A bit of holiday entertainment for me, with the blog to write on my return. Not a puzzle that detained me for long, but enjoyable and delightfully scurrilous nonetheless.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | ESAU | Rogue Saunders not entirely number one son Hidden in ‘Rogue Saunders’ Esau, reputedly hairy, was the older son of Isaac in the Old Testament of the Bible. |
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| 8 | HOME TRUTHS | House, having misplaced trust, has to swallow hard uncomfortable facts HOME = House; *(trust), with ‘misplaced’ as the anagram indicator; with H = hard. Definition: uncomfortable facts |
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| 10/14 | LABOUR LEADERSHIP | Miliband’s got little cheer for the Shadow Cabinet? LABOUR LEADERS = Miliband’s; HIP [Hip Hooray] = little cheer |
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| 11 | ROCK STAR | Cult musical status of Cliff? “Bother, quite the reverse!” ROCK = cliff; STAR = RATS (Bother!) reversed. Definition: cult musical status |
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| 12 | ISTANBUL | ’City Lives’ by Brown and Balls — Left quite dismissed IS = lives; TAN = brown; BUL[l] (short form of ‘bullshit’) = balls, without L (left) |
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| 13 | PILOT | Sample given when Cyclops brought off an Eye contributor Private Eye’s architecture correspondent Piloti; minus I = Cyclops, the setter |
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| 15 | IN LIMBO | Elected member joining circle “wanting resolution” IN = elected; LIMB = member; O = circle. Definition: wanting resolution At this point, I have to include this — the wonderful Kirsty MacColl. |
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| 17 | STEALTH | Nick, the almost high flier (rather low visibility) STEAL = nick; TH = the, almost Stealth Bomber — horrible! |
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| 20 | DEBAG | Talk balls (after a capital start) about how to get someone down to their Y-fronts? GAB= talk; ED [Balls] (balls, after a capital start, would be ‘Balls’, the surname); all reversed |
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| 21 | IN PIECES | Not as one having penis out, going round ice dancing *(penis ice). Definition: ‘not as one’. This is a brilliantly daft clue for a pretty commonplace solution. |
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| 23 | TACTLESS | Indiscreet, tense? Cut down the luvvie stuff! T = tense; ACT LESS = cut down the luvvie stuff |
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| 25 | PISS ON | Treat like crap booze — no regurgitating PISS = booze; ON = no, reversed, with ‘regurgitating’ as the reversal indicator |
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| 26 | STAKE MONEY | Better to put this up yak to free with semen *(yak to semen). A better (one who bets) puts this up. |
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| Down | |||
| 1 | ASASSIN | Accepted after a pair of tits hit man IN = accepted; after ASS ASS = a pair of tits |
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| 2 | OUT ON A LIMB | “Lacking support of others,” declared gay, making contact with a member OUT = declared gay; ON = making contact with; A; LIMB = member |
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| 3 | CHERUB | Thatcher, Übermensch housing angel Hidden in ‘Thatcher Übermensch’ If you’re not sure what Übermensch means, you will probably be none the wiser after reading this |
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| 4 | EMERALD | Mail’s first to cut leader about “colour” M = mail’s first; in *(leader) |
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| 5 | STOCKPOT | Common feature of boozers which simmers STOCK = common; POT [belly] = feature of boozers |
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| 6 | DUGS or JUGS |
Having new top, squeezes tits [h]UGS = squeezes, with a different first letter; either D or J (as pointed out by Gazza below) would be valid, I think |
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| 16 | BUGGER ME | Spyware merchant? Bring ’em up and go in my tradesman’s entrance BUGGER = one who supplies bugs, i.e. a spyware merchant; ME = ’em, reversed. No further explanation needed. |
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| 18 | THE NORTH | Hard to penetrate singer with the missing butt, which some consider grim H = hard; in TENOR = singer; TH[e] = ‘the, missing butt’ Apparently, it’s grim up north |
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| 19 | HISSING | Heard from those objecting to the act of relieving oneself (Henry relieving pressure) PISSING = the act of relieving oneself; with H = Henry, replacing P = pressure |
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| 20 | DRAFT | What did Clinton get out of plan? Double definition: call-up for military service in the USA; plan |
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| 22 | POPEYE | The sailor’s burst organ POP = burst; EYE = organ Popeye |
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| 24/27a/9 | TAKE IT TO HEART | Theatre tit, “oak-gnarled“, let remark “get to one” *(theatre tit oak) |
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Please forgive my lamentable lack of jokes this week, and blame the fact that we’ve been on holiday. Instead, I will leave you with a picture of Enigmatist contemplating the clues for his next Guardian puzzle:
I couldn’t decide between dugs and jugs for 6d.
Now you come to mention it, could be either.
Me too! Always enjoy Cyclops. Many thanks all.
I thought the obvious and preferable 6d answer was DUGS. JUGS doesn’t appear in any of the online Chambers, Oxford, Collins, Cambridge or Merriam-Webster dictionaries that I’ve looked at, though I think it would be difficult not to accept it in a PE crossword, even absent its presence in Urban Dictionary. JUGS would be the mot juste, imo, if its slanginess or modernity was made a part of the definition.
Previous solutions involving JUG that I’ve found are:
#248 entered 17/11/2003 JUGS
#263 entered 17/6/2004 CONJUGAL (clue not breast-related)
#427 entered 3/10/2010 JUGULAR (clue not breast-related)
Does anyone have a copy of #248?
But I have found a breasty JUG precedent in a clue. There may be others, but I stopped checking on finding this first hit:
Eye 1193/Cyclops 348 Sep 14 2007
Dotty said ice cream might help fill a small jug -> SILICONE
I am a bit bothered by the thought of someone failing to win because they had DUGS rather than JUGS. I trust that couldn’t actually have been possible.
26. “yak to free with semen” – Poor AInd IMO. Probably because I didn’t get it.
I rather liked 26ac. A nicely cryptic definition, and a potentially ambiguous anagram indicator, with either “free” or “free with” applying to “yak to”. “Yak to mix with semen” would also have been acceptable, and more obvious, wouldn’t it. As one who finds himself almost automatically latching on to anagram indicators, I appreciate anything that might increase uncertainty and variety.