Solution Grid
“The truth is rarely pure and never
simple” – Oscar Wilde from The Importance of Being Earnest
Solver's Comments:
7 II
7.5
I
8
IIIII
8.6
I
9
III
ROUSE
- It reminded me of our love for both rose and red wine! [Er… that’d be ROUGE]
ROQUET
Lovely surface and it fold me as it can’t be an anagram with a Q in it.
OXER
IRRITANT
- it kept me guessing. I had to look up TIRR to check its meaning.
ROUGE
- The last one I did! Good way of getting rid of the S. A neat, clever
clue.
RASCALLION
- economical and not easy to spot definition. Clues not that special in
general.
OXER
II - taught us a new Scottish word / Because Hamish is in it! [blush]
REPACKAGES
- just because of ACKERS for money
TARP
- Liked the surface and wordplay
KRUSCHEV
- nicely constructed. Clue made sense and flowed nicely as well as providing
aclear answer.
JEREMIAD
- Taught me a new word
UMPIRE
- love a cricket ref.
Enjoyed
this puzzle but not sure about one of the answers. [They don’t say which one!]
A
difficult grid to fill. I had six of the eight 10 letter solutions and
struggled to get started. Finally realised one of them was incorrect and got
going. Once the circumference was solved most of the others fell into place.
Several new words - ANOA and OYER and a few I haven’t fully parsed. A good
enjoyable struggle. Also enjoyed the clues for KHRUSCHEV, GAUZE and HOARSENESS.
Many thanks.
Really
enjoyed this and found the quotation quite quickly which always helps solve
some of the more taxing clues. A good mix of challenge and enjoyment. There
were a couple of clues which I’m not sure about - 24/25d - but hope I got them
right. [Yes]
Some
v clever clueing. Not too difficult and fun to do. Thank you.
Very
approachable nicest clues. Took a couple of hours - neither wasting a week, nor
leaving you feeling ‘so what - a good balance for a competition. The two J
clues gave the start - one 4 letter could only fit there (alpha order being a
useful aid) and then when 5 10-letter ones had been solved they could be put in
asa. Working hypothesis. And Robert’s your pawnbroker.
We
hadn’t solved for long before we realised that Eclogue was filling a
pangrammatic grid. However, unlike some of those, it didn’t lead to an overdose
of obscure words though OXER was the last one we ’Scots’ entered.
I thought this was a
well-constructed puzzle with lots of good taut clues. My only serious
reservation is that there is overly much reliance on unfamiliar Scots
words. Where uncommon words appear in the grid the wordplay needs to lead
relatively straightforwardly to the answer (which can then be checked in
Chambers - and it would have been appropriate here for the rubric to have
referred to the advisability of using Chambers) if the clue is to be fair to
the solver. In the case of 25D (SYKE) the wordplay relies on an
unfamiliar word used by Spenser, and the clue was, for me at least, impossible
to solve without guesswork and the Chambers app wordsearch facility, and in the
case of 24D (OXER), the wordplay uses another Scots word. A couple of
minor points: (a) in the clue for 18A (ROUGE), I think UGH is an expression of
loathing rather than a feeling of it, (b) in the clue for 8A (TOUR), clueing OU
by reference to an unfamiliar word, and encasing it in an IVR for a country
whose car identification plates are rarely seen in the UK is, I think, pushing
things a bit in a jigsaw-type puzzle where most of the clues have to be solved
in the absence of checked letters. I thought the clue for 13D (KRUSHCHEV)
was admirable - not a word I'd like to tackle myself - and it was good that the
quotation was sufficiently well known for it to be readily guessable after
about half the answers had been entered in the grid. Thank you, Eclogue.
Good
puzzle
A
nicely constructed puzzle made slightly easier by the quotation. I was unsure
about OXER, which Chambers describes as a fence, being the ‘check’ required but
it fitted well with OXTER without the T for time. I’m always impressed when
setters manage to include the whole alphabet and only the small number of
obscure words stopped this being 10/10.
Took
quite a long time to put any answers in the grid so getting the quote was
difficult. Some odd words (roquet, syke), but all in all good fun.
HURRAH
I FINISHED ONE. Must have been easy if I did it.
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