Times QC No 3299 by Joker

I so wanted Trump=flatulence to work here

My first attempt was SHOUT, with SHUT(=failing) which I felt pretty good about, until the Downs stopped working.

Supporter can be Fan or Tee, but not today.

See Current Bloggers under my entry for my all time favourite clue that works similarly.

This looks like a hideous word, but Shakespeare used it. In Act 2, Scene 6 of The Merchant of Venice Jessica, who is escaping her father (Shylock) by disguising herself as a page, says

For if they could, Cupid himself would blush

To see me transformed to a loathsomeness.

Thirty-one days could be any of the seven, and the IN=inside threw me as well. Just as well the definition is biffable.

Well. it’s never Coriolanus is it?

I have to confess to looking up to see if LUY is a word for payment.

Very nice juxtaposition of “wicked” and “devil”.

Although to me IMPIOUS seems a lot less severe than wicked. I guess in modern times, doing something like swearing or skipping church doesn’t seem very wicked.

But Socrates was put to death for being IMPIOUS: refusal to conform to social and religious norms. Even his accusers didn’t necessarily think he was a “wicked” man who wanted to hurt people.

Not Baseline, which are more common lines on a tennis court.

Yesterday Starmer tried to energise the base/party. Doesn’t quite work, though. And neither did his speech.

I love researching onomatopoeia words in other languages:

Pschitt (French), Husch (German), Zape (Spanish), Sciò (Italian), Sou (Greek), Hoşt (Turkish), Kish (Arabic), Kysh (Russian), Hut (Hindi), Shi-shi (Japanese), Xô (Portuguese), and Kst (Dutch).

I always think of this as just the glass. But its just a type of  mixed drink consisting of a base spirit and a larger proportion of a non-alcoholic carbonated mixer, typically served in a tall glass over ice.

Whiskey Soda, Gin & Tonic, Rum & Coke: all Highballs.

Is Pasta particularly filling? The adjective “Italian” would have made it too easy, and none at all perhaps a bit too hard.

An accommodation is an agreement/settlement in law. As in “The committee reached a final accommodation regarding the zoning dispute.”

Thanks to my old English teacher Dr Lowe who spent an entire lesson on this spelling.

The full name of the council (and football club) is “Brighton and Hove”. And people who live in Hove call it “Hove actually”.

A TRIBUNE was an official in Ancient Rome chosen to protect the interests and rights of the common people (plebeians) from the actions of the aristocracy and government.

Who in our society plays that role now?

And here, “to the audience” does not signal a homophone but is exactly what it says. Joker up to his tricks here

And again, “bananas” is not an anagram indicator.

Although a British barista will silently judge you it you call it an “expresso”, in France you actually would say it, because they adapted the Italian word to fit their own linguistic rules.

We’ve had this in a few crosswords recently, and for some reason I always try ESCHEW first, it seems such as classic crossword word.

A short, descriptive poem that depicts a peaceful state of existence, usually on a simple rural setting.

In my early crossword days, I was doing a cryptic, and the answer was “Idylls of the King”, anagram of “Lightly dyed in silk”. First time I had heard the word. (PS, it’s by Tennyson)

I went through my list of three-letter islands first (Man, Iow, Cay, Key, Egg, Kos)