It’s a Wednesday and it’s Eccles – all’s well in the world.
Another smooth puzzle from our Wednesday setter, with several clues that had us head-scratching for a while and, as usual, some that raised a smile or two.
We did wonder about the entry at 31 across, which is not in Chambers and involves a very specific, but technical, definition when there are other words that would have fitted the crossers. Is there something else going on?
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | NUDIST CAMP |
Head claims underworld affected site where holidaymakers uncovered lodge (6,4)
|
| NUT (head) round or ‘claiming’ DIS (underworld) + CAMP (affected) | ||
| 6 | TOFF |
Upper-class person from Thailand no longer available (4)
|
| T (Thailand) OFF (no longer available) | ||
| 10 | CIDER |
Sent back some discoloured ice in drink (5)
|
| Hidden (‘some’) and reversed (‘sent back’) in discolouRED ICe | ||
| 11 | PODGORICA |
GoPro damaged with acid in capital city (9)
|
| An anagram (‘damaged’) of GOPRO and ACID – the capital of Montenegro | ||
| 12 | ASTATINE |
At A&E, taking drug to lower cholesterol (8)
|
| A E round or ‘taking’ STATIN (drug to lower cholesterol) – At is the chemical symbol for this element | ||
| 14 | SPROG |
Child interrupts news programme (5)
|
| Hidden (‘interrupting’) in newS PROGramme | ||
| 16 | LOVABLE |
Large eggs with breakfast, lunch, and elevenses initially appealing (7)
|
| L (large) OVA (eggs) B L E (first or ‘initial’ letters of breakfast, lunch and elevenses) | ||
| 18 | KETCHUP |
Sauce found in vessel revolting (7)
|
| KETCH (vessel) UP (revolting) | ||
| 20 | VIS-A-VIS |
Travel sanctions shortened carriage (3-1-3)
|
| VISA VIS |
||
| 22 | MADISON |
Bicycle Race is playing after Crazy (7)
|
| IS ON (playing) after MAD (crazy) | ||
| 23 | SO FAR |
Perhaps Chesterfield rector gets to date? (2,3)
|
| SOFA (a Chesterfield is a sort of sofa) R (rector) | ||
| 25 | ABSOLVED |
Freed from awfully bad love triangles, at last (8)
|
| An anagram (‘awfully’) of BAD LOVE and S (‘last’ letter of triangles) | ||
| 28 | ARROGANCE |
Care! Organ replacement can lead to overbearing pomposity (9)
|
| An anagram (‘replacement’) of CARE ORGAN | ||
| 29 | POPPY |
Source of drug, like in music (5)
|
| Pop music might be described as ‘POPPY’ | ||
| 31 | ENOL |
Inverted only compound containing unsaturated alcohol (4)
|
| A reversal (‘inverted’) of LONE (only) – we had to google this as it’s not in Chambers | ||
| 32 | RENDEZVOUS |
New Zealand’s Premier overused exercises in meeting (10)
|
| An anagram (‘exercises’) of N (new) Z (first or ‘premier’ letter of Zealand) and OVERUSED | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | NICK |
Condition of prison (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 2 | DUD |
Failure of stylish chap finishing early (3)
|
| DUD |
||
| 3 | SYRIA |
Part of Austria passing close to bandit country (5)
|
| S |
||
| 4 | COPPICE |
Manage to take photograph in thicket (7)
|
| COPE (manage) round or ‘taking’ PIC (photo) | ||
| 5 | MIDWEEK |
Inappropriate time to speak on the phone with Kelvin: around Wednesday? (7)
|
| We puzzled over this one for a while, and initially thought it might be a reference to the old BT advert with the strapline – ‘The cheapest time to phone your friends is after six and at weekends’ (subverted by some comedian into ‘The cheapest type of phoney friends are after sex on long weekends’) – but we realised that ‘Kelvin’ plays no part in this. We eventually realised that it is MID-WEE (inappropriate time to speak on the phone) + K (Kelvin) – that raised another smile! | ||
| 7 | OSIER |
Willow is more intimate, but not at first (5)
|
| 8 | FRANGIPANE |
Fellow phoned Scotsman about penny sweet’s centre being cream (10)
|
| F (fellow) RANG (phoned) IAN (Scotsman) round P (penny) + E (middle letter of sweet) | ||
| 9 | COSSETED |
Calculated price of houses around Kent, being spoiled (8)
|
| COSTED (calculated price of) round or ‘housing’ SE (south-east – ‘Kent’) | ||
| 13 | SAVES |
Banks made these cuts, losing cash ultimately (5)
|
| S |
||
| 15 | SLAVE STATE |
Schedule includes match in Alabama? (5,5)
|
| SLATE (schedule) round or ‘including’ VESTA (match) – we’re not really sure about slate = schedule, but according to Chambers, it can mean a preliminary list, so it just about works | ||
| 17 | BEVERAGE |
Victor in competition with passion for drink (8)
|
| V (victor – in the phonetic alphabet) in BEE (competition) + RAGE (passion) | ||
| 19 | HASTE |
Loathe taking son for expedition (5)
|
| HATE (loathe) round or ‘taking’ S (son) | ||
| 21 | SLAINTE |
Cheers killed off peripheral characters in time (7)
|
| SLAIN (killed off) T E (first and last letters or ‘peripheral characters’ in time) – Gaelic for ‘good health!’ | ||
| 22 | MISTEND |
Improperly care for daughter with wet scrubbing cloth, essentially (7)
|
| D (daughter) after M |
||
| 24 | FARGO |
Film following mythical boat (5)
|
| F (following) ARGO (mythical boat as in ‘Jason and the Argonauts’) | ||
| 26 | LOPEZ |
Bound to meet unknown Hispanic singer (5)
|
| LOPE (bound) Z (unknown – in algebra) – we thought that this might be a reference to Jennifer Lopez, the American actress and singer, but an electronic search revealed that there are several Hispanic singers with the surname Lopez – Trini, Pablo, Lisa, Rosa, Brian, Sonia, Ivan, Julio, Kareem, Cesar, Nadia…… | ||
| 27 | EYES |
European agreed to reveal studies (4)
|
| E (European) YES (agreed) | ||
| 30 | PRO |
One’s paid rugby player to scratch bottom (3)
|
| PRO |
Needed help on the placement of the G R & C in the nho PODGORICA. Had to check “Styria” as well (geography not my strong point). Slate to mean schedule as a verb was fine for me although I notice it is listed as US in Chambers. For some reason, Chambers also gives SLAVE STATES only as a plural noun. I also had to google ENOL.
Agree – all’s well in the world when there’s an Eccles to enjoy. Don’t know if there’s anything else going on with ENOL but I thought it could only be that or ELOS and Google confirmed the former. Didn’t know VIS-A-VIS but I do now. Liked ASTATINE for AT, MISTEND for the wordplay, but my toppies are RENDEZVOUS (Kia ora) and FRANGIPANE which is a very tasty patisserie cream I have made and enjoyed. Thanks B&J for explaining MIDWEEK, also for the blog and thanks Eccles for another midweek treat.
More difficult than usual for Eccles, I thought, but no less elegant than usual in the clueing. Some may take exception to 15D, since it’s no longer a slave state. I wasted time at 8D trying to work in mascarpone (cream cheese). Much enjoyed, so thanks Eccles and B&J.
Yet another superb Eccles puzzle to enjoy with lots of smiles along the way.
Unusually, I DNF thanks to MISTEND, which is not in Chambers. As a chemist of yore. I was familiar with ENOL, but I would have thought this would be too specialised for many solvers (especially as it is also not in Chambers).
MIDWEEK was my favourite of many ticked clues.
Many thanks to Eccles and to B&J.
Same here, Hovis @1, google corrected my guess, Podrogica; which I thought, with the i softening the g, sounded Balkan-ish. No other real gremlins, though nho Styria, so Syria was a shrug, and mistend feels a bit made up. Thanks to Eccles & BandJ.
Very tough due to a few hold-outs which took as long as other 30 clues. I agree inclusion of enol without good reason is odd and a bit dubious – it’s a deprecated term (I think) for a fairly obstruse group of chemicals .
Will have a second look at grid over all to see if we are missing a theme or Nina.
Liked Sprog and lots of others.
Thanks Eccles and BertandJoyce
Always enjoy a puzzle from Eccles despite often finding bits of GK that I need to investigate and the occasional curved ball such as MISTEND & ENOL. Biggest chuckle came from MID-WEEK but I did feel that a slight juggling of the wording of the clue would have improved the surface read.
Thanks to Eccles and to B&J for the review – I do appreciate the honest way in which you detail your own solving experience, makes me feel far less of a failure than I otherwise might do!
Thanks both. Much to enjoy, with only a couple of exceptions for me, as I needed help to find SLAINTE which isn’t in my dictionary, and I’m comforted we weren’t looking for an English word as I couldn’t think of one from the crossers, plus ENOL – quite frankly I looked it up and didn’t understand the definition, other than it differed for what was provided in the clue.
Not for the first time alcohol proved my weakness. Pride in South East European geography came before a fall. Thanks all.
That was fun, although struggled with ENOL and FRANGIPANE which I tried to spell FRANGIPANI but couldn’t parse. Also wasted time putting TERM at 1d
Term = Prison term
Term = Condition. Seemed fair enough but held things up
Otherwise a good mix of accessible and stretching. Nice.
I’ve only just realised I didn’t come in to comment this morning having popped off to do yesterday’s Atrica immediately after solving this one. Eccles keeps the standard high as usual with some fun clues of which MID-WEEK was one of the funniest and ENOL the NHO trickiest – mainly because I checked it in Chambers and then tried to find other solutions! Other NHO’s – ASTATINE, PODGORICA and MISTEND landed from the wordplay. Slight squeak when solving ALABAMA – wondering if the setter would get into trouble – but it doesn’t seem to have happened yet on this rather civilised page.
Did anyone else waste any time trying to make SYRIA parse as TYROL?
Thanks Eccles and B&J
Despite being interested in the American Civil War, and seeing SLAVE STATE as possible, I thought that was too obvious and left it blank. I did know “slate” meaning to schedule. I remember a British writer on music many years ago being amused that an American orchestra had slated Michael Tippett’s new symphony. “They haven’t even performer it yet!” he said.
A very good puzzle. ENOL last in for me – seemed obvious once I had thought of it but that’s the tricky bit, isn’t it? I agree it’s niche GK.
I raised an eyebrow at SLAVE STATE, though it’s fair enough, and I needed three goes to get the consonants in the right place with PODGORICA, which meant MIDWEEK took longer than it should have.
NUDIST CAMP, LOVABLE, ASTATINE, MADISON, SO FAR, ABSOLVED, RENDEZVOUS, MIDWEEK, BEVERAGE all got ticks. Sometimes it feels easier to identify the clues you didn’t admire when the puzzle is as solid as this.
Thanks, Eccles, and the blog is splendidly done too.
Especially liked 5d MID-WEE+K. 😀 Also liked 21d SLAINTE, because it’s !rish.
The equivalent of the UK’s NHS is the Health Service Executive (HSE) or Fheidhmeannacht na Seirbhíse Sláinte (FSS).
[It needs a síneadh fada (acute accent) over the “ah”]
31a ENOL 😐
Thanks E & B&J