Eccles fills the mid-week spot again this week – we’re in for some fun…..
….and we weren’t disappointed. We found this slightly trickier than most recent Eccles offerings, but none the less enjoyable.
There were several crafty and inventive clues along the way, with excellent surfaces, as we have come to expect.
T (last letter or ‘termination’ of contract) after A MULE (shoe)
aGENDa (items for discussion) without the first and last letters or ‘unrestricted’ + ARE round or ‘entertaining’ M (last letter of from) – crafty definition!
lUCKLESs (unfortunate) without the first and last letters or ‘scratching walls’ after reversing or ‘overturning’ NK (middle letters or ‘centre’ of drinking)
MUm (quiet) without the last letter or ‘mainly’ TINY (very little)
An anagram of LURES ME IF I – anagrind is ‘stray’
Hidden or ‘nursed’ in doctoR IS Kissing
An anagram of GO and GO (anagrind is ‘off’) round or ‘covering’ an anagram of GOES (anagrind is ‘off’ – again)
LET (allow) HAL (Henry)
STUCk (held) without the last letter or ‘mostly’ CO (company – firm)
LICIT (permitted) in or ‘inspired by’ FEY (whimsical)
ONCE is Spanish for ‘eleven’, as in a football team
An anagram of SILICATES (anagrind is ‘deformation of’) round or ‘doped with’ P (phosphorus)
BOD (person) ICE (diamonds)
KIND (type) in or ‘stopping’ SEE (clock) P (first letter or ‘tip’ of pen)
Alternate or ‘occasional’ letters of cElTiC cEnTrE + RA (artists)
If something is ‘out of plane’ it would be SKEW – if it is ‘more out of plane’ it could be described as SKEWER
MINIMum (the least) without ‘um’ (bit of hesitation)
LO-CAL (a low calorie diet)
TELL (William Tell – Swiss folk hero) IN G (German ‘capital’)
GO (try) SLING (cast)
An anagram of M (million) and NEURAL – anagrind is ‘folds’
A (American) NT (New Testament – books) A RC (Roman Catholic) TIC (jerk)
An anagram of MEN’S FAITH – anagrind is ‘wavering’
An umpire’s decision in cricket determines whether a batsman is OUT – two decisions could be OUT AND OUT
SEC (second – ‘little time’) REsTIVE (impatient) without ‘s’ (first or ‘initial’ letter of seeming)
jOB (employment) SCENE (subsection of an Act – in a play) with ‘j’ (judge) missing or ‘struck off’
FREES (releases) I (iodine) A (area)
SEAL (shut) reversed or ‘up’ round ITI (middle or ‘essential’ letters of British)
pLEDGE (promise) without or ‘scrubbing’ the first letter or ‘top’
SUED (took to court) E (first letter or ‘head’ of EMI)
Good fun. I especially liked the definition for GENDARME and the wordplay for GOOSEGOG (a word I haven’t seen in ages). I did cheat a little to get SKEWER and SUEDE was my loi. Thanks to Eccles and Bertandjoyce.
I’d agree with trickier but very enjoyable as usual on Eccles Wednesdays
My favourite was 13a -we had our first 13a crumble of the season at the weekend and the rest of the crop is in the freezer for future use – they are always known by that name in our family
Thanks to Eccles and B&J
As a kid, we called them goosegobs but was never sure how regional that was. I see both variations are in Chambers.
Eccles on top form, I thought – great fun!
Favourites today were AMULET,GENDARME, EMULSIFIER, MINESHAFT and OBSCENE.
I was a bit surprised to see GOOSEGOG and especially to find it in a dictionary – I hadn’t heard it since childhood. [I’m intensely envious of crypticsue having a ready supply: they’re unobtainable in shops or markets these days and my friends who grew them in their garden went and moved. I miss the crumbles – and I also have a delicious recipe for gooseberry ice cream. 🙁 ]
Many thanks to Eccles and B and J – especially for the Spanish eleven, which I didn’t know.
Eccles remains consistently brilliant combining brevity of cluing with beautifully smooth surfaces and lots of humour.
5a was my favourite.
Many thanks to Eccles and to B&J.
Like Eileen, I was surprised to see that 13a appears in the dictionary and I thought 11a was something of a curved ball but this setter always has a few tricks up his sleeve!
Joint favourites here in 5a & 5d.
Thanks to Eccles and to B&J for the review.
Thanks Eccles, B&J, very nice as usual.
ONCE was actually a major Spanish cycling team for many years, named after a Spanish charity for the blind (an acronym, rather than the number).
It struck me that in 11a we have ‘(luresmeifI) stray’ but in 12a ‘(doctoriskissing) nurses’. I don’t see how both can be right.
Thanks to B&J for blogging. GOOSEGOGS was a fond reminder of childhood days, although the word is still common round here. ONCE was cleverly clued as well (you’ll remember it for next time, Eileen, when you realise that it’s cognate with and very close to being spelled the same as the French word).
Eccles is a consistently entertaining setter and always a welcome Wednesday distraction.
“… several crafty and inventive clues along the way, with excellent surfaces, as we have come to expect.” We’ll go along with that. And we must have been on Eccles’ wavelength today as we spotted the craft and inventiveness right from the start with 1ac. The SE corner was a minor hurdle, with SUEDE as our LOI, after we remembered it was the name of a band. Favourite was GENDARME.
We parsed ONCE simply as eleven = team; we’d forgotten about the cycling team, so thanks to James for the reminder.
And thanks, of course, to Eccles and B&J.
Another really good crossword from Eccles, one that I found more challenging than usual.
I didn’t miss SUEDE but I did miss SUEDE = ‘Band’ – oops.
I particularly liked (the surface of) 12ac’s RISK.
Talking about 12ac and to say something to James @7 , I think both the singular and the plural form of the verb can be justified.
Like most setters, Eccles preference is – as far as I know – to use the singular variant (as in 12ac).
However, in 11ac, if you see ‘lures me if I’ as four separate things that are ‘straying’, then ‘stray’ is all right IMO.
For me, not a matter of one’s right and therefore the other’s wrong.
More a case of Eccles being inconsistent.
Although I liked 13ac, I was a bit surprised to see an indirect anagram here.
That’s what it is, isn’t it?
‘Goes’ becomes GO GO, and then we’ll get (GO GO)*.
I first thought that the clue would tell me: (GOES)* around (GOES)*, but no, that didn’t lead to fruit.
Inventive, yes, but a bit unlike Eccles.
Many thanks to B&J for the blog, and Eccles for the entertainment.
Hi Sil, isn’t ‘off’ the indicator for both parts of the clue so we have GOES (off) inside another instance of GOES (off)?
That’s not my point, jane.
My point is that, strictly speaking, the clue says: (GOES)* around (GOES)*, but that it is (GO GO)* around (GOES)* that happens here.
Fine (perhaps) but unusual.
Sorry to disagree, Sil, but the clue explicitly says ‘goes (OFF) covering goes (OFF)’. Surely by putting an anagram of GOES inside another anagram of GOES, one arrives at the answer?
But the thing is, jane, that GOOSEGOG is not an anagram of GOES GOES.
You’ll have to turn the first GOES into GO+GO before taking the anagram.
Ah well, it doesn’t really matter. It’s OK or at least very original.
Thanks to Bertandjoyce and Eccles
Always inventive and enjoyable
In 11a I thought “stray” may be being used as an adjective.
20d More and more setter’s are using “at heart”, “essentially” etc. to mean “however many letters in the middle I’m thinking of”.
Cheers B&J and commenters.
Sil, it is slightly indirect, but I considered that as the letters were on the page, – even if they had to be written out twice, being a plural – it was just about OK. I thought it reasonable to be solved in a forward direction, rather than back-parsing, even if not straightforward.
James, I would consider fodder to be singular (unless it is clearly made plural by having ‘and’ separating the fodder), so I wouldn’t use stray as a verb in that position (many consider it to be fine, though, with fodder of more than one word). However, I used stray as an adjective here, as Dansar pointed out. Most adjectives can be used either before or after the word they are acting on (although it is more common to use them before) so i think that is fine.
Dansar, on your last point – guilty as charged.
I took ‘stray’ as dansar @15 did.
Sorry, Eccles – we crossed.
My apologies, Sil, I now see where you were ‘coming from’. Seems as through Eccles fooled me – not for the first time!
All sorted then!
Thanks, just didn’t occur to me that stray was an adjective.
Sil, the point about singular/plural verb forms has come up before and no doubt will again, though maybe it’s always on Guardian puzzles. I’m not entirely unconvinced by your justification, but I prefer Eccles’s position that if you want to treat the words separately and so have a plural verb, you need an ‘and’ in your list. Anyway, I think you’re right that it’s less a question of right or wrong than consistency; by doing it one way nearly all the time you are saying ‘this is how I think a clue should be written’, and then it looks very much like a compromise if you change your practice for a single clue.