A fun one once again, taking me a while to get into, with plenty of nice PDMs.
Some of the solutions and parsings took me a fair time but were very satisfying once unravelled, as it should be.
Thanks as always to Cyclops.
Across
| 1 | PRIMPS | Dresses up rip-off politicians (6)
(RIP)* + MPS (politicians). |
| 4 | COMPASS | Instrument Starmer put back into firm Trumpian behind (7)
An envelope (into) of MP – Starmer, i.e. PM for the moment, reversed (put back) inside CO (firm) and ASS (American/Trumpian ‘behind’). |
| 9 | GOOD TIMING | Leaving without Dom, it’s fantastic – just what the comedian needs (4,6)
And envelope of GOING (leaving) outside (without) ODTIM, an anagram (‘s fantastic) of DOM IT. |
| 10 | OGLE | Look round before getting leg over (4)
O (round) + GLE (anagram/over of LEG). |
| 11 | OPAL | Milky white colour of mobster after work? (4)
AL (tax-evading mobster) after OP (work). |
| 12 | EXPENSE | Cost of Senate’s final vote against “betrayer” of Trump, reportedly (7)
A charade of E (Senate’s final [letter]) + X (vote) + PENSE – sounds like (reportedly) Mike PENCE, who followed procedure and let the other guy, who won, win. |
| 14 | SCREAM | Sun, low grade paper, comic (6)
S[un] + C (low grade) + REAM (paper). |
| 16 | RESTRAIN | Practice bondage and relax before shower? (8)
REST (relax) + RAIN (shower). |
| 17 | HUSTINGS | You finally ousted one in south coast town for electioneering (8)
U – [yo]U (finally) replacing/ousting A in HASTINGS The town is of course famous for the Battle of Hastings, which famously happened in the town of Battle, when William the Bastard came over ‘ere, messed with our language, and provided a lot of good French-derived words for 15×15 puzzles. |
| 20 | DINGHY | Hospital in drab surroundings that is subject to inflation (6)
H[ospital] inside DINGY (drab surroundings). |
| 22 | ARSENIC | Almost pleasant to go after git? It could be the death of you (7)
NIC[e] (almost pleasant) after ARSE (git). |
| 24 | MEAD | Drink, one’s into the drink (4)
A (one) inside/into MED[iterranean] (sea, so ‘the drink’). My LOI, one where it ‘had to be that’ but I wasn’t sure why. |
| 26 | TIFF | Barney is in fact iffy (4)
Hidden in facT IFFy. |
| 27 | EYEWITNESS | Head of the Sweeney is, perversely, one who looked on as crime was committed? (10)
Anagram (perversely) of T[he] SWEENEY IS. As luck would have it, this solution was in the MyCrossword puzzle I blogged on Monday, albeit with a completely different clue. |
| 28 | GLUCOSE | Sugar company’s in fix (7)
An envelope of CO’S (company’s) in GLUE (fix). |
| 29 | LEGEND | Foot, you might say, is a venerated person (6)
A leg-end is one way of describing a foot. |
Down
| 1 | PROSPECTUS | Outline plan for overseeing suspect movement (10)
PRO (for) above (overseeing) SPECTUS, an anagram (movement) of SUSPECT. |
| 2 | INDULGE | Go along with eluding nuts (7)
Anagram (nuts) of ELUDING. |
| 3/15d | PRIME MINISTERS | Prudish English members of the clergy: we’ve had too many in recent times (5)
PRIM (prudish) + E[nglish] + MINISTERS (members of the clergy). |
| 5/23d | ORGANISED CRIME | Mafia business, say – Eric M. as Cyclops might put it? (9)
A reverse anagram (as Cyclops might put it) – a clue reading ‘Organised Crime’ might solve as Eric M. I threw this in from crossers because it had to be that, but only parsed it properly just before getting into the drink (24a I mean). |
| 6 | PIONEER | Lords member holds up no.1 trailblazer (7)
An envelope (holds) of ION (no.1, up) inside PEER (Lords member). |
| 7 | SILK | Lawyer – southern kind (4)
S[outhern] + ILK (kind). I only know this synonym from crosswords. |
| 8 | NIPPER | Some brandy for each kid? (6)
NIP (some brandy) + PER (for each). |
| 13 | TIGHTARSED | Mean – pissed on poor dears (5-5)
TIGHT (pissed) + ARSED – anagram (poor) of DEARS. |
| 18 | TRAFFIC | A lot of which contributes to jam trade (7)
Cryptic definition. I always love it when people tell me “you’re not in traffic, you are traffic”. |
| 19 | SUNSET | Tabloid determined the ending of enlightenment? (6)
SUN (tabloid) + SET (determined), with a whimsical definition. |
| 21 | NOMINEE | Negative place of work, end of line for party candidate? (7)
NO (negative) + MINE (place of work – hole in the ground where precious materials are extracted) + [lin]E. As a long-time remote worker, I’m always working at ‘mine’. Not sure I know anyone who does/did worker a miner. |
| 25 | PILL | Issue can be avoided by its use? (4)
Cryptic definition, referring to the metonym for the female contraceptive pill. |
Thanks for the blog , very slight glitch for ORGANISED CRIME , the crime bit seems to have been stolen , this was a very good clue . Neat use of the Sweeney for EYEWITNESS , lots of other good clues .
For NOMINEE I took place of work as coal/tin/gold etc MINE , maybe there is this new modern usage .
Good puzzle and blog, thanks.
What are the two essentials for a comic?
Well, the first is always leave your audience wanting more.
Thanks Roz @ 1. That’s how I took MINE too, I was just adding some colour to a relatively thin blog.
And the stolen crime was due to my compiling the blog by means of some software I had AI make for me, since the PE puzzles can’t be solved online/on a phone, and the tool us bloggers use to assist in writing the blogs doesn’t support them. I’ve updated the post in both cases.
…oh and quite light on the schoolboy ribaldry, which Mrs. E commended.