After the last one I blogged, a straightforward Cyclops puzzle. Some clever clues, with special mention going to 2d and 9/7d.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TAHITI | Country hat off before sex with one *(hat), with ‘off‘ as the anagram indicator; IT = sex; I = one |
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| 4 | AUCTION | Try to get rid of a lot of effort grabbing inside of bum ACTION = a lot of effort; ‘grabbing’ U = inside of bum |
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| 8 | APOPLECTIC | Cope with lap dancing with jerk beside oneself *(cope lap), with ‘dancing‘ as the anagram indicator; TIC = jerk. Definition: ’beside oneself’ |
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| 10/24 | MOVE OVER | Advance at an end: thus Brian’s demand of Brenda? MOVE = advance; OVER = at an end. As movingly documented in Heir of sorrows by Sylvie Krin, Prince Charles (Brian) longs for a turn as monarch, replacing his mother (Brenda). Ghastly thought, but I suppose it will happen sometime… |
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| 11 | BLACK TIE | Formal habit of jailed publisher associated with fix BLACK = jailed publisher Conrad Black; TIE = fix |
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| 12 | AUTHOR | Just after gold — god, that could be Archer, to stretch a point? AU = gold (atomic symbol); THOR = Norse god. It is stretching a point to call Jeffrey Archer an author, though he seems to make money from it. |
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| 13 | ORGIES | Leaderless party members securing good binges [t]ORIES = leaderless party members; containing G = good |
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| 15 | LEGLESS | Incapable when member reduced in size LEG = member; LESS = reduced in size |
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| 17 | BAY TREE | Evergreen Tory extremely contrary with a beer swilling exterior *(a beer); around TY = ‘extreme’ letters of Tory. Definition: evergreen |
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| 18 | DEBUNK | Balls twisted when going to bed? Explode ED Balls, reversed (twisted); BUNK = bed |
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| 20 | OLD SAW | Past saying “Shot loads, wife” *(loads wife), with ‘shot‘ as the anagram indicator |
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| 22 | ICEBOUND | A French incursion into bodice-ripping: Frigidly Inaccessible UN = French indefinite article (‘A’); in *(bodice) |
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| 25 | DIG THE DIRT | Do a Murdoch-style investigation: “Date Wants Rough Tight Ride” D = date; *(tight ride). The Murdoch press famously likes to unearth (meaning ‘manufacture’) scandal. |
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| 26 | WARM-UPS | Practices of conflict politician overlapping America WAR = conflict; MP and US overlapping |
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| 27 | DRY RUN | Test reveals “Not a boozer with endless diarrhoea” DRY = not a boozer; RUN[s] = endless diarrhoea |
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| Down | |||
| 1 | TIPPLER | One preferred by those who wait to welcome Latin piss-artist TIPPER = the kind of customer preferred by waiters; with L = Latin. Definition: piss-artist |
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| 2 | HYPOCRISY | Pathetic cry: “Physio can’t if unpunctuated!” *(cry physio). If unpunctuated, ‘can’t’ becomes ‘cant’, the definition. Clever clue. |
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| 3 | THEFT | Nick to perpetrate this article by newspaper THE = article; FT = the Financial Times newspaper. To perpetrate theft, you nick something. |
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| 5 | UNCHANGED | “Pissed”, “canned” — ugh, it’s all the same *(canned ugh), with ‘pissed‘ as the anagram indicator |
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| 6 | TEMPT | Allure of top extremist Tory leaders pressing Cameron’s U-turn First letters of ‘top extremist Tory’; containing PM (Cameron), reversed |
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| 9/7 | THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS | e.g. “Bloody platitudes reveal sod all that’s new” A sort of &lit and double definition combined |
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| 14 | SCREWED UP | Scored high but made a complete balls of it SCREWED = scored (rather loosely); UP = high |
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| 16 | EMBROIDER | Perpetuate a stitch-up and rather exaggerate the fact Double definition: decorate with stitches; by analogy, exaggerate the facts |
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| 17 | BOLIVIA | State gets one through? Throw up first LOB = throw, reversed (‘up’ in a Down clue); I = one; VIA = through |
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| 19 | NON-IRON | No need for press’s inaccurate description of Lady Thatcher? Another double definition of sorts: description of garments etc; reference to the unlamented (by me, at least) Margaret Thatcher |
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| 21 | SERUM | Drugs tipped onto booze which provides immunity Es, reversed; RUM = drink. Serum contains, among other things, antibodies, which are part of the immune response. |
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| 23 | ETHER | Nothing of much substance In Elizabeth, ERII Hidden in ‘Elizabeth, ERII’. The upper-case I in ‘in’ is presumably a typo. white |
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white
I leave you with a very funny cartoon indeed:
Great stuff especially hypocrisy. Always enjoy Cyclops. Many thanks all.
Thanks for the blog, jetdoc. The Brian/Brenda reference was beyond me. Enjoyable stuff from Cyclops; particularly liked 8a. Not sure I like TAHITI as “country” (it’s part of French Polynesia). And THEFT clued as THE FT is a bit of, well, an OLD SAW.
Brian and Brenda are the names commonly used for those two in the Eye (though not actually in Heir of sorrows). I agree that the wordplay in 3d is far from original; quite a good definition, though.
Gosh. I got 2dn, but completely missed the now bleedingly obvious, that “unpunctuated” simply meant unpunctuated, so spent some time disgruntling quietly about it as a clue. I think I must have been applying an “ignore punctuation” mental set too rigidly. So thanks jetdoc.
In turn I think I can slightly improve on your own parsing of 4ac. It took me some time before I realised, the full AUCTION definition was “Try to get rid of a lot”. Sly.
Thanks, lemming.