Independent 10,955 by Angel

by

One of those puzzles where it was mostly easy but I was left with 2 or 3 where I had all the crossing letters but was still struggling to think of the answers.

There was obviously a rock theme, possibly a tribute to the extraordinarily successful actor and wrestler at 11/19. One or two had me slightly scratching my head on how exactly to describe them. 24 was amusing, if somewhat gruesome.

ACROSS
8
See 4 Down

9 TORSO
Rock partner’s body (5)

Tor(=rock, as in a rocky hill) + SO, which is an abbrev for Significant Other.
10 ICON
Setter caught on to representation (4)

I + c{aught} + on
11/19 DWAYNE JOHNSON
Former wrestler now enjoys hand jiving (6,7)

(Now enjoys hand)*. Former wrestler who went by the name The Rock but is now a successful actor under his own name.
12 HOODWINK
Trick signal from Robin? (8)

DD/CD. I'm not really up with cars but I assume this is something you might do with the hood of a Robin Reliant.
13 PURVEYOR
Pour very shakily for dealer (8)

(Pour very)*
15 ACROSS
A burden is over (6)

A + cross
17 SURREAL
South of Madrid, capital of Brazil – bizarre! (7)

Sur (Spanish for South) + real, the Brazilian currency
19
See 11

22 QUEBEC
Where you might be exposed to French letter on the radio? (6)

CD/DD. Quebec is the phonetic alphabet representation for Q, so might be used on the radio.
24 ROADKILL
Way to put down or flatter animal, maybe (8)

Road + kill. Flatter obviously in the sense of flattened.
26 BRIGHTON
Where to find novel rock? (8)

CD -Ref to Brighton Rock by Graeme Green
28 HUDSON
Rock flower (6)

DD – flower in the sense of something that flows i.e. a river, the Hudson River + Rock Hudson, US actor. I must admit that I'd so forgotten about Rock Hudson that I actually typed rock hudson into Google to see if there was any connection between the two words. I was speculating that there might be a Hudson Rock or perhaps that Sherlock Holmes occasionally referred to Mrs Hudson as his "rock".
30 WEAR
You and I exist incompletely and deteriorate (4)

We ar[e]
31 ALTER
Revise holy book, deleting additional words (5)

[PS]alter
32 YOYO
Greetings around the world performed with this? (2-2)

Not sure if this is meant to be a sort of CD/DD or &lit. I assume the greeting is as in "Yo, buddy", which I imagine is fairly international. I don't think "this" on its own is enough to identify yo-yo but not sure either if a yo-yo is something you'd use for greetings, so maybe the &lit doesn't quite work.
DOWN
1 MEOW
‘Kept by tame owners’, as pet would say? (4)

Hidden in "tame owners"
2 STAY OVER
Set ovary in motion – be my guest! (4,4)

(Set ovary)*
3 STEELY
Hard stone over English cathedral city … (6)

St{one} + E{nglish} + Ely
4/8 ARTHURS SEAT
… has turrets and a rocky peak (7,4)

(Has turrets + a)* – famous extinct volcano in Edinburgh
5 COLORADO
Rocky state of a party led by Brown, for example, in America (8)

A do with color in front (US spelling of colour). Colorado is called a Rocky state because of its location in the Rocky Mountains.
6 VIEWER
Witness struggle over nude twerp (6)

Vie + [t]wer[p]
7 HORN
Origins of hard outgrowth ruminant needs? (4)

&lit – initial letters of "hard outgrowth ruminant needs".
14 ULURU
Adieu loyal sudoku solver: you ultimately rock (5)

Final letters of "adieu loyal sudoku solver you"
16 SPOIL
Ruin treat (5)

DD, the second in the sense of spoiling children.
18 ALCATRAZ
Rock is a 50-carat amalgam, middle-sized (8)

(A L(=50 in Roman numbers) carat)* + [si]z[ed]. Alcatraz was nicknamed the Rock, a name used in a 1996 film with Sean Connery.
20 NAKED EYE
Desperately need a key to perception without enhancement (5,3)

(Need a key)*
21 GRANITE
Rock climbing in secret in Argentina (7)

Hidden, rev in "secret in Argentina".
23 BOGART
Star of toilet graffiti? (6)

Bog art = possible def of toilet graffiti
25 ADHERE
Stick poster in this place (6)

Ad + here – definitely not the first time I've seen that one.
27 REEF
Rocky area on eastern tip of Finland (4)

Re(=on) + E{astern} + F[inland]
29 ONYX
Stone-working axes (4)

On(=working) + YX(axes on a graph)

14 comments on “Independent 10,955 by Angel”

  1. Re. 32a – an ‘around the world’ is a yo-yo trick, so all except the first word is the def – that’s my take.

  2. Took HOODWINK as a reference to Robin Hood.

    Very clever to have so many rock-related clues and to sneak in a cunning pangram on top.

    Didn’t know the SO for “significant other”, so thanks for the info.

  3. Spotting the potential for a pangram helped me get QUEBEC, which completed the set with the Q.

    Don’t recall an Angel before, but very nicely done, a clever theme, with some nice references to famous rocks such as the wrestler/actor and Alcatraz, as well as actual rocks, and as an adjective and an anagrind. I hope you’ll forgive the pun but I think his puzzle rocks!

    I agree with bill@1 re yoyo and Hovis@2 about Robin Hood.

    Thanks Angel and NealH

  4. This themed pangram was good fun, with very little in the way of obscurities needed which can often be the downfall with themed puzzles. I particularly liked the brevity of the clueing.

    I couldn’t twig where the SO came from in 9a. It’s not given in Chambers, but I have just found it in Collins. I also had no idea about the YO-YO trick so thanks to bill_poster@1 for that.

    BOGART was my favourite.

    Many thanks to Angel and to NealH.

  5. Fell at the last with HUDSON – just didn’t see ‘Rock’ as a name and convinced myself we were dealing with an obscure plant. Lots of clever theme-related clues and answers to which “rock the baby” might have been added as a YO-YO trick. Good to have the pangram which also helped me with QUEBEC.

    Thanks to Angel – number four I think – and to NealH

  6. Concise clues, lovely surfaces, a clever theme and a pangram to boot – what’s not to like. My favourites were DWAYNE JOHNSON, ROADKILL, HUDSON, BOGART (ha) and ONYX.

    Love the idea of using “rock the baby” by WordPlodder@5… definitely missed a trick there.

    Many thanks to Angel and to NealH.

  8. Very good, but ‘significant other’ at 9A was a bit obscure for me. Remember George W. Bush’s infamous ‘Yo Blair’? Thanks Angel and Neal.

  9. Certainly didn’t know the SO reference and was grateful that the 11/19 wrestler was an anagram – well out of my depth there! One day I’ll remember the original name for Ayers Rock but sadly today was not that day.
    No problem here with the Robin Hood clue or the Yoyo trick but I thought 24a was in rather poor taste, although it did confirm my suspicion that our setter is no angel, unless he’s the ‘fallen one’.
    Top three for me were ALTER, ADHERE & ONYX.

    Thanks to Angel and to Neal for the review.

  11. RickB@11 it was a typo. I meant to say THIS puzzle rocks! I do also have an overzealous autocorrect which has recently taken to replacing in with I’m. I’ll now have to look out for this to his too arrrgh!

  12. Blah, as sex errors go, that’s trifling. In pre-autocorrect days, I was given a contract to fax to a client. It had just been edited to replace all instances of ‘his’ with ‘its’. The spellcheck program for some reason had gone beyond the call of duty and replaced every ‘his’ string no matter where it occurred. As a result, I sent a contract headed ‘TITS AGREEMENT’

  13. A bit of a rocky (!) road but we got there in the end. We hadn’t the foggiest who Dwayne Johnson is/was but we did know of Hudson and Bogart. HOODWINK and ARTHUR’S SEAT were our favourites.
    Thanks, Angel and NealH.

  14. A bit like a rocky road in the confectionery sense too. Some chewy bits, 24ac a bit of a guilty pleasure, a bit of a treat.

Comments are closed.