Half-way through solving this I thought I was on for a record time – covering half the grid in a very few minutes. Then I slowed and then got interrupted by Real Life. Coming back to it a few hours later I finished it off with not much trouble except for 1/23 CROSSWORD SETTER which took far too long and especially the final 17D BESMEAR.

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I made a note that I only had 10 answers in place after the first pint, which is an indication that this was harder than the last few Eye crossies.  On the other hand, after a breather the rest fell in short order.  Crossing letters helped for the last few but nothing that didn’t have wordplay understood.  Last to drop – 8D Empathy.
I see Selfridges are being lambasted again for starting the “Christmas Shopping Experience” five months early.  As a computer programmer I like celebrating early and often, at Halloween as well as the other one. Why? … Read the rest of this entry »

Woah! Cyclops revealing his Republican tendancies in his central down answers,
and possibly extolling the virtues of early applications of antibiotics in the central across answers: Preempt anthrax.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this . Read the rest of this entry »

So there I was wondering where to do my Eye crossword this time. I thought what about another time and found myself in a smoky pub in about 1972. “The Worlds End”.  God it was awful! – the beer was dreadful, the atmosphere could be cut with a knife, and someone sat down at the piano and started belting out “Blue is the Colour”.  One good thing was that it had lots of separate bars and there was a reasonably quiet snug where I could settle down to tackle the crossword.  Of course when I finished it I found myself back in the real world.  Shame. Read the rest of this entry »

… are better, maybe.
Maybe Edward Woodward would have had something to say about that, if he was foreward.  The three Eds here are the ubiquitous Editor, one Miliband, and the inevitable Balls.
Political topicality provided the longest answer.

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I must be getting better at these.
Another Eye crossy that was knocked off without raising a sweat.
The long giveaway answer gave away lots of crossing letters and everything else slotted in with no hold-ups. Read the rest of this entry »

After last week’s triple “percent” wordplay, this week we have “awful” used as an anagrind in three different clues. So I’m afraid it walked into that blog title. Blam!
But it was quite a nice crossword. In fact, to paraphrase Niles from Frasier, better than perfect: What’s better than perfect? Something with one small failing that you can enjoy picking over, saying “Oh! awful again”.
It must’ve been quite simple because I did it on the train within that 30 mins on the Friday after the Sloggers & Betters, after a triple leaving do and didn’t fall asleep – it was close – it kept me interested and awake so I didn’t miss my stop, and when I looked later it was finished. As usual, some of the wordplay did not get fully untangled till blogging. Read the rest of this entry »

I was knocking off these clues without too much trouble but did think more than once that they were quite convoluted.  It took 20 Min – only about ½ pint – drinking slowly – I’d already had a couple while failing to finish that Saturday’s Indy.  So that’s obviously a good warm up routine.  I got off to a flying start with the long answer 14/17/21 where I thought of it from the definition and enumeration, then wordplay confirmed.  But what’s with all the %age clues? 20% here 40% there 66% of the other, all using essentially the same wordplay method.  Am I missing a theme? Read the rest of this entry »

Pack away your soapbox now. Take down your “Sod the others – Vote for Us” posters. It’s all over for now. The people have spoken and they said “Errr”. Anyway, I don’t understand all this talk about people being unable to vote. I had no trouble, and managed to vote for a different party each time. (“Vote early and often” motto of Al Capone.)
Q. How do you annoy Heather Mills? Read the rest of this entry »

I made hard work for myself with this puzzle by writing in several incorrect answers. I guess I was hurrying and didn’t read the clues properly, and sometimes wrote in what I didn’t even intend (I think my pencil can’t spell). All that stopped me getting some later crossing answers until I realised what was going on.
Anyway, got there in the end taking much longer than normal. In retrospect there was nothing terribly hard here. Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t know much about Sir Thomas More’s Utopia beyond its fame, but after finding a link for 21D and reading around I realise what a big deal this was.
Utopia from the greek ou-topos [no place] or eu-topos [good place].
In Utopia, there is communal ownership of land [Right on! Comrade ...], private property does not exist [... Proudhon would be proud ...], men and women are educated alike [... and Germaine ...], and there is almost complete religious freedom except atheists are not tolerated [ ... hmmm.]

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Our text today is taken from St Eter of the Managras:
Yea, it is harder for a good man to answer the inquiry of Chilcot than a Queen Bee to enter a Myrtle. Or something like that anyway.

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No real problem with this lot – except 18A – for bringing back unpleasant memories, thus the blog title.
You know there are some similarities between her and me: School reports show “hard work and commitment but not brilliance” (check), Studied chemistry (check), Tried to get into Somerville at Oxford (failed in my case – they used to grease the spikes in those days y’know), and some similarities I’m obliged not to reveal.   Just what would’ve happened if she had discovered beer and I had discovered right-wing megalomania and married a millionaire.  Hmmm.  I can feel an alternate-history SF story coming on …
Anyway back to the crossword. Read the rest of this entry »

Quite an easy outing this time with a few intra-Eye references and pet names, particularly several uses of Brenda for ER, and of course lots of botty humour. Read the rest of this entry »

Blunder on my part that is as I find that yet again my pen writes the letters for down answers in the wrong order. May be it’s the ink that can’t spell.

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Anyone would think the crossword was on Page 3 given the number of pairs of tits on view in the wordplay, usually as anagram fodder – there’s floppy tits, daft tits and of course tits out, as well as the occasional Bristol. Read the rest of this entry »

I lost track of the weeks. I knew we would have an extra week over Xmas, but then by this Friday I realised I should’ve had a Private Eye by now. Assuming it was lost I bought one on the way to work. Naturally this resulted in finding my issue on the mat when I got home. Then I found the crossword submission should’ve been received by then.

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This year the theme is the Dumb Britain section which takes questions and silly answers that contestants to popular quiz programmes have provided.  The trick is to guess what the flailing contestant might have come up with in the heat of the moment. These clues are asterisked in the detail table below.

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As It Occurred To Me this week:  I won 2nd prize in a contest!
You’re right, it wasn’t a Beauty Contest and I wasn’t playing Monopoly.
It was a crossword contest:  The 2009 “3D Calendar puzzle” indeed.
So I have no hesitation, in best Smashy’n'Nicey “does a lotta work for chariddy” manner, in shamelessly plugging next year’s offering.
Follow these links and Buy! Buy! Buy!

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I expect there’s a fair bit of copper in one of Brenda’s crowns too.
Intro joke: What’s green and misty? (ans below)
Let’s get stuck into the detail:
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That is, surface reading not found.

After doing a lot of crosswords I tend to read clues for their cryptic meaning without noticing, or should I say savouring, the surface reading. An example of this is 13A here:
Bum, almost round isn’t wobbling – flaming criminal (8)
I did not notice the excellent surface meaning till re-reading it for this blog. That’s one of the reasons I like blogging. When solving this I ignored the punctuation and read “Bum almost” (giving ARS[e] – what else could it be in this crossword) and registered “flaming criminal” as the def. so ARSONIST leapt out, the wordplay easily put to bed, but at the time I hadn’t noticed the little vignette, and social comment(?), that Cyclops had painted.

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What a cock-up – They repeated 402 in the magazine – Have they been taking on ex-Grauniad typesetters?

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One of those where most went in easily but I had to put myself to bed before a couple in the top left corner, so they had to wait till the next morning.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve misunderstood the wordplay on some.
Some particularly fine surface readings throughout this puzzle. Read the rest of this entry »

Thomas and Riddle of course.  Who else would inhabit an Eye crossword …
Not Tom Riddle, that would be … frightening.   Perhaps as frightening as … Cyclops himself  <Ta Da!>  who visited the blog for Puzzle 400 to set our collective mind at rest about the emailed prize submissions. Thanks for the comment, and all the work.
Now let’s decompose this lot …. Read the rest of this entry »

Number 400 Eh!
We only get 26 issues of this esteemed organ each year – if we’re lucky – so I reckon that’s 16 years that Cyclops has been working at the sharp end of scurrilous crossword setting.  So I will wish him well and say “Well done” to the old toe-rag.  Here’s to the next 400.

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