Independent on Sunday 1,402 by Hoskins

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Good stuff from Hoskins once again. This was a solve of two halves for me, starting briskly and then requiring some headscratching for the last 10 or so to fall in.

27 across in particular was quite fun, I thought. Last one in was 3 down, which for some reason I didn’t spot from the checking letters, and which I suspect is relatively rare to find as a noun.

Across
1 FLUSHED Bug that woman had sent down the khazi? (7)
FLU + SHE‘D.
5 IMPASSE There’s no way past it, Hoskins is old-hat (7)
I‘M + PASSÉ.
9 GO FORWARD Attack and charge to do this? (2,7)
GO FOR + WARD. It tooks me a while to spot the wordplay, but it’s nicely done.
10 CHINA Country friend of rhymers in East End (5)
Two definitions: the obvious one, and then cockney rhyming slang for “mate”, derived from “china plate”.
11 ENDING Don’t start broadcasting a film’s finale? (6)
[s]ENDING.
12 CLEANS UP Without any smut, son at uni makes pots (6,2)
CLEAN + S + UP.
14 FLATULENCE Uncle left woozy, having inhaled a gas (10)
Anagram of (UNCLE LEFT).
16 BABE Ruth was one good-looking young lady (4)
Two definitions, including a reference to BABE Ruth of old-timey baseball fame.
18 DAMP Attorney getting politician slightly wet (4)
DA + MP.
19 PRETTINESS Rubbing it presents an appealing quality (10)
Anagram of (IT PRESENTS)*.
22 ASSISTER One helping a sibling on the radio (8)
Sounds like “a sister”.
23 ADHERE Stick to a Dutch starter at this place (6)
A + D + HERE.
26 SHIVA God initially seems hateful in various areas (5)
Initial letters of S[eems] H[ateful] I[n] V[arious] A[reas].
27 EMBELLISH Dress up retiring setter rather like Big Ben? (9)
ME< + BELLISH, as in “like a bell”.
28 RENTERS Letters right to go into capital for sorting (7)
R + ENTER + S[orting].
29 TROTTED Quiffed lad tailing communist moved briskly (7)
TROT + TED.
Down
1 FIG LEAF A bit of foliage affording privates cover? (3,4)
Cryptic definition.
2 UNFED A French agent abroad with a hunger in the belly? (5)
UN + FED, as in Federal Agent.
3 HARANGUE Angry speech tore into former Tory leader (8)
RAN in The HAGUE. I didn’t help myself by being convinced “tore” would give us RENT.
4 DRAG Doctor with silver clothes fit for a queen? (4)
DR + Ag.
5 INDELICATE Slightly rude flash enthrals the Spanish (10)
EL in INDICATE.
6 PAC-MAN Some up in Vietnam captioning a video game (3-3)
Hidden backwards in [viet]NAM CAP[tioning].
7 SHIPSHAPE Orderly messing around with hash pipes (9)
Anagram of (HASH PIPES).
8 EXAMPLE Old flame sat on large and accommodating model (7)
EX + AMPLE.
13 DEBRIEFERS Those pumping men with beers and fried bananas (10)
Anagram of (BEERS + FRIED).
15 ADMISSION Cost of getting in a brief for Saatchi and Saatchi? (9)
AD MISSION, Saatchi and Saatchi being some sort of advertising company from the 80s.
17 VINDALOO Stir old vino over a ring burner! (8)
(OLD VINO)* + O.
18 DEAR SIR Teacher carrying expensive letter opener? (4,3)
DEAR + SIR.
20 SEETHED Top tournament player admits article was mad (7)
THE in SEED.
21 ESTATE Government overlooked by summit in exotic land (6)
E[xotic] + LAND.
24 EXIST Be first to support king, but not queen (5)
[r]EX supported by IST. It’s very easy to miss a definition like that, even if you’ve seen it many times before!
25 OBIT Old boy having sex might lead to one! (4)
OB + IT.

 

* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations

 

10 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,402 by Hoskins”

  1. I also got stuck trying to fit RENT or possibly RANT into 3dn. Had no idea who the Tory leader might be but figured it out from the crossers.

    As always I appreciated the toilet humour, and laughed out loud at VINDALOO. By the way Simon, your parsing has too many Os and no A and as such misses the joke. It should be (OLD VINO)* around A for the definition _ring burner_.

    Also, 21dn should be E = STATE (not LAND).

    Other favourites were the letter opener and EMBELLISH.

    Thanks Hoskins and Simon.

  3. Some very amusing stuff. Loved EMBELLISH, also VINDALOO and agree with @1swatty’s parsing. DRAG very good too.

    Definition in 29A (moved briskly) needs underlining.

    Thanks to Hoskins and to Simon Harding for the blog.

  4. Fairly gentle Sunday afternoon entertainment, though with some parsing needing a bit of working out, eg GO FORWARD and didn’t get ‘ring burner’ as the def for 17. I liked FLUSHED which set the scene for a few other clues. I tried to fit FIG LEAF in as a partial anagram of ‘foliage af[fording]’ but it doesn’t quite work.

    Thanks to Hoskins and Simon

  5. Good stuff and just right for a Sunday morning. Thanks to both.

    Wordplodder@4. I had the same thought about a partial anagram for 1D but I thought it was “of foliage”, which has all the necessary fodder plus two spare o’s, hence (I thought) the hint contained in “A bit…”.

  6. Thanks for blogging, Simon.

    I did enjoy this one, especially VINDALOO as a definition of ‘ring burner’. But I couldn’t finish it – I see now that DEBFRIEFERS is the anagram, but even with the crossers I couldn’t work it out. The definition is a bit vague and while the word no doubt 24 downs, it made that answer troublesome as well.

    Many thanks to Hoskins.

  9. Many thanks to SH for the groovy blog and to all who solved and commented.

    Apologies in order to KD for 13d – I quite often pick certain folks as my imagined solver when setting puzzles of different difficulty, and so when he declared a DNF I had a bit of a shame-faced wince. Anyhoo, nuff ramble from me as it’s gone 9 in the PM and the fabled Fifteen Squared drinks trolley waits for no woman.

    Cheers to all and look forward to seeing you next time around. 🙂

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