Independent 11,022 by Eccles

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Our regular Wednesday challenge from Eccles.

I found this slightly less satisfying than usual, perhaps because of a few obscure words and (unless I’m missing something) a questionable definition in 26a. Still fun, though: I liked the non-seasonal reference in 23a, the Elvis impersonators’ convention in 5d, and the misleading definition in 22d. Last one in (but also a favourite) was 14d, which needed all the crossers before the penny-drop moment that “hero” is a non-gendered term these days. Thanks Eccles as always.

Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

ACROSS
1 SHOW ONE’S FACE
So, a chosen few can be forced to make an appearance (4,4,4)
Anagram (can be forced to . . .) of SO A CHOSEN FEW.
9 AISLEWAYS
Was easily converted, creating divisions in church (9)
Anagram (converted) of WAS EASILY.

An unfamiliar but guessable alternative word for aisles = passageways between blocks of seating.
10 NIGER
Country in which Queen nearly overthrown (5)
REGIN[a] (Latin for queen, used in official and legal language) without the last letter (nearly), reversed (overthrown).
11 MUTATE
Change lover, to inspire lust, from time to time (6)
MATE (lover), containing (to inspire = breathe in) alternate letters (from time to time) of [l]U[s]T.
12 CITYWIDE
According to Spooner, scientific adviser expressed disappointment throughout London? (8)
Spoonerism of WHITTY SIGHED: referring to the UK government’s Chief Medical Adviser Sir Chris Whitty, who’s been doing a very visible and important job in the last couple of years (and probably sighing quite a lot at his bosses’ failure to listen to him). As far as I’m aware he pronounces his surname with a silent H, so the homophone works for the Spoonerism.
13 RABBIT
Terrible batter runs slightly around back of hob (6)
R (abbreviation for runs, in cricket scoring) + A BIT (slightly), around the last letter (back) of [ho]B.

Cricket slang for a bowler who isn’t very good at batting, and appears scared like “a rabbit in the headlights” when required to face the opposition’s best bowlers.
15 LAST POST
Order to retire, or continue with job? (4,4)
LAST (continue) + POST (job = employment position).

Bugle call originally played at the end of the day (to indicate that a military camp is secure, or that battle has stopped for the night), hence an order to retire to bed perhaps? For those not in the military it’s more often associated with Remembrance Day services.
18 BLACK EYE
Vital to stop British doctor creating visible injury (5,3)
KEY (vital, as in “a key component of . . .”) inserted into (to stop) B (British) + LACE (doctor = to adulterate food or drink with something nasty, perhaps).
19 SAWYER
Timber expert was backing you (6)
WAS reversed (backing) + YER (colloquial pronunciation of “you”).

Someone who saws timber.
21 REIGNITE
Sit on the throne with it close to backside, and burn again (8)
REIGN (sit on the throne) + IT + last letter (close) of [backsid]E.
23 CERVID
Prancer video shows this? (6)
Hidden answer (. . . shows) in [pran]CER VID[eo].

Extended definition: an animal of the deer family, for example Prancer who is one of Santa’s reindeer.
26 EVENS
Compares final five members of football and netball teams (5)
Last five letters of [el]EVENS (which could be football teams) or [s]EVENS (which could be netball teams).

I’m not convinced by the definition. Compares can mean “is equivalent”, and evens can mean “with neither side having an advantage” or (as a verb) “levels”, so the meanings are somewhat related – but I can’t think of a usage where the two could be interchanged.
27 PANTOMIME
Intend to quietly act bit of Loot out in show (9)
P[l]AN TO (intend to) + MIME (act silently = quietly act), with the first letter (a bit) of L[oot] taken out.
28 CLEAN-AND-JERK
It requires strength, being honourable with idiot (5-3-4)
CLEAN (honourable, for example in the sense of a clean athlete = one who doesn’t use performance-enhancing drugs) + AND (with) + JERK (idiot).

A weightlifting manoeuvre.
DOWN
1 STAMMER
Celebrity adopting Frenchwoman’s speech impediment (7)
STAR (celebrity), containing (adopting) MME (French abbreviation for Madame, title for a woman).
2 ONSET
Knock down walls of Durham steel town, for a start (5)
[c]ONSET[t] (former steelworking town in County Durham, north-east England), with the outer letters (walls) removed.
3 OVERTHINK
Give too much consideration to visible tattoo featuring husband (9)
OVERT (visible) + INK (slang for a tattoo), containing (featuring) H (short for husband).
4 ELAN
Dash from cycling path (4)
LANE (path), with the letters “cycling” round so that the E is at the front.

Elan = dash = style or flair.
5 FESTIVAL
Outrageous fat Elvis celebration (8)
Anagram (outrageous) of FAT ELVIS.
6 CANNY
Clever Johnny! (5)
Definition and cryptic definition. For the latter, john = can = slang for a toilet, so Johnny = canny = like a toilet, I suppose.
7 AGRIMONY
Adult working in dirty church steeples? (8)
A (abbreviation for adult), then ON (working) in GRIMY (dirty).

Flowering plant, with the nickname “church steeples” for its tall flower spikes. I’d heard of the plant but needed Wikipedia to confirm the nickname.
8 ARREST
Research into the work of Picasso, say, is to stop (6)
RES (abbreviation for research) inserted into ART (the work of Picasso, say).
14 BOADICEA
American wearing corset meets a British folk hero (8)
A (abbreviation for American) inserted into (wearing) BODICE (corset), then another A.

Also known as Boudica, or other variant spellings: first-century British queen who led a revolt against the Romans.
16 TRAPEZOID
Prize toad has broken bone (9)
Anagram (. . . has broken) of PRIZE TOAD.

A wedge-shaped bone in the hand.
17 DYSTOPIA
Nobody stop Ian describing the worst of all worlds (8)
Hidden answer (. . . describing) in [nobo]DY STOP IA[n].

An imagined society that is undesirable or frightening: from the Greek for “a bad place”.
18 BARBED
Prevent plot being designed to wound (6)
BAR (prevent) + BED (plot of ground).
20 REDNECK
End up overwhelmed by desire for uneducated labourer (7)
Anagram (up = shaken up) of END, in RECK (archaic word meaning to desire, or more often to care about something; now pretty much obsolete except in the form “reckless” = without taking care).

Derogatory term, mainly US, for a white rural working-class man.
22 NASAL
In-laws call regularly about Hooters (5)
Alternate letters (regularly) of [i]N[-l]A[w]S [c]A[l]L.

Hooter = slang for the nose, so “about hooters” = nasal.
24 VOICE
Oscar enters into prostitution, say (5)
O (Oscar in the radio alphabet) inserted into VICE (as in Vice Squad = the police department that deals with prostitution).

Voice, as a verb = say out loud.
25 INCA
About to support popular South American (4)
CA (short for Latin circa, about, in the sense of “approximately”), after (below, in a down clue = supporting) IN (popular).

Relating to the historic empire in South America.

14 comments on “Independent 11,022 by Eccles”

  1. As always I really enjoyed this challenging offering from Eccles. but I do hope he wasn’t referring to my cricketing prowess in 13a.

    I was beaten by 7d even with the four checkers in place. Googling “church steeples”, which I felt must be the definition, didn’t provide any enlightenment, so I resorted to a solver app which offered me a word I’d never heard of and I was still none the wiser.

    I agree with Quirister that the definition for 26a is a bit dodgy, but everything else was superb with my podium choice being MUTATE. RABBIT and BOADICEA.

    Many thanks to Eccles and to Quirister.

  2. Good Eccles fare. Not too difficult to complete the grid but parsing everything was another matter. I didn’t know the ‘Durham steel town’, the ‘scientific adviser’, the YER for ‘you’ in SAWYER or RECK for ‘desire’ in REDNECK. If I had come across them before, I’d forgotten CERVID and AGRIMONY. I just bunged EVENS in, but I agree it’s hard to think of an example where it could substitute for ‘Compares’.

    Despite missing a few details I still very much enjoyed this. The surface for BOADICEA was my favourite.

    Thanks to Eccles and Quirister

  4. It took ages to get started, my first being REIGNITE at 21A, then slowly worked anticlockwise around the rest. Needed the help of a word-list for AGRIMONY. Some slightly stretchy clues but much enjoyed, so thanks Eccles and Quirister.

  5. I’m with RD and WP on this one. Whilst I share our blogger’s concern re EVENS, which went in with a shrug and was nicely clued, everything else clicked very nicely. A few didn’t parse – I haven’t encountered RECK – another of those words that only seem to exist in the negative form – and AGRIMONY went in from the clueing but I needed to be reminded here that it’s a flower. I was honestly expecting to discover it was a collective noun for religious architecture! The Agrimony of Oxford?

    Looking at ticks, I can happily nominate every one of the first eight across clues with a mention in despatches for doctor = LACE. Favourites are CANNY which is wicked and the beautiful CERVID, seasonal or not.

    Thanks Eccles and Quirister

  6. Like Rabbit Dave and WordPlodder, I enjoyed this puzzle, as usual – I look forward to Eccles Wednesdays – and I share Quirister’s favourites and her misgivings about compares = EVENS. ‘Just for fun’, I looked it up, and to my surprise, found ‘compare’ under ‘even’ in Chambers – but it still doesn’t work for me.

    I wasn’t aware of that definition of ‘reck’ but Chambers has ‘to care, desire, care about, heed’ and that does work for me. It calls to mind Ophelia’s rather topical advice to Laertes:
    Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
    Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
    Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
    Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
    And recks not his own rede. Hamlet (1.3.48-52)

    I had ticks for CITYWIDE (I’m by no means a fan of Spoonerisms, largely because they so often don’t make two meaningful phrases – but this one certainly did), BLACK EYE, PANTOMIME, FESTIVAL, CANNY, BOADICEA and NASAL.

    It seems a while since we saw ELAN: in the olden days it seemed to crop up very often.

    Many thanks to Eccles for the usual fun and to Quiruster for a fine blog – I enjoyed your comments.

  9. A resounding DNF here with most of my problems sitting in the NE corner.
    Not to worry, there’s always another day!

    Thanks to Eccles and to Quirister whose help I certainly needed to make sense of some of the clues.

  10. It’s always nice when the clues are precise enough that you can deduce some knowledge from the clue, even without resorting to Wikipedia, as was the case with AGRIMONY today, which till today I knew as a plant but not it’s (not so) common name.

  11. Rather odd inclusions such as AISLEWAYS, and perhaps CITYWIDE, and the obscure AGRIMONY, defined at least as obscurely, but some nice work within the clues. I felt 1a was struggling to be smooth. At the very least I think the ‘to’ should be included in the definition part.

  12. A bit of help from Chambers here and there, but we got there in the end. We didn’t know the common (?) name for AGRIMONY but looking at the illustration in Keble Martin’s Concise British Flora we could see why it’s called that. Favourites were CITYWIDE and RABBIT.
    Thanks, Eccles and Quirister

  13. A definite DNF for me; the right-hand side defeated me.

    Alas, 2dn brought back memories. My mother died in Consett and and the only time I’ve been there was when I went there with my father to pick up her death certificate.

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