Private Eye (Cyclops/794) Xmas Monster

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This was a Pseuds Corner special.  An event that recurs every leap year.
I’m sure there is a very good reason.
Pseuds Corner is one of the several longstanding mini sections in the Eye (link) and it deserves it longevity.

Besides the massive grid with ridiculous numbers of clues there is an unclued square of entries to be worked out.  As described in the Preamble:

Running clockwise round the shaded squares from the top LH corner is a quote appearing in Pseuds Corner in 2024.
One word ('that') has been omitted.
The 46 letters of the quote not crossing with normal answers are:
       AAAABDEEEEEEEGHHIIIIIKLLLMNNNOOOPRRRSSSTTTTTUY

I wonder how solvable this would be without all those given letters?

I thought I would have plenty of time to solve this so contented myself with trying to cold solve all the answers, Acrosses then Downs, before jigsawing them into the grid to see what I had left.
I did not hurry.
Happily, I got most of the clued answered this way, and found they fitted together correctly.  There were a few that I didn’t fully  understand the wordplay for but I think those are now all understood when building this blog.
One clue made me stick a “!” against it so my favourite clue is 48 for the apt anagram FOOLISHNESS / FLESH IS SOON corrupted.

For the unclued Pseuds Corner quote around the shaded quadrangle after spotting “North London” and “Arsenal Fan” I thought it was going to be some pop at Keir Starmer, but the enumeration for “T S Eliot” was a bit of a giveaway once a few crossing letters were in place.   The last bits of this to fall were “Poetry” and “Was” and it was that “W” that helped tie up the last unsolved clue.

IT SEEMS UNLIKELY NORTH LONDON DENIZEN T S ELIOT WAS AN ARSENAL FAN BUT HIS POETRY SUGGESTS OTHERWISE

I can’t help feeling I vaguely remember this appearing.  Pseuds Corner is a section I generally glance through.  It often has some gems.
I have looked through several issues from 2024 but I cannot pin down the precise source.  Has anyone here had more persistence?

 

 

Across
1 BRAINSTORMING ‘Underwear Morning’ – it’s about team problem-solving (13)
BRA (Underwear) (MORNING IT’S)* AInd: about.
8 GUARDIAN ANGEL Spiritual protector: a broadsheet darling (8,5)
GUARDIAN (broadsheet) ANGEL (darling) Only broadsheet in the spiritual sense (which I suppose is suitable for the clue) it all Tabloid now, after a few years as Berliner.
16 EDIT Diet useless? Correct (4)
(DIET)* AInd: useless.
17 CHAOS Ring thrust into Dave’s mate makes a mess (5)
O inside CHAS (Dave’s mate, of Chas (link) & Dave, sadly with us no more)
18 ONWARDS Nurses often are ahead (7)
(Nurses often are …) ON WARDS
19 COPULATE Couple doing place out (8)
(PLACE OUT)* AInd: doing.
20 OSCAR Ball sac’s abnormal radius coveted by actor? (5)
O (Ball) (SAC)* AInd: abnormal, R[adius]
21 EXCHANGE BLOWS Trade cannabis on Sabbath leading to fight (8,5)
EXCHANGE (Trade) BLOW (cannabis, one of its many synonyms) S[unday] (Sabbath)
23 ASTRIDE Having got your leg over Scandinavian female, say, with energy (7)
ASTRID (Scandinavian female, say) E[nergy]
27 SWEET PEA Climber needs to piss into runny paste (5,3)
WEE (to piss) inside (PASTE)* AInd: runny.
29 ONCOSTS Working Scot’s terrible overheads (7)
ON (Working) (SCOTS)* AInd: terrible.
31 EARBASHING “Organ sock” in green initially results in reprimand (10)
EAR (Organ) BASH (sock) IN G[reen]
33 KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED Be watchful of advice to our readers to carry on removing mag covers (4,4,4,6)
Lengthy subsiduary def. – reminiscent of Shaun Taylor on Police 5
37 SHOWBIZ Who’s casually swinging both ways with variable entertainment? (7)
(WHO’S)* AInd: casually, BI (swinging both ways) Z (variable)
38 STOLEN GOODS Fur garment on kinky godson – hot stuff (6,5)
STOLE (Fur garment) (GODSON)* AInd: kinky.
40 FOOTSTEP PACE measure’s tame – needs reversing (8)
FOOTS (measure’s) PET< (tame, reversing)
42 TALENT Attractive people‘s thanks on getting fast time (6)
TA (thanks) LENT (fast time)
45 ASSAIL Set upon ditching wife, make merry (6)
[w]ASSAIL
47 TALK SHOW Confesses who screwed Oprah? (4,4)
TALKS (Confesses) (WHO)* AInd: screwed. The show rather than the presenter
48 FOOLISHNESS Flesh is soon corrupted – folly! (11)
(FLESH IS SOON)* AInd: corrupted !
51 SUSTAIN Support Eye in slur (7)
US (Eye, the mag) in STAIN (slur)
54 EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF Remove fly-fisherman’s balls – look out for number one (5,3,3,7)
(REMOVE FLY FISHERMAN)* AInd: balls.
56 EGG ON TOAST Encourage Brown to produce a simple dish (3,2,5)
EGG ON (Encourage) TOAST (Brown)
58 TAILORS They make cuts, sadly, to rail service initially (7)
(TO RAIL)* AInd: sadly, S[ervice]
60 MAILSHOT Sounds like bloke’s spicy spam material (8)
“Male’s hot” (bloke’s spicy) Homophone HInd Sounds like
62 CUPCAKE Mobile pack shoved into Rod for a treat (7)
(PACK)* AInd: mobile, inside CUE (rod)
64 TURNED AGAINST Became hostile to Times leader on Grauniad’s net circulation (6,7)
(T[imes] GRAUNIAD’S NET)* AInd: circulation.
67 CROWN King Brian’s tender no more? (5)
Double Def.   Last one in.  Only after decoding the surrounding quote giving the W.  I had thought this might be GROAT thinking ‘AND’ most likely for the three-letter word in the unclued.
72 ESCAPADE Stunt has one getting dick’s head caught in fly (8)
A (one) D[ick] all inside ESCAPE (fly)
74 OVERACT Public hoarding Bill’s ham (7)
AC (bill) inside OVERT (public)
75 IAMBI Lines of verse: Declaration of Sexual Orientation (5)
I AM BI (Declaration of Sexual Orientation)
76 LOOK Lumberjack extremely protective of balls’ appearance (4)
OO (Balls) inside L[umberjac]K
78 TASTELESSNESS Cut down oral activity (head) – a vulgar trait (13)
TASTE LESS (Cut down oral activity) NESS (head)
79 PAY NO REGARD TO Ignore a derogatory, heartless politician’s broadcast (3,2,6,2)
(A DEROGATORY P[olitician]N)* AInd: broadcast.
Down
2/73 RED SEA Lead up to Suez: cardinal going on the drink (3,3)
RED (cardinal) SEA (the drink)
3 INTESTATE Right off a major US route, lacking the will (9)
INTE[r]STATE
4 SECRET Short time on start of Times cryptic (6)
SEC[ond] (time, short) RE (on, as in regarding) T[imes]
5 ORAL SEX Head‘s alternative: a student union (4,3)
OR (alternative) A L (student) SEX (union)
6 MISANTHROPY Dislike of others‘ false pain or myths (11)
(PAIN OR MYTHS)* AInd: false.
7 NAOMI Model makes one lament getting up (5)
I MOAN (one lament) reversed (getting up), Ref N. Campbell
9 UNROYAL Common yarn involved with Lou (7)
(YARN + LOU)* AInd: Involved (with).
10 ROSS-ON-WYE Market town, so owners should shift round shitty end! (4-2-3)
(SO OWNERS)* AInd: Shift, around [shitt]Y
11 INCITE Audible, visible spur (6)
Homophone “In sight” (visible)  HInd: audible
12 NIPPLES Milk dispensers: place inside floppy penis (7)
PL[ace] inside (PENIS)* AInd: floppy.
13 NYLON Any Londoner’s housing material (5)
Hidden in aNY LONdoner, hidden indicator: housing
14/77 EAT OUT Each profiteer’s part of Chancellor Rishi’s ill-considered scheme? (3,3) 
EA[ch] TOUT (profiteer)
15 TWEEZERS Tool we’re bending with zest (8) 
(WE’RE + ZEST)* AInd: bending (with).
22 NICEST Posh resort, by the way, is most particular (6)
NICE (Posh resort) ST (the way, street)
24 REHAB What’s that you said in boozer about a drink cure? (5)
EH (What’s that you said) in BAR< (boozer, about)
25 UPTOWN Having an erection won’t hurt in residential quarter (6)
UP (Having an erection) (WON’T)* AInd: hurt.
26 ARMS Members heading off husbands (4)
[f]ARMS Farms as in husbandry
28 AIRPORT e.g. John Lennon‘s look at drink (7)
AIR (look) PORT (drink) J L is an example of an airport (for Liverpool, ‘natch)
30 SPLITS Which divides members to a great extent (6)
Cryptic Def: Your legs (members) are divided if you do the splits (not advised)
32 ALOFT Fellow in a group gets high (5)
F[ellow] in A LOT (a group)
34 POLKA Take steps to make people leaderless in US state (5)
[f]OLK (people, leaderless) in PA (US state, Pennsylvania)
35 ECONOMY Hunt’s bequest to Labour? Far from first class (7)
Double Def
36 DITTO Duplicate sex time during act (5)
IT (sex) T[ime], all in DO (act)
39 DELVE Date with First Lady holding large probe (5)
D[ate], L[arge] inside EVE (first lady)    “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman”
41 PILGRIM Tip removed from by dour, pious traveller (7)
PIL[l] (contraceptive) GRIM(dour)
43 LUNGS Organs ‘e put out from thrusts (5)
LUNG[e]S (thrusts, remove the E)
44 ASCENT Since being on little money, gets rise (6)
AS (since) CENT (little money)
46 LEAST In trouble, a Starmerite’s the lowest! (5)
Hidden in troubLE A STarmerite
49 SPIRIT Strip off to take one for a drink (6)
(STRIP + I (one))* AInd: off.
50 SARONG Left side of arse forced into Carol’s skirt? (6)
AR[se] (Left side of it) in SONG (Carol)
52 STOIC So it’s bad with Conservative who suffers heroically (5)
(SO IT)* AInd: bad, C[onservative]
53 NOAH Absence of contented expression for boat-builder (4)
NO (Absence of) “AH” (contented expression)
55 FASCINATION Attraction of Nazi Germany? No way! (11)
FASCI[st] NATION (Nazi Germany, no way ST[reet])
57 TOUCH DOWN Score but feel depressed (5,4)
TOUCH (feel) DOWN (depressed)
59 IN DENIAL Popular retreat with independent ex-vice president (unable to accept election result?) (2,6)
IN (Popular) DEN (retreat) I[ndependent] AL (ex-vice president, ref. Al Gore)
61 SPRINKLER Drunk with Pilsner, Kelvin runs for extinguisher (9)
(PILSNER K[elvin] R[uns])* AInd: drunk.
63 KNOW-ALL Klan’s with low, criminal smartarse (4-3)
(KLAN + LOW)* AInd: criminal.
65 NEUTERS Doctors enter US in disgrace (7)
(ENTER US)* AInd: in disgrace.
66 STEAMER Craft of Netflix, say, ditching Republican (7)
ST[r]EAMER Netflix, is an example of a streamer, a streaming servic, lose the R from R[epublican]
68 ASSESS Trump’s behind enforcing secret state sources review (6)
ASS (behind, American version, i.e. “Trump’s”) E[nforcing] S[ecret] S[tate]
69 CRYING Tearing up Bellow in Georgia’s capital (6)
CRY (Bellow) IN G[eorgia]
70 TRAIT Extra itinerant housing feature (5)
Hidden in exTRA ITinerant
71 FATWA Some disbelief at warrant – death one? (5)
Hidden in disbelieF AT WArrant

I was flicking through a book of quotations, as you do, when I came upon this one from Winston Churchill:

Does he mean me?

20 comments on “Private Eye (Cyclops/794) Xmas Monster”

  1. Thanks beernagnet and Cyclops. I got all the answers except for the quote, which I gave up on as I was going cross-eyed looking at it. Nevertheless, a fun puzzle which provided a welcome distraction from the drivel on telly.

  2. April is the cruellest month….

    I found the quote fairly quickly by googling various words that cropped up DENIZEN, ARSENAL and FAN. Search results were dated mid-April, so it should help narrow down in which issue it appears – I only buy the Christmas edition for this crossword and it did not disappoint this year.

  3. Thanks for the blog, beermagnet. My experience was very similar to yours, making steady progress through the grid and eventually expecting the quote to refer to North London denizen KS before discovering my error. I too would like to know the author but although I’m an Eye subscriber, I don’t keep them after the next one arrives.

  4. The quote is from Eye 1623, 10 May, page 37, and is by Jacob Whitehead, sports reporter. I don’t think I’ve seen him in Pseuds Corner before.

  5. Many thanks for the blog. I only buy it once a year and my wife and I plod our way through it. We came in just before the deadline and got them all.

    Re. CROWN – I mistakenly parsed this as CR (Brian), OW (Tender), N (no) but clearly decided to ignore the word ‘more’ at the end of the clue ! So, is ‘tender no more ?’ being parsed in the sense of fitting a crown to a tooth ?

    Kind regards.

  6. Thank you Michael John @4: once we’d got all the clues – and spotted one of the words HAD to be “denizen”, we each took half of our accumulated 2024 Eyes and dutifully ploughed through them. To no avail.
    Been on tenterhooks ever since wondering where – and what – it was (it’s not like we have anything better to do at this time of year!).
    Have just checked: ah, that particular edition is missing. So, technically, we fell at the final hurdle. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all…
    A very entertaining puzzle!!
    Thank you Cyclops and beermagnet.

  7. Thanks Cyclops and beermagnet

    A good workout.

    Nick @ 5 “tender no more” refers to the crown being an obsolete UK coin, ie in the sense of ‘legal tender’.

  9. Any numismatists among us? I think crowns can be spent (at their face value) in the unlikely event anyone wants to, so are still legal tender.

  10. MJ @ 19

    But the crown is pre-decimal, and to my knowledge none of those coins or notes are legal tender any more.

    I’m not even sure you can still exchange them at banks (it’s well over 50 years since UK went decimal, after all), and it would be interesting to see someone try to persuade a shop to accept one…

  11. Great puzzle and thanks for the blog. Finally sat down to complete this this morning after days of dipping in and out. Always enjoy Cyclops’s liberal use of innuendo, 78A a classic example for me. Puerile yes, but what do you expect from this organ? (Geddit?)

  12. Mrs. E and I only got round to this yesterday afternoon, but completed it in the pub.

    After we’d got “was an Arsenal fan but his poetry suggests otherwise” and “denizen” by interpolation etc. she searched the quote and found the full version in the New York Times.

    I give away each edition when read, so couldn’t search the back issues.

    We thought it was great.

    Thanks all and happy New Year.

  13. …I think that someone once said, that if not for quotations, conversation between gentlemen would consist of an endless succession of “what-ho”s.

  14. Re the crown legal tender issue I think you could almost always find someone in a shop who would instantly give you 25p for a real crown. If I was there I would.
    No hope on the Pseuds corner; got denizen but didn’t even get T S Eliot. Boo.

  15. Sorry I meant to specify the Crown/(Legal) Tender definition 67A
    People overestimate how valuable some old coins are.
    Many years ago.
    My older brother visitsed a client who owed him a couple of grand looking to get the debt settled.
    “Oh dear. My business partner’s run off with everything that was in the bank. I’m leaving to go back to the home country this evening. You’ve always been good to us so I want to settle your bill. I’ve got nothing to give you except what’s in this safe that my erstwhile partner didn’t know the combination for – these bags of Churchill Crowns.
    We invested in them when they came out. They must be worth enough to cover the bill”
    So m’bruv looks inside and hefts the bags – good grief they’re heavy! – about a thousand coins
    So he agrees and let’s the old boy get on with packing.

    These bags were so heavy my brother reckons his arms were a couple of inches longer by the time he got back to his office…
    … where he discovered: Churchill Crowns were worth about 25p each (there were so many minted). Each weighed about an ounce.
    So the 4+ Stone of coins was only worth about a tenth of the bill!

  16. Couldn’t get the quote at all….tried by trail and error and had unlikely or entirely!!! But I missed badly on 69D, which did not help. I picked up ‘lowing’ within the clue and decided it was close enough to tearing up. I had tried all sorts with Tblisi too!!!

  17. To beermagnet – interesting, thank you!
    I never had any Churchill ones. I had an EIIR Coronation crown, plus a boxed set of every coin minted in 1953 including the farthing (which was legal tender theoretically but totally unused in real life) but not the crown, and lost both somewhere. Gift from Grandad on mother’s side.
    OK the Churchill ones might not have been an investment but I’ld still pay 25p for one, not however £250 for a thousand! And for a “real” crown (when they were still in regular use) it would be a bargain I reckon.

  18. well that was fun! worked out the quote after spotting north london denizen but got stuck on about four clues. Thanks for this, but I still don’t understand the reference to „Brian” in 67 ac.

  19. @Geraint Lovgreen

    “Brian” is what Private Eye call Prince now King Charles. From the Wikipedia page Private_Eye#In-jokes :

    Certain individuals may be referred to by another name, for example, Piers Morgan as “Piers Moron”, Richard Branson as “Beardie”, and Rupert Murdoch as the “Dirty Digger”. Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III are known as “Brenda” and “Brian” respectively, names that originated with palace servants.

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