It’s Wednesday so we have a puzzle from Eccles in the Independent daily series.
There were good anagrams for the two longest entries, DISCOURAGEMENT and AS NEAR AS DAMN IT.
The parsing of DRAINAGE AREA was quite complex, but I think I have got it right.
I wonder if the NARROWEST (7 down) of a set of things is always extremely thin. The A1 with its single carriageway stretches between Newcastle and Edinburgh could be described as the NARROWEST of the A1, M40 and M25 roads, but it is still quite wide.
I liked the surface of the clue for AGILE with its reference to mobile phones and jacket pockets.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | Liberal Democrat genius showing dejection (14)
DISCOURAGEMENT (dejection) Anagram of (liberal) DEMOCRAT GENIUS DISCOURAGEMENT* |
| 8 | Mobile in a jacket pocket finally stolen (5)
AGILE (nimble or active; mobile) A + GILET (quilted sleeveless jacket) excluding (stolen) T (last letter of [finally] POCKET) A GILE |
| 9 | Coaches someone who puts effort in to cycle (8)
TRAINERS (coaches) STRAINER (someone who puts effort in) with the S cycled from first place to last to form TRAINERS TRAINERS |
| 11 | New slope developing (7)
NASCENT (beginning to develop; developing) N (new) + ASCENT ([up]slope) N ASCENT |
| 12 | China to free old city (7)
ANTIOCH (a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC; old city) Anagram of (free) CHINA TO ANTIOCH* |
| 13 | Boss almost making mistake (5)
GAFFE (blunder; mistake) GAFFER (boss) excluding the final letter (almost) R GAFFE |
| 15 | American highwayman saw Norway in decay (4,5)
ROAD AGENT (an American term for a bandit who robbed stagecoaches; highwayman) (ADAGE [proverb; saying; saw] + N [International Vehicle Registration for Norway]) contained in (in) ROT (decay) RO (AD AGE N) T |
| 17 | Nobleman let off polymath (9)
ARISTOTLE (ARISTOTLE [384BC to 322BC] was a Greek philosopher and polymath) ARISTO (ARISTOcrat; nobleman) + an anagram of (off) LET ARISTO TLE* |
| 20 | Father abandons desperate caper (5)
ANTIC (caper) FRANTIC (desperate) excluding (abandons) FR (father) ANTIC |
| 21 | Ultimately, love rat possibly caustic (7)
ERODENT (caustic) E (last letter of [ultimately] LOVE) + RODENT (a rat is a type of RODENT) E RODENT |
| 23 | Briefly visit for Yorkshire pudding? (7)
POPOVER (in Yorkshire, thin hollow cake or pudding made from batter) POP OVER (visit briefly) could be seen as a double definition but POP OVER is a two-word phrase (3,4) and the entry is a 7 letter word POPOVER |
| 25 | Hand guard sharp spike to stop Lord Sebastian? (8)
COQUILLE (bell-shaped hand guard on a foil) QUILL (sharp spike like a porcupine’s spine) contained in (to stop) COE (reference Lord Sebastian COE [born 1956], former athlete and now politician and sports administrator) CO (QUILL) E |
| 26 | Christ’s words tally with independent advice, primarily (5)
LOGIA (sayings, especially early collections of those attributed to Christ) LOG (record, tally) + I (independent) + A (first letter of [primarily] ADVICE) LOG I A |
| 27 | Tasmanian dares to shuffle very close (2,4,2,4,2)
AS NEAR AS DAMN IT (very close) Anagram of (to shuffle) TASMANIAN DARES AS NEAR AS DAMN IT* |
| Down | |
| 1 | Doctor wearing uniform interrupted by two Americans, each providing basin (8,4)
DRAINAGE AREA (both DRAINAGE AREA and BASIN can be defined as a catchment area [land bounded by watersheds draining into a river, basin, or reservoir]) (DR [doctor] + IN [wearing] + GEAR [working clothes; sometimes in the form of a uniform]) containing (with) two occurrences of A (American) + EA (each) DR (A) IN (A) GE AR EA |
| 2 | Women’s group’s punching Nazis from European nation (5)
SWISS (descriptive of someone from Switzerland [a European nation]) WIS (Women Institutes [women’s groups]) contained in (punching) SS (Schutzstaffel [Hitler’s bodyguard of elite police later forming military units in Nazi Germany; Nazis) S (WIS) S |
| 3 | Put too much effort in fixing vote to welcome king and queen (9)
OVEREXERT (put too much effort in) Anagram of (fixing) VOTE containing (to welcome) (REX [king] + ER [Elizabeth Regina; former queen]) OVE (REX ER) T* |
| 4 | This moves around, but to no effect? (7)
ROTATOR (a person or thing that turns; moves around) ROTATOR is a palindrome. If you turnthe word around it still spells ROTATOR so it turns round to no effect on the word. ROTATOR |
| 5 | 1000 are encircling a Spanish city (7)
GRANADA (Spanish city) (GRAND [1000 pounds or dollars] + A [are, a unit of land measure]) containing (encircling) A GRAN (A) D A |
| 6 | Realist returned midmorning? (5)
MANET (reference Édouard MANET [1832 – 1883], French realist artist) (TEN AM [a time that could be described as mid-morning) reversed (returned) (MA NET)< |
| 7 | Extremely thin pointer found in home (9)
NARROWEST (descriptive of something that is extremely thin) ARROW (pointer) contained in (found in) NEST (home for a bird or some animals; colloquial term for a person’s home) N (ARROW) EST |
| 10 | Plant with unusual base fashionable, we hear (5,7)
WHITE CURRANT (a plant) Anagram of (unusual) WITH + E (base [of natural logarithms] + CURRANT (sounds like [we hear] CURRENT [up-to-date; fashionable]) WHIT* E CURRANT |
| 14 | Superficial fool with virus flounders (9)
FRIVOLOUS (superficial) Anagram of (flounders) FOOL and (with) VIRUS FRIVOLOUS* |
| 16 | R Smythe’s creation, English Everyman, returns unaccompanied (1,8)
A CAPPELLA (sung without accompaniment) A CAPP (reference the Andy CAPP cartoon strip drawn by Reg Smythe which first appeared in the Daily Mirror in 1957) + E (English) + ALL (every man) reversed (returns) A CAPP E LLA< |
| 18 | Someone who gossips in fashion magazine? About time! (7)
TATTLER (tale-teller; someone who gossips) TATLER (title of a fashion magazine) containing (about) T (time) TAT (T) LER – either T could be the one contained |
| 19 | Setter backing Iron Lady in charge? (7)
EMPRESS (lady in charge of an Empire) ME (the setter) reversed (backing) + PRESS (iron) EM< PRESS |
| 22 | Evolve contract to dispel resistance (5)
EDUCE (develop; evolve) REDUCE (contract) excluding (dispel) R (resistance) EDUCE |
| 24 | Careful diner in railway carriage eating for one (5)
VEGAN (person who refrains from using any animal product whatever for food; careful diner) VAN (railway carriage) containing (eating) EG (for example; for one) V (EG) AN |
Ran into trouble in the SW. I had the DRAINAGE part of 1d but could not decipher what the (rather bland) second word might be. COQUILLE and ERODENT are both nho and EDUCE unfamiliar so some revealing was eventually required. I liked the Liberal DEMOCRAT GENIUS though did rather suspect the device right from the off. Nice spot. Likewise 27a which screamed out anagram and was resolved largely from the enumeration. MANET and A CAPPELLA my faves today.
wrt NARROWEST, this debate does arise occasionally. Perhaps more often on the G page. IIRC the argument is something like if something is the ‘-est’ like the narrow-est, it marks the superlative degree and extreme is defined as ‘highest in degree’ making the two things equivalent
Thanks Eccles and duncan
Faves: DISCOURAGEMENT, TRAINERS, DRAINAGE AREA and MANET.
Thanks Eccles and duncan!
NARROWEST
Seen ‘Extremely + X’ clueing ‘the superlative of X’ before. Just a couple of days ago,
one such clue appeared elsewhere and it divided the opinions.
Edit: Sorry PostMark@1. I should have refreshed the page before posting my comment.
OVEREXERT
Should the ‘in’ be taken as a link word or as a part of the def?
Crikey, I found this very tough, particularly the right hand side. As always with this setter, I enjoyed it a lot and was very satisifed when I managed to finish with full parsings.
Many thanks to Eccles, whose continued inventiveness combined with meanngful surfaces is remarkable. Thanks too to Duncan.
Edit: another one here who’s cross-posted; I concur with the previous commenter too!
Well this was tricky. But clever, smooth and enjoyable, and so a nice learning experience. There were plenty of NHOs for me, which I guess just exposes my ignorance: GILET, ROAD AGENT, ERODENT, COQUILLE, LOGIA, WHITE CURRANT, A CAPP/ R Smythe; and several that only rang a passing bell: TATLER, EDUCE, VAN (for wagon), POPOVER.
So as you can imagine, it was something of a challenge – but I’m pleased that I revealed so few: only ROAD AGENT, QUILL (I had the C-OE), AGILE; and also ARISTOTLE earlier on, which I regretted doing but needed to make faster progress. I think that’s a testament to the good clueing throughout.
Faves were A N A D I (got from just the initial A; as PostMark said, it was clear what was needed, and the enumeration made it almost a write-in), the other long anagram, and DRAINAGE AREA which O was pleased to get largely via parsing rather than back-parsing once I had a couple of checkers.
I also agree with PostMark about the superlative; indeed I queried this just the other day on here, for a Guardian puzzle (Edit: KVa@2 is probably referring to me!) and was just about persuaded by the same justification from another commenter. Adj “at the extreme” (cryptically, “extremely”) = superlative. It only works for “extremely” though, so I’m saving up my indignation for when someone tries to pull the same trick using “very” or suchlike!
Thanks both
Had only heard of COQUILLE Saint-Jacques, so looked it up in a French dictionary to find … d’épée. (It can guard other parts of the anatomy in other sports.)
[Nice to see the Ancient Greek plural LOGIA – oracles. (TiLT: It can also mean breastplates.)]
I’m ashamed I didn’t realize DISCOURAGEMENT and GRANADA immediately, but much more DISCOURAGEMENT. I could have said the same thing about ANTIOCH, but seeing that china could also mean porcelain or mate, I was deceived into thinking of other types of wordplay so I’m less ashamed about that.
DNF, but got farther than I expected.
Thanks duncan for the blog and Eccles for making my brain go through exercise.
I got off to a good start with DISCOURAGEMENT, which provided lots of initial letters and earned a tick. The bottom half took rather longer, apart from AS NEAR AS DAMN IT – and final letters are not so useful.
Other ticks were for AGILE, ARISTOTLE, ANTIC, LOGIA, OVEREXERT, GRANADA – I (nearly) always remember ‘are’ = A now – A CAPPELLA, VEGAN and the other two ‘lift and separates’ in 21ac ‘love rat’ and 19dn ‘Iron Lady’.
New for me today was that meaning of COQUILLE, which makes sense.
Lots of fun, as ever – many thanks to Eccles and Duncan.
DNF for me today. Very, very tough. Hats off to Duncan and anyone else who solved this unaided.
Too many unknowns for me to finish without a few cheats. ROAD AGENT appeared recently elsewhere but I still couldn’t remember it but got it from the wordplay.
By the way, Duncan, your grid has ‘overeeert’ in 3d.
Hovis @ 9
thanks – grid corrected
I am afraid, I still do not understand the parsing of 1 down. DRAINAGE AREA
“Doctor wearing”, to my simple little mind suggests the following light:
DxxxxxxxxxxxR
where the X values are made up from the following part of the clue:
“uniform interrupted by two Americans, each”
I would appreciate help on this to avoid a catastrophic lack of confidence in cryptics
As always with this setter, I had a few new words/definitions to work out which led to a slow, but enjoyable as ever, solve.
Clues that really appealed were AS NEAR AS DAMN IT & WHITE CURRANT.
Thanks to Eccles and to Duncan for the review.
Alan S @11: 1d is particularly sneaky. You have to read ‘Doctor wearing uniform’ as a phrase equivalent to ‘DR IN GEAR’. Then insert a couple of As (American) and add on EA (each). I spent too long looking for an anagram with ‘doctor’ as the anagram indicator.
Lots of great stuff as always from Eccles but too many NHOs for me to complete it without reveals. Thanks E&D.
Alan S @ 11
The clue is Doctor wearing uniform interrupted by two Americans, each providing basin (8,4)
I split the clue into a few bits
Firstly, ‘Doctor wearing uniform’ which I parsed as DR IN GEAR – if you are IN some clothing you are wearing that clothing. I have assumed GEAR defines that clothing which might be a uniform
Secondly ‘interrupted by’ which I interpret as a containment indicator. DR IN GEAR therefore contains something.
Thirdly ‘two Americans’. In this case, I used A for American. I therefore put the two As within DR IN GEAR to get DR (A) IN (A) GEAR so DR IN GEAR is now containing the two As
Fourthly ‘ EACH’
EACH = EA which we add to the end of what the parts we have already parsed
Putting it all together we get DR (A) IN (A) GEAR EA which if you put in the form (8,4) spells DRAINAGE AREA
The final part of the clue is ‘providing basin’ which directs you to ‘basin’ as the definition. I think the terms drainage area and basin both define the same thing in geographic terms. Also a sink / basin is a form of drainage area.
I would interpret your DxxxxxxxxxxxR in a different way from you. As DR is outside xxxxxxxxxxx, I would say xxxxxxxxxxx is wearing DR. To my mind DR is keeping / holding/ embracing/ controlling xxxxxxxxxxx in your example.
It’s not that common to have items contained being separated inside the container but I have seen the device used a few times recently.
EA is a recognised abbreviation for EACH
I hope that makes it a bit clearer.
Took me a while to progress from my first entry, SWISS, but I eventually got into the swing of it, untill arriving in the SW corner where 3 unknown words held me up for quite a while, ERODENT, COQUILLE and LOI, EDUCE. AGILE, DISCOURAGEMENT and DRAINAGE AREA were also slow in arriving. Unusually for an Eccles puzzle, I completed correctly without revealing anything! Thanks Eccles and Duncan.
Quite tricky for Eccles, but plenty of fun. I was relieved when QUILL finally arrived in my mind to give me one of a few NHOs, which confirmed that my lightly-pencilled ENSUE (‘ensure’ without the R) needed a rethink.
Thanks both.
Very tough for me and needed lots of help to keep going. 15ac a masterpiece of misdirection in about every part of the clue. Was I the only one that initially resorted to Wiki lists of American highwaymen to find an anagram? Even when I realized it probably meant the US equivalent of road mender or whatever, still couldn’t do it. Thanks Eccles and duncanshiell
Thanks Coot @13. Confidence restored as this now makes good sense.