Independent 10,897 by Eccles

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Eccles appears in the mid-week slot this week.

We always look forward to blogging Eccles puzzles, but unfortunately we didn’t enjoy this puzzle as much as we had anticipated. The usual smooth surfaces were there, but we felt that the puzzle was spoilt by the three unusual (to us) words at 27ac, 1d and 7d. Admittedly, the wordplay for these entries was clear, and our admiration of Eccles as a setter is undimmed – maybe we were expecting too much, or perhaps we’re having an off-day.  However, we particularly enjoyed 16a, 20a and 25a.

We’re still looking forward to the next one.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Halfwit caught flies in pile of sand (4)
DUNE

DUNcE (halfwit) with the ‘c’ (caught) omitted or ‘flying’

3. Commotion as American seen in Yorkshire city with bear (10)
HULLABALOO

A (American) in HULL (Yorkshire city) BALOO (bear – in ‘the Jungle Book’)

10. Motorboat is trapped in Corfu weir every so often (7)
CRUISER

IS ‘trapped’ in alternate letters (‘every so often’) of CoRfU wEiR

11. Reportedly overprotecting young fish (7)
CODLING

A homophone (‘reportedly’) of CODDLING (overprotecting)

12. Suitable pen-friend? (13)
CORRESPONDENT

Double definition

15. Front page story: priest punches hack (6)
SPLASH

P (priest) in or ‘punching’ SLASH (hack)

16. Happen to pass former electrical store on Parisian street (4,4)
COME TRUE

COMET (former electrical store) RUE (French for street)

18. European guided by reputation decorated in New York (8)
ENAMELED

E (European) + LED (guided) after or ‘by’ NAME (reputation)

20. Part of TV detective associated with Lewis, primarily (6)
MORSEL

MORSE (TV detective) L (first or ‘primary’ letter of Lewis)

23. Layer of molluscs damaged porthole frame (6-2-5)
MOTHER-OF-PEARL

An anagram (‘damaged’) of PORTHOLE FRAME

25. Vote against regular cycling rally (7)
CONVENE

CON (vote against) EVEN (regular) with the first ‘e’ moved to the rear or ‘cycling’

27. Prince (as he was formerly known) originally acquired uniform in red (7)
PONCEAU

P (Prince) ONCE (as formerly known) + A U (first or ‘original’ letters of acquired uniform) – a new word for us

28. After month in recession, gave angry tirade about store’s termination being certain (10)
GUARANTEED

AUG (month) reversed or ‘in recession’ + RANTED (gave angry tirade) round E (last letter or ‘termination’ of store)

29. Long drain beginning to dry out (4)
ITCH

dITCH (drain) with the ‘d’ (first letter or ‘beginning’ to dry) omitted or ‘out’

DOWN
1. Flapper somewhat consoles sick cider-drinking revolutionary (10)
DICKCISSEL

Hidden (‘somewhat’) and reversed (‘revolutionary’) in consoLES SICK CIDer-drinking – another new word for us, apparently an American migratory bird

2. Dicky learnt uranium is lacking noticeable colour (7)
NEUTRAL

An anagram (‘dicky’) of LEARNT and U (uranium)

4. University exercises right to be included, but it’s not ready (6)
UNRIPE

UNI (university) PE (exercises) round or ‘including’ R (right)

5. One who permits suckers to get rinsed, essentially, by old rector (8)
LICENSOR

LICE (suckers) + NS (middle or ‘essential’ letters of rinsed) O (old) R (rector)

6. Rotten fish is sent back (3)
BAD

DAB (fish) reversed or ‘sent back’

7. In Irish province, Nationalist is wanting Trident (7)
LEISTER

LEInSTER (Irish province) with the ‘n’ (Nationalist) omitted or ‘wanting’ – yet another new word for us – a salmon spear

8. Disabled beggar’s topless sex party (4)
ORGY

pORGY (disabled beggar – in ‘Porgy and Bess’) without the first letter or ‘topless’

9. Stan messes about in test (10)
ASSESSMENT

An anagram (‘about’) of STAN MESSES

13. Look at father and important financial figures close to agreeing – amazing! (3-7)
EYE-POPPING

EYE (look) POP (father) PIN (personal identification number – ‘important financial figures’) G (last letter or ‘close’ to agreeing)

14. Hearty emotion produced in telephone call: “Lay off, that’s disgusting!” (5,5)
BELLY LAUGH

BELL (telephone call) + an anagram (‘off’) of LAY + UGH (‘that’s disgusting’)

17. Principle covering boyfriends in flat (8)
TENEMENT

TENET (principle) round or ‘covering’ MEN (boyfriends)

19. Shot in back procuring a toxic gas (7)
AMMONIA

AMMO (shot, as in ammunition) + IN reversed or ‘back’ + A

21. Over the phone, picture best wild plant (3,4)
SEA BEET

A homophone (‘over the phone’) of SEE (picture) BEAT (best)

22. Run into thicket to laugh uncontrollably (6)
CORPSE

R (run) in COPSE (thicket)

24. Nearly learned to inject cocaine and heroin (4)
SCAG

SAGe (learned) without the last letter or ‘nearly’ round or ‘injecting’ C (cocaine)

26. Time in therapy (3)
ERA

Hidden in thERApy

 

21 comments on “Independent 10,897 by Eccles”

  1. In addition to your 3 unknowns, I also had never heard of SEA BEET or SCAG making the solve a little too tough for me, but live and learn.

  2. I managed two of the unknowns – PONCEAU and LEISTER – but 1d was never going to come, even though I had parsed it so knew what I had to work with. DICKCISSEL still doesn’t look like a word! (Though the spellchecker on this site hasn’t flagged it which is interesting).

    A difficult start – but I found the wavelength in the South which enabled me to return to earlier clues with crossers and crack the remainder – bar the aforementioned 1d. DUNE, ENAMELED, GUARANTEED, EYE-POPPING and BELLY LAUGH were my favourites today. I did need to check SCAG – heard of but not regularly used – and, having never seen Porgy and Bess, needed to check that the former was both a beggar and disabled.

    Thanks Eccles and B&J

  4. I thought Eccles was in trickier than usual mode today. I didn’t know 1 but I did know 7d and eventually remembered the food colouring at 27d. 16a made me smile

    Thanks to Eccles and B&J

  5. Same three unknowns for me and I had to to solve ORGY from the def, not knowing Porgy was a ‘disabled beggar’.

    Overall I thought this was hard, but the unknowns were possible to get so it wasn’t too frustrating and I’ll try to remember the new words for next time. (Some chance!)

    Thanks to Eccles and B&J

  6. Thanks for the blog, B&J. I had the same unknowns as you (plus Hovis’ three) – I particularly liked the clue for PONCEAU.

    I also shared your ‘likes’, with the addition of 1ac DUNE and 28ac GUARANTEED. Really neat surfaces throughout.

    Many thanks, Eccles. along with Vlad, you’ve started my day well

  7. Well, I really enjoy learning new words. Especially if the wordplay makes the solution gettable, as it was with ponceau, dickcissel (a neatly constructed hidden word) and leister. Anyone remember the Reader’s Digest magazine and ‘It pays to increase your word power’? Now we’ve been introduced, I look forward to meeting again ere long. Thanks Eccles and B&J.

  8. DICKCISSEL is a keeper but not a good band name
    SCAG brings back memories of the 70s(as a listener not a user)
    Thanks Eccles and B&J

  9. copmus @8 – my own listener memories of SCAG go back to (and are confined to) the short prose poem of that name by Archie Shepp, performed with his quartet (Bobby Hutcherson, Barre Philips on bowed bass, Joe Chambers on drums) at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1965. I was not there, but I did have the LP, ‘New Thing at Newport’ on which the performance features. Here it is for anyone interested:

    https://sonichits.com/video/John_Coltrane_%01_Archie_Shepp/Scag

  10. I came across the same unknowns as our reviewers and have to confess to using my ‘phone a friend’ for PONCEAU. Top three here were COME TRUE, MORSEL & the simple but effective BAD.

    Thanks to Eccles plus his thesaurus and to B&J for the review.

  11. Perhaps should be noted that the New York reference in 18A is surely to flag the single “l”, unlike the British enamelled.

    Had to give up on 1D. The wording was such that a reversal never entered my head. Would complain, but after all, did not take enough notice of “revolutionary” in the word fodder.

    Thanks to Eccles for the puzzle and to Bertandjoyce for the usual immaculate blog.

  12. Same unknowns as most, ponceau, leister and the most impressively camouflaged dickcissel. It felt like I was in an Azed.

    I also didn’t know corpse in the theatrical slang sense.

    Scag I do know (only the word I hasten to add). I’m fairly sure it’s mentioned in Trainspotting.

    Thanks Eccles and B&J

  13. Must admit I got a bit tetchy when checking 1d (thank goodness, it was only a bird) and being tested on my knowledge of street slang for hard drugs, but B&J are finer folk than me, and so are most here. Duly humbled. Favourites COME TRUE and HULLABALOO – always nice to see my home city referenced and I’ve been humming The Bear Necessities all day. Thanks to Eccles and Bertandjoyce

  14. Thanks both. My lost battle with 1dn was mainly due to the inadvertent misdirection of ‘drinking’ (usually indicates inclusion) allied to the crossers suggesting an external anagram of ‘cider’. Like others, it was an unknown – other birds are available – but surely none which sound quite as much like a west-country insult

  15. I was sure SEA WHIN was going to be a plant. Love the West Country insult. Archie Shepp brings back memories of my university roommate, who would wake us each mornign with a particularly discordant and angry Shepp passage.

  16. Thanks all, and for the interesting feedback. A few puzzles ago I changed my default dictionary from the Crossword Compiler default to Collins as I seemed to not be getting much variety in the suggested words. I realised there would be an occasional unusual word, but thought I could choose sensibly (I tend to reject plants, but birds seem somehow less obscure). It seems that the general tolerance limit is one/two, so I will bear that in mind. (I have also started making more use of the Compounds and Phrases, although I tend to reject most of those suggestions, so they may start to appear!)

  17. DICKCISSEL may be an American bird but it’s one I didn’t know. It’s a fair clue in my book because it’s right there in plain sight — I hate missing the hidden ones and I had enough of the crossers to solve it. LEISTER and PONCEAU were never going to fall but most else did. Favourites were DUNE and AMMONIA. Thanks to both.

  18. Eccles@16,

    I think it’s a case of what we expect from a setter rather than a tolerance. Like Tratrasman (and others too I’d wager) I enjoy learning new words, or a new interpretation or meaning to a word, I just wasn’t expecting it today. All the less common words were impeccably clued and eminently gettable even if we didn’t solve them. My previous perception of your style (admittedly from a statistically insignificant sample) was for fair clues with impeccable surfaces but not for obscure words. To sum up thanks for the warning, and bring it on. 😉

  19. I needed a word search to get 27ac and I guessed SEA BELT for 21dn, which is a type of kelp. I spotted the reverse hidden word in 1dn which fitted the crossing letters, but I had to check it.

  20. Eccles @ 16

    I have no objection to ‘obscure’ (someone must know ‘em, otherwise they wouldn’t be documented) answers as long as they’re fairly clued – even if I fail to get ‘em (cf TS @ 17 & Blah @ 18).

    Looking forward to what you come up with.

  21. Thanks for dropping in Eccles – it is always interesting to hear background information from a setter. I think Blah@18 sums things up extremely well. Next time we will be prepared!

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