Eccles is back in the midweek spot today.
As we have come to expect, this was a fun solve with lots of good surfaces and neat wordplay.
We had to check the Mexican in 28ac, but otherwise there were no unusual words.
We were initially totally stumped by 24d (our LOI, but the penny finally dropped as we were writing up the blog.
Unusually, there seem to be superfluous words in the clues for 4d and 17d, but the surfaces work well. However, we may be missing something.
CUB (youngster) round or ‘bored by’ L (liberal)
CHROMe (metal) without the last letter or ‘mostly’ SOME (part) round or ‘hiding’ O (hole)
SCOTCH (whisky) GlasS (without the middle letters or ’emptied’) round or ‘over’ EG (say)
A WAY (path)
ADVERt (notice) with B (bishop) replacing the ‘t’ (middle letter or ‘centrepiece’ of altar)
OR (gold) NAME (handle) NoT without the middle letter or ‘hollowed out’
ALsO (in addition) with T (time) replacing the ‘s’ (school)
TASTED (experienced) round or ‘nursing’ ELECtion (vote) with the latter half missing
G (gee) OF COURSE (it’s obvious) round or ‘including’ L (learner)
tORSO (body) with the ‘t’ (temperature) omitted or ‘taken’
An anagram of KEEN (anagrind is ‘to be involved’) in MESS (disorder)
bEST mATE (bosom buddy) with both first letters or ‘heads’ omitted or ‘out’
B (black) with TOM (cat) in front
DR (drive) round R (first letter or ramshackle) O (old) PANCHO (‘Mexican Villa’ – an electronic search reveals that Pancho Villa was a Mexican revolutionary general in the Mexican Revolution)
TUM (stomach) BLEW (produced wind) + a homophone (‘reportedly’) of EID (religious festival)
suRELY (in a certain manner) without ‘us’ reversed or ‘unusually’
pLACED (put) without the ‘p’ (penny)
BETTER (gambler) OFF (going)
A BIT (slightly) after or ‘supporting’ (in a down clue) C (Charlie in the phonetic alphabet) O H (first or ‘initial’ letters of other half) – ‘going’ seems to be superfluous here
Every third letter (‘every so often’) of afRicAn’s GuiDe dOg + L (left) L (large)
A SONIC (‘prickly character’ – Sonic the Hedgehog) after or ‘chasing’ M (Mike in the phonetic alphabet)
Hidden in or ‘fenced by’ claimS WAR Mends
GYP (trouble) in or ‘captured by’ ET (film)
SEEN (observed) round or ‘taking’ D (daughter) reversed or ‘back’
S (son) in or ‘visiting’ LOOE (Cornish town)
RAC (Automobile association) STROPS (tantrums) reversed or ‘over’ – ‘looking’ seems superfluous
An anagram of DROVE (anagrind is ‘crazily’) + UnsafE (first and last or ‘extreme’ letters only)
IS in or ‘enthralled by’ R (rare) SOLE (fish)
An anagram of DEALER M (mark) – anagrind is ‘mills’
MOT (test) + alternate or ‘regular’ letters of tEsT
We were really baffled by this one until we tumbled to the instruction to ‘space out’ grandchild into K (1,000 – grand) + BABE (child) reversed or ‘looking up’ (in a down clue)
R (Republican) in or ‘blocking’ TOLL (payment)
This was an absolutely top-notch puzzle and great fun as we unfailingly get from Eccles. Many thanks to him and to B&J.
Great stuff.Thanks all.
Excellent as always. Struggled to parse RELY but got there in the end. Thanks to Eccles and Bertandjoyce.
Yet another pleasing midweek puzzle from Eccles. Sound clueing, good surface readings, all round good entertainment. KEBAB was the only one I couldn’t parse (although only half parsed DROP ANCHOR, where I got as far as PANCHO and didn’t bother to look further to discover the ‘revolutionary’ bit).
Thanks to S & Bs.
I like Eccles Wednesdays – this one was as enjoyable as ever. I did know the ‘revolutionary’ too
Thanks to Eccles and B&J
Another very enjoyable offering from this setter although I wanted ‘on’ to be included in 30a and I did have to check on the religious festival. I was another who found the parsing of 24d quite a challenge!
Thanks to Eccles and to B&J for the review.
Thanks Eccles, and to B&J for the parsing of 24D, which I’m now suitably impressed by!
7 down is absolutely superb in an altogether brilliant puzzle.
Thanks all
always a treat. My favourite today was the Pancho Villa ref in DROP ANCHOR, but plenty of other goodies as per. Many thanks to Eccles, B & J
We didn’t have too much trouble with this, although a few clues kept us guessing for a while. In 4ac we were thinking of electrical cells at first, and with clues like 11ac we must remember that an adverb in the clue may sometimes (as here) be a definition by example. And we liked DROP ANCHOR once we remembered about Pancho Villa – a very neat clue.
Thanks, Eccles and B&J.
Yes, superb stuff.
From a setter who has obviously taken over the place of the much-missed and appreciated Dac.
And, in my opinion, his style is not unsimilar [yes, it’s in Collins] to Arachne’s (at another place, of course).
All the more annoying that there was something not right in 4dn.
But we’ll forgive him, don’t we?
Like we’ll forgive Boris, or don’t we?
Many thanks once more to our lucky blogging ‘team’ & to Eccles.
Thanks to B&J for the blog, and to all who commented.
4d, I just considered ‘going to’ as a link in the same way ‘leading to’ would be. In 17a, I was taking ‘looking over’ to be the reversal indicator as a whole, like in 24d with ‘looking up’ – although I see that neither is perfect. If I had noticed the repetition I would have tried to avoid it (just as I would have tried to use the present tense in in 26d if I had noticed that I hadn’t!).
Re 4dn: that’s ultimately fine then (even if it still feels a bit awkward to me – probably just a matter of taste).