i Cryptic Crossword 3509 by Eccles
May 7, 2022
Difficulty rating (out of 5): 🌟
Just as JonofWales attempts to introduce potential solvers to the Inquisitor (above, hence this blog’s demotion!) – so the i gives us an ideal introduction for those altogether new to the world of cryptics.
We had an abundance of delightful clues from Eccles today. I loved those for 14d DETERMINER, 6d STRAIGHT UP, 18d JEWELLER and 22d JOB LOT, but my Clue of the Day (CoD) nomination goes to:
15a See 10D: see first letter of clue. Confused? (7)
I’ve rated it as a one star of difficulty because for the most part it was easy as you’ll find in the i; however I did find a sting in the tail in the SE corner with LESSOR and CASCADE – the former tricked me good and proper into thinking that ‘excluding old’ meant a deletion of some sort, and with the latter I found myself on the other side of the ‘Trap-bath split’ from that intended in the clue. Given the plethora of complaints alleging lack of homophony when Received pronunciation/ BBC/ Queen’s/ Oxford/ Standard English isn’t indicated as such, I’ll throw in my request that regional pronunciations should be.
Here are all the solutions from 4 years ago when it first appeared in the Independent online:
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
Just into 2* for time here, but only just, mostly because I struggled with the disputed capital. A good pick for the Saturday spot with the potential to pick up new solvers. Lots to enjoy, my favourite being 6d. Sorry again for the demotion. 😉
Very nice and very enjoyable but all over a bit too quickly for my taste. Coffee not even luke warm… But as Jonofwales says, good for encouraging new solvers.
LESSOR was indeed nicely misleading. DIOCESE my CoD, too.
Lots to like here; I had five ticks, a ‘ha’ and a ‘nice’ in the margins 🙂
LOI was ADEN.
Four ticks here, plus two approving exclamation marks, for this fun puzzle which was very quick work EXCEPT for lessor and Aden. I agree these two put the puzzle just into 2* territory.
Cascades bothered me though not as much as my usual bete noire Rs. Also the clue is witty so it’s easier to overlook what for me is definitely not a homophone.
Lots of chuckles, with the miner/canary being my favourite
Very blate to the party as I don’t start on the i weekend puzzles till Sunday evening, but just dropped by to add my appreciation of the puzzle. But I’d give it two stars, as a few clues, such as LESSOR, were a bit tricky; I’ll go with 15ac for CoD, though.