We look forward to blogging on a Wednesday as we often have an Eccles puzzle.
Joyce laughed as she entered the solution for 3d because it reminded her of her childhood. She used to be involved in plays devised by her brother and cousin who were 3 years older – she usually didn’t get the best parts needless to say. On one occasion she was given directions to shout “BLUE MURDER” at which point the other two would rush into the room. It wasn’t until they tumbled into the room in fits of laughter that she realised she had said something wrong, although she didn’t understand why until they explained the phrase.
In writing up the blog, she queried KEEL = barge and asked Bert whether he had to check it in the dictionary during the solve. It turns out that he checked KEEL in the dictionary recently as he is compiling a puzzle for someone’s birthday.
KEEL (barge) around or ‘over’ N (knight)
An anagram of TO BE A MAN I – anagrind is ‘desperate”
NIT (idiot) RE (about)
An anagram of FEMALE and RIPped (only half) – anagrind is ‘pants’
GOYa (Spanish artist) missing last letter or ‘almost’ reversed or ‘heading west’ + HURT (damaged)
LAST (continue) inside or ‘blocking’ PER (a)
DIE (German article) on SIN (lust, say) and E (first letter or ‘introduction’ to Eroticism)
Hidden in or ‘stopped by’ DaliBOR’S TALent
MUST (smell) around or ‘surrounding’ ARK (animal sanctuary) reversed or ‘retrograde’
LOIS (Lois Lane, in the Superman stories, ‘close to’ Clark Kent) inside or ‘boring’ SOT (drunk)
An anagram of AGREED ON A – anagrind is ‘fresh’
DEFT (expert) around or ‘touring’ L (large)
INTerESTINg (engaging) missing or ‘barring’ ER (queen) and missing last letter or ‘mostly’ and E (first letter or ‘bit of’ Effervescence)
E (English) QUAiL (game bird) missing or ‘passing over’ I (India)
KIN (family) inside S (South) and NY (American city). We pondered over the definition for a while until we thought of a skinny latte being a ‘diet’ coffee.
PEN (fold) TAG ON (add)
BLUE (Oxford player) MURDER (crows as in the collective noun – a murder of crows)
GAR (fish) ROTTEn (bad) missing last letter or ‘cut’
DOLL (model) OP (work)
W (with) IDE (fish)
ARM (limb) ‘inserted into’ TOM (male) reversed or ‘upset’ as this is a down clue
Odd letters of TrEk MaPs in front of or ‘being seen before ‘ ORAL (test)
An anagram of BLAIR DARED – anagrind is ‘to transform’
An anagram of LIMBOS and CarefullY (first and last letters or ‘extremes’) – anagrind is ‘at sea’
BOSSY ED (overbearing editor) around or ‘receiving’ E (first letter or ‘tip’ of Eccles)
TRIAL (hearing) RUN (range)
ScANTY (inadequate) with ‘c’ (cold) changing to H (hot) or ‘increasing the temperature’
T (first letter or ‘start’ of Tidings) and CIGAR (Corona, possibly) reversed or ‘returning’
Hidden or ‘checked by’ and reversed or ‘up’ in fELT TATtooist
GAS (He, perhaps – Helium) with H (heroin)
Thanks to Eccles and to B&J for the blog. Dalibor and Skinny eh?
I thought the “Lane close to Kent” and cigar ref to corona were absolutely superb. In an effort to appear balanced, in the style of the BBC, I thought the surface and construction of 27 not to be Eccles’ finest work..
On a variation of my usual comment, I agree with everything baerchen has said
Thanks to Eccles – can’t wait to see what Jane thinks of 27a – and to B&J
What baerchen said
Thanks setter and bloggers – I enjoyed this one. Lots of good clues, most mentioned above, but in particular I thought 2d was very neat.
This was the usual great entertainment we have come to expect from Eccles, to whom many thanks for yet another superb puzzle,
I originally thought that SKIINNY = DIET was rather dodgy, but B&J have explained the correct interpretation. Although, as someone who wouldn’t be seen dead in Starbucks or other places of that ilk, I think I would also have put “coffee” in inverted commas too.
I couldn’t parse SHANTY having become transfixed that SHY = INADEQUATE and not finding any way that “increase in temperature” could lead to ANT. Thanks to B&J for explaining that too.
To pinch Baerchen’s words: I thought the “Lane close to Kent” and cigar ref to corona were absolutely superb.
Yep – just what baerchen said.
Many thanks to Eccles and B&J – especially for SKINNY.
I suppose this is minor fame of a sort? Loved this puzzle. Hanging on for my turn in the queue, will it be soon?
Thanks to Eccles/Bert & Joyce
Tempting, though it is, to let baerchen speak for all, a) that wouldn’t be me would it and b) setters/bloggers deserve a little more feedback. Though I agree with baerchen’s overall rating and two stand out clues.
A couple I might have seen before – GASH and WIDE – both appealed for their succinctness, TEMPORAL had a nice misdirect and I almost overlooked the definition, I agree with Quirister that PENTAGON was very smooth and I enjoyed YOGHURT which gave me the much needed Y for the excellent SKINNY. I also had ticks for NITRE (although I mentally associate it with older explosive/fuel than rockets) and the cheekily surfaced RELIEF MAP.
I share the general criticism of 27a and would add a couple of quiblets of my own: I’m not sure BOSS EYED is a direct synonym for squint (s/he has a squint vs s/he is boss-eyed) and I thought including Dalibor was a bit of a stretch.
Finally, my own anecdote: holidaying in France with my non-French speaking wife, we ordered dessert and she, in best Clouseau accent, straightfacedly asked for ‘deux dollop de glace’.
Thanks Eccles and B&J
PostMark @8 – both Collins and Chambers give ‘squint’ also as an adjective, respectively ‘having a squint’ and ‘squinting’.
Eileen @9: thanks. I’ll admit to not having checked – and I really shouldn’t be relying on you to do it for me! Which is why I’ll never make it into the erudite column. 😀 I don’t think I’ve ever heard squint used as an adjective referring to the condition in question. I have heard it used to mean awry or crooked which clearly connects with squint in the sense we’re discussing. But, as always, if it’s in Chambers…
I expected to have minor quibbles with a few I could not fully parse, but as always, they were simply very clever. I wonder if I am alone in initially entering cock-eyed for 17d, which I still affirm works equally well
I went down the same route as RD with SHANTY so that caused parsing problems and it took a while for the penny to drop with regard to SOLOIST – very clever.
27a got a ‘hmm’ – not the best of surface reads and too many painful reminders of colonoscopies……….
SOLOIST and DELFT were the winners for me today.
Thanks to Eccles and to B&J – particularly for the help with SHANTY
Did wonder with Skinny and Dalibor getting name checked on whether there was some Indy settters mini theme going on but couldn’t spot anything else.
Ah! Is Dalibor an Indy setter? I didn’t know and now understand the inclusion. My Googling only uncovered the opera. Apologies, if necessary – and both my quiblets have now been answered.
I agree that Eccles Wednesdays are something to look forward to and this puzzle was a joy to solve. 22a is ingenious and my Clue of the Day.
Having praised Eccles can I add a plea to the Ed? More of the setter appearing at 17a as well as Filbert, please !
Much the same reaction as everyone else’s. This took a while to sort out but gave immense satisfaction. We too were wondering how ‘ant’ could be a rise in temperature in 20dn but at the last minute, as it were, we saw the C to H change. So the only one we couldn’t parse properly was PLASTER – we thought one might just stretch ‘cover excessively, injudiciously or meretriciously’ (one of the meanings of ‘plaster’ in Chambers) to make the clue a double definition. In fact the NE quadrant caused us the most trouble, including 12ac since we thought at first ‘3D’ meant we were looking for a synonym of blue murder, with ‘representation’ and ‘pants’ as separate anagram indicators.
Lots of great clues, though – BORSTAL, SOLOIST and SYMBOLIC among them. Thanks, Eccles and B&J
Many thanks to B&J, and all who commented. Comments about which clues were liked and disliked are always interesting, but especially this time. When a puzzle is accepted I will have a scan down the clues. Having not looked at them for a while I can look at them with fresh eyes, and quite often there are a couple where I think ‘I could have done a bit better there’. There were a couple of those this time, but 27a was one I was quite happy with – I thought it told a little story about the queen not being allowed to interact with people because of dodgy guts. It clearly shows that what a clue reads like in my head isn’t always how it actually reads on paper, even after a gap.
Dalibor and Skinny were a coincidence, although I might not have used Dalibor, being quite an unusual name here, if he wasn’t also a setter. He isn’t in prison.
The Dalibor I took my name from was, though – https://www.prague.eu/en/object/places/49/prague-castle-daliborka-tower-daliborka.
bit late in the day but .. just read the blog for Bluth’s quiz yesterday and was intrigued by the lengthy “indirect anagram” discussion… I found it interesting that the “indirect” accusation doesn’t seem to apply to other clues like 27ac here.. in other words you had to think or another word for “engaging” without any indication that that was what you were looking for, that i could see… I got the answer from a 9 letter word meaning bowel! I wonder how many people actually started with “interesting” and worked from there, or just parsed after the fact? I’m not quite sure why there was a general criticism for that clue but not based on its indirectness?
Thanks to Bertandjoyce and Eccles
undrell@19: I think the (unwritten) rule about indirectness is that you can do anything with a synonym provided you don’t alter the relative order of the letters, e.g. you can use just the middle letter(s), just the outside letters, remove the first or last letter, reverse it, etc. but you musn’t make an anagram of it.
ok alllan_c… clear enough! thanks for your reply…