We have an Eccles puzzle today in the Independent today.
Eccles provides us with his usual assortment of deceptively simple clues. I particularly liked the clue for BEHAVED (25 across) where both the component parts of the wordplay were presented plainly in the clue, but it still took a while for the penny to drop for me.
ROTATE at 2 down was another one where it took me longer than it should to parse. I deduced the answer from the definition and the crossing letters, but seeing GUEST within ROGUE STATE took a bit longer.
I think I have parsed PEER GROUP correctly at 13 across but I haven’t been able to track down WN as an abbreviation for women so I may not have the parsing right. There’s usually one clue these days where I fail to see the obvious. Perhaps ‘wasted’ in the clue refers to taking the central letters OME out of WOMEN, but if that’s the case, I can’t see another indicator for taking WN out of GROWN UP
There were a couple of references to living people in the puzzle that might be seen as obscure for solvers who live outside the United Kingdom or are not followers of snooker. GREG DAVIES (entry at 14 down) seems to appear on British television very regularly these days and DING Junhui referenced in the wordplay at 18 down has been around the snooker scene for many years.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 9 |
American statesman is more fussy, but not Conservative (7) HOOSIER (native of the American State of Indiana; American statesman) CHOOSIER (more fussy) excluding (but not) C (Conservative) HOOSIER |
| 10 |
Celebrate 1-0 for so long (7) CHEERIO (goodbye; so long) CHEER (celebrate) + IO (characters representing 1-0) CHEER IO |
| 11 |
Prepare to serve youngster drinking after hours (5,2) PLATE UP (put food on a PLATE ready for serving) PUP (youngster) containing (drinking) LATE (after hours) P (LATE) UP |
| 12 |
Acquires boring information retrospectively to obtain funds (4,3) NEST EGG (money saved; funds) (GETS [acquires] contained in (boring) GEN information]) all reversed (retrospectively) (NE (ST EG) G)< |
| 13 |
Similar people look intently at mature women getting wasted (4,5) PEER GROUP (set of people equal in age, rank, merit, etc; similar people) PEER (look intently at) + GROWN UP (adult; mature) excluding (getting wasted) WN (women) – I don’t think I have got this quite right as I can’t find WN as an abbreviation for women. PEER GROUP |
| 15 |
Order in a bar through a speaker (5) ALIGN (arrange in a line; order) A LIGN (sounds like [through a speaker] A LINE [a bar]) A LIGN |
| 16 |
Polish Queen’s shields (7) BUFFERS (shields) BUFF (polish) + ER’S (Elizabeth Regina’s;Queen’s) BUFF ERS |
| 19 |
Touches head of science’s flies (7) SMIDGES (very small amounts; traces; touches) S (first letter of [head of] SCIENCE) + MIDGES (small gnat-like flies) S MIDGES |
| 20 |
Reportedly remained sober (5) STAID (sober) STAID (sounds like [reportedly] STAYED [remained]) STAID |
| 21 |
Plague involves bit of redness of the skin (9) EPIDERMIC (related to the skin) EPIDEMIC (plague) containing (involves) R (first letter of [bit of] REDNESS) EPIDE (R) MIC |
| 25 |
Bed covers have not caused trouble (7) BEHAVED (did not cause trouble) BED containing (covers) HAVE BE (HAVE) D |
| 26 |
Constabulary surrounds flat (7) TABULAR (flattened) TABULAR (hidden word in [surrounds] CONSTABULARY) TABULAR |
| 28 |
Trace of boiled egg on sprout (7) BURGEON (produce sprouts or buds) B (first letter of [trace of] BOILED) + URGE ON (egg on) B URGE ON |
| 29 |
Formulate clown court to imprison nationalist (7) CONCOCT (fabricate; formulate) (COCO [reference COCO the clown {Nicolai Poliakoff (1900 1974) was the creator of COCO the Clown, arguably the most famous clown in the United Kingdom in the mid-20th century}] + CT [court]) containing (to imprison) N (nationalist) CO (N) CO CT |
| Down | |
| 1 |
Hurriedly prepare clue for golf? (4,2) WHIP UP (prepare quickly) WHIP UP can be a clue for GOLF as a down entry where UP is a reversal indicator and WHIP is defined as FLOG. UP could also be seen as an anagram indicator for the anagram fodder FLOG WHIP UP |
| 2 |
In rogue state, time for resident to turn (6) ROTATE (turn) ROGUE STATE with T (time) replacing (for) GUEST (resident) ROTATE |
| 3 |
Part of Scotland provided iron manacles (4) FIFE (The Kingdom of FIFE is a Council area in Scotland situated between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Tay) FE (chemical symbol for iron) containing (manacles) IF (provided) F (IF) E |
| 4 |
Too much work left, on reflection (6) TROPPO (in music, too much; excessively) (OP [opus; work] + PORT [left side of a ship]) all reversed (on reflection) (TROP PO)< |
| 5 |
Drink quietly inside: school term over (8) SCHNAPPS (any of various strong alcoholic drinks, especially Holland gin) P (piano; quietly) contained in (inside) (SCH [school] + SPAN [term] reversed [over]) SCH NAP (P) S< Either P could be the one contained |
| 6 |
Supervise a criminal influencing the mind (10) PERSUASIVE (influencing the mind) Anagram of (criminal) SUPERVISE A PERSUASIVE* |
| 7 |
Go after complimentary bitter (8) FREEZING (very cold; bitter) FREE (complimentary) + ZING (zest; vitality; go) FREE ZING |
| 8 |
Wants to hide Dutch soldier in rented accommodation (8) LODGINGS (rented accommodation) LONGS (yearns; wants) containing (to hide) (D [Dutch] + GI [American soldier]) LO (D GI) NGS |
| 14 |
Comedian, for one day, is put in stocks (4,6) GREG DAVIES (reference GREG DAVIES [born 1968], Welsh comedian, actor, presenter, and writer, frequently seen on British television) (EG [for example; for one] + D [day]) contained in (is put in) GRAVIES (sauces used in cooking often made from vegetable or meat stocks) GR (EG D) AVIES |
| 16 |
Primate‘s mode of transport originally helped bishop in Gulf (8) BUSHBABY (any of several nocturnal small African lemur-like primates) BUS (mode of transport) + H (first letter of [originally] HELPED) + (B [bishop] contained in [BAY [an inlet of the sea similar to a gulf]) BUS H BA (B) Y |
| 17 |
Perhaps Gordon gets youngsters to cook in no time (5-3) FLASH-FRY (cook very quickly by placing in a very hot pan) FLASH (reference FLASH Gordon [1980 space opera film directed by Mike Hodges, based on the King Features comic strip of the same name created by Alex Raymond) + FRY (small children; youngsters) FLASH FRY |
| 18 |
After start of session, number one snooker player is going too quickly (8) SPEEDING (going too quickly) S (first letter of [start of] SESSION) + PEE (a toilet activity [urination] colloquially referred to as number one) + DING (reference DING Junhui [born 1987], a Chinese professional snooker player and the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport) S PEE DING |
| 22 |
Whole portion of finest catnip is on the counter (6) INTACT (whole) INTACT (reversed [on the counter] hidden word in [portion of] FINEST CATNIP) INTACT< |
| 23 |
Gentle chap having sex reassignment surgery (6) MELLOW (gentle) FELLOW (chap)with (F [female] changed to M [male] as a form of sex reassignment surgery) MELLOW |
| 24 |
Look after uniform in box (6) CURATE (have responsibility for; look after) U (Uniform is the International Radio Communication code word for the letter U) contained in (in) CRATE (box) C (U) RATE |
| 27 |
Around November, apply to Unite (4) BIND (tie or fasten together; unite) BID (apply) containing (around) N (November is the International Radio Communication code word for the letter N) BI (N) D |
My reading of ‘mature’ in 13 across is simply ‘grow up’ so you only have to remove a ‘w’.
Thanks for the blog and to Eccles.
Same as Desmond. Need to take ‘mature’ as a verb.
Eccles as his most devious today especially in the NW corner which I found a bit of a brute. Despite being made to work hard, I thought this was a very enjoyable challenge with BEHAVED, ROTATE and PEER GROUP my top three. I agree with Desmond @1 about the parsing of the last of these.
I’m not quite sure in what context “bar” = “line” in 15a.
Many thanks to Eccles and to Duncan.
Desmon@1 Hovis@2 Rabbit Dave @ 3
Thanks to everyone who pointed out that I went one letter too far with GROWN UP rather than GROW UP at 13 across.
Rabbit Dave @ 3
I wondered about LINE and BAR but Bradfords Crossword Solver’s Dictionary has BAR as a synonym for LINE amongst its almost full page of synonyms for LINE so I removed the question mark I had in an early draft of the blog
Looks like we’re all of one mind wrt PEER GROUP though I did start off looking for WN like Duncan.
RD @3: I took bar as the musical line?
HOOSIERS, though gettable, was new to me and I’m more familiar with SMIDGEON than I am with SMIDGE. BUFFERS, BURGEON, CONCOCT, FREEZING, FLASH FRY, MELLOW and CURATE my favourites today from a tough but fair puzzle.
Thanks Eccles and Duncan
Never heard of FLASH FRY or PLATE UP
Heard of STEVE DAVIES
I normally warm to Eccles puzzles but not today
Cant win em all
I was OK with HOOSIER as he turned up recently in a puzzle elsewhere, the same could not be said of the Welsh comedian!
Took me a while to figure out the parsing of 2d but 13a didn’t cause any problems.
Top scorers for me were PEER GROUP, FLASH FRY, MELLOW & CURATE.
Thanks to Eccles and also to Duncan for the review.
Thanks both. The right level of challenge for me today, with last-ones-in being FREEZING wherein I was distracted by the free bar and slow to acknowledge bitter is a common shortening of bitterly cold, and ALIGN which leaves me only wishing certain dictionaries gave examples of less common synonyms i.e. when a bar is a line…..hopefully help is out there
I became stuck here with about eight to go on the right side of the grid. I needed to sleep on it before seeing the hidden TABULAR and I was then able to get everything out. Sounds like I had the same difficulties as others, with ALIGN my last in. The unknown ‘Comedian’ was possible from wordplay but I had no idea who the ‘snooker player’ was and bunged in SPEEDING from the def.
Once I’d worked it out, WHIP UP was my pick today.
Thanks to Eccles and Duncan
I’ve never heard of Greg Davies. I can’t say I’m in love with this grid which has just two links up/down and left/right which gives the puzzle a very “game of four halves Gary” feel about it. I assume Eccles chose/designed this for thematic reasons but, if so, they elude me.
Thanks to S&B
TFO @8. In maths, we talk of putting a bar over a letter, e.g. xbar to denote a mean value. This bar is just a line.
That was hard work with lots of “Oh, is that what he means?” moments. I guess that Hoosier (totally unknown for me and I would guess for most Brits) is a fair exchange for Greg Davies who to be fair is quite well known in the UK.
Just couldn’t get into this. Got about half of it done.
Thanks Eccles. Even though I had to cheat to get the last few I enjoyed this. My top choices were HOOSIER, NEST EGG, BEHAVED (nice simple seamless surface), and GREG DAVIES (I don’t know him but the wordplay got me there). I failed to parse CONCOCT, the very clever ROTATE, and WHIP UP. Thanks Duncan for the enlightenment.