Eccles on a Saturday!!?
Eccles moves from his more familiar midweek slot to Saturday this week – what is going on?
No change in the quality of the puzzle – excellent surfaces, a few write-ins and quite a bit of head-scratching, especially over 9ac – all very ingenious.
We can’t help wondering if there is a theme, which might explain Eccles’ weekend appearance, but we can’t find anything other than a rather vague connection between Alan Partridge at 27ac and ‘parodist’ at 19ac. Are there other Steve Coogan references or are we reading too much into an Eccles Saturday puzzle?
WAS (used to be) TED (teddy boy – ‘lout many years ago’)
L LANE (Lois Lane, C(lark) Kent’s partner in the Superman stories) + a reversal (‘back’) of ILL (bad)
A homophone (‘announcement’) of HOLMES PUN – ‘a lemon tree’ being a pun on Sherlock Holmes’ famous line “Elementary, by dear Watson”
LYNX (cat) round or ‘eating’ A R (first letter or ‘head’ of rat)
In a very quick tennis match the SETS TORE BY
Hidden or ‘found’ in mouldY LEMons – we had to check this one
DRAIN (drink) after even letters (‘oddly cancelled’) of tAi-ChI
PISCES (fish) with the first ‘s’ (first letter or ‘hint’ of smoke) moving to the front
Cinderella might fancifully reply to an AD for a BALL
ODIS (one-day internationals – ‘cricket matches’) in PART
C (carbon) APE (copy)
An anagram (‘incorrectly’) of REWIRED FAN
L (large) in or ‘penned by SPINE (quill, apparently a porcupine’s) – we also had to check the definition
RINGS (gangs) in BIN (scrap)
An anagram (‘supply’ – in a supple manner) of PEAR TREE – a reference to Steve Coogan’s inept chat show host Alan Partridge
GARISH could fancifully be a way to describe something like a gar fish
A (American) L (lecturer) ON (regularly taking) E (ecstasy)
A reversal (‘about’) of aSSERT (swear) missing the ‘a’
An anagram (‘revised’) of OLD MAP I
L (left) AsTERN (behind) with N (last letter or ‘end’ of extension) replacing ‘s’ (sun)
E (English) in ALLEYS (passages) not the other way round or ‘on the contrary’
An anagram (‘upsetting’) of I ERR BADLY
LINGERiE (women’s underwear) missing or ‘abandoning’ the second ‘i’ (Italy) + aRSe missing the first and last letters or ‘exposed’
C (Charlie in the phonetic alphabet) + a reversal (‘up’) of hELPs missing or ‘rejecting’ the first and last letters or ‘banks’ PA (father) BAR (saving)
An anagram (‘absurd’) of OLD + C (Conservative) EVITA (show about lady’s rise to power)
DEFECT (‘wanting’ – a deficiency) round or ‘taking’ L (Latin)
RAB (Scotsman) in or ‘dividing’ PALE (pasty)
ROWING (arguing) round L (first or ‘primary’ letter of ladies)
ROGEt (‘wordy compiler’ – of Roget’s Thesaurus) missing the last letter or ‘shortened’ + R (first letter or ‘opening’ of Rowling – 20 down)
A reversal (‘up’) of SIDE (team) round or ‘restricting’ T (temperature)
Definitely unusual to find Eccles on a Saturday, but it was very much business as usual in terms of enjoyment.
From a page littered with ticks, my top picks were HOMESPUN, BALLAD, ALONE, DEFLECT and, my favourite, ROWLING.
Many thanks to Eccles and to B&J.
Thanks Eccles and B&J!
COTD: HOMESPUN (pun squared! Well-spun!)
Other faves: SET STORE BY (an ace clue), BALLAD (fancy that! Nice whimsy!), CRAB APPLE (both meaty and juicy!) and ROGER (over and out!).
What a pleasure – both Eccles AND B&J on a Saturday morning! I did rather feel there might be something going on as I solved – perhaps I, too, was reflecting on the move from Wednesday to Saturday. But I cannot see a link. Not that that means anything.
HOMESPUN the absolute star of the show. What a superb spot. WASTED, SET STORE BY, FIRE WARDEN, ALONE, LANTERN, EARLY BIRD, DEFLECT and ROWLING were my faves. I was held up ages at the end with LYNX which had to be that and yet clashed with the LOITERERS that I had put in rather sloppily instead of LINGERERS.
Thanks Eccles and B&J
Beaten by SPLINE not knowing that meaning (know it as a curve sketching aid) or that meaning of “spine”. Didn’t know YLEM, which is what I also said when it appeared in a Tyrus crossword back on April 17, 2021. Next time, cross fingers.
A fabulous crossword. ROWLING is an outstanding clue, and I’m delighted to see “Scotsman” refer to a name that actually is predominantly used in Scotland.
Many thanks to Eccles and B&J
Took some time to warm up, but things improved.. particularly happy with LLANELLI… a simple device but took a time to believe in the power of Welsh… the simplicity of SPLINE, GARISH, CAPE, BALLAD n DEFLECT were genius also, but the chapeau goes to HOMESPUN, which actually provoked a chortle..
thanks Eccles n Bertandjoyce
Thanks both. SPLINE was also unknown for me, and I only got there by using a thesaurus to match quill with spine. WASTED tells me something that I was unaware of, that a teddy boy was considered a lout. HOMESPUN held out until the end, and I agree it is very inventive, and also reminds me of John Lennon’s literary piece called A Spaniard in the Works, within which he gives us “Eliphantitus my deaf whopper”!
An enjoyable solve which I spoiled only by deciding that 16 was SPIKES – ie flavours, in the sense of ‘adds sharp or pungent flavouring to (food or drink)’, and Pike being the fish. Stupid Boy that I am.
Eccles on a Saturday, whatever next? Quite a challenge as is to be expected but plenty to enjoy. Tops for me were HOMESPUN, SET STORE BY, EARLY BIRD & DOLCE VITA.
Thanks to Eccles and to B&J for the review.
Homespun? Candidate for clue of the year? Thanks to Eccles and B&J.
Obviously no Stockhausen fans here. YLEM is the title of a composition by Stockhausen.
Thanks Eccles. I was pleasantly surprised to see Eccles in a Saturday slot. All the clues were good with my top picks being LARYNX (loved the surface), SPICES, GARISH, and ALONE. I needed the blog to parse the too-clever-for-me HOMESPUN and I used an outside source for LLANELLI, not seeing the ‘bad back’. Thanks B&J.