Another fun Wednesday with Eccles: not too hard, good surfaces, plenty of chuckles.
There were many clues I could have picked out as favourites here, but I liked 24a (ingenious if slightly obscure anagram indicator), 14a and 27a for the surfaces, and 5d (which just made me laugh). By a narrow margin, my prize goes to 16d for sheer efficiency: a smooth surface without any link words or padding, where even the word “and” serves a useful purpose. Thanks Eccles as always.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | GARLAND |
Flowers and fish found next to dock (7)
|
| GAR (a type of fish) next to LAND (dock, as a verb = come from sea to land). | ||
| 5 | ALLOTS |
Designates when to take ring back (6)
|
| AS (when), taking in TOLL (ring, as in a bell) reversed (back). | ||
| 8 | RASPS |
Returned box containing special files (5)
|
| SPAR (box, as a verb = fight) reversed (returned), containing S (abbreviation for special).
Rasp = a coarse file used for shaping wood or similar materials. |
||
| 9 | PEDANTRY |
Pettifoggery from editor in store (8)
|
| ED (short for editor) in PANTRY (food store). | ||
| 11 | YOUNGSTER |
Juvenile delinquent stoner guy (9)
|
| Anagram (delinquent) of STONER GUY. | ||
| 12 | SOBER |
Someone who cries half-heartedly is not drunk (5)
|
| SOB[b]ER (someone who cries), with one of the two middle letters (half of the heart) dropped. | ||
| 13 | ALFA |
Codeword written in coalface (4)
|
| Hidden answer (written in . . .) in [co]ALFA[ce].
Codeword for A in the radio alphabet; it’s officially spelled that way (rather than Alpha) to make the pronunciation clear in as many languages as possible. |
||
| 14 | CANOODLE |
Kiss and cuddle old drunk in boat (8)
|
| Anagram (drunk) of OLD, in CANOE (boat). | ||
| 18 | DAEDALUS |
Harry lauded as mythical craftsman (8)
|
| Anagram (harry = attack) of LAUDED AS.
In Greek mythology, the craftsman who made wings for himself and his son Icarus so that they could escape from prison. |
||
| 19 | BLUR |
Most of promotional material is obscure (4)
|
| BLUR[b] (a short piece of promotional text about a book, usually printed on the back cover, or a similar short introduction to another creative work), all but the last letter (most of). | ||
| 22 | RABID |
Fanatical bishop hiding in sack (5)
|
| B (abbreviation for bishop) hiding in RAID (sack = ransack = destroy in the process of stealing valuables). | ||
| 24 | ADORATION |
Love a tandoori masala (9)
|
| Anagram (masala = Hindi for “mixture”, normally used to mean a spice mix) of A TANDOORI. | ||
| 25 | GUINNESS |
Beer judge is drinking in pub (8)
|
| GUESS (judge, as a verb = estimate) containing (drinking in = absorbing) INN (pub). | ||
| 26 | STAFF |
Detective Inspector leaves women’s work for man (5)
|
| [di]STAFF (a tool used in spinning thread, and by extension a metaphor for tasks traditionally seen as “women’s work”) without the DI (abbreviation for Detective Inspector).
Man, as a verb = staff = work on, or assign employees to work on: as in the command to “man the lifeboats”. Rather outdated in this sense, as is “distaff”; some organisations wouldn’t allow this usage at all now. |
||
| 27 | STROKE |
England all-rounder nearly picking up runs for cover drive? (6)
|
| STOKE[s] (Ben Stokes, cricket all-rounder for England) without the last letter (nearly), containing (picking up) R (abbreviation for runs in cricket scoring).
Definition by example, indicated by the question mark; a cover drive is an example of a stroke in cricket = a way of hitting the ball in a particular direction. |
||
| 28 | DESPAIR |
Misery of French couple (7)
|
| DES (a form of “of” in French) + PAIR (couple). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | GERRYMANDERS |
Looks around, slightly drunk, with head down, and makes devious changes (12)
|
| MERRY (slightly drunk), with the M (first letter = head) moved to the end (down, in a down clue), then AND. GANDERS (looks, as in the phrase “take a gander at . . .”; supposedly from stretching one’s neck like a goose to see something) then goes around all of that; the comma after “around” is deliberately confusing, but should be ignored like most punctuation in crossword clues.
Term for redrawing electoral boundaries in order to gain an advantage in the next election, or similar underhand tactics. From a Governor Gerry in Massachusetts, who presided over a particularly extreme example; the shape of the resulting district was said to resemble a salamander, so his opponents called it a Gerrymander. |
||
| 2 | RESHUFFLE |
She managed to stop annoyance leading to changes in government (9)
|
| Anagram (managed) of SHE, inserted into (to stop) RUFFLE (annoyance; more often a verb meaning to annoy, but sometimes a noun). | ||
| 3 | ASSIGN |
On reflection, nothing is sacred, claims commission (6)
|
| Hidden answer (. . . claims), reversed (on reflection), in [nothi]NG IS SA[cred].
Assign = commission = appoint to a role. |
||
| 4 | DEPUTE |
Delegate lay in river (6)
|
| PUT (lay = place, as a verb) in DEE (one of the usual suspects for “river” in crosswords).
Delegate = depute = pass responsibility down to another. |
||
| 5 | ALDERMAN |
Councillor called American city ‘backwards’, which is about right (8)
|
| NAMED (called) + LA (Los Angeles = American city), all reversed (backward), around (about) R (right). | ||
| 6 | LONG SHOT |
Desire to meet small and sexy outsider (4,4)
|
| LONG (as a verb = desire earnestly) + S (small) + HOT (slang for sexy).
Long shot = outsider = an entrant in a contest who has very little chance of winning. |
||
| 7 | THROB |
Beat both Republican parties (5)
|
| Anagram (parties, as a verb = dances) of BOTH + R (abbreviation for Republican). | ||
| 10 | FREE TRANSFER |
Following joint, suppresses rants about football player’s movement? (4,8)
|
| F (abbreviation for following) + REEFER (joint = slang for a cannabis cigarette), around (suppressing) an anagram (about) of RANTS.
In football, a player moving from one club to another without any payment being made. |
||
| 15 | DALAI LAMA |
American country boy inspiring a revolutionary to become religious exile (5,4)
|
| A (abbreviation for American) + MALI (African country) + LAD (boy), containing (inspiring) A, all reversed (revolutionary). | ||
| 16 | FANDANGO |
Enthusiast and eccentric try dance (8)
|
| FAN (enthusiast) + anagram (eccentric) of AND + GO (try, as in “have a go”). | ||
| 17 | SUDANESE |
African and European entering South America with drug (8)
|
| DANE (person from Denmark = European) inserted into S (South) + US (America) + E (slang for the drug ecstasy). | ||
| 20 | MOSSAD |
As unhappy as can be to waste time in secret service (6)
|
| MOS[t] SAD (as unhappy as can be), without the T (time).
The national intelligence agency of Israel. |
||
| 21 | LAPSES |
Failings left part of church beginning to subside (6)
|
| L (left) + APSE (rounded end of a church building) + beginning letter of S[ubside]. | ||
| 23 | BLURT |
Impulsively speak Latin in Lancaster? (5)
|
| L (abbreviation for Latin) in BURT (the actor Burt Lancaster). |
Eccles continues his rich vein of brilliant puzzles with every clue a winner. If you were to twist my arm I would choose ADORATION as my favourite with its perfect surface and inventive anagram indicator.
Superb! Thank you, Eccles, Thanks too to Quirister.
The ever reliable Eccles-thanks to him and Q
Eccles has definitely become one of my favourite setters. Clear, tight, efficient (to borrow from Quirister). I agree that FANDANGO can be described as such but so, too, can ALLOT, RABID, THROB, DEPUTE, GUINNESS and the superbly anagrammed and surfaced YOUNGSTER. I also thoroughly enjoying piecing together the long ones – GERRYMANDERS and the superb FREE TRANSFER. No complaints at all.
Thanks Eccles and Quirister
I’ve always thought of GUINNESS as “stout” rather than ‘Beer’, mistakenly thinking they were different, though looking it up now I see that it’s a type of beer, in the same way that an ale is. This therefore held me up at the end and only after I’d finally seen it was I able to get my last in MOSSAD.
Entertaining puzzle as usual from Eccles. I liked the cricketing surface for STROKE, the square-jawed BURT for ‘Lancaster’ at 23d and as pointed out by Quirister the original but apposite ‘masala’ anagram indicator at 24a.
Thanks to Eccles and Quirister
Thank you Quirister, especially for the extra detail on the origins of GERRYMANDERing and diSTAFF. I agree with your assessment ( except that I would probably rate it a little harder as it took me a while to get going and was never a procession) and favourites, thank you Eccles for a great puzzle.
Great fun, thank you Eccles – thanks also to Quirister for the blog
Hear hear to all the above, though I wasn’t sure about ALFA as I couldn’t find it in a dictionary or online. Thanks Eccles and Quirister.
I’m in total agreement with Quirister and PostMark – I really enjoyed this, for all the reasons mentioned. My particular chuckle was for 23dn.
My only temporary hold-up was a minute or two spent trying to work HUFF (annoyance) into 2dn.
(I think Eccles (like most people here) is probably too young to have even heard of Harry Lauder but he sprang immediately to my mind when I read the clue for 18ac. When I was a child, his songs very regularly featured in record request programmes on the radio.)
Many thanks to Eccles, as ever, and to Quirister.
I thought I should pop back, having reflected on the dog walk and then been distracted by work. I’m amending my post with hindsight to nominate ADORATION as my COTD. I think I felt that way as I solved it and then, for some reason, it slipped my mind when I composed my comment. As RD says @1, it is perfect. Efficient – again – and just a God-sent anagram.
Tatrasman @7: this Wikipedia article is a useful reference for the radio alphabet, including unexpected spellings for some of the codewords.
Re Harry Lauder, Eileen @ 8, you’re probably aware that there’s a sort of hazel with very twisty branches called Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick.
Hi Simon @11 – no, I didn’t know that but, having looked up a picture of it, I now know the name of the curious-looking shrub in my near neighbour’s garden. (As we often say, you learn such a lot from doing crosswords. ;-0 )
Thanks both. Pettifoggery was new to me, and sounded like a Dickens character, and I suspect I’ll have forgotten it by the time it next appears. In THROB ‘parties’ as an anagrind feels quite a stretch, perhaps as I prefer many things to dancing at social events
TFO@13 In fifteenquared posts pettifoggery is all too familiar. None possible here though. I concur with the general praise.
Think I enjoyed this one more in hindsight than at the time of solving. Not sure why, although I did annoyingly have to use my ‘phone a friend’ option to nail MOSSAD. I did know the required ‘secret service’ but the superlative needed simply wouldn’t come to mind.
Favoured clues here were those for CANOODLE, GUINESS, DESPAIR & LONG SHOT.
Thanks to Eccles and to Quirister for the review.
Another thumbs up from me. I started this just after watching PMQs this afternoon, so 2D felt strangely prescient given the party / non-party investigations, but pure coincidence of course.
We found this a bit tricky but fortuitously we were interrupted by an important phone call with our last few ‘problem’ clues still to solve; when we resumed solving there seemed to be less of a problem and we finished it off quite quickly.
PEDANTRY, ADORATION and GERRYMANDER were among our favourites.
Thanks, Eccles and Quirister.
[Eileen@8, I wondered why that clue rang a vague bell, I have somehow heard of Harry Lauder but could have told you nothing about him so thanks for the link, and thanks also Simon S@11 for identifying the very attractive plant in our garden producing tasty little nuts in good years – which just goes to show how right you are@12 Eileen!
Sheepish@16 I am a long way from the action but, rather than a reshuffle, tend to think that it is time to change the deck.
allan_c@17 if only all “men of Porlock” were as helpful!]
Belated thanks to Quirister @10 for the link.