Eccles is now virtually a fixture as a setter of the Independent Wednesday crossword.
There are often two or three entries in an Eccles puzzle that I haven’t come across before. Today we had LARGE IT (entry at 25 across) and GIB for a castrated cat in the wordplay for GIBRALTAR at 15 down. Neither were difficult to deduce and my lack of awareness was probably down to living a rather dull pet-free life. I did know TAGALOG from its appearance in barred crosswords
I did a bit of research on HUANG at 4 down as it’s a river I haven’t heard of. Interestingly, if you type ‘river Huang’ into Google, the predominant links relate to a Taiwanese actor called River Huang. The most likely geographical river is the Huang He which seems to be another name for the Yellow River, rather a river just known as Huang.
Moving from Yellow to Orange, we have the clue to the defoliant at 7 down. There was a comment on my recent blog for Wiglaf’s puzzle (Independent 12175) which bemoaned the increasing number of political references in crossword clues, grid entries. and blog comments. I have no issue with the reference to the current American President in the clue for 7 down, but I wonder if I am in a majority or a minority. A discussion of that point should probably continue in the General Discussion section of the website, if the topic generates any discussion at all.
My 1200th blog on fifteensquared.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | Bad actor with a job runs away in Berkshire town (9)
WOKINGHAM (town in Berkshire) WOrKING (with a job) excluding (away) R (runs) + HAM (a bad actor) WOKING HAM |
| 6 |
Sit, or run, or do neither? (5) STAND (sit can be defined as ‘to be a candidate for’ which is similar to the second definition of ‘stand’ immediately below) STAND (become a candidate for; run for a seat in Parliament, for example) STAND (be upright and motionless; adopt a position that is neither sitting nor running; do neither) triple definition STAND |
| 9 | A bitter crook’s ceremonial hat (7)
BIRETTA (the square cap with three or four projections on the crown worn by Roman Catholic clergy, black for priests, purple for bishops, and red for cardinals, often worn at ceremonial Catholic events) An anagram of (crook) A BITTER BIRETTA* |
| 10 | Most loved director committed to cast Johansson at last (7)
DEAREST (most loved) D (director) + EARnEST (committed) excluding (to cast) N (final letter of [at last] JohanssoN) D EAREST |
| 11 | Surprisingly anal about temperature of buttocks (5)
NATAL (relating to nates or buttocks) Anagram of (surprisingly) ANAL containing (about) T (temperature) NA (T) AL* |
| 13 | Dispense with photograph (3,4,2)
GET SHOT OF (dispense with) GET SHOT OF (take [a] photograph of) double definition GET SHOT OF |
| 14 | Is not wearing correct waterproof (9)
RAINTIGHT (impervious to rain; waterproof) AIN’T (contraction of ‘is not’) contained in (wearing) RIGHT (correct) R (AINT) IGHT |
| 16 | Demoralising nursing examination (4)
ORAL (a type of examination) ORAL (hidden word in [nursing] demORALising) ORAL |
| 18 | Reversed change in flow (4)
TIDE (flow of water) EDIT (correct and improve; change) reversed (reversed) TIDE< |
| 19 | Haggled, as pub profited (9)
BARGAINED (haggled) BAR (public house) + GAINED (profited) BAR GAINED |
| 22 | Sham environmental concern used to be embraced by naive husband (9)
GREENWASH (superficial or insincere display of concern for the environment that is shown by an organisation; sham environmental concern) WAS (used to be) contained in (embraced by) (GREEN [naive] + H [husband]) GREEN (WAS) H |
| 24 | Fish in river caught by Ray (5)
BREAM (a freshwater fish of the carp family) R (river) contained in (caught by) BEAM (ray of light) B (R) EAM |
| 25 | Extravagantly celebrate extensive sex (5,2)
LARGE IT (slang for ‘to enjoy oneself or celebrate in an extravagant way) LARGE (extensive) + IT (sex) LARGE IT |
| 26 | Land of river turtle quietly destroyed (7)
TERRAIN (tract of ground; land) TERRApIN (any of various web-footed chelonian reptiles, including turtles, that live on land and in fresh water [river] and feed on small aquatic animals) excluding (destroyed) P (piano; quietly) TERRAIN |
| 28 | Bit of wind restricts European visitor (5)
GUEST (visitor) GUST (bit of wind) containing (restricts) E (European) GU (E) ST |
| 29 | Puts down extremely rare printers (9)
REPRESSES (puts in a state of subjugation; puts down) RE (outer letters of [extremely] RarE) + PRESSES (printers) RE PRESSES |
| Down | |
| 1 | We sacrifice a rook in online broadcast (7)
WEBINAR (a seminar conducted via the internet; online broadcast) WE + BIN (dispose of; sacrifice) + A + R (rook, in chess notation) WE BIN A R |
| 2 | Cocktail in Scottish church unfinished (3)
KIR (drink made of white wine and blackcurrant syrup or liqueur; cocktail) KIRk (Scottish word for church) excluding the final letter K (unfinished) KIR |
| 3 | Settle on unfolding folded cards (8)
NOTELETS (folded sheets of paper or cards used for short informal letters) Anagram of (unfolding) SETTLE ON NOTELETS* |
| 4 | Chinese flower displayed around centre of Doncaster (5)
HUANG (I am a bit confused by this. I think the clue is looking for a river [flower], but the river in China of a similar name is the HUANG HE, rather than just HUANG. There is a Taiwanese actor called River HUANG, who generates a lot of internet material) HUNG (displayed [of a picture in a gallery]) containing (around) A (middle letter of [centre of] doncAster) HU (A) NG |
| 5 | Umpire taking time; a deep thinker (9)
MEDITATOR (one who considers thoughtfully; a deep thinker) MEDIATOR (referee; umpire) containing (taking) T (time) MEDIA (T) OR |
| 6 | Southern women are on the cover (6)
SWATHE (to bandage; to cover) S (Southern) + W (women) + A (are [unit of area]) + THE S W A THE |
| 7 | Russia’s codename for Trump? It’s bad news for him if he’s a plant! (5,6)
AGENT ORANGE (chemical used as a defoliant [leaf stripper]; bad news for plants!) AGENT ORANGE (the internet features many unverified claims that President Trump is a Russian agent. Trump is also referred to as the orange one because of his skin colour and alleged overuse of sun tan or bronzer) AGENT ORANGE |
| 8 | Redistributed fluid across Utah, being conscientious (7)
DUTIFUL (conscientious) Anagram of (redistributed) FLUID containing (across) UT (abbreviation for the American State of Utah) D (UT) IFUL* |
| 12 | Interrogation in PhD, for some? (5,6)
THIRD DEGREE (ruthless interrogation) THIRD DEGREE (a PhD might be a third degree for someone who already has a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree) THIRD DEGREE |
| 15 | Castrated cat with bit of rubber on communion table in place of monkeys (9)
GIBRALTAR (British Overseas Territory that is also home to a group of barbary macaques [monkeys]) GIB (a tomcat, especially a castrated one) + R (first letter of [a bit of] Rubber) + ALTAR (communion table) GIB R ALTAR |
| 17 | Celebration of someone who goes on about conserving earth? (8)
JAMBOREE (large and lively gathering, party or celebration) JAM (preserve or conserve) + BORE (someone who goes on and on about a subject) + E (earth) JAM BORE E |
| 18 |
Uninvited, follow liberating northern Filipino (7) TAGALOG (a people of the Philippine Islands; Filipino) TAG ALOnG (follow, accompany or trail after someone, especially when uninvited) excluding (liberating) N (northern) TAGALOG |
| 20 | God to achieve less (7)
DOMINUS (God or Christ) DO (achieve) + MINUS (less) DO MINUS |
| 21 | University rector stopping home creates trouble (6)
UNREST (protest; rebellion; trouble) U (university) + (R [rector] contained in [stopping] NEST [home for a bird]) U N (R) EST |
| 23 | Characters found in the middle of Whitehall, flustered (3,2)
HET UP (agitated; flustered) HET (reversed [UP; down entry] hidden word in [characters found in] whiTEHall) HET UP |
| 27 | Scratch head of young female donkey (3)
ASS (small, usually grey, long-eared animal of the horse genus; donkey) lASS (young female) excluding (scratch) L (the first letter of [head of the word]) ASS |
Well, I’ve owned cats for many years and have never met GIB before. I wonder if my tomcat didn’t like the cut of his “gib” 🙂
Duncan has said everything that I was going to say including the things that were unknown to me as well as the Huang v Huang He issue.
Many thanks to Eccles for the fun challenge as always, and thanks too to Duncan.
Indeed, Eccles has become as much of a fixture as Phi and Filbert. To the extent that if one of them does not appear, I assume that whoever is in their place has produced a date-related themed puzzle. No theme that I can see in today’s offering though; just the usual bevy of well-crafted clues.
Thanks both and congratulations to duncan on an amazing milestone.
He 河 is one of the words for river in Mandarin Chinese 普通话 so Eccles is quite okay to use Huang 黄 as the name. I found this a gentle puzzle with a couple of tricky clues that held me up. Pretty much what happens every Wednesday. This time I took a while to get SWATHE and DOMINUS. Didn’t know about the ‘place of monkeys’ but I liked the clue (and the joke from Hovis@1). Thanks Duncan and Eccles.
I think the He in Huang He is just Chinese for river. Hovis@1 ): 1200 blogs! That’s some achievement.
Thanks Eccles and Duncan! I especially liked WOKINGHAM and an interesting reverse-engineered construction of HET UP. I understand that Huang He = River Huang, as He (河) means “river” (I don’t know Chinese, just got this from Wiki)… oops, Petert beat me to it!
Couldn’t parse JAMBOREE, and still, after reading the blog, not sure how to get to this ordering of the parts, and what does “about” do (it couldn’t possibly mean “after”, could it?)
Layman @ 6
Perhaps I have complicated the parsing of JAMBOREE is the blog, but I think it is simply
JAM BORE (someone who goes on about conserving) + E (earth)
‘about’ seems to me to be part of the description of a boring person
I took “JAM BORE” as a single part of the clue: “someone who goes on about” jam making (ie conserving).
Duncan @7, Hounddog@8: ah, that! Thanks a lot, clear now!