This puzzle seemed less tough than my last go around, with only one slight obscurity for me, and thankfully minimal reminders of the general state of the world. Still a fun challenge, as it should be.
As I was abroad last weekend for a running/drinking event I initially attacked this on my phone and was therefore ‘cold solving’ without filling in the grid, so I was quite pleased to solve nearly half the clues that way. After returning home and with the benefit of the crossers, the rest went in pretty smoothly over another sitting or two, thanks to some very clear clueing as well as several hidden solutions that popped out willingly once crossing letters were available.
Some clues gave me pause due to unfamiliar parts of speech or meanings but there was nothing much to scare the horses.
FOI was 24d TEMPT. 12/13a RISK ASSESSMENT took me far too long – the instructions were clear but it was only after discussing such a process for the aforementioned event that the term bubbled to the surface of my somewhat tired & emotional mind. LOI 2d EARWIG, though in hindsight I can’t see why. Twas ever thus.
Thanks to Cyclops for the puzzle.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | WELCOME | Gladly accept healthy, endless orgasm! (7)
WEL[L] (healthy, endless) + COME (orgasm). |
| 5 | KISMET | Lot gets Mike off after e.g. pulling out (6)
Anagram (off) of TS MIKE (‘gets Mike’ with ‘e.g.’ removed/pulling out). The term kismet means fate, destiny, predestination, or (one’s) lot, and has Arabic/Turkic roots. I didn’t know the meaning but was familiar with the word from a piece of software for scanning radio networks, as well as Akismet, the software that provides automatic (and mostly accurate) spam comment detection for this very blog and many others. |
| 10 | DREADFUL | Dire doctor attending each day – not quite satisfied (8)
DR (doctor) + EA (each) + D (day) + FUL[L] (not quite satisfied). |
| 11 | JUNKIE | Craft that is revealed by addict (6)
JUNK (Chinese type of sailing ship, so ‘craft’) + IE (that is). Even with the crossing first letter this still took me a while to sort out. |
| 12/13 | RISK ASSESSMENT | What Trump apparently failed to do before bombing Iran, leading to absurd stark messiness (4,10)
Anagram (absurd) of STARK MESSINESS. |
| 14 | OPUS DEI | Coming before one dodgy pseudo religious organisation (4,3)
Anagram (dodgy) of PSEUDO, coming before I (one), for the Catholic institution. |
| 16 | PUSH | Press turned up – say no more (4)
PU (up, turned) +SH (interjection to ‘say no more’). Second-last in for me. Short words can sometimes be strangely difficult. |
| 18 | LOAN | Depressed, wife’s left – needs an advance (4)
LO[W] (depressed, minus the W for wife), + (needs) AN. |
| 19 | DISSENT | Miliband is sentimentally holding views opposed to the official line (7)
Hidden in (holding) MilibanD IS SENTimentally. I spent a while playing with ED until crossers got me on the right track. |
| 22 | ON THE RIGHT | Political position of the woman revealed in Tonight broadcast (2,3,5)
HER (the woman) inside an anagram (broadcast) of TONIGHT. |
| 25 | LEAK | A wee disclosure (4)
Double definition. |
| 26 | THAMES | Husband roped into breaks in London feature (6)
H[usband] inside (roped into) TAMES (breaks, as in to break or tame a horse). |
| 27 | ADMONISH | Simon had to be sacked, correct? (8)
Anagram (to be sacked) of SIMON HAD. I’ll admit I took this one a bit personally. Perhaps Cyclops is signalling to the blog admin about my output here? |
| 28 | PARODY | Lampoon staff residing in Settle (6)
ROD (staff) in PAY (settle). |
| 29 | ATHEISM | No faith in diplomat (he is Mandelson) (7)
Hidden in diplomAT (HE IS Mandelson). |
| Down | ||
| 2 | EARWIG | Creepy thing‘s organ needs an artificial covering (6)
EAR (organ) + WIG (artificial covering). |
| 3 | CRACKDOWN | Check cocaine’s on the decrease (9)
CRACK (smokeable form of cocaine) + DOWN (on the decrease). |
| 4 | MAFIA | “Load of crooks contributing to Obama fiasco!” (5)
A third hidden solution, in ObaMA FIAsco. |
| 6 | INJUSTICE | Elected merely to take on Trump’s immigration team? Wrong (9)
IN (elected) + JUST (merely) + ICE (Trump’s immigration team). |
| 7 | MINIM | Note skimpy attire on male (5)
MINI (as in the type of skirt, so skimpy attire) + M[ale], giving the name of what may also be called a ‘half note’ in musical notation. It’s half a semibreve, or two crochets, or four quavers. I fear we’re unlikely to ever get such a fun word as hemidemisemiquaver in a standard crossword. |
| 8 | THINNISH | Rather slim hotel boozer in shit, sadly (8)
H[otel] + INN (boozer) all inside TISH, anagram of SHIT (sadly). |
| 9 | CLOSED | Mean Donald, finally locked up (6)
CLOSE (mean, cheap) + Donal[D]. I don’t think I really knew this meaning of close but it makes sense and the clueing is clear enough. |
| 15 | UNDERUSED | “Less than American” journalist could be better employed (9)
UNDER (less than) + US (American) + ED (journalist). |
| 16 | PETULANCE | Adult (not Democrat) rudely interrupts ex-veep – a Trump trait (9)
PENCE (ex-veep) interrupted by TULA, anagram (rudely) of AULT (adult minus D for Democratic). The wordplay here readily clicked for me but I stared it at for some time trying to spell the solution with three Es before checking, then stamping my feet and sulking for a while. |
| 17 | TOWNSHIP | Community? Whips not bothered (8)
Anagram (bothered) of WHIPS NOT. |
| 20 | SIGNAL | Token gains wasted by Labour’s leader (6)
Anagram (wasted) of GAINS + L[abour]. |
| 21 | KANSAS | Feature of Balkans aspiring state (6)
Hidden (the fourth) in BalKANS ASpiring. |
| 23 | HOMER | House Republican’s baseball success (5)
HOME (house) + R[epublican], for the slang term for a home run in baseball, where the batter get to all bases and scores(!) |
| 24 | TEMPT | Initially take exception to embracing politician’s allure (5)
T[ake] + E[xception] + [T]o, surrounding/embracing MP (politician). FOI for me though I did double-check the slightly unfamiliar verb sense of the definition. |