References in clues: drugs 3; sex/body parts 4; booze 4. Hoskins is in town.
Another entertaining puzzle from Harry, which I enjoyed solving and blogging. Some interesting devices, which may well have the ruddy-faced, handlebar-moustachioed, retired Majors in Bexhill-on-Sea coughing and spluttering into their pre-prandials. Personally, I thought they were a bit of a laugh.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 I am sorry, darling (repeatedly)
DEAR DEAR
A repetition of DEAR.
5 Special Brew drained dry – keep calm
STEADY
A charade of S for ‘special’, TEA for the ‘brew’ and D[R]Y.
10 @BuckPalBabe after show’s end, drink?
WATER
Something to do with this new-fangled Twitter thing – apparently it’s a new way for young people to express deep and meaningful thoughts in only 140 characters. Wouldn’t know myself. A charade of W for the last letter of ‘show’ and AT ER, which could be a way of writing @BuckPalBabe if you consider Brenda (ER, Elizabeth Regina) to be a ‘babe’. She’s 91, for chuff’s sake.
11 Better to cover doctrine briefly and wing it
IMPROVISE
An insertion of IS[M] in IMPROVE. I’ve always thought ISM was a made-up word (and of course, like all words, it is), but it’s in all the dictionaries.
12 Floridian city cartel caught messing around
TAMPERING
‘Caught’ is a homophone indicator (‘I didn’t quite catch/hear what you said’), so it’s a homophone of TAMPA RING for ‘Floridian city cartel’.
13 Tried brains stuffed with bit of radish?
HEARD
Doesn’t sound too tasty. An insertion of R for the first ‘bit’ of ‘radish’ in HEAD.
14 Firm punches KO’d Hoskins? Result
OUTCOME
An insertion of CO for company or ‘firm’ in OUT and ME.
16 Couples going off to ring each other?
ELOPERS
A (very whimsical) cd. If lovers were eloping, they’d be going off to exchange rings.
18 Appears embarrassed seeing north as south
SHOWS UP
SHOWN UP for ’embarrassed’ with the N replaced by S.
21 Stylish European support worker
ELEGANT
A charade of E, LEG and ANT.
23 African tenor wearing dodgy suit
TUTSI
An insertion of T in (SUIT)*
24 Dance on amphetamine or mix of coke and H
SPEEDBALL
A charade of SPEED for ‘amphetamine’ and BALL. SPEEDBALL is indeed a mix of cocaine (‘coke’) and heroin (‘H’). I so knew that. Not recommended.
26 Write off plain page? Charming!
APPEALING
(PLAIN PAGE)*
27 Two kilos I cut with hot American brown
KHAKI
An insertion of H and A in KK and I. ‘Brown’ is another slang word for heroin; in the surface reading, to ‘cut’ is to dilute a pure drug with something cheaper than the drug itself, but it’s also the insertion indicator. Never let it be said that a Pierre blog wasn’t informative.
28 Sign that is to say: tartish types crossing
PISCES
An insertion of SC in PIES. SC is an abbreviation of scilicet, a borrowing from Latin meaning ‘it is permitted to know’, so ‘that is to say’. More or less synonymous with viz, from videlicet, ‘it is permitted to see’.
29 Support briefs with the rear end cut out
ADVOCATE
ADVOCATE[S] Think lawyers.
Down
1 Do not slow up or stop working
DOWN TOOLS
Cleverly constructed. (DO NOT SLOW)* with ‘up’ as the anagrind.
2 Shot half-cut emir but in a dry pint
ATTEMPT
An insertion of EM[IR] in A TT and PT.
3 Lament bringing up part of crossword, Serpent’s fifth
DIRGE
A charade of GRID reversed and E for the fifth letter of ‘Serpent’. Serpent is another Indy setter, but you only had to know that to make sense of the surface.
4 Foolish: like 1, 3 and 6 collectively
ASININE
A charade of AS, I and NINE, which is 3+6. Eagle-eyed Indy regulars will have spotted that in the previous Indy daily (Phi on Friday) we had Foolish son entering excellent square to clue the same word.
6 To shoot me is wrong, but alluring
TOOTHSOME
(TO SHOOT ME)*
7 Trouble with stripping amid a crowd
AGITATE
An insertion of [W]IT[H] in A GATE. ‘The gate/crowd at the Trent Bridge Test was over 15,000.’
8 Being blocked by the old lord, I give up
YIELD
An insertion of I in YE and LD. YE is not actually an old word for ‘the’, as has been mentioned on Fifteensquared lots of times previously. It’s a misrepresentation of the old letter ‘thorn’, or þ, for the sound ‘th’. But try telling that to the landlord of YE OLDE GATE INNE.
9 Top drugs and crack the old man sent up
APOGEE
A reversal of EE for two Ecstasy tablets or ‘drugs’, GO for ‘crack’ (‘I’ll have a go/crack at it’) and PA.
15 Stubborn old boy popular in Express
OBSTINATE
A charade of OB and IN in STATE.
17 Fancy estate houses I’ll flipping moon?
SATELLITE
An insertion of ILL reversed in (ESTATE)* For those who had a sheltered upbringing, to ‘moon’ is to drop your kecks and wave your arse at someone or something. It’s a man thing.
19 Month with no drink upset army type!
OCTOPUS
A charade of OCT, O and SUP reversed. The OCTOPUS is an ‘army’ type, because it has eight of them (or six and two legs, according to recent research).
20 No more sex, being thus?
PAST IT
A charade of PAST for ‘no more’ and IT for ‘sex’, with an extended definition.
21 Aussie’s view of male in course became apparent
EMERGED
A reversal of M in DEGREE. An ‘Aussie’ would see things upside down, wouldn’t he?
22 A couple of grads touring city state
ALABAMA
An insertion of LA for the ‘city’ in A, BA and MA.
23 US President ignoring you for a floozie
TRAMP
RU ok with this? Hoskins is asking you to removed the U from Trump and replace it with an A.
25 Some cook kedgeree up – or gander
DEKKO
Hidden reversed in coOK KEDgeree. ‘Let’s have a dekko/let’s have a gander’ both mean ‘to have a look’. The former is derived from Hindi (as indeed is ‘kedgeree’); the latter is based on the fact that geese crane their necks to get a look at something. Allegedly.
Many thanks to Hoskins for the start to the Indy week.
Funny how the mindset changes when you see it’s a Hoskins – to ‘this will be a laugh’. All very entertaining, if not mind-blowing. Just right for a Monday, although the app was missing another clue. 11d was blank this time.
Thanks to S&B
Is this a new Indy policy to make us guess one of the clues? 15d (not 11d) missing this time. Very infuriating. Thanks to Harry for an enjoyable solve and to Pierre for an informative blog. Didn’t know the OCTOPUS fact so ‘army’ indeed. Bunged in ‘poster’ for 28a but couldn’t see why. D’oh. Liked the surface for 1d, even though using ‘up’ for an anagrind rather than a reversal seems unusual. For some reason SHOWS UP took a while before the penny dropped. Liked STEADY. Got SPEEDBALL from the clue but a new word to me. The number of Harry’s clues featuring booze, drugs and racy references to HM are worrying.
I too was missing the clue from 15. But it woudnt have stopped me messing up in 7 and 16!I would the liked the missing clue to appear in Nimrod.Got the rest but-great clue too.(forget what it was)
Thanks Harry and Pierre
Thanks H and Pierre
The usual bundle of laffs and agreeably dodgy references, I love ’em…
Hovis @ 2: I think if you see ‘up’ in the ‘excited’ (“I’m really up about that”) sense it works OK as an anagrind.
V. entertaining as usual for Hoskins. Missed some of the references in the clues, eg ‘brown’ for heroin in 27a, and couldn’t get the ‘ring each other’ bit of 16a – an inventive use of the verb ‘to ring’ which I would never have spotted. I liked the ‘@BuckPalBabe’ in 10a and even though it’s appeared before, the ‘army type’ in 19d. As I can see now, the surface for 19d would have gone nicely with that for 15d if the latter hadn’t been missing – grrr!
Thanks to Hoskins and Pierre
Nothing to add, really – another great puzzle from the cheeky chappie.
Many thanks to setter and blogger. [Wot no birds?]
Thanks Simon@4. Here’s a question: what’s the difference between ‘slow up’ and ‘slow down’? Probably the same as that between ‘slim chance’ and ‘fat chance’. ‘Quite a few’ can mean ‘quite a lot’ – what a strange language is English.
Just to join in the congratulations. Thanks a shedload Harry, and to Pierre, I hope the fun of blogging it made up for the absence of birds. (Mind you I nearly spluttered into my Caol Ila at the surface meaning of 16, and I don’t even live in Bexhill-on-Sea.)
There appears to be a problem with the Indy software in that it keeps losing clues. Nimrod Saturday, Eimi yesterday and now Harry. It is pretty horrible software anyway when it comes to answers spread over more than one space.
Thanks Harry for another fun puzzle in which I took much longer to twig ELOPERS than I should have. I liked the “Aussie’s view” idea but the “@BuckPalBabe” idea somewhat less. Chacun etc.
Thanks to Pierre too of course
We found this pretty straightforward, with several laughs along the way as we’re broadminded. Was ‘brew’ in 5ac a deliberate misdirection to make us think of beer, knowing the setter was Hoskins?
At least the missing clue had only one solution from the crossing letters. We did wonder, as we did on Saturday, if the answer was something meaning ‘clueless’ though that would have been too much of a coincidence. (Just a thought – has the Indy software been tweaked to miss out clues occasionally if you use an adblocker?).
Three candidates for CoD: PISCES (for using SC instead of IE), WATER (for ingenuity) and ASININE (for more ingenuity. And the winner is … ASININE.
Otoh, we weren’t too impressed by EMERGED as we read the clue wrongly. We took the reversal indicator as simply “Aussie’s” and the definition as “in course became apparent” so we couldn’t see how “view2 meant “degree”. Now that we’ve seen the correct parsing we’re not totally convinced by “course” meaning “degree” although one does hear sometimes of “doing a degree” meaning “doing a degree course”. But that’s probably just us.
Conrad @8: what crossword were you doing yesterday? We had Poins – and no missing clues.
Thanks, Hoskins and Pierre.
Hi Allan. It was (don’t panic or give up on me)the Concise. Eimi always sets the Concise on a Sunday. And following the tradition set by Mass (the late Harold Massingham)there is always a twist. A two word phrase indicated only by the first letters – Mass usually had SS but Eimi has been working through the alphabet, and yesterday’s was TH.
All the other clues are normal Concise ones, except for four ones clued as ‘?’. This represents two synonyms of each of the two word phrase. So a bit – a lot, even- more than a bog standard Concise. No cryptic in sight, but some deduction needed. Sunday morning fun.
Funny puzzle by Hoskins, but barring the modern references, like ‘you’ = u without any further indication, it’s all totally fair. He’s developed his own thing, I think, and done it well.
My knowledge of illegal drugs increases with every Hoskins puzzle – goodness knows what ‘Big Brother’ is making of my internet browsing habits these days!
Needed Pierre’s help to parse 10&28a – many thanks for that – and the said 10a subsequently became my favourite.
Relieved to get your assurances that you are still alive, Harry – when Mr. Google turned up a CV which included setting for the Church Times, I immediately dismissed the thought that it could be you and searched for someone else! Now then – about this split personality problem of yours……….
Back from my lunch of brains stuffed with a bit of radish, yum, washed down with Special Brew. I sympathise with your Big Brother Internet worries, Jane@13. I’ve searched for latex products (latex being a mathematical mark up language – honest) and for ‘like children’ an excellent album by Jerry Goodman and Jan Hammer. NHS@9, I think ‘you’ = U is now acceptable through text speak without further indication but an old fuddy duddy like me still writes in full.
Whoops, I meant NHS@12 not 9. Us mathematicians are lousy with numbers.
Hell Hovis, yes I agree. But I think text will come into clues as ‘you are’ being fine to indicate UR etc. It’ll be GR8!
NHS @16 (and Hovis) – funnily enough, the setter included UR in his Sunday Times puzzle yesterday (if I parsed it right), without any indication in the clue that it was textspeak. I think it’s fine if it’s used sparingly, but I suppose that goes for any crossword device. Harry’s ST puzzles seem to have more of a political flavour than his Indy puzzles, with a little less sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. No drinks trolley there, you see. 😉
Anyway, another enjoyable puzzle – my favourite was army-type for OCTOPUS. Cheers to Hoskins and Pierre.
Many thanks to Pierre for his usual chortlesome blog and to all who solved and especially those who commented.
I’d like to apologise on behalf of the Indy for the problems with the clues over the past few days, which must’ve been very annoying indeed. I think there were some hamsters in the works of the Indy site somewhere, but hopefully the tech folk have now rounded up the little blighters and all is sorted (and apologies that my missing clue wasn’t more special as a sort of consolation).
Glad this crossie brought some laughs and fun and was very pleased to see Paul A @1’s thoughts as that’s just the thing I am going for when setting in this style. Was also flattered by NHS @12 as that is also the thing I’ve been trying to do – though I should add my thanks to all the setters I’ve solved and my test-solvers and editor all of whom have helped and enabled me in developing me Indy style.
On the subject of text-speak – for me, I think it is okay not to indicate it in dictionary sanctioned uses (the billions of real-life daily uses help, too), but I do agree that it should be used sparingly as a whole puzzle of it would be a bit much.
And now, if I may, a few direct replies:
WP @5 – Ach! I was so pleased with myself when I wrote the def for 19d that I did three laps round the garden in celebration. Gutted to hear it’s been done before, but I guess thems the crossword breaks and there ain’t much new under the sun.
Eileen @6 – I employ birds like Pierre employs exclamation marks (try to get them all out of the way in one go each year!).
CC @8 – now really! I must dispute any intention of such naughtiness on the ring front, I had nothing but a phone call in my mind and Henry Miller and Burroughs were not in my thoughts at all.
Mr C @10 – defo a beery misdirection at 5ac – you know me too well and I naughtily used it to my advantage!
Jane @13 – always glad you are sticking with my puzzles and your education continues apace! TBH, I am rather surprised at my own non-demise, but I do suppose that being mostly pickled is a preservative after all.
Michael @17 – I try to have a particular style for each outlet and my ST one is meant to show me, ahem, sophisticated cerebral side a little more. Having said that, I do have one politic-ish puzzle (surface only) on sub at the Indy (though that was written drunk throughout election night so that hopefully balances things out on the non-sophisticated and more funny side).
Anyhoo, ’nuff of my talk as I fear I might’ve rambled and this is, I do but believe, what would normally be the Fabled FifteenSquared Trolley time of night. However, two unforeseen events haven stopped the normal service of drinks trolley delivery today.
Regular readers might recall today was meant to be the Annual Indy Setter’s Fair, but, alas, this has been called off due to bad weather. The bad weather in question is also why the drinks trolley is not in operation and, as ever, there is a bit of a story behind that which I shall now relate to you.
The thing that started it all was ensuring everyone would remain heavily libated and so, due to the expected heavy demand for drinks and some, shall we say, over-optimistic filling calculations by the normally very precise Serpent, the drinks trolley urn was over-filled with the good stuff in the hope of quenching the thirst of all present at the Indy fair.
Unfortunately, at just gone a quarter to nine in the morning, Mrs Jaolpy’s urn exploded under the pressure and a jet of Babycham (visible to the international space station I have been reliably informed) created its own weather system and rained down in a golden shower of perry-flavoured stickiness on all.
As hard as I tried to dutifully run around open-mouthed to save as much of the good stuff as I could, everyone else sensibly retired to The Gila’s Head for a sneaky half or two and the setter’s fair was finished before it got started.
The upshot of all this is that The Setter’s Fair has been postponed and Mrs Jalopy is currently indisposed in B&Q looking for something that’ll plug a leak in a jumbo-sized and much adapted drinks urn. I can tell you that’s no easy task as I once went into the cavernous B&Q (Norwich branch) in 1997 to get some ‘Eccles green’ undercoat and didn’t find my way out until 2002 (FYI, I survived on paint thinner and meths and its not so bad, once you get used to it after the first three years).
Anyhoo, in lieu something better to do I can only apologise for the boozy wash-out and offer you a poem called Art by Bukowski in its stead.
as the
spirit
wanes
the
form
appears.
Thanks to all for visiting today and look forward to seeing you all next time around, though more likely it’ll be on the morrow when Hob has a nice puzzle to continue the Indy week and celebrate a pretty special occasion.
Cheers and chin chin to all. 🙂
If the spirit of Charles Bukowski ever got hold of the Fifteensquared drinks trolley, all previous tragic incidents would look like a vicar’s tea party.
PS Congratulations on your restraint in not going down the Viagra route at 1d. 😀
Michael @19 I would say you are spot on about our Hank there as he would certainly have got things a little messy.
As a Chinaski aside, or an addendum, or whatever an extra thing is called, I once tried, indirectly, to explain the terribly messy state of my kitchen to my landlord with the Bukowski line ‘show me a fella with a clean kitchen and I’ll show you a man without a soul’, not sure if he bought that though as I had to follow up with the Hoskinsian ‘dont’cha know that if one doesn’t clean for eight years the layers of dirt act as a protective layer as good as a polythene wrap’, which seemed to calm him (hi Jerry, only joking of course – your flat is in perfect condition, or at least it will be before I eventually move out (P.s, please don’t put the rent up or kick me out)).
Thanks for the congratulation on the restraint re. 1d, though I must declare there was no restraint as you have written the best clue there in yer own head and, dagnabbit, I wish I had have thought of it meself! I do have another version of the clue with a much better rhymingly naughty def though, but couldn’t include it in this easyish level puzzle as I thought it too tough for a clue that gave some important starting letters in that corner – maybe next time …
Ha! Reminds me of Quentin Crisp’s comment, something along the lines of housework being unnecessary becasue after four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.
Talking of litrucher [check spelling], and slightly off-topic for this site, sad to see the TLS crossword go from the Times site. Always found the puzzles good head-stretching fun, but am currently unable to afford a separate subscription for the paper. Pity. (I still recall your clue Injured bicep, case for eager Dr Finlay? (1,1,1,6)).
Oops, the sycophancy alarm has gone off. Laters…
?????d ? q p
Ach. Beaten by another setter in octopus and the right honourable Quentin Crisp now too! I’ve always been a miner of the obvious as the rest is beyond me, but it’s still a surprise to my tiny mind that everyone else gets there before me – must. try. harder.
Yup, is a shame about the TLS leaving The Times site, but on the plus side I fancy that no one has ever clued DBP before so at least I can be original there. Double shame you can’t afford the sub for the TLS and I wish that there was a get around it – though you could just buy the paper on the days that I appear to save money, of course …
… but that would not only be sycophantic, but egotistic of me to suggest it and so, thinking that the former and the latter might cancel each other out, I reckon it’s time for the standard apology to Gaufrid for chat on, in, and around crosswords and a speedy withdrawal to the land of nod.
Catch you next time around and a safe and sound night’s sleep to all. 🙂
Did most of this one on my journey home last night, but didn’t quite finish it so I don’t want to read the blog or the comments yet because I might come back to it. Enjoyed what I did – mostly straightforward.
Thanks to Hoskins and Pierre
Apologies for the hamsters, which were more likely chipmunks as they were nibbling at the crosswords in New York where the online puzzles reside. The clues seem to have been fixed now.
#11, glad to know someone is doing the Sunday Concise, Conrad. Mass may have spent a long time in SS, but I think he was working his way through the alphabet (he was at RB when I started editing the Indy). Not sure what happens when I get to the end. Though I’m not sure I can do anything with Zuider Zee.
Ha ha, eimi.
Look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQspYNOBHVE
(or do not look there)
A classic in my home country in the Days of Pearly Spencer (if Pearly Spencer were my late father).
Even in my student days some idiots used to like it.
Zuider Zee, no idea what to do with it.
It doesn’t even exist anymore, it’s now called IJsselmeer.
Makes it a lot easier – doesn’t it? 🙂
They don’t make them like that any more (thank God)