What times we live in! Cyclops – please emit a puff of smoke and show us the way….
I vaguely remember writing an early Cyclops blog in late 2016 where I said of Ronald T Dump: ‘he will be ‘the gift that keeps on giving’ to satirists and crossword setters for the next four years‘. OK, not that vague, as I went and searched it down, but how depressing that 8+ years later he is still living rent-free in Cyclops’ (and all of our) mind(s)…here driving each of the first Across and Down clues.
At least there is no Farage in this one (famous last words, I am no Nostradamus), but the soon-to-be-ex-Conservative leader KEMI BADENOCH makes a full-name check – her first, I think, in a Cyclops…which probably means she will also be here 8 years from now…
Obviously this would be too soon for Cyclops to have kept up with recent events in the Catholic church, but there is a rare triple-position clue in OVER MY DEAD BODY, which could be taken to refer to the late Francis, followed by DOCTRINE, and the new Pope needing to show LEADERSHIP and be a DIPLOMAT whilst wearing a (TENT-)DRESS….I have NO PROBLEM with that but, Cardinal Fang, bring the comfy cushion…
I’m not sure I recognise BITE-SIZE in the political sense given here – I am more familiar with the term associated with my Shredded Wheat in the morning (other breakfast cereals are available).
I’m off to nurture my DIPSOMANIA – many thank to Cyclops for the puzzle, and I hope all is clear below…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 7A | BORDER | DRILL AROUND GREENLAND’S TIP! – one of Trump’s preoccupations (6)
BOR_ER (drill) around D (tip of greenlanD) |
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| 8A | DOCTRINE | Guiding principle has Democrat on notice perhaps around Republican (8)
D (Democrat) + OCT_INE (anag, i.e. perhaps, of NOTICE) around R (Republican) |
||
| 10A | TENT DRESS | Campish habit? (4,5)
Punning CD – a TENT DRESS is a type of dress, or habit, and a tent could be associated with camping! |
||
| 11A | HASID | A strict believer in truth as ‘idiotic’ (5)
hidden word in ‘trutH AS IDiotic’ |
||
| 12A | SAMURAI | Knocked back one adult drink like a military type (7)
I (one) + A (adult) + RUM (drink) + AS (like), ass reversed, or knocked back, to give SAMURAI! |
||
| 14A | OVER MY (DEAD BODY) | & 6 & 22dn. Shroud to go here? Never! (4,2,4,4)
double defn. – a shroud might go OVER MY DEAD BODY; and if I say something will never happen, I might say ‘OVER MY DEAD BODY’! |
||
| 17A | ZILCH | Nothing gained by “hot and cold” Truss’s comeback? (5)
H (hot) + C (cold) + LIZ (Liz Truss), all coming back to give ZILCH |
||
| 18A | BUY | Bribe disheartened bobby to trap union leader (3)
B_Y (disheartened BobbY) around (trapping) U (leading letter of Union) |
||
| 19A | SINAI | Wrong robots etc for the occupied territory (5)
SIN (wrong) + AI (artificial intelligence, robots, etc.) |
||
| 20A | STUPID | Is put off by dickhead’s rash (6)
STUPI (anag, i.e. off, of IS PUT) + D (head, or first letter, of Dick) |
||
| 21A | FAN MAIL | Appreciative communication from cooler: “Bloke’s sound” (3,4)
FAN (cooler) + MAIL (homophone, i.e. ‘s sound, MALE, or bloke sounds like MAIL) |
||
| 22A | BARMY | Dotty‘s through squeezing member! (5)
B_Y (through) around (squeezing) ARM (bodily member) |
||
| 24A | NO PROBLEM | Puzzle lacking? Don’t mention it! (2,7)
if there is no puzzle, then there is NO PROBLEM! |
||
| 26A | DESELECT | Forced Leeds, etc. to ditch candidate (8)
anag, i.e. forced, of LEEDS ETC |
||
| 27A | PERMIT | Let‘s wave on having sex (6)
PERM (wave, in hair) + IT (euphemism for S-E-X, you know, how’s yer father…) |
||
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
||
| 1D | IRON | Press often played with by Trump (4)
punning double def. – to IRON can be to press clothes; and an IRON can be a golf club, often played with by Trump |
||
| 2D | LEADERSHIP | Conservatives unhappy with 9/18’s editorial craft? (10)
LEADER (newspaper editorial) + SHIP (craft) |
||
| 3D | SOB STORY | Woeful tale of bastards (Conservative) (3,5)
SOB_S (bastards, son-of-a-b1tches) + TORY (Conservative) |
||
| 4D | ITCH | “Yen‘s in shit” – China (4)
hidden word in ‘ahIT CHina’ |
||
| 5D | DIPSOMANIA | A craving to snap: “Dom is a pain!” (10)
anag, i.e. to snap, of DOM IS A PAIN |
||
| 6D | DEAD | See 14ac. (4)
see 14A |
||
| 7D | BITE-SIZE | Like the politician’s reductive announcements of crunch measure? (4-4)
BITE (crunch) + SIZE (measure) |
||
| 9D | KEMI (BADENOCH) | & 18dn. Demonic Bake-off host, at first a staunch right-winger (4,8)
KEMI BADENOC (anag, i.e. off, of DEMONIC BAKE) + H (first letter of Host) |
||
| 13D | MILITARISM | Putin’s thing: breaking arms limit, crushing independence (10)
MILITAR_SM (anag, i.e. breaking, of ARMS LIMIT) around (crushing) I (independence) |
||
| 15D | EISENHOWER | Ex-president‘s ire seen to explode on taking question (10)
EISEN_ER (anag, i.e. to explode, of IRE SEEN) around (taking) HOW (question) |
||
| 16D | DIPLOMAT | A PM told off on accepting Cyclops as moderator (8)
D_PLOMAT (anag, i.e. off, of A PM TOLD) around I (Cyclops, the setter!) |
||
| 18D | BADENOCH | See 9dn. (8)
See 9D |
||
| 21D | FOPS | Goes limp – Labour leader quits, so swells (4)
F( |
||
| 22D | BODY | See 14ac. (4)
see 14A |
||
| 23D | YALE | Screw up by English university (4)
YAL (lay, or screw, have sex with, up) + E (English) |
||
| 25D | LIMO | By which a celeb might get around making millions in fuel hike (4)
LI_O (oil, fuel, hiked up) around M (millions) |
||
Thanks for the blog , very good puzzle , KB a brilliant anagram and almost complete .
BITE-SIZE , first I think of Crunchies , lots of little bars in a bag . The sprogs used BBC Bitesize for revision , it is actually very good . Politics it perhaps began with the Labour pledge card for the 1997 election , 5 bite-size policies , it also refers to prepared short statement during things like PMQs which then get shown on news bulletins .
Not to forget sound( )bite: late 1970s, US media, according to Wikipedia.
Yes Lemming , that is more common , the bite-sized clip from a speech will contain the latest soundbite .
Worst Cyclops for me for some time, was pretty far off completing it by submission date despite help from two people (one of whom is very comfortable with cryptics but not perhaps Cylcops’s style).
It was the NW corner that did for me, though I really should have Googled TENT DRESS as it was the only thing I could see fitting in and matching the clue; I foolishly dismissed it on the basis that it wasn’t a phrase (in turn on the basis that I personally wasn’t familiar with it, which is perhaps the more foolish thing). Getting that in may have led me to BITE (not DOWN) SIZE, and BORDER (IRON only went in due to my neighbour getting it). Never did figure out whether it was LEADERSHIP or CENSORSHIP though I’d assumed the former on my assumption that DRESS was the crosser. Seems obvious now reading the clue breakdown!
Most other stuff went in without a hitch, though SINAI I was reluctant to go with as I thought it was a previously-occupied territory; I also thought PERM/wave was a bit of a stretch but I had no alternatives.
16d I found ‘moderator’ a poor enough definition of ‘diplomat’ to be unfairly misleading. Not given in Chambers or elsewhere that I can see; and it would have been easy to find a better one. got it of course from cross letters – but with howl of protest
#4 Si. I had a big ? next to 19a SINAI for the same reason as you.
The word Perm is short for permanent wave, which is how the product was sold when it was new. Other hair waving stuff only lasted until the next hairwash, but the perm survived a wash or three. My mum was a big fan.
Otherwise I enjoyed it as usual.
Thanks mc_rapper and Cyclops.
Sorry, was trying to edit, not add new.
Gah, I had BURGER for 7A (which I can sort of defend because he does like a burger).
Oh well…