It’s Eccles again in the Wednesday slot – we’re in for some fun.
As we have come to expect, this was an enjoyable solve with some great surfaces and several laugh-out-loud moments – particularly 1ac, 12ac and 26d.
We were slightly puzzled by ‘gannet’ being the example of an ANIMAL at 21d, but it was presumably chosen to work with the surface – would ‘pig’ have worked just as well? Not a criticism by the way – just a comment!
ARE ExhibitionistS (without the middle letters or ‘disheartened’) after DUNG (dropping)
UNCLe (‘papa’s brother’) without or ‘lacking’ ‘e’ (energy) AS (like) P (Papa in the phonetic alphabet)
An anagram of PENS SAY – anagrind is ‘surprisingly’
REP (salesman) ATE (worried) round ROB (rifle)
NO I GEL (possible answer to ‘Do you use hairspray to hold your hair?’) all reversed or ‘back’
ILL ILL (repeatedly sick) round or ‘over’ W (women)
An anagram of OTHERS ACT – anagrind is ‘appallingly’
SUN (star) STROKE (shot)
TANGO (dance) reversed or ‘on retirement’ in CE (church)
HAS (possesses) SiLvEr (alternate or ‘odd’ letters)
A clue-as-definition – an anagram of AID FLIERS – anagrind is ‘ground’
AM I ABLE (question showing self-doubt)
An anagram of SET (anagrind is ‘out’) round or ‘pinching’ OR (gold) AG (silver)
Hidden or ‘covered’ in aSKING RAF Trainee
DATE (dinner partner) with LOSE (forget) reversed or ‘going back’ inside
Hidden in or ‘protected by’ EuropeaN UNion
APACHe (Native American) without the last letter or ‘the majority of’ round or ‘nursing’ PRO (master)
sEVER (cut) without the ‘S’ (Sweden)
R (resistance) in or ‘crushed by’ S (first letter or ‘leader’ of ‘Spanish’) UPRISING (revolution)
S (succeeded) COOL (in) round or ‘keeping’ H (hospital)
hAPPy mEALs (both words without the first and last letters or ‘dressing’)
A VICARIOUS (surrogate) with the I C (caught) moving back or ‘south’ (in a down clue)
An anagram of BOGART RAGEd without the last letter or ‘endlessly’ – anagrind is ‘about’
fILLES (French for ‘girls’ without the first letter or ‘topless’) after MARS (planet) E (Earth)
An anagram of MAN GETS (anagrind is ‘drunk’) around I (one)
S (small) EVEREST (mountain)
CO (company – ‘firm’) ARSE (buttocks)
LAMINA (plate) reversed or ‘up’ (in a down clue)
S (first letter or ‘start’ to ‘spin’) ARId (dry) without the ‘d’ (daughter)
BRAt (badly behaved kid) without the last letter or ‘scratching bottom’
Absolutely superb. Lots of lol surfaces. More please.
Super crossword – I did like 23a but special mention must go to 26a, not least for not referring to said item as a ‘supporter’
Thanks to Eccles – I’ll second Hovis’s more please – and to B&J
The usual sparkling delight from this setter with smiles all the way. Many thanks to Eccles for the fun.
There was fierce competition for my choice of favourite but 12a gets the nod.
I couldn’t parse 9d, so many thanks to B&J for the explanation.
Very enjoybale puzzle. My favourites were DUNGAREES, ILL WILL, LEGION.
I failed to parse 3d because for some reason I was thinking that Apache had two Ps, so I was looking at RO in APPACH and could not work out what RO was!
Thank you, Eccles and B&J.
What the last three commenters said – I loved it!
Re 21: I’ve seen this device several times but this was a new treatment. [A few weeks ago I got into trouble for writing something like ‘birds and/or animals’ in a blog.]
By coincidence, last Friday’s Guardian Paul puzzle had both DUNGAREES and COGNATE and Julius in the FT last Wednesday had GRETA GARBO.
Many thanks to all three.
michelle snuck in while I was typing. 😉
^ should be *enjoyable above ^
Very good. I couldn’t parse DUNGAREES and there were lots of other challenging clues such as DESOLATE and APPROACH. Favourites were the reversed NO I GEL, the BRA definition and the clever AIRFIELDS.
Thanks to Eccles and B&J
Very good. I couldn’t parse Avaricious so thanks for the explanation. Not a criticism, just a comment: why do the English stick an S on Marseille, Lyon and possibly others when there isn’t one in French? Something to ponder over lunch. Thanks Eccles and B&J.
Tatrasman @9. Perhaps it’s because the French do have an S on the end of Paris and don’t pronounce it. ?
That’s odd. I put a winking emoji in @10 and it has appeared as a question mark.
Tatrasman @9. My feelings too-and to even pronounce Lyon like LIONS-not much they could do to ruin Paris-he was aTrojan anyway. But these discrepancies serve setters well.
I think the coincidence of the other three clues is too close for plagiarism-lets just say great minds think alike.
I am continuing to warm to Eccles
Found this one slightly easier than usual for an Eccles (famous last words!) with just the parsing of 9d causing a bit of grief.
20d made me laugh so gets my vote for favourite.
Many thanks to Eccles and to B&J for the review.
I certainly wasn’t suggesting plagiarism, copmus – I just thought it was mildly interesting, because they’re not words that crop up every week in crosswords. 😉
Rabbit Dave. Did you put an actual emoji which wouldn’t work (I think) or a semicolon followed by a ) with spaces either side? I’ll try this now and see if it works 😉
Hovis @15. I put an actual emoji. So let me now try the 😉
Success! 🙂
We enjoyed solving this, and managed to parse everything except AVARICIOUS.
On solving 13dn we wondered if it was at all &lit-ish; favourite, though was our FOI, UNCLASP.
Thanks, Eccles and B&J 🙂
The top left corner totally defeated me.
Many thanks to B&J, and to all who commented. I had noticed the recent appearances of Greta Garbo and Dungarees, and it is quite some coincidence as these are hardly common entries. I was glad my puzzle appeared so soon after those two rather than being one 3 or 4 later in the queue. It is always going to happen to a certain extent, (I had a very similar clue for colossal shortly after Skinny, but that is a more common word with a fairly obvious breakdown) but for such rare answers it was a surprise.
I did have pig for a while in 21d, but would have preferred ‘Plate up pig’ – as if the pig was the food – in the surface, but that would have led to ambiguity in the choice of answer. This made me think ‘Plate up for pig’ might be a slightly odd surface as people would not immediately think of a greedy eater, whereas with gannet they probably would. If any of that makes sense!