Cyclops 782 – Tory cul-de-sac

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Cyclops has presumably had to do some pretty nifty footwork during a six-week election campaign…and is probably feverishly working away at some new names, with a new political complexion to the government…and binning a load of his bank of clues relating to the outgoing administration…

…hopefully he didn’t have too many clever Sunak/Rees-Mogg/Gove/Shapps/Coffey/Mordaunt clues up his sleeve, as they are now last week’s fish-n-chip paper.

Serendipitously or otherwise, we seem to have ended up with a TORY CUL-DE-SAC (or, more accurately, Schitt’s Creek without any paddles), as the PHLEGMATIC DAYDREAMER managed to OUTWIT his opponents and the HARD LEFT of his own party to gain SUPREMACY, as he and his ACOLYTEs and AFICIONADOs EMBED themselves in No 10.

Sadly, the two main parties did rather neglect the CLIMATE CRISIS during the campaign, but hopefully the quadrupled four Green MPs will be able to hold things to account four times as much. MEANWHILE the FLIPPANT SCHMUCK Farage goes BALLISTIC and produces some WIND from his BUTT, having won a Westminster election at the eighth time of asking, as we wait to see whether Reform is just a BLIP…or will they be APPEASEd and walk down the AISLE with the TORY rump, or BUTT, at some point?

 

 

I think that just about sums it up?! The usual Cyclops-ean fun and games, with a smattering of smuttery, and a nod to the travails of politics across La Manche in the surface read of 23D…

My thanks to our one-eyed monster of a setter, and hopefully all is clear below…

 

Across
Clue No Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/parsing
1A APPEASE A piss is said to satisfy a demand (7)

homophone, i.e. said – A PEE (piss) ‘S (contraction of ‘is’) can sound like APPEASE (satisfy a demand)
5A SCHMUCK School gets dirt on objectionable type (7)

SCH (school) + MUCK (dirt)
10A WOMB Labour’s focus: women – unruly mob (4)

W (women) + OMB (anag, i.e. unruly, of MOB)
11A PHLEGMATIC Slimy Matter, Act I – sadly unemotional (10)

PHLEGM (slimy matter) + ATIC (anag, i.e. sadly, of ACT I
12A DAYDREAMER D-dear Mary screwed outside refuse tip – romantic! (10)

DAYDR_AMER (anag, i.e. screwed, of D-DEAR MARY) around E (tip, or end, of refusE)
13A WIND Cause of fart‘s success on date (4)

WIN (success) + D (date)
14A FLIPPANT Somersault and drop off backwards, tits beginning to get pert (8)

FLIP (somersault) + PAN (nap, or drop off, backwards) + T (beginning of Tits)
16A BLIP On-screen activity? Bastard cheek! (4)

B (bastard) + LIP (cheek, nerve)

[Cyclops has used b for bastard recently – doesn’t seem to be in my eChambers or eCollins…

The blip might be on a heart-rate monitor screen by a hospital bed?]
18A TORY (PEER) & 25 Maybe David Cameron‘s attempt to hide nothing look (4,4)

T_RY (attempt) around (hiding) O (zero, nothing) + PEER (look)
19A CUL-DE-SAC ‘Road to nowhere‘ suitably clued as ‘Conservative leader’ (3-2-3)

CUL-DE-SA (anag, i.e. suitably, of CLUED AS) + C (leading letter of Conservative)
21A BUTT See 6 Down (4)

see 6D
22A AFICIONADO Fan of CIA in terrible trouble (10)

AFICION (anag, i.e. terrible, of OF CIA IN) + ADO (trouble)
24A SWEATSHIRT Top Labour and intensely remorseful Tory leaders keeping quiet (10)

SWEAT (toil, labour) + SH (quiet!, interjection) + IRT (leading letters of ‘Intensely Remorseful Tory’
25A PEER See 18 (4)

see 18A
26A ST LEGER Race to hide member in rest break (2,5)

ST_ER (anag, i.e. break, of REST) around (hiding) LEG (bodily member)
27A ACOLYTE Bill has nothing left, yet somehow a devoted follower (7)

AC (account, bill) + O (zero, nothing) + L (left) + YTE (anag, i.e. somehow, of YET)
Down
Clue No Solution Clue (definition underlined)

Logic/parsing
2D PROBABLE Expert wittering on? Not b–— likely! (8)

PRO (professional, expert) + BAB(B)LE (babble, wittering on, losing one B, i.e. not B!)
3D EMBED An honour to cut journalist’s plant (5)

E_D (editor, journalist) around (cut by) MBE (honour)
4D SUPREMACY KKK members want this drink with creamy fudge (9)

SUP (drink) + REMACY (anag, i.e. fudge, of CREAMY)
6D CIGAR (BUTT) & 21 Still a glow from this pathetic erection, however restrained? (5,4)

CIGAR_T (tragic, pathetic, upwards, or erected) around (restraining) BUT (however)
7D MEANWHILE For now beastly husband’s caught in trickery (9)

MEAN (beastly) + W_ILE (trickery) around (catching) H (husband)
8D CLIENT Who’d be advised by lawyer to take a different line in court? (6)

C_T (court) around LIEN (anag, i.e. different, of LINE)
9D CLIMATE CRISIS Lice virtually spread by China – disaster that’s barely covered by most campaigning politicians (7,6)

CLI (anag, i.e. spread, of virtually all of LIC(E)) + MATE (china, cockney rhyming slang, china plate = mate) + CRISIS (disaster)
15D PROSTRATE Lying for Republicans in Alabama, say (9)

PRO (for) + ST_ATE (Alabama, say) around R (Republicans)
16D BALLISTIC Is beset by ‘testicle twitch’ – furious, having gone so (9)

BALL (testicle) + IS + TIC (twitch)
17D HARD LEFT Labour leader fared badly in hot temperature – which he strongly discourages (4,4)

H (hot) + ARD_LEF (anag, i.e. badly, of FARED + L – leading letter of Labour) + T (temperature)
20D OUTWIT Be smarter than to publicly declare Oscar Wilde gay? (6)

If one was to OUT (publicly declare gay) the WIT Oscar Wilde, then apart from being 120-odd years late, one might OUT WIT!
22D AISLE Is getting drowned in drink one way to form a union? (5)

A_LE (drink) around (drowning) IS

[many people walk down an aisle on their way to getting married, or forming a union]
23D NEPAL Le Pen wants agreement initially for European head to overturn country (5)

L(E) PEN with A (initial letter of Agreement) swapped in for one E (head, or first letter of European) and all overturned = NEPAL

10 comments on “Cyclops 782 – Tory cul-de-sac”

  1. Great intro to the blog mc. Quite a neat blog overall. Thanks mc.
    Fun puzzle. Thanks Cyclops.

    BLIP
    Couldn’t find b for bastard in any online dictionary I looked up.

    Liked WOMB, CIGAR BUTT and AISLE.

    CLIMATE CRISIS
    Is the ‘that’s’ intended to be part of the def?
    ‘Barely covered’ echoes the eco crux of the clue. Adds value to the clue.

    HARD LEFT
    Don’t some Labour leaders encourage HARD LEFT? Or is the clue referring to Starmer here?

  2. Thanks for the blog and a quite brilliant introduction, very good set of clues and very political for the state of flux when it was written. I imagine that the puzzle is much easier to write when everything stays the same for a long time giving typical targets.
    B=bastard not in Chambers93 , I suspect it is from family trees for the aristocracy.
    KVa@1 I would say the use of “he” in HARD LEFT means a single leader and there can only be one. For CLIMATE CRISIS I agree with the blog , “that’s” as a link .

  3. HARD LEFT
    Noted. Thanks.

    CLIMATE CRISIS is a nounal phrase.
    Without the ‘that’s’ the underlined phrase is adjectival. Hence my question.
    I have seen different bloggers approaching such defs differently. My preference
    is to include the ‘that’s’.

  4. Very rare for me to disagree with both MC and Roz but I agree with KVa that ‘that’s’ is the first word of the definition in CLIMATE CRISIS. Otherwise we have an adjectival definition for a nounal solution. CRISIS is clued rather weakly imho (and there is an S missing from the end of it in the blog, MC?)

    And bastard = B is in my Chambers app.

    Thanks both

  5. Thank you mc_rapper. I was tangled up in the NE corner, sure that 5a was S _ _ M _ C H and desperately trying to see what ‘stomach’ had to do with anything. Had trouble with 22a as well as I was trying to anagramise ‘fan of CIA in’. Thanks also to Cyclops; a lot less open goals for a while now maybe (if we’re lucky).

  6. Thank you mc_rapper. I was tangled up in the NE corner, sure that 5a was S _ _ M _ C H and desperately trying to see what ‘stomach’ had to do with anything. Had trouble with 22a as well as I was trying to anagramise ‘fan of CIA in’.

    I saw “that’s” as a link like Roz@2. I’m OK with an adjectival def describing a nounal answer.

    Thanks also to Cyclops; a lot less open goals for a while now maybe (if we’re lucky).

  7. (Apologies for double post – I was trying to edit the first but failed to get it done in time)

  8. I had a perfectly good answer for 5a – scumbag .
    Fits the clue and crosses and I think better answer than schmuck, especially for Cyclops

  9. Thanks for the various comments, much appreciated as usual – and apologies for the slow response, but this fortnightly blog does have a slower cadence than some others…

    Have added the S of CRISIS to the parsing of 9D, and happy to cede to Postmark and KVa re. ‘that’s’ as part of the definition. Although ‘disaster’ could possibly be doing double duty?!…(;+>)

    Also, I have found b = bastard in my Android Chambers app, and in one of my desktop versions, but not the one I mainly use…

  10. S7eve.ward @ 8 – As folk maybe know, I’m collecting examples of one clue with two valid cryptic answers, but I can’t parse SCUMBAG. I can see SC or S might be School, SCUM might be Dirt, the whole is Objectionable Type, but where is BAG? Please could you explain?

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