Independent 11,106 / Eccles

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Eccles is occupying this week’s Wednesday slot.

I found this to be an enjoyable, medium-difficulty puzzle, perfect for a working day. I made steady progress from start to finish, halting in the NE quadrant, which then slotted into place once I had solved 5A.

My favourite clues today were 1A, for making me smirk; 24 and 26, both for originality; and 4, for smoothness of surface.

*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in double-definition clues

Across  
   
01 FINE ART Sculpture, perhaps, of Trump grabbing popular chanteuse’s backside

[IN (=popular) + <chanteus>E (“backside” means last letter only)] in FART (=trump)
   
05 LISTER Tip the Queen’s physician

LIST (=tip (over), lean) + ER (=Queen, i.e. Elizabeth Regina); the reference is to British physician and pioneer of antiseptic surgery Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
   
08 EARTH Want to ignore the first world

<d>EARTH (=want, lack); “to ignore first” means first letter is dropped
   
09 ARMONICA Cooked macaroni in rotating glass bowls

*(MACARONI); “cooked” is anagram indicator; a glass harmonica is a music-producing series of rotating glass bowls
   
11 CHEVRETTE Skin rabbit’s head in Vauxhall

R<abbit> (“head” means first letter only) in CHEVETTE (=Vauxhall, i.e. a model of car); chevrette is a thin kind of goatskin
   
12 ARLES Bas-reliefs regularly seen in Van Gogh’s home

<b>A<s->R<e>L<i>E<f>S; “regularly” means alternate letters only; Dutch painter Van Gogh spent time living and working in the French town of Arles
   
13 PAIR Set melody on piano

P (=piano, i.e. quietly, in music) + AIR (=melody, tune); a pair is a set of two, as in a cruet set
   
14 MUCHACHA A lot of tea bags are for Spanish maid

A (=are, i.e. unit of measurement) in [MUCH (=a lot of) + CHA (=tea)]; a muchacha is a young woman or female servant
   
18 LEGAL AID Lied about hosting party, getting funds to fight case

GALA in *(LIED); “about” is anagram indicator
   
19 DUEL Confrontation expected by Labour leader

DUE (=expected) + L<abour> (“leader” means first letter only)
   
22 SUPER Delightful plastic purse

*(PURSE); “plastic” is anagram indicator
   
24 EGG SLICER Nits, present and future, start to return kitchen implement

EGGS (=nits, present) + LICE (=nits, future) + R<eturn> (“start to” means first letter only)
   
25 MAINLINE Mum queuing to take drug intravenously

MA (=mum) + IN LINE (=queuing)
   
26 CLIFF Halogens found in steep rock face

CL (=chlorine) + I (=iodine) + F (=fluorine) + F (=fluorine); chlorine, iodine and fluorine are all halogens
   
27 SNATCH Grab son, of course

S (=son) + NATCH (=of course, i.e. slang for naturally)
   
28 SKY BLUE Shade thrown: be sulky

*(BE SULKY); “thrown” is anagram indicator
   
Down  
   
01 FRENCH POLISH Finish with dual nationality?

FRENCH and POLISH a both nationalities; French polish is a kind of finish on furniture
   
02 NURSELING Young child damaged linen rugs

*(LINEN RUGS); “damaged” is anagram indicator
   
03 ASHORE On the beach, wash more when taking tops off

<w>ASH <m>ORE; “when taking tops off” means first letter of each word is dropped
   
04 TOASTY Where a pig might go to get warm?

TO A STY (=where a pig might go)
   
05 LIMBER UP Maybe Ivy excited to avoid constant exercise

<c>LIMBER (=maybe ivy, i.e. the plant; “to avoid constant (=C)” means letter “c” is dropped) + UP (=excited)
   
06 SUNBATHE Ashen, but remedy this?

*(ASHEN BUT); “remedy” is anagram indicator; semi- & lit.; by sunbathing one’s skin becomes less pale, ashen
   
07 EXCEL Intersex celebrity’s inspiring top

Hidden (“inspiring”) in “intersEX CELebrity”; to excel is to surpass, to top
   
10 ASSAULT RIFLE Firearm, “a small, trivial matter,” claims man yet to see the light

SAUL (=man yet to see the light, in the New Testament, after which he was known as Paul the Apostle) in [A + S (=small, of sizes) + TRIFLE (=trivial matter)]
   
15 CHURCHILL Charlotte perhaps meeting sick war hero

CHURCH (=Charlotte perhaps, i.e. the Welsh singer-songwriter) + ILL (=sick); the reference is to British WWII PM Winston Churchill
   
16 CLARINET Music producer in Spain covered in mud

[IN + E (=Spain, in IVR)] in CLART (=mud, dirt); cryptically, as an instrument, a clarinet is a “music producer”
   
17 LIVERISH Be the chancellor: mostly disagreeable

LIVE (=be, exist) + RISH<i> (=chancellor, i.e. Rishi Sunak; “mostly” means last letter is dropped)
   
20 EGRESS Exit for one on steamship

E.G. (=for one, for example) + RE- (=on, regarding) + SS (=steamship)
   
21 PLUCKY Valiant prince gets blessed

P (=prince) + LUCKY (=blessed, fortunate)
   
23 PLAIN Frank left in distress

L (=left) in PAIN (=distress)
   
   

13 comments on “Independent 11,106 / Eccles”

  1. Gosh I seem to be first in – that’s a first!

    Well I enjoyed that – a very succulent offering entirely to my taste. I agree with your top picks RatkojaRiku and would add the excellent MUCHACHA (for misdirection) and SUNBATHE (for elegance). MAINLINE was also a treat and a chuckle.

    I think I’ve tried an Eccles puzzle or two in the past but this one turns me into a fan – I’ll be on the lookout for more. Much thanks for the entertainment.

  2. Thanks both. Since recently taking on the Independent’s weekly Jumbo General Knowledge crosswords, I shall no longer bemoan any cryptic clue exposing my GK failings – CLIFF serves as an example, as I did not even know what a halogen is, let alone the chemical formulae of some examples, but at least it was still guessable

  3. Yet another splendid puzzle from one of my very favourite setters. I learnt three new words: 11a, 14a and the mud in 16d, but the clueing was scrupulously fair.

    Once again I feel spoilt for choice in selecting a favourite, but in the end I’ll go for FINE ART.

    Many thanks to Eccles and to RR.

  4. I would add FRENCH POLISH and LIVERISH to the favourites already mentioned. CHEVRETTE and MUCHACHA took me as long as the rest of the puzzle. Even when I had discarded the idea of a synonym for talk and ‘ed (rabbit head in Vauxhall) I came up with so many wrong Vauxhalls before I hit on the right one.

  5. Another fine, if not particularly tricky, crossword from Mr Every Other Wednesday

    I did know the things RD didn’t know but will agree with him that it is hard to pick just one favourite

    Thanks to Eccles and RR

  6. Another fine crossword from the famous Eccles. We do have one minor niggle, though – we thought the clue for CHEVRETTE (a new word for us) was a tad unfair referring to a model of car that went out of production over 35 years ago. On the other hand, one of us being a chemist, we thought CLIFF was absolutely great.
    Thanks, Eccles and RatkojaRiku.

  7. Swings and roundabouts, allan c, I knew the car but the halogens had me reaching for the reference books!
    FINE ART made me laugh and my favourite was EGG SLICER.

    Thanks to Eccles and to RR for the review.

  8. We found that a slightly odd puzzle – much of it really straightforward and gettable, but then the obscure (to us) muchacha, armonica and chevrette/chevette holding us up.

  9. Insignificant error in the blog.

    15a you’ve given “see” as the clue to ILL when it should be “sick”.

    Relatively pain free solve today after finishing off yesterdays which I struggled with far more.

    Thanks to Eccles for the entertainment and RR for the explanations of the parsings that escaped me.

  10. Thanks Eccles for the amusement. I really liked EGG SLICER, TOASTY, and LEGAL AID and I concur with Ericw about the “obscurities.” One question, however, how does trump=fart? I fully understand the disdain for him but isn’t this really an opinion and not objective enough to be a part of cryptic wordplay? Thanks to RR for the blog.

  11. TS @10: trump is used, over this side of the Pond at least, as a verb meaning to break wind. It’s even in Chambers as such. Both noun and verb. From the sense of trump as a blast – presumably as in trumpet but I can’t be certain of that. So it’s not just a personal opinion. As you can imagine, it was in the subconscious of just about every British English speaker, every single time the name of the erstwhile President was mentioned. Which was quite often!

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