A fun solve as ever, and one I managed by myself this time!
I found this hit the sweet spot perfectly for me – first scan through seemed daunting with little yielding, some focused effort provided some more solutions, and so on in roughly that fashion. Some of the clues took me some time to solve and/or properly parse, including a little research here and there. Overall a nice mixture of straightforward, slightly perplexing, and challenging, with just the right amount of cheekiness.
Thanks as ever to Cyclops for the puzzle.
Across
| 1 | WHIP | Nick, the party attack dog? (4) Double definition; to steal (e.g. “my phone’s been whipped”) or a political party’s disciplinarian. It took me rather too long to remember the former definition, even with crossers. |
| 4/7 | CATCH COLD | Become snotty-nosed and collar Conservative veteran (5,4) A charade of CATCH (collar) + C[onservative] + OLD (veteran). |
| 9 | CORFU | Holiday spot in which – phwoar! – female undoes top (5) A charade of COR (phwoar) + F[emale] + U the ‘top’ of ‘undoes’. Some credit to the setter for not clueing the last two letters in a more lewd manner. |
| 10 | COME INTO | Be left to have an orgasm? Not I, sadly (4,4) A charade of COME (have an orgasm) + INTO, an anagram (sadly) of NOT I. |
| 11 | ALLY | Wife leaves twerp for associate (4) A subtraction of WALLY (twerp) less W[ife]. |
| 12 | TWO FINGERS | Whisky drink raised in vulgar defiance? (3,7) Another double definition. When it comes to scotch, I find the trick is to choose as wide a glass as possible. Regarding the ‘salute’, you might believe this has origins in ancient archers defiantly showing their un-amputated fingers, but recently I learned there’s no solid evidence for this. |
| 13 | KIND OF | Family party, fine to some extent (4,2) KIN (family) + DO (party) + F (fine). |
| 15 | TOPICS | Subjects to tabloid photos? (6) TO + PICS (photos). I’m unsure what tabloids have to do with it but does make for a smoother & more apt surface. I suppose the abbreviation is tabloid-esque. |
| 18 | SCHEME | Cyclops pursuing school online far right conspiracy (6) SCH[ool] + [onlin]E (its ‘far right’) + ME (Cyclops, pursuing). Thanks to all the commenters for setting me straight!
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| 19 | BIDETS | Personal cleansers supplied by – wait – disheartened Trump supporters (6) BIDE (wait, as in biding one’s time) + TS – first/last letters (disheartened) of Trump supporterS. Another that took me a while to properly unpick & parse but not unfair. |
| 21 | UNDERMINED | Put too little effort into digging for copper etc, being weakened (10) Cryptic definition evoking a lazy pitman (or woman). |
| 24 | ITCH | Yen’s in shit? Cheers! (4) Hidden in shIT CHeers. |
| 25 | DROGHEDA | Heard dog’s drunk Irish port (8) Anagram (drunk) of HEARD DOG. I’ll confess I had to research Irish ports for this but hopefully this one is now permanently stored in my crossword-brain. |
| 26 | VERDI | He scored, lover did – well, not altogether (5) Hidden in (not altogether) loVER DId, with a fun oblique definition. |
| 27/28/29 | HOME SWEET HOME | House doubly full of humbug? There’s nothing like it (4,5,4) An envelope (full of) of SWEET (humbug) inside HOME HOME (house, doubly). |
Down
| 2 | HECKLE | Bloody hell! Law enforcement leaders harass the speaker (6) HECK (Bloody hell!) + L[aw] + E[nforcement]. |
| 3 | PARTY LINE | Do row, as subdued MPs stand by (5,4) PARTY (do, the other way around this time) + LINE (row, noun). As a child I thought the idiom was towing the line and never quite understood what I was supposed to be pulling. Apparently that’s called an eggcorn though I prefer the similar, if not identical mondegreen. |
| 4/19 | COUNT BINFACE | Votes cast by Burnham’s top information expert for the ‘Refuse’ candidate? (5,7) COUNT (votes cast) + B[urnham] (‘s top) + INF[ormation] + ACE (expert). Personally I don’t think joke candidates have a place in politics but the people of Clacton have elected him twice. |
| 5 | TICK OFF | Mark Dicky’s carpet (4,3) TICK (mark) + OFF (Dicky). The definition wasn’t familiar to me, another one for the memory banks. |
| 6 | HAM-FISTED | “Hard in the morning” fellow lives with Edward – awkward (3-6) H[ard] + AM (in the morning) + F[ellow] + IS (lives) + TED (Edward). Quite a mouthful (eyeful?) when written out but easier to solve, at least for me. |
| 7 | CLING | Clearing organ out? Hang on (5) A subtraction (out) of CLEARING, less EAR (organ). |
| 8 | LITERACY | Ability to read French article about sex – risqué! (8) A charade of LITE, an envelope (about) of IT (sex) inside LE (French definite article) + RACY (risqué). |
| 14 | DREAMLESS | Democrat with papers at bar – lacking vision? (9) D[emocrat] + REAM (papers) + LESS (bar). |
| 16 | PATRIARCH | Grand old man, a rich prat’s fancy (9) An angram (fancy) of A RICH PRAT. |
| 17 | SCENARIO | Situation requires a bit of opera or I shift (8) SCENA (a scene in/bit of opera) + RIO, an anagram (shift) of OR I. |
| 19 | See 4dn. | |
| 20 | SCHISM | Church is into kinky sex, causing split (6) CH[urch] + IS inside SM (kinky sex). |
| 22 | EAGLE | Mutt, blowing top, is symbolic of USA (5) BEAGLE (mutt) minus its first letter (blowing top). |
| 23 | DUVET | Bedding Victor to fill a twosome? (5) V (Victor, phonetic alphabet) inside DUET (twosome). |
Thanks for the blog , very good set of clues .
DROGHEDA was in the Guardian on the same day I was doing this .
Burnham starting to make his way into Cyclops , to me it does not seem an easy name to play with .
For SCHEME I had – online far right referring to the E in onlinE .
A very enjoyable weekend on this one except for Whip and Heckle which spoilt my party. The last time I heard the use of ‘whip’ in the context of ‘nick’ was well before the dawn of mobile phones…
18a. I thought that online far right referred to the letter e being at the far right end of online.
Drogheda was last one in for me, which was slightly annoying as I have been there on a very memorable visit to Newgrange neolithic site about 30 years ago. Very well worth a visit.
I agree with above commenters about 18a’s E.
“scena” and “tick off=carpet” were new for me (also Drogheda but I’d got that near enough from the anagram and crossers).
WHIP I penciled in but couldn’t find a reference online that allowed whip=steal (“whip away” possibly, bit not whip on its own).
Party Line a favourite, perhaps because it took a long time to figure it out.
3d PARTY LINE was also my favourite, especially, as you remarked in the blog, DO/PARTY is usually the other way round. It’s become too easy in so many crosswords that if PARTY is in the clue, DO is in the answer, so it was refreshing to see the reverse.
My favourites were CLING, VERDI and WHIP: I often find the shorter answers and/or clues are the most satisfying.
PARTY LINE was also fun.
It took me a while to see SCENA as a bit of an opera: I started out thinking “shift” was an anagrind for the whole answer and spent rather longer than I should have trying to do something productive with some of what preceded it….
Many thanks Cyclops and simonbyc
Tsk.
You’ve all said it for me.
Have a great day all.
Saaam# 5 – Whip = steal is listed in Chambers (13th).
I enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.
Thanks to Roz @1 as well as subsequent commenters for the clearly correct parsing of 18a SCHEME. I may have seen it when solving but when later preparing the blog in a somewhat tired & emotional state I squinted at it a lot and made up something worse.
I too also saw DROGHEDA in the Graun Prize from last weekend (which I haven’t completed yet), but didn’t want to mention that as it might be a spoiler – though the blog for that puzzle was published at about the same time as this one, so it wouldn’t have spoiled anything.
A late reply as I’ve spent most of the day running up and down hills.
“… preparing the blog in a somewhat tired & emotional state …”
A common affliction of Eye bloggers
Thanks simonbyc and Cyclops. Good stuff as always! Like Wellbeck @7 I had marked 7d as a favourite. It seems so clever and neat it has the feeling of a classic clue. I had to Google SCENA to confirm it was an operatic term at solve time.
Thanks for the link re eggcorn and mondegreen. I think I might have heard of mondegreen on this site before but not eggcorn.