Eccles is back in his ‘regular ‘ Wednesday slot this week
Another well-crafted puzzle from our Wednesday setter.
As usual, there is a good variety of clue types and smooth surfaces.
We learnt two new words at 12ac and 19d and a new phrase at 3d, so thanks Eccles for the education!
A sort of clue-as-definition: a ‘group of rocks going downhill’ could be described as ROLLING STONES
B (bishop) LAG (arrest) – we had to check this slang word for ‘arrest’
INERT (still) WINE (‘Champagne, say’) round T (last letter or ‘back’ of restaurant)
A POLLO (Spanish for chicken)
A reversal (‘revolutionary’) of MEETS (‘has an encounter’) in DEE (river)
PERT (lively) US (American) SIS (‘relative’) – apparently the medical term for whooping cough
D (first letter or ‘beginning’ of document) I’VE (‘setter’s’)
A homophone (‘broadcast’) of BLUE (down)
A GIN (drink) COURT (date)
GO (attempt) A LP (record) mOST missing the first letter (‘initially ignored’)
A homophone (‘picked up’) of MY NEWT (‘amphibian belonging to me’)
An anagram (‘dicky’) of LEARNT DUET
Hidden (‘kept by’) in loCAL Man
An anagram (‘pants’) of USES HANDMAID’S
A reversal (‘returning’) of PALER (‘more ashen’) + S E (first letters or ‘starts’ of suffer extremes)
LEG (stage) wALk (ramble) missing the first and last letters (‘naked’)
IN (popular) IRONS (Jeremy Irons – ‘English actor’) – a new phrase for us
T (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of decongestant) ITCH (long) after GATHERINGS (parties)
TURN TwO (‘second shot’) missing (‘abandoning’) ‘w’ (wife)
An anagram (‘fancy’) of OX MINCE WE
SINCE (following) RE (on)
An anagram (‘mistakenly’) of ENTER DELI
IOM (Isle of Man) in (‘stocked by’) BASS (fish)
Double definition
R (Republican) ITALIaN (‘from Rome, possibly’) missing (‘ignoring’) ‘A’ (American)
COR (‘Blimey!’) aRsEnAl (alternate or ‘regular’ letters) – we had to check this Australian plant – it’s not in chambers!
H (hearts) in (‘blocking’) NICE (French football club)
Likewise, did not know IN IRONS (so needed the crossers), CORREA (which was very clearly clued but unhelpfully not in Chambers which is my first port of call) or PERTUSSIS (which beat me as I could not find the appropriate synonym for ‘lively’ to get the first syllable. So, once again, one to the setter. I have not seen that particular treatment of ROLLING STONES and rather enjoyed it but BIOMASS is my COTD for the neat use of IOM.
Thanks both.
Add me to the “did not know” list comprising IN IRONS, CORREA & PERTUSSIS.
ROLLING STONES was my favourite of many ticked clues.
Many thanks to Eccles, as ever, and to B&J.
Was mostly on Eccles wavelength, altho needed help with PERTUSSIS, which only became clear after entry… spent too long looking for a 9-letter lively. Been “in irons” enough for the penny to drop, equally saw GOALPOST for what it was, sooner than expected… enjoyable when that happens!
Thanks Eccles and Bertandjoyce
I also did not know IN IRONS, CORREA or PERTUSSIS, the last of which took me a few minutes to find a word for ‘lively’ like @1 PostMark – I had to go through the alphabet before I landed on PERT
It also took me a little longer to work out BLEW – I worked out it was a homophone but I was cutting the clue in the wrong place (Failed | to take down broadcast)
Overall another great puzzle from Eccles – thanks to them and B&J
I realise that I am out-of-step with ( apparently ) the majority of solvers, who have no issue, or even welcome, obscure words or the obscure usage of otherwise common words, that need looking up, in this book or that, to find out what the heck the setter is getting at.
For example, here, RITALIN ( a brand name, by the way), is a drug I have never heard of, and don’t care to research. I got it from the crossers, and the rather uninspired wordplay. So that’s a “meh”, from me, joined by the likes of LAG ( arrest ); IN IRONS ( maritime version ); CORREA ( yet another tiresome “plant” clue); PERTUSSIS (?!)
French football club….NICE (or not) / English actor…Jeremy Irons, ( for gawds sake! j
A POLLO… enough said.
Eccles is a premiership player, but this wasn’t his best game, personal opinion. Thanks, E and BJ
I quite like the way Eccles leads you to the obscurities. I was confident about CORREA even though it isn’t in Chambers. I couldn’t make my mind up about NICHE. Was it a clever bit of misdirection to have Nice as a football club, or a bit unfair?
Thanks both. Grateful particularly for IN IRONS including reference to specifically an English actor, which narrowed it down to just a few thousand. Okay with RITALIN as a brand name as the ADHD medicine would have caused the condition had it been clued. CORREA; oh dear – a flower not even some dictionary compilers have heard of, which might have encouraged a re-think.
As seems to have been the case for most others here I found it all pretty reasonable even if there were a number of NHO’s
If I was submitting it blind I wouldn’t have been particularly confident, but filling it in online I was pleased when my last parsing of PERT for lively heralded the confetti.
Thanks to the setter and blogger.
I’ve seen a prisoner referred to as a lag, and a sentence as a lagging, but lag as a verb meaning arrest is a newie. Cruisy puzzle, ta both.
NHO CORREA and struggled to convince myself that LAG was synonymous with “arrest” but both were clued fairly and with helpful crossers so they went in.
PERTUSSIS was familiar to me but was still LOI despite spending a long time trying to think of illnesses ending “..IA or “..ITIS”.
Very good puzzle.