[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
Eccles is becoming a Wednesday fixture in the Independent and he always presents an interesting challenge.
This seems to be a nina- and gimmick-free crossword that just focuses on good clues.
There’s a little bit of a geographic feel with references to England, Cambodia, United States, Brunei, Turkey, Ireland and France in the clues and entries.
I wondered if Eccles thought of linking TAOISEACH and IRISH in the clues but that might have made answers too obvious.
GORGE was the entry that gave me the greatest difficulty in parsing until I realised that stuff was the definition.
RE-ELECTING at 16 across was rather prescient.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| 1 / 4d | Thick-necked type of stereo-typical Englishman: John Terry, only more so (4,7) |
BULL (reference John BULL, generic name for an Englishman, from Arbuthnot’s History of John BULL, 1712; stereo-typical Englishman) + TERRIER (more TERRY than John) BULL TERRIER |
BULL [TERRIER] (Breed of TERRIER having a muscular body and thick neck) |
| 4 | Check whether that is right, son – they swear it is so (10) |
TEST IF (check whether) + IE (id est; that is) + R (right) + S (son) TEST IF IE R S |
TESTIFIERS (people who give evidence and have sworn to tell the truth) |
| 9 | Surreal Greek humour beginning to upset departing tyrannical regime (5,5) |
Anagram of (surreal) GREEK HUMO KHMER ROUGE* |
KHMER ROUGE (highly repressive group who governed Cambodia [or Kampuchea as it was named under their rule] from 1975 to 1979) |
| 10 | One of fifty women entertained by this clue (4) |
W (woman) contained in (entertained by) IO A (representation of 10 across, the number of this clue) IO (W) A |
IOWA (one of the fifty States of the United States of America) |
| 11 | Wife of former President tours European nation (6) |
BRUNI (reference Carla BRUNI [born 1967], wife of Nicolas Sarkozy [born 1955], President of France from 2007 to 2012) containing (tours) E (European) BRUN (E) I |
BRUNEI (independent country on the island of Borneo) |
| 12 | 1/4d is distant object (8) |
FAR (distant) + THING (object) FAR THING |
FARTHING (bronze United Kingdom coin worth one quarter of an old penny. No longer minted after 1955 it was demonetised in 1960, nine years before decimalisation) I remember it fondly as a young lad in the 1950s as I could buy four sweets for a penny, and if I only had a halfpenny, I could afford to buy two! |
| 14 | Military commander is horrified, losing good man (4) |
AGHA AGHA |
AGHA (Turkish commander or chief officer) |
| 16 | Choosing again, thinking Earl must replace female (10) |
RE RE-ELECTING |
RE-ELECTING (choosing again, a ‘joy’ we can now look forward to on 12th December)) |
| 18 | I’m chattier performing sums? (10) |
Anagram of (performing) I’M CHATTIER ARITHMETIC* |
ARITHMETIC (the science of numbers, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division; sums) |
| 22 | Stone attached to axes (4) |
ON (attached) + YX (X and Y are the axes of a 2 dimensional graph in co-ordinate geometry) ON Y X |
ONYX (agate formed of alternate flat layers of chalcedony, white or yellow and black, brown or red, used for making cameos; stone) |
| 23 | Condemn piece of prose (8) |
SENTENCE (condemn) SENTENCE |
SENTENCE (piece of prose) double definition |
| 25 | Type of 1/4d is godsend getting across the street (6) |
BOON (blessing; godsend) containing (getting across) ST (street) BO (ST) ON |
BOSTON (breed of dog arising from crossbreeding between a bulldog and a BULL TERRIER [1 / 4d])) |
| 27 | Firm agreement in Moscow for concluding passage (4) |
CO (company; firm) + DA (‘yes’ in Russian [Moscow]) CO DA |
CODA (musical term for a passage forming the completion of a piece, rounding it off to a satisfactory conclusion) |
| 28 | Instruction in well regulated disco for audience (10) |
AT TEN (at 10 o’clock; at a specific time[well regulated]) + DANCE (an instruction to perform on the disco floor) AT TEN DANCE |
ATTENDANCE (audience) |
| 29 | Resolution of dispute in village? (10) |
SETTLEMENT (village) SETTLEMENT |
SETTLEMENT (conclusion of a deal to resolve a dispute) double definition |
| 30 | Two brothers together protect Rosemary, perhaps (4) |
HERB (hidden word in (protect) BROTHER BROTHER, forming two brothers) HERB |
HERB (rosemary is an example of a HERB) |
| Down | |||
| 2 | Guide drug seller quietly away (5) |
USHER |
USHER (guide) |
| 3 | Hide, anticipating Spooner asking "What time do you call this?" (3,2,4) |
LIE IN WAIT (WHY IN LATE? loosely meaning ‘what time do you call this?’ would be a Spoonerism of the entry) LIE IN WAIT |
LIE IN WAIT (hide to initiate an ambush when the intended victim appears) |
| 4 | See 1 Across |
See explanation at 1 across |
[BULL] TERRIER |
| 5 | Charlie knocks out 26 in puffed-up food fight (7) |
SOUFFLE with C (Charlie is the International Radio Communication code for the letter C) replacing (knocks out) the O (Oscar is the International Radio Communication code for the letter O) SCUFFLE |
SCUFFLE (fight) |
| 6 | Warm enough to navigate fierce English rips (3-4) |
Anagram of (rips) FIERCE and E (English) ICE-FREE* |
ICE-FREE (describing a polar channel that is navigable without fear of hitting ICE)) |
| 7 | Perhaps Murdoch and Heaney primarily, were this? (5) |
IRIS (reference IRIS Murdoch [1919 – 199], British novelist, born in Dublin [i.e with strong IRISH connections]. ) + H (first letter of [primarily] HEANEY [reference Seamus HEANEY [1939 – 2013], IRISH poet and playwright) IRIS H |
IRISH (Heaney was IRISH. Murdoch was born in Dublin. Wikipedia hopwever describes a debate about Murdoch’s IRISHness) |
| 8 | Told the authorities about Liberal speech, informally (5) |
SANG (informed on; told the authorities about) containing (about) L (Liberal) S (L) ANG |
SLANG (informal speech) |
| 13 | Bread extremely chewy in French city (5) |
NAN (type of slightly leavened bread, as baked in Indian and Pakistani cookery) + CY (outer letters of [extremely] CHEWY) NAN CY |
NANCY (French city) |
| 15 | Old American quits? Lovely stuff (5) |
GORGE GORGE |
GORGE (overeat; stuff) |
| 17 | Religion – it’s endless for one country’s leader (9) |
TAOIS TAOIS EACH |
TAOISEACH (the prime minister of the Republic of Ireland) |
| 19 | Mock butler whimsically in conversation? (3-4) |
MAN MADE (sounds like [in conversation] MAN MAID which could be a cryptic or whimsical term to describe a butler) MAN MADE |
MAN-MADE (MADE by humans; artificial or synthetic; not occurring naturally; mock) |
| 20 | Time to struggle with shed’s supporting structure (7) |
T (time) + T RESTLE |
TRESTLE (support composed of a horizontal beam on sloping legs) |
| 21 | Most senior ministers throw out probes about alien visitor (7) |
BIN (throw out) contained in (probes) (CA [circa; about] + ET [name of a film about an alien]) CA (BIN) ET |
CABINET (committee made up of a group of senior ministers who together formulate policy in the government of a country) |
| 23 | Keeps ignoring piece of tatty clothing (5) |
S SOCKS |
SOCKS (item of clothing) |
| 24 | Treatise followed on the radio (5) |
TRACT (sounds like [on the radio] TRACKED [followed]) TRACT |
TRACT (treatise, pamphlet or leaflet) |
| 26 | Gong found in limousine? (5) |
OS (outsize) + CAR (vehicle) together they could describe a limousine (large closed motor car, often seen in a stretched form) OS CAR |
OSCAR (a gold-plated statuette awarded by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a film writer, actor, director, etc, for the year’s best performance in his or her particular line; award; gong) |
An enjoyable crossword thank you Eccles. Thanks also to Duncan for the blog – GORGE was my last one in too, and even with the helpful wordplay, I always struggle to spell the leader in 17d
A great Wednesday morning challenge. IOWA was my LOI. Was totally bemused by it at first reading but the 4 farthings dropped when I came back to it at the end.
Thought it was particularly nice how Eccles clued 12a making it look like a reference to 1/4d as in 25a.
Thanks to Eccles and Duncan.
Thanks for the blog, Duncan.
I’ve never tried an Eccles puzzle before. Several of my crossword friends have recommended them and, after a very pleasant chat with Eccles at York on Saturday, I promised I would [try to] solve the next one that came along – and here it is, already. I realise I’ve been missing some treats.
A wide variety of clever clues: I particularly enjoyed BULL TERRIER and then FARTHING, for the misdirection, TESTIFIERS, for the surface and the accuracy [I just did what it said on the tin], IRISH, for the reference to two favourites, TRESTLE, for the surface and SCUFFLE, for the wit – but these are only samples.
Many thanks to Eccles – I enjoyed meeting you – not least for a foolproof mnemonic for the spelling of TAOISEACH.
Another lovely puzzle. What a brilliant idea to use the 1/4d thing in two different ways. I also had the pleasure of meeting Eccles, albeit sadly briefly, in York on Saturday and I’m glad Eileen has seen the light(s).
Thanks also to DS for the blog
IOWA was almost out LOI, too, but actual LOI was MAN-MADE for which we had to resort to a word finder – and a real ‘doh!’ moment when we saw it. We never saw OSCAR as OS CAR, though and just thought of the letter O occurring in ‘limOusine’. And we thought 16ac should have been enumerated (2-8) – as Duncan has it in the blog.
All pretty straightforward, though. Our favourites were LIE IN WAIT and ATTENDANCE, although we thought the latter could have done with a question mark.
Thanks, Eccles and Duncan.
Well I must be very dim because nobody has asked: what on earth does a farthing have to do with a bull terrier? The wordplay is easy enough, but what’s the definition?
Wil Ransome @ 6
Perhaps I’m the dim one, but the blog explains that a FARTHING at 12 across is a quarter of an old penny, expressed as 1/4 d, and is indeed nothing to do with 1 across / 4 down
Wil @6 – that’s what baerchen meant @4 – brilliant!
Thanks. How clever. Completely hoodwinked by this. As Eileen says, brilliant.
Not to mention what I said @2.
Thanks to all who commented, and to Duncan for the usual comprehensive review. Nice to see someone fall for my little trick! I’m grateful to Eimi that he allowed this – the house style is for capitals, i.e. 4D, but that obviously wouldn’t have worked with 25 being capital and 12 being lower case.
I really enjoyed York, and as well as Eileen and Rob, I met several other lovely and new-to-me people. A pity that some people left before I could chat, and also a shame that Eileen managed to scare B&J off going (maybe they’ll make it to the Oxton bonfire on Saturday?). Hopefully there were no more casualties after I left.
?
Sorry, Eileen, I wasn’t meaning you caused casualties! I was referring to Sil – I was glad to see he was posting on here again, so fully recovered.
(And I was joking about you scaring B&J off too!)
Apologies all round. Firstly, we are late commenting as we only caught up with the puzzle lunchtime today. All good fun as expected. We hope we are blogging your next one, Eccles.
We are sorry we missed folk in York – hopefully we will make it next year. Apologies too for not being able to make the bonfire Eccles. We are in Manchester that day and don’t return until late.
Thanks for the blog Duncan.
I reckon there is a decent chance you’ll be blogging my next one, B&J. 🙂
Mark Goodliffe has solved this puzzle, too – it can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdeN903tLbs&t=1166s