Cyclops seems to have some fundamental things on his mind, this fortnight…
…with BOTTOM OUT, SPHINCTER and ENDOSCOPE all writ large in the grid. Sounds like an unpleasant visit to the proctologist?…
And some smutty surface reads to boot – at 16A TUSCAN and 1D RIGIDITY, as well as 7D CELEBRATE.
A bit of current politics, with a first appearance, I believe, for RACHEL REEVES, our new purse-string holder at 1A/8D; Starmer’s honeymoon period meeting PHLEGMatic indifference from the electorate, at 19A; and a Kamala-Trump lap-dance at 4D – what an APPALling mental image!
Otherwise, a lot of Cyclops-ean fun and games – Macron, Cameron, Hunt and King Charles all make appearances, the latter in full, rather than as ‘Brian’, because he is used as anagram fodder.
My thanks, as ever, to Cyclops, and I trust all is clear in the parsings below.
NB. 27A reminds me of one of my favourite ‘Dad jokes’:
- Q – What is a Chicken Tarka?
- A – It is like a Chicken Tikka, but a little ‘otter (!)
(I’ll get my coat and leave the jokes to beermagnet in future…)
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1A | RACHEL (REEVES) | & 8dn. King Charles casually poaches English premier gardener – she’ll no doubt blame the Tories (6,6)
R (rex, king) + ACHEL R_S (anag, i.e. casually, of CHARLES) around (poaching) E (English) + EVE (biblically, one of the first in the garden of Eden) [the new Labour government’s initial strategy seems – pretty justifiably! – to be to blame everything on the previous administration…but how long can that be a strategy?…] |
||
| 4A | ROMANCER | Lover-boy Macron, disconcerted, about to change direction (8)
ROMANC (anag, i.e. disconcerted, of MACRON) + ER (re, or about, changing direction) |
||
| 10A | GRANDIOSE | Pompous relative Ed is fussed about nothing (9)
GRAN (grandma, relative) + DI_SE (anag, i.e. fussed, of ED IS) around O (zero, nothing) |
||
| 11A | PULSE | Incredibly supple pensioner’s initially missing a beat (5)
subtractive anagram, i.e. incredibly, of SUP( |
||
| 12A | DRESS | Uniform: force needs to get rid of unflattering cap (5)
D( |
||
| 13A | AVAILABLE | One ball I’ve injured, with one wrapped on hand (9)
A (one) + VAIL_BLE (anag, i.e. injured, of BALL IVE) around (wrapping) A (another ‘one’) |
||
| 14A | TUSSOCK | Heap of grass gives tense American a hit (7)
T (tense) + US (American) + SOCK (a hit) |
||
| 16A | TUSCAN | Italian‘s nutsack strained after getting end away (6)
subtractive anagram, i.e. strained, of NUTSAC( |
||
| 19A | PHLEGM | Starmer welcomes start of honeymoon stage with cool indifference (6)
P_M (Prime Minister, currently Keir Starmer) around (welcoming) H (start of Honeymoon) + LEG (stage) |
||
| 21A | CHATEAU | House‘s continental cat piss (7)
a French person (continental) might say CHAT + EAU for cat + water (piss) |
||
| 23A | FANDANCER | Fellow with one ball, right erotic performer (9)
F (fellow) + AN (one) + DANCE (ball) + R (right) [my eChambers has FAN DANCER as two words] |
||
| 25A | EIGHT | With leader changed, scrap crew (5)
( |
||
| 27A | OTTER | Being comparatively sexy, not hard to be a fish-eater (5)
( |
||
| 28A | BOTTOM OUT | No longer decline an order to twerk? (6,3)
punning double defn – to BOTTOM OUT can be to reach the end of a decline, e.g. of stock prices; and if you were instructing someone to ‘twerk’ you might suggest they stick their BOTTOM OUT! |
||
| 29A | THREATEN | Bully is next to introduce rate change (8)
TH_EN (next) around (introducing) REAT (anag, i.e. change, of RATE) |
||
| 30A | IMPEDE | Bar – one’s quiet paradise? Not quite (6)
IM (contraction of ‘I am…’, or ‘one is…’) + P (piano, quiet, music) + EDE( |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1D | RIGIDITY | Doctor, I had sex, needing only half of my erectile state (8)
RIG (doctor) + ID (I’d, I had) + IT (euphemism for s-e-x) + Y (half of ( |
||
| 2D | CHASE | See 18dn. (5)
see 18D |
||
| 3D | ENDOSCOPE | Need scoop desperately? Here’s a means of invading privacy (9)
anag, i.e. desperately, of NEED SCOOP |
||
| 5D | OVERACT | Ham‘s finished at function (7)
OVER (finished) + ACT (function) |
||
| 6D | APPAL | “Kamala-Trump ends with lap dancing!” shock (5)
AP (end letters of kamalA trumP) + PAL (anag, i.e. dancing – or reversal? – of LAP) |
||
| 7D | CELEBRATE | Mark‘s erect, able to screw (9)
anag, i.e. to screw, of ERECT ABLE |
||
| 8D | REEVES | See 1ac. (6)
see 1A |
||
| 9D | MOHAWK | US haircut given by doctor, an aggressive sort (6)
MO (Medical Officer, doctor) + HAWK (aggressive type, opposite of dove) |
||
| 15D | SPHINCTER | Number two’s prompted by its relaxation (9)
lavatorial CD – a number two (poo) can only really occur with the relaxation of the SPHINCTER! |
||
| 17D | STATEROOM | Maybe Georgia fell about somewhere in the palace? (9)
STATE (maybe Georgia, US State, or the country state?) + ROOM (moor, or fell, around) |
||
| 18D | CUT TO THE (CHASE) | & 2dn. Poll turnover article by Hunt – get on with it! (3,2,3,5)
CUT (poll) + TO (turn over) + THE (definite article) + CHASE (hunt) |
||
| 20D | MACABRE | Miserable Cameron on being replaced by a bastard: “Grim” (7)
anag, i.e. miserable, of CAMER( |
||
| 21D | CURATE | Minister‘s arse tucked in (6)
CUR (arse, scoundrel) + ATE (tucked in) |
||
| 22D | EFFORT | Labour‘s elite ultimately wanting to get in a newspaper (6)
E (ultimate letter of elitE) + F_T (Financial Times, a newspaper) around (got into by) FOR (wanting, not against) |
||
| 24D | AORTA | Bloody transporter having a ball before highway mishap! (5)
A + O (round letter, ball) + RTA (road traffic accident, highway mishap) |
||
| 26D | GNOME | Good omen, sacked proprietor (5)
G (good) + NOME (anag, i.e. sacked, of OMEN) [‘Lord Gnome’ being the fictional proprietor of the Eye…] |
||
Thanks mc_rapper67 and Cyclops. I’m going to nominate your opening sentence ‘seems to have fundamental things..etc’ as the funniest for many a year.
15d was a particularly ‘cheeky’ one from Cyclops that made me laugh at solve time.
I had left a note on my copy re 9 d MO= DOCTOR?. Thanks for clearing that up.
All the best and thanks for a good laugh to you both.
Thanks Cyclops and mc!
Liked RACHEL REEVES (especially for the ‘premier gardener’), BOTTOM OUT (for the ‘no longer decline’) and CUT TO THE CHASE.
EFFORT (I thought…)
‘wanting to get’=FOR (the blogger’s explanation seems to work fine).
Thanks for a great blog, very good set of clues , APPAL was very neat.
FANDANCER is two words in Chambers93 , I can’t see it ever becoming a single word.
CUT TO THE CHASE has TO=turnover , which I suppose can become turn over in wordplay , I have never seen this but it was there in C93 , I only know it as PTO but I am very polite.
AVAILABLE I took as One=A before the anagram since I frown on any indirectness , both ways work.
Thanks for a clear blog mc, and of course thanks also to Cyclops.
Took me all week but managed to complete the grid without resorting to any external aids. I was unable to justify “cut to” in 18d – TIL that “poll” can mean “shave”. “TO” seems tenuous but Roz@3’s mention of PTO does ring a faint bell.
My fave was probably RACHEL REEVES incl ‘premier gardener”.
Roz@3 and Saaaam@4 I assumed TO was just an abbreviation for TURNOVER I.e.sales. In business that was a common abbreviation used or maybe more often T/O.
Re 19A: Cyclops had PHLEGM as an answer in crossword 192, way back in 2001. Six Prime Ministers ago, Cyclops’ clue was “4D: Hot member stifled by Blair’s gob (6)”.
A bit of a more “robust” Cyclops clue maybe, but definitely more suited to Blair than Starmer.
Good point Franko@5 , I did not think of that sort of turnover .
Chambers only has TO = turn over ( 2 words) .
Thanks for the various comments so far – much appreciated, as usual…
KVa at #2 – I took ‘to get in’ as link words/directions rather than part of the definition of FOR, although I didn’t explicitly say that in the parsing – will update…
Roz at #3 – I take your point on the indirectness of the first A in AVAILABLE – will also update, to alleviate your frown lines.
Michael John at #6 – meticulous research! (‘Six prime ministers ago’…but four of them have been in the last couple of years…)
I daren’t suggest that TURNOVER should be ‘lifted and separated’ to TURN OVER? (;+>)
Does anyone really want to deprive a whole generation of the nation’s seven-year-olds of their answer to the eternal question “Why did the jam roll?”
‘Because it saw the apple turnover‘?…