It took us a while to complete the puzzle but when we had finished, we wondered why we had had any problems. Apart form a couple of clues which we were not that happy with, all seemed very fair. However, it was definitely a day when two heads were better than one.
Our last one in was 3d and was the only one we needed a search for. We were convinced for a while that it was an anagram of ESTHER until the penny dropped. 5ac was a late entry too despite Joyce guessing the answer very early on without being able to parse it. 9ac was probably the COD. We needed most of the crossing letters before realising what the solution was.
Thanks for the fun Eccles.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | Toy one is wanting priest to hide in part of church (8) | |
| TRANSEPT | TRA |
|
| 5 | Oil producer abuses American guards (6) | |
| SESAME | Hidden in (‘guarded by’) abuSES AMErican | |
| 8 | Become sick of beer, say (3) | |
| AIL | Sounds like (‘say’) ALE (beer) | |
| 9 | Greek who scored in first part of extra time to become preacher (10) | |
| EVANGELIST | VANGELIS (THIS greek composer or ‘scorer’) inside E (first part of extra) and T (time) | |
| 10 | Making good literature, by the sound of it (8) | |
| RIGHTING | Sounds like (‘by the sound of it’) WRITING (literature) | |
| 11 | Numb, a member of flock left for hospital (6) | |
| ASLEEP | A S |
|
| 12 | Elementary constituent of alpha male (4) | |
| ATOM | A (alpha) TOM (male) | |
| 14 | Swiss capital invested in fruit by son showing flexibility (10) | |
| LIMBERNESS | BERN (Swiss capital) inside or ‘invested in’ LIMES (fruit) S (son) | |
| 17 | Records how the British queue? (6,4) | |
| SINGLE FILE | ||
| 20 | Runner’s last to run and hide (4) | |
| SKIN | SKI (runner) N (last letter of run) | |
| 23 | Away from home, following football club is boring, it’s a bit excessive (6) | |
| OFFCUT | OUT (away from home) with F (following) FC (Football Club) inside or ‘boring’ | |
| 24 | They could provide change for the better? (8) | |
| WINNINGS | Cryptic definition – WINNINGS (on a bet) could provide ‘change’ (cash) for the ‘better’ (gambler) | |
| 25 | Enthusiastic amateur is talented? It seems otherwise (10) | |
| DILETTANTE | An anagram of TALENTED IT – anagrind is ‘seems otherwise’ | |
| 26 | That is cold internally (3) | |
| ICE | A clue as definition – IE ‘that is’ with C (cold) inside or ‘internally’ | |
| 27 | Perhaps mountain is reflected in basins of ephemeral lakes (6) | |
| PLAYAS | SAY (perhaps) and ALP (mountain) reversed or ‘reflected’ | |
| 28 | Queen possibly conceals problem, leading to gossip (8) | |
| CHITCHAT | CAT (‘Queen possibly’ as in female cat) around or ‘concealing’ HITCH (problem) | |
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | Bear steak needs to be chewed 28 times? (3,6) | |
| TEA BREAKS | An anagram of BEAR STEAKS – anagrind is ‘chewed’. We think the definition relates to the fact that TEA BREAKS may be times when you have CHITCHATS (28ac). | |
| 2 | Unfinished parable in which Republican ascends rapidly (7) | |
| ALLEGRO | ALLEGOR |
|
| 3 | A period of time off to watch Ms Rantzen broadcast (6) | |
| SIESTA | Sounds like (‘broadcast’) SEE (watch) ESTHER (Esther Rantzen) | |
| 4 | Dull argument, but one that brings action (9) | |
| PLAINTIFF | PLAIN (dull) TIFF (argument) | |
| 5 | Oozing spot on errand boy (7) | |
| SEEPAGE | SEE (spot) PAGE (errand boy) | |
| 6 | Carol’s cuddling Damon, perhaps for cash (9) | |
| SHILLINGS | SINGS (carol’s) around or ‘cuddling’ HILL (Damon Hill – the racing driver) | |
| 7 | Infatuated with cycling in gloves (7) | |
| MITTENS | A cycling of SMITTEN (infatuated with) | |
| 13 | Maybe Johnson gets friend out of nowhere? (9) | |
| MAGICALLY | MAGIC (Magic Johnson – American basketball player) ALLY (friend) | |
| 15 | A tiny fraction of account that’s charged by brothels, essentially (9) | |
| BILLIONTH | BILL (account) ION (‘that’s charged’) TH (middle or ‘essential’ letters of broTHels) | |
| 16 | Seen to be worried over smell of old age (9) | |
| SENESCENT | An anagram of SEEN – anagrind is ‘worried’ over SCENT (smell) | |
| 18 | Heathen at home with revolutionary (7) | |
| INFIDEL | IN (at home) FIDEL (Fidel Castro – ‘revolutionary’) | |
| 19 | Twice set out to sequester area for housing developments (7) | |
| ESTATES | An anagram of SET SET (twice set) – anagrind is ‘out’ around or ‘sequestering’ A (area) | |
| 21 | Thinks ‘European’ is weird dialect (7) | |
| KENTISH | An anagram of THINKS and E (European) – anagrind is ‘weird’ | |
| 22 | As a laugh, picked up swallow (6) | |
| INGEST | Sounds like (‘picked up’) IN JEST | |
I found this a bit tougher than yer average Eccles. Odd grid (again) but apart from seeing EVIL ESTATES in col 6 I can’t find any reason for it, thematically. Quite a few plurals in the grid.
I think a single and a file are both records so SINGLE FILE =records seems fair enough.
Thanks to E, B&J
Thanks baerchen for the parsing of SINGLE FILE. Will change the blog.
Also parsed SINGLE FILE as baerchen@1. Don’t know if I have seen a grid where all the down clues are staggered before. INGEST & WINNINGS were my last ones in. Thanks to Eccles and BJ.
Thanks Eccles, B&J
Took a bit longer than expected, mostly the bottom half. I liked EVANGELIST, SINGLE FILE, SEEPAGE, SESAME, BILLIONTH. Basins of ephemeral lakes – who knew? Lovely definition, though. For ages I could only see Lloyds fitting.
Apparently our setter twittered this morning to ask “Is this the world’s most enjoyable crossword?”
As a solver of more crosswords a day than is probably healthy, I decided to solve the puzzle and answer the question. Sorry Eccles, I’d grant it is on the enjoyable spectrum, but I could (if I wasn’t suppose to be working) list quite a number of crosswords I’d enjoyed more. Not that difficult a crossword with quite a few clues I ‘liked’ but my answer is still no
Thanks to Eccles and B&J
Glad it wasn’t just me finding this a little harder than expected.
Eccles is always good, and I enjoyed this – but it was only when trying to select a favourite, I appreciated quite how nice this one is.
Whittled down my original long list to … still quite a long one: ATOM, SINGLE FILE, ICE, CHITCHAT, TEABREAKS and ALLEGRO.
Thanks Jennifer and B&J
(Crypticsue @5 – Eccles is simply taking a leaf out of the Mr Bremen book of publicity!)
Ha! CS, I did also tweet about Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: ‘Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.’ 😉
Eccles@7 I don’t Twitter – I just went by what someone sent me – I suppose your crossword does fit with the misleading publicity in that the Hardest wasn’t either – although I have got a copy of the Bremen book out of it, I just have to find time between crossword solving to read it
CS @8 – you could read it on Tuesdays perhaps?
Definitely thought Eccles had shifted up a gear with this one and confess that I had to verify PLAYAS – new word for me.
Not overly keen on 1&21d but there were many that I really did like – 9a & 13d in particular.
Thanks to Eccles – like Kitty, I invariably think your crosswords are good – and thanks to B&J for the blog.
Not as easy as some Eccles and/or Wednesday crosswords but we got it all in the end. We had to check LIMBERNESS and PLAYAS in Chambers. We only got the former once we realised it was the German, not the French, spelling of the Swiss capital that was wanted; also we were intersted to see in Chambers that the latter is from Spanish, whereas in everyday Spanish ‘playa’ is ‘beach’ – some similarity we suppose. A momentary hesitation, too, as to whether ‘picked up’ in a down clue (22dn) is a reversal or a homophone indicator.
Our favourites, though, were EVANGELIST and PLAINTIFF.
Thanks, Eccles and B&J.
Not for the first time and probably not for the last time, I agree completely with Jane at #10 above.
Many thanks, Eccles. This was tougher than your usual offerings but as much fun as ever.
I agree this was tougher than usual, but I got there in the end with only PLAYAS unknown, but derived from wp. Loved VANGELIS and BILLIONTH. I thought the difficulty was due to the clever clueing rather than obscurities. Nice one Eccles, and thanks B&J.
Well, it couldn’t be too tough, as I completed it without cheating, and without looking anything up. I didn’t know 27ac – it was my LOI – but once I had all the crossing letters, it seemed the logical answer.
Toughness seems to be a personal thing. Many’s the time, it seems, where people here say a puzzle was easy, and I’ve struggled to get more that half a dozen answers.
Many thanks to B&J, and to all who commented. The grid was just one I saw somewhere that looked a bit different – I think I just flipped it to accommodate a down only clue. I did screw my nose up at first when I saw I’d put crossing plurals in the SW, but checked and found a few puzzles have done that before without complaint. It wasn’t intentionally more difficult.
My Twitter comment was about the publicity the ‘World’s most difficult crossword’ had got, and I said I would have to try the tactic of obvious hyperbole.
I may see some people in Derby if it goes on into the evening (although the outfield for my cricket match has been very soggy so I might just be there during the day.) On Sunday I’m actually playing in B&J’s village if that survives the weather.