Another relatively gentle Eye crossword for the new year
I found that the top right corner was the only tricky area. Devoid until I got 9 Party Animal, then the final few fell – 4, 6, 14, 11 and finally 5.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 7 | WASHED UP | Took part in after-dinner activity – knackered (6,2) Double Def |
| 9/10 | PARTY ANIMAL | Good-time Johnny, Labour’s ‘Beast of Bolsover’? (5,6) Another Double Def. The ‘Beast of Bolsover’ is Dennis Skinner. I suppose he is a party animal in that he has remained a Labour member for so long, but I wonder how he reconciled his politics with Nu Labour. I only got this when seeing Animal after getting all its crossing letters. |
| 11 | NARCOSIS | In a cross-dressed sort of stupor (8) (IN A CROSS)* AInd: dressed. Top clue – misled into thinking about “trans” etc. |
| 12 | GREENFLY | Rose’s downfall, inexpert trouser opening? (8) GREEN (inexpert) FLY (trouser opening) |
| 14 | LIB-LAB | “Past alliance — Balls at the centre!” Cyclops squeals (3-3) [ba]L[ls] I BLAB (Cyclops squeals). |
| 16/27 | POLITICAL CLOUT | What Clegg hopes the coalition will give him? Iodine-impregnated fancy lilac top and sock combination (9,5) (I[odine] LILAC TOP)* AInd: Fancy, then CLOUT (sock) I initially put in P. POWER till I found Spinach at 18D wouldn’t fit (POW sock in the Batman sense, so POW-ER – er, no) |
| 20 | SPOT ON | As Page 3 girls would have to make a comeback? Exactly (4-2) NO TOPS all rev. |
| 22 | SCRUBBER | Boris’s ultimate carbon johnny cleaner (8) [bori]S C[arbon] RUBBER (johnny) |
| 23 | IN A PADDY | Rice to be seen here throwing a wobbly (2,1,5) Double Def |
| 26 | ON SALE | Noel’s pissed about uprising of his band’s nos. 2 and 3 – yours for a fee (2,4) (NOEL + [o]AS[is])* AInd: pissed. This clue felt a bit convoluted |
| 28 | RUNNER UP | Not the top choice, ‘Bean Out of Bed’ (6-2) RUNNER (Bean) UP (out of bed) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | LAUNDRY | Steamy place, Los Angeles, not banning alcohol? (7) L.A. un-dry |
| 2 | CHAMBER POT | Where parliamentarians may be seen with drug dumping receptacle (7,3) CHAMBER (Where parliamentarians may be seen) POT (drug) |
| 3 | SPUN | Proprietor primarily involved in tabloid cover-up is put in a good light (4) P[roprietor] inside SUN (tabloid) |
| 4 | SPIRAL | Is lap dancing about right to screw? (6) (IS LAP)* AInd: dancing, around R[ight] |
| 5 | BRIO | Eye rather grandly on the up, absorbs Independent – dash! (4) I inside ORB< (Eye rather grandly) |
| 6 | CYNICAL | Disenchanted Clegg not quite squeezing into lacy creation (7) NIC[k] inside LACY* AInd: creation |
| 8 | DOLEFUL | Wretched as an unemployed person’s existence? (7) DD/CD |
| 13 | YETIS | Old rock band keeping it up – hairy beasts (5) IT< in YES First answer entered – With this grid nothing would yield much in the way of first letters, so I thought I’d start in the middle. |
| 15 | BALL BUSTER | Bullet bra’s elastic is a real demoraliser of a bloke (4-6) (BULLET BRA’S)* AInd: elastic |
| 17 | CARTOON | Strip, possibly showing oxygen-inflated ‘package’ (7) O inside CARTON |
| 18 | SPINACH | Sailor man’s muscle builder: orgasming in chaps (7) (IN CHAPS)* AInd: orgasming |
| 19 | BELLY UP | Bishop deployed pulley to achieve female missionary position (5,2) B[ishop] PULLEY* AInd: deployed |
| 21 | NUDITY | No cover-up with this state (6) CD. As no great fan of CDs, I rather liked this. |
| 24 | PLOT | Plan to apply pressure to lashings (4) P[ressure] LOT |
| 25 | YARN | Strand: any cruising to include river (4) R[iver] inside ANY* AInd: cruising |
I found out a friend of mine was addicted to brake fluid.
He told me he could stop whenever he wanted.
Presumably Cyclops has the negatives exposing Clegg’s private dress preferences. Lilac lace, dear oh dear.
Think I got all these but I missed the parsing for 13dn, so thanks for that. How anything else could be described as convoluted in a crossword with 16/27 in boggles the mind!
Now I know this site doesn’t go in for timings unlike the Times Crossword blog site but this was my fastest solve with no holdups. However the Times hotshot solvers do what they consider easy crosswords in about 5 minutes and my time was nowhere near this -and by that I don’t mean a couple of minutes away.My experience was generally look at clue, think of answer, consider if it fitted , enter it and move on. If I couldn’t get a clue, I passed over it after about 5 seconds and came back later when I had a few more checking letters. How on earth can they do the Times so quickly?
Obviously a wavelength thing for me as a colleague got very stuck but sometimes it is the other way round.