Independent 10,155 by Eccles

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Eccles takes the mid-week slot this week.

We managed to rattle through this fairly quickly, with some great clues and a smile or two along the way.
We’re not quite sure about 12ac, but can’t see any other way of parsing it, and we’d never heard of the exotic bird at 17d.
Overall, a very enjoyable solve.

completed grid

 

Across

1 Investment of Connery and Craig in the minds of many? (7,5)
PREMIUM BONDS
‘In the minds of many’ (including us!) Sean Connery and Daniel Craig have been the best (PREMIUM) James BONDS in the film series

9 Take issue with church key being unavailable, ultimately (9)
CHALLENGE
CH (church) ALLEN (key, as used by Ikea and others) G E ‘ultimate’ letters of ‘being’ and ‘unavailable’

10 President’s vice is money (5)
PENCE
Mike PENCE is Vice President to he-who-shall-not-be-named

11 The abode of the dead, before public transport (6)
EREBUS
ERE (before) BUS (public transport)

12 Proton – one is a neutron? (8)
PARTICLE
We think this must be: P (proton) ARTICLE (‘a’ is one), but Chambers does not give P as an abbreviation for ‘proton’ – maybe it appears in other dictionaries?

13 Uses essence to hide nasty smell in bum (6)
SPONGE
uSEs (middle letters or ‘essence’) round or ‘hiding’ PONG (nasty smell)

15 Sweden has important information leading to reduction in economic growth (8)
SLOWDOWN
S (Sweden) LOW-DOWN (important information)

18 Two ways to inspire with a flag (8)
STANDARD
ST (street – one ‘way’) AND (with) A RD (road – a second ‘way’) thanks to Hovis and Geoff Wilkins for pointing out the missing ‘A’

19 Capital letters to the right of Caps Lock? (6)
ATHENS
On a standard keyboard the letters A THEN S are to the right of the Caps Lock key

21 Approximately how old you are is something that can make your passing more bearable (8)
ROUGHAGE
Your ROUGH AGE is ‘approximately how old you are’ – nice definition!!

23 Drink bitter, apart from the last bits – it’s delicious (6)
NECTAR
NECk (drink) TARt (bitter) both without the last letters or ‘bits’

26 Tea in China is drunk in sequence (5)
CHAIN
Two alternative wordplays here, 1: CHA (tea) IN, 2: an anagram of CHINA – anagrind is ‘drunk’

27 Rapidly beat hole in the roof of the mouth (9)
PALPITATE
PIT (hole) in PALATE (roof of the mouth)

28 What chlorophyll can do to plants, say, in part of London (7,5)
TURNHAM GREEN
A homophone (‘say’) of TURN ‘EM GREEN (‘what chlorophyll can do to plants’)

Down

1 Screws up Fairy Queen’s bit of sorcery (7)
PUCKERS
PUCK (fairy, in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream) ER (queen) S (first letter or ‘bit’ of ‘sorcery’)

2 Obliterate feeling of calm about Republican (5)
ERASE
EASE (feeling of calm) round R (Republican)

3 I will assess daughter’s rash (3-6)
ILL-JUDGED
I’LL (I will) JUDGE (assess) D (daughter)

4 Excellent, time after time (4)
MINT
T (time) after MIN (minute – another ‘time’)

5 Fit paratrooper, a blessing in disguise (8)
OPERABLE
Hidden (‘in disgiuse’) in paratroOPER A BLEssing

6 Department stores ring warehouse (5)
DEPOT
DEPT (department) round or ‘storing’ O (ring)

7 Upset Ant and Dec with extremely offensive story (8)
ANECDOTE
An anagram of ANT, DEC and O and E (first and last or ‘extreme’ letters of ‘offensive’) – anagrind is ‘upset’

8 Divide northern river (6)
SEVERN
SEVER (divide) N (northern)

14 Prophetic of the Eye to cover the central elements of emigration (8)
ORACULAR
OCULAR (of the eye) round or ‘covering’ RA (central letters or ‘elements’ of ’emigration’)

16 Devastating winger hit shot (9)
WITHERING
An anagram of WINGER HIT – anagrind is ‘shot’

17 Turkey, before pot of pheasant (8)
TRAGOPAN
TR (Turkey) AGO (before) PAN (pot) – a new bird for us. At the risk of upsetting Pierre and his solicitor, we are including a bird link HERE.

18 Small business hit hard (6)
STRUCK
S (small) TRUCK (business, as in ‘having no truck with’)

20 Medical practitioner working following storm (7)
SURGEON
ON (working) following SURGE (storm)

22 Follower of religion back at University (5)
HINDU
HIND (back) U (university)

24 Rant one’s blocked out in traffic (5)
TRADE
TiRADE (rant) without the ‘i’ (one)

25 In audition, run away from pest (4)
FLEA
A homophone (‘in audition’) of FLEE (run away from)

17 comments on “Independent 10,155 by Eccles”

  1. I too rattled through this with several smiles – I even found myself looking at the computer keyboard before the obvious became, well, obvious – A nice change from the usual ‘article’ way of cluing this capital.   I didn’t know the bird either, but the wordplay was very helpful.

    Thanks to Eccles and B&J

  2. Another great puzzle from Eccles, though I did fail to finish. Also cheated with google to get TURNHAM GREEN (specialist knowledge?) and a word fit to get TRAGOPAN. Failed to see NECTAR, TRADE, STRUCK or CHAIN but, in retrospect, should have got them.

    P for proton is in Collins. Blog for 18 is missing the A (AND A = with a).

    Thanks to Eccles and Bertandjoyce.

  3. My first guess for 19a (before looking at a keyboard) was STRESS. S for right of Caps and TRESS for lock (of hair) but felt italics, not capital letters, went with stress. Wonder if anybody else went along this path.

  4. This was a puzzle of two halves for me in terms of difficulty with the bottom half taking me a lot longer than the top.  It was a lot of fun apart from the two unnecessary references to bodily functions which simply spoil an otherwise excellent puzzle.

    17d was new to me and I couldn’t parse 12a.  My two favourites were TURNHAM GREEN (although this one is perhaps rather unfair for non-Londoners) and ATHENS, with several others coming into contention.

    Many thanks to Eccles and B&J.

  6. We too fairly rattled through this in a couple of passes.  19ac could only be ATHENS from crossing letters but we failed to parse it.  We did know TURNHAM GREEN from seeing it on the Underground map (it’s on the District and Piccadilly lines between Hammersmith and Acton Town).  TRAGOPAN was new to us but obviously began TR_G and was soon found in Chambers.  The parsing of NECTAR evaded us for a bit till we remembered ‘neck’ for ‘drink’.

    No real favourite today, it was all good.  Thanks, Eccles and B&J.

  8. Also confess I entered STRESS at 19A.  Had great difficulty with 13A as the typography on my machine is such that the final word in the clue looked like burn, not bum (not much difference is there, though I have had an operation on my r eye recently).  So filled in SPONGE but couldn’t parse it, didn’t realise the truth until I came here.  What a bummer.

    Thanks to Eccles and Bertandjoyce.

  9. Well, after two tough days I finished it – sort of.  I entered ILL-GUAGED for 3dn without noticing it wasn’t spelt that way.

    I couldn’t parse 19ac, even with a computer sitting next to me.

    21ac made me laugh out loud.

    I’m surprised that p for proton isn’t in Chambers.  It was when I was studying nuclear physics back in the seventies, as a quick check of Nuclear Physics, an Introduction by W.E. Burcham confirmed

  10. Hovis At 3 …Me too 🙂 I was sufficiently convinced of Capital letters that I did not look any further and of course none of the crossers clashed so I left it.

    Perhaps some will find 13a too lavatorial but I thought it a very clever misdirection and a very funny surface.

  11. It’s such an unusual bird that I will call off the legal rottweilers on this occasion.

    Good puzzle – well done for parsing ATHENS, because I would never have seen that (although I bunged it in).  I liked 13ac too.

  12. Entertaining 9; I kept staring at my keyboard but still failed to parse it. I tried stress as well although it didn’t seem right.

    Lots of good clues; I particularly liked SPONGE, ROUGHAGE, ORACULAR and ATHENS.

    Thanks Eccles and BJ.

  13. Cheers B&J and all who commented.

    If you haven’t had enough of me this week, I believe I am in the i tomorrow as part of their ‘Not recycled Indy crossword’ week.

    It doesn’t sound like people will be staying until the evening on Saturday, so sadly I won’t be there (unless it rains constantly), but I have booked the 21st off for London.  Hopefully some of you will make that.

    I seem to have got away with 3d, which I don’t think much of in retrospect!

  14. Like RD, I wasn’t keen on the references to bodily functions, I also struggled with the unknown area of London.   I have yet to find a Google image of the London Underground which renders the station names legible!

    I think that for many of us ladies of a certain age there is only one ‘premium’ Bond – in fact, only one ‘real’ Bond!

    Thanks to Eccles for the puzzle and to B&J for the blog.

  16. I did mean to add it was a pity I didn’t spot stress.  It would have been quite nice to have a clue such as ‘Emphasize letter to the right of Caps Lock’ in the same puzzle with the same crossers. Or not nice at all.

  17. Thanks to Bertandjoyce and Eccles

    Great fun, there must be many cracking Spoonerisms to be derived from Caps Lock, but I suppose they would only get into the Eye.

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