embellishments) /
Logic/parsing
2D INFER Be presumptuous and outspoken, wearing mink? (5) be presumptuous /
homophone, i.e. outspoken – INFER (imply, presume) can sound like IN FUR (wearing mink!)
3D SCRUMMAGE Scream “Gum!” being involved in an untidy struggle with some groping (9) an untidy struggle with some groping /
anag, i.e. being involved, of SCREAM GUM!
4D DRAWING Pulling doctor above a hospital extension (7) pulling /
DR (doctor) + A + WING (holpital extension)
5D AVOID & 15 & 24 Steer clear of particular offspring, as an interrogated politician tends to do (5,3,5) as an interrogated politician tends to do /
AVOID (steer clear of) THE (a particular thing) ISSUE (offspring)
6D RAMBLER Rose and Mabel screwed in posh car? (7) rose /
R_R (Rolls Royce, posh car) around AMBLE (anag, i.e. screwed, of MABEL)
7D CASTE Chuck getting head from escort – class! (5) class /
CAST (throw, chuck) + E (first letter, or head, of Escort)
8D TRUNCHEON Chunter on about staff (9) staff /
anag, i.e. about, of CHUNTER ON
14D TOLERABLE Adequate look over Brenda in list (9) adequate /
T_ABLE (list) around OL (lo, look, over) + ER (Elizabeth Regina, ‘Brenda’ to the Eye)
15D THE See 5dn. (3) see 5D /
see 5D
17D SCRAP HEAP Terrible shape, full of shit – and so ends up on this? (5,4) &lit? /
S_HEAP (anag, i.e. terrible, of SHAPE) around (full of) CRAP (shit)
19D TARTLET Pastry needs salt permit (about time) (7) pastry /
TAR (sailor, old salt) + LET (permit), around T (time)
21D PREMIER Boris, before being associated with appalling mire (7) Boris (Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson) /
PRE (before) + MIER (anag, i.e. appaling, of MIRE)
23D THETA Inserting drug into that depraved character (5) (Greek) character /
TH_TA (anag, i.e. depraved, of THAT) around E (drug, Ecstasy tablet)
24D ISSUE See 5dn. (5) see 5D /
see 5D
26D CADET Whip holds Davey back – “he’s not yet ready for command” (5) he’s not yet ready for command (in a military sense) /
CA_T (whip) around (holding) DE (e.g. Ed Davey, UK Lib Dem leader, back)

23 comments on “Cyclops 710 – Grim Atrocity”

  2. Thanks for the blog, I cannot make FARRAGO work either.
    It is FAR(R)AGE O or FARAGO depending on which without right you take.
    I thought the rest was pretty good and I really enjoyed it.
    Minor quibble for PACE , not really controversial compared to what went before, especially for interviewing suspects.

  4. passerby and Jan – I appreciate that it could be FAR_AGE (right-wing pundit) ‘without’ (around) R (right) – but as Roz points out that gives FARRAGE – how do we get rid of the E before adding on the O (ball)? It only works if ‘without right’ does double duty?…

  5. Typically amusing puzzle despite the gloomy vocabulary. I came here to check FARRAGO, and I still can’t make it work. If we take ‘without’ to suggest ‘insert’, we have no removal indicator for the final E. As for PACE, I found that Wikipedia, at least, describes it as ‘controversial’. Thanks to for the blog, and to Cyclops for the laughs.

  6. Thanks, Norbrewer – I think we are going to have to write FARRAGO off as a setting/editorial blip…if only we could have done the same with Farage himself…

  7. FARRAGO clue was my mistake, I’m afraid. The extra ‘R’ is included (via ‘without’) but I forgot to get rid of the ‘E’. The vocabulary doesn’t strike me as gloomy, particularly – well, apart from the allusions to Farage, Trump, Boris etc!

  8. Cyclops – thanks very much for the ‘mea culpa’ on FARRAGO – correspondence closed there!
    And apologies for projecting my own gloomy outlook onto your puzzle (we bloggers have to find something to say as an intro, whilst trying not to give anything away…!)

  9. Cyclops really does have a problem with Nigel-themed FARRAGOs. This time there was the superfluous E. Last time (29ac in crossword 638) there was a missing R.

  10. Thank you Cyclops , we all make mistakes and this was very minor in a great puzzle. I actually like all the “gloomy” vocabulary”, dark humour is very apt for these people.

  11. I recall PACE was very controversial – I remember going on a march protesting it. In my younger days!
    Thanks for the explanation of FARRAGO.

  12. Thanks mc_rapper67 and Cyclops for popping in to apologise, I enjoyed this one a lot. Probably TMI but I spent a lot of time in various scrummages over the years and the only time I can recall being groped was at a ruck following a collapsed maul! (But thinking about it, reaching through the prop’s legs to grasp his waistband or pocket would probably count too, so fair play to Cyclops.) Relieved to see PACE which I thought was obscure (both definition and wordplay element) and always interesting to hear others’ recollections of their feelings at the time.

  13. Gazzh at #12 – PACE was my LOI – it probably had to be that from the definition and crossers, but it took me a while to find/remember PAC as Political Action Committee – it isn’t in Chambers, but it is in Collins, which I should have checked sooner. I vaguely remember seeing it used somewhere recently, but not recent enough to have stuck in my mid-term memory!
    Thanks for the first-hand experience of scrummaging! As a boy of slight build I spent my short school rugby career out on the wing as far away as possible from the rough stuff…I found it helped just to miss the ball and let it go into touch whenever possible!…

  14. Very wise mc @13. I am too young to remember PACE coming in so it may have been controversial but I wonder why ?
    PACE brought in that suspects can only be interviewed under caution, they can have a legal adviser present including a FREE duty solicitor if they wish, and all interviews must be recorded on TAPE. Sounds pretty sensible to me.
    Or we could go back to the 1970s with none of these rights, massive miscarriages of justice due to signed confessions obtained in very dubious circumstances.

  15. Great homophone in 2dn, but isn’t INFER the very opposite of presume? Inference is the exercise of reason in reaching a conclusion, whilst to presume is to simply take for granted.

    PACE controversial? Maybe in 1984, when it came out. Plenty more controversial police legislation since then, but after a while it all just become the new normal.

    17dn “&lit?” Semi &lit, I believe.

  16. Oops! Should have reloaded before commenting as I missed today’s comments.

    @Roz, are you sure PACE brought in the necessity to caution before interview? I think warning of the right to silence had been in place a long time before that. Of course it was the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 which removed, or at least qualified that right, so now police have to utter something they have trouble remembering and the addressee has trouble understanding. You’re right to say recorded interviews were an improvement. I don’t think it was so much dodgy signed confessions that that cured as the practice of ‘verballing’, i.e. police reporting words of confession which had never actually been spoken. Since a confession is conclusive evidence of the matter confessed to and police testimony is almost always accepted as true (by magistrates, though less often by juries), it was a very easy way to get a conviction regardless of the accused’s guilt or innocence.

    Wikipedia says of PACE:

    “Despite its safeguards, PACE was extremely controversial on its introduction,[citation needed]” … “as the Act was thought to give considerable extra powers to the police”. Note there is no source for the assertion that it was controversial.

  17. Tony you are correct that the caution has been around a very, very long time. The trouble was that before PACE there was no way of knowing if a suspect had been told their rights and of course they frequently weren’t.
    Dodgy signed confessions was certainly the trademark of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad in the 1970s.

  18. Tony Collman at #15 – yes, INFER raised an eyebrow with me. Chambers states that it can be used to mean ‘imply’ – with the caveat that this is ‘often condemned as a misuse‘, but has been ‘generally for accepted over four centuries‘ I guess the next debate is over imply/presume?!…

  19. “I guess the next debate is over imply/presume?”

    Even worse imo.

    There is a very funny clip from Would I Lie To You where, at the climax of a rant from chairman Rob Bryson, arch pedant David Mitchell corrects his use of “inferring” to “implying” (or was it vice versa?). Unfortunately, I’ve already spent far too long searching YouTube for it without success, so you’ll have to find it yourself.

  20. Confessions aren’t actually necessarily conclusive. A significant segment of the first trial of the Birmingham Six in 1975, for example, was devoted to considering whether or not their confessions were inadmissible. PACE [1984] embodied that possibility, and the caution, in statute. Previously they were part of common law and appeared in the Judges’ Rules, guidance on what a court would likely find unacceptable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judges%27_Rules

  21. Lemming, good point. I should have said a “freely given” confession is conclusive. You are right to say that PACE (s. 76) addresses this question:

    “…
    (2) If, in any proceedings where the prosecution proposes to give in evidence a confession made by an accused person, it is represented to the court that the confession was or may have been obtained—

    (a) by oppression of the person who made it; or

    (b) in consequence of anything said or done which was likely, in the circumstances existing at the time, to render unreliable any confession which might be made by him in consequence thereof,

    the court shall not allow the confession to be given in evidence against him except in so far as the prosecution proves to the court beyond reasonable doubt that the confession (notwithstanding that it may be true) was not obtained as aforesaid.

    (3) In any proceedings where the prosecution proposes to give in evidence a confession made by an accused person, the court may of its own motion require the prosecution, as a condition of allowing it to do so, to prove that the confession was not obtained as mentioned in subsection (2) above.”

  22. Thanks for the further information, m’learned friends lemming and Tony Collman at #20 and #21, but I think we are going a little off topic! Time to close off the correspondence…Cyclops 711 has been and gone…and Cyclops 712 will be hitting the doormats on Wednesday…

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