Independent 10162 / Hoskins

16 comments on “Independent 10162 / Hoskins”

1. I parsed NINES as in blog but have EPICENTRE as EPIC + ENTREe, ENTREE being the starter and “not finished” denoting the loss of final letter.

   Thanks to Hoskins and Duncan.

2. Hovis @ 1

    

   Thanks – that’s a much more sensible parsing of EPICENTRE than my poor effort, especially as you have managed to use the word ‘starter’ in the explanation.

3. This was typical Hoskins and very enjoyable. I didn’t much like 24a & 22d and I spent far too long trying to parse SMARTY-PANTS, but everything else was really good fun with 23a my favourite.

   Many thanks to Hoskins and to Duncan.

4. PS. Very well done, Duncan, on spotting the Nina, which as usual I completely missed.

5. Welcome back Hoskins, after a gap of close to a couple of months by my reckoning, although maybe I missed one. Yes, 1a gave a pretty good idea as to who the setter might be. NINES parsing as per Duncan, EPICENTRE as per Hovis @1.

   A few I wasn’t quite sure about including DINERO, the ‘proper’ Spanish word for money, being a colloquial term for the same thing in the US (though unsurprising I suppose) and RIA for ‘Coastal inlet’ which was new. The Nina helped with GOBI, my last in, even if in retrospect it shouldn’t have been. My mind is close to a TABULA RASA when it comes to Bob Dylan’s music, so I don’t know if there are other references to the song in the clues or answers.

   I didn’t know The Donald’s favoured vehicular conveyance was British.

   Thanks to Hoskins and Duncan

6. [Can anyone explain why, in restaurant-speak, an “entree” is generally the main course rather than the starter?]

7. muffin @ 7

    

   The word entree seems to have geographic connotations as described in extracts from three dictionaries below:

   Collins

   1. A dish served before a main course
   2. chiefly US, the main course of a meal

   Chambers

   1. a dish served between the chief courses of a formal dinner, ie between fish and roast meat,
   also (especially North America) a main course,
   and (especially Australia) a starter

   Oxford Dictionary of English

   1.Chiefly N. America, the main course of a meal.
   2 Britain, a dish served between the first and main courses at a formal dinner

8. [Thanks duncanshiell – I found the Chambers one, but don’t have access to the others. It seems our restaurant speak American!]

9. Good fun as always, enjoyed the 12:59 meting and health.

   Many thanks Hoskins and Duncan

10. The fresh start and the NY money were new to me as was the Welsh rugby player.   I’m also only familiar with ‘PANTS’ as the second part of 8d.

    5d is a bit of a mouthful!

    Not to worry, it was a most enjoyable puzzle and I particularly liked the 12.59 meeting.

    Thanks to Hoskins and to Duncan for the blog.

11. Tabula rasa is, I think, a piece by the Estonian composer Arvo Part. It’s the only context I can remember seeing the phrase and I didn’t know what it meant. Still I managed to dredge it up somehow with only the B in place so I’m awarding myself a brownie point.

    Lots to enjoy elsewhere too (1a for example, providing a soft start), although I wasn’t keen on the surface of 19 – a little clunky, I felt. Thanks Hoskins & Duncan.

12. I missed the NINA and TABULA RASA is apparently a song by Bjork.

    Lots to like here,  especially the evil praying mantis at 12.59, TIMPANI and A DOG’S DINNER.

    Thanks to Hoskins for an entertaining solve and to Duncan for a great blog.

13. TABULA RASA is also an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, also did a show called Firefly.  And I knew the piece by Pärt.

14. Some seem to have forgotten that when Hoskins last posted here, he cited the lyrics of Dylan’s Desolation Row [see 14ac].

    Apparently, Bob Dylan matters to him.

    I liked this puzzle a lot (I would say, of course I did) but it was – again – one completely different from the ones we were used to in days gone by.

    The crypticsues and allan_cs of the world should have a rethink.

    Hope our setter’s all right.

    Many thanks to duncan & Hoskins.

15. “There is something happenning, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?” Ballad of a Thin Man

    Very apt, as I had no idea what was happening in the extreme columns, even though I was delighted to see the reference to Desolation Row, which I used to know all the words to by heart.

    I didn’t know of the Dragons, so TUNDRA was a guess. I didn’t even see how NUT meant lover until I came here. I thought NINES must be the word that crossed and even googled “punch the nines” which was of no assistance. I think Duncan’s explanation is clearly right.

    I think the definition of EPICENTRE was “the middle”, a common solecism, with parsing as described by Hovis et al.

    I thought of fly for SHOOT as in the slang expression “I’ve gotta shoot (leave, fly) now”.

    In 7dn, it wasn’t ideal to use ‘reloads’ to clue RECHARGES, I thought, where both words have the prefix ‘re-‘ meaning ‘again’.

    I hadn’t heard SMARTY BOOTS before, only smarty-pants (and bossy-boots), but it wasn’t too hard to surmise from the anagram.

    @Duncan, I think in 1ac, you meant to put BRISTOLS as slang for breasts, not BRA. It’s rhyming slang, of course: Bristol Cities, titties. Very nice. Very Hoskins.

16. Btw, tabula rasa was how the philosopher John Locke characterised the mind of the new-born infant:

    “The modern idea of the theory, however, is attributed mostly to John Locke’s expression of the idea in Essay Concerning Human Understanding (he uses the term “white paper” in Book II, Chap. I, 2). In Locke’s philosophy, tabula rasa was the theory that at birth the (human) mind is a “blank slate” without rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for processing are formed solely by one’s sensory experiences. The notion is central to Lockean empiricism; it serves as the starting point for Locke’s subsequent explication (in Book II) of simple ideas and complex ideas. As understood by Locke, tabula rasa meant that the mind of the individual was born blank, and it also emphasized the freedom of individuals to author their own soul. Individuals are free to define the content of their character—but basic identity as a member of the human species cannot be altered.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa#Philosophy

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