Independent 10,956 by Skinny

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Skinny provides our Tuesday challenge this week.

A few tricky ones here, but they’re all clear enough once you see them. I liked 10a for its surface, 25a for the misdirection of “musicians of Africa”, and similarly 2d for disguising the oddly-named island with a reference to a suitably foul substance. My favourite, narrowly, was the rather wistful extended definition of 15d.

And of course it’s Themesday, so we have several names of record companies past and present: VIRGIN, ENSIGN, TWO TONE, LONDON, ISLAND, APPLE, CREATION, MUTE, RELAPSE, MOTOWN and ROCKET, plus EMI in the wordplay to 1a. I think that’s all of them, but no doubt someone will say if I’ve missed any. Thanks Skinny for an enjoyable puzzle.

Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

ACROSS
1 EMIRATES
Independent states record company values (8)
EMI (record company) + RATES (values, as a verb = thinks highly of).
5 VIRGIN
Maiden name I grieve over, divorce ultimately twice dismissed (6)
N (name) + I GRI[e]V[e], all reversed (over), with the last letter of [divorc]E removed twice.
9 BALLPARK
Dance position that’s not precise (8)
BALL (a dance) + PARK (position, as a verb = put into place).

As in “ballpark figure” = a very rough estimate.
10 ENSIGN
Standard portion of pudding is never rejected (6)
Hidden answer, reversed (portion of . . . rejected) in [puddi]NG IS NE[ver].

Standard = ensign = a flag.
12 DUNCE’S CAP
Pointed coverage of an idiot? (6,3)
Cryptic definition: a tall conical hat, supposedly denoting someone foolish, traditionally worn as a punishment by misbehaving schoolchildren.
13 RIGHT
Just leave! (5)
Double definition. Fair and correct; or as in “leave to appeal”, though I think that suggests”permission granted” rather than an inherent right.
14 WISE
Thoughtful letters read aloud (4)
Homophone (read aloud) of Ys (the plural of the letter Y).
16 TWO TONE
Anything turning with variable note, like an old police siren (3,4)
OWT (anything, in Northern English dialect) reversed (turning), then an anagram (variable) of NOTE.

Extended definition: the traditional two-tone siren sound is created by rotating cylinders with air holes. Also the pitch of the siren from a moving car changes as it turns to travel away from the listener (the Doppler effect).
19 SARCASM
Mockery of Catholic, one involved in high mass (7)
RC (Roman Catholic) + A (one), inserted into an anagram (high) of MASS.
21 RATS
Maybe The Sun‘s making a comeback? I’m not happy about that (4)
STAR (maybe the Sun), reversed (making a comeback).

Rats! = an expression of annoyance.
24 ALAMO
Mission could be fashionable without some of the French (5)
A LA MO[de] (fashionable), without DE (French for “some”).

The Alamo Mission, site of the Battle of the Alamo.
25 TELEPHOTO
Long-range picture of huge creature (not small creature) among musicians of Africa (9)
ELEPH[ant] (huge creature) without ANT (small creature), inserted into TOTO (US rock band who had a hit with the song “Africa” in the 80s, hence “musicians of Africa”).

Telephoto = a narrow-angle camera lens for taking close-up pictures of distant objects, or a picture taken with one.
27 BRIDAL
Be offended in speech about marriage (6)
Homophone (in speech) of BRIDLE = take offence.
28 OPEN BOOK
One that’s clearly understood public order (4,4)
OPEN (public) + BOOK (order = reserve for later collection or delivery).
29 LONDON
Start to learn about lecturing Man City (6)
Starting letter of L[earn] + ON (on the subject of = about) + DON (university academic = lecturing man).
30 PECAN NUT
Fish and mushroom turnover incorporating new pie ingredient (5,3)
TUNA (a fish) + CEP (a mushroom), reversed (turnover), incorporating N (new).
DOWN
1 EMBODY
Stand for male person in case of emergency (6)
M (male) + BOD (slang for person), in the outer letters (case) of E[mergenc]Y.
2 ISLAND
Foulness, perhaps, of diesel banned at regular intervals (6)
Alternate letters (at regular intervals) of [d]I[e]S[e]L [b]A[n]N[e]D.

Island on the Essex coast. The name seems to have come from the Old English version of “fowl ness” (bird headland).
3 APPLE
Cheers! Australia’s booted out tech giant (5)
APPL[aus]E (cheers), with AUS (short for Australia) removed.
4 EARACHE
Appearing at the centre with a revolutionary complaint (7)
Centre letters of [app]EAR[ing] + A + CHE (Che Guevara = revolutionary).

Complaint = illness.
6 INNERMOST
Secret pub Metro‘s written about (9)
INN (pub) + anagram (written about) of METRO’S.

As in “innermost thoughts” = those you don’t say out loud.
7 GOINGS-ON
Dubious activities in current issue (6-2)
GOING (current, as in “a going concern” = currently in business) + SON (issue = child).
8 NINETEEN
Number seen with tennis pants after smalls have been discarded (8)
Anagram (pants = rubbish) of [s]EEN + TENNI[s], with both instances of S (small) discarded.
11 SPAT
Bugs put up a fight (4)
TAPS (tap = bug = listen in on communications), reversed (put up, in a down clue).
15 INAMORATO
Will he soon betray love? (9)
IN A MO (in a moment = soon) + RAT (betray) + O (zero = love in tennis scoring).

Extended definition: inamorato = a man with whom one is in love, but the word doesn’t really convey any sense of whether or not he returns the affection.
17 ISTANBUL
City break at Butlin’s, taking time out (8)
Anagram (break) of AT BU[t]LIN’S, taking out one T (time).
18 CREATION
‘Genesis‘ – an erotic novel (8)
Anagram (novel = new) of AN EROTIC.
20 MUTE
Quiet moment not at home (4)
M[in]UTE (moment = a short time), without IN (at home).
21 RELAPSE
Half of pies and more pasty knocked back – that’s degenerate (7)
Half of [pi]ES, then PALER (pasty = pale-faced and looking unwell), all reversed (knocked back).

Degenerate, as a verb = get worse. Relapse, as a verb = go back to the previous unsatisfactory state. Not exactly the same meaning, but close enough.
22 MOTOWN
Cut sandwiches near Detroit (6)
MOWN (cut, as in mown grass) containing (sandwiching) TO (near?).

Detroit = US city historically known for car manufacturing, and hence nicknamed Motown or Motor City.
23 ROCKET
High-flyer‘s piece of jewellery changes hands (6)
[l]OCKET (a piece of jewellery), with the L (left) changing to R (right).
26 PANDA
Criticise US lawyer for image of WWF (5)
PAN (criticise harshly) + DA (District Attorney = US lawyer).

WWF = World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund), which has a panda in its logo.

16 comments on “Independent 10,956 by Skinny”

  1. Thanks, Skinny and Quirister!

    22 D: Thought on the same lines about near/to.
    Can’t think of a better explanation.

    Loved ALAMO and INAMORATO.

  2. Couldn’t see past EMIRATES and VIRGIN being airlines, with various holiday destinations (there’s a hidden Capri and motel in the grid).
    Super clues as usual, I liked INAMORATO, GENESIS, STAR, VIRGIN, APPLE.
    I put donkey ear for 12a, then when ear didn’t fit the crossers, I changed it to donkey cap. I’ll go and stand in the corner.

  3. The misdirection in the theme with the two airlines fooled me too for a while, but TWO TONE put me right. Has CREATION been done before? If not it’s a clever anagram. ALAMO was my favourite, too. I think INAMORATO can mean either the loved one or the one in love.

  4. Thanks Skinny & Quirister

    The near / to equivalence has come up before, and while I can’t off-hand think of any examples, Chambers has ‘near’ as the 10th prepositional definition of ‘to’.

  5. APPLE helped me to realise the theme as record labels, rather than airlines, though I still couldn’t identify even half of the thematic answers. I don’t equate RELAPSE and ‘degenerate’ either, but as you say, probably close enough for crossword purposes. Sorry, can’t help with a good near = to example, but it will probably look obvious when someone does.

    I agree with CREATION being a good anagram which I don’t remember having seen before. My other pick today was INAMORATO.

    Thanks to Skinny and Quirister

  7. Thanks, James @6. That works for me.

    You can now go back and sit at your desk as long as you promise to pay attention and behave yourself.

  8. The great, or terrible, depending on your point of view, thing about record labels is that like band names in a previous thematic, almost literally anything you can combine as [noun] or [adverb] plus [records] has existed at some point in the music recording industry past.

    Thus, Erkin Koray (born 24 June 1941) is a Turkish singer-songwriter, guitarist and one of the pioneers of Anatolian rock, who left Istanbul Records after the release of the self-titled album Erkin Koray.

    Wise Records is an independent company that produces and represents the music of country singer/songwriter Kaitlyn Baker, whose debut single, “Burn”, reached number fifty four on the MusicRow Breakout Chart in 2015.

    If setter swings by, it would be interesting to know at what point thematic ends and coincidence/unknown micro-correlation begins…

    mw

  9. Couldn’t have named more than two or three of the record producers but that didn’t detract from the puzzle.
    Thanks to James for the example of near = to – that works for me.
    Going with the flow I placed CREATION & INAMORATO at the top of the pile.

    Thanks to Skinny and to Quirister for the review.

  10. Great fun with lovely smooth surfaces throughout. My top three were INAMORATO., FOULNESS & CREATION.

    Many thanks to Skinny, to Quirister, and to James for “near” = “to”.

  11. We worked steadily through this and got everything without any real problems although some parsings weren’t obvious at first. Last pnes in were the intersecting BALLPARK and EMBODY. We only started looking for a theme after finishing and recognised 5ac,29ac, 2dn, 3dn and 22dn as record labels but none of the other thematic answers registered with us.
    ELEPHANT (although we couldn’t fully parse it) and CREATION were our favourites.
    Thanks, Skinny and Quirister.

  12. Thanks to all who commented and to Quirister for the excellent blog.

    I’m impressed that (nearly) all the labels were found – just one eluded everyone so far, the legendary Nottinghamshire ‘noise’ label ‘EARACHE’ – their early releases were the soundtrack to a particular time in my life, and I’m grateful for them, though most others might wince and turn away.

    The serendipitous appearance of two airlines at the top is a nice coincidence, and I was happy it fell that way.

    Best to everyone,

    Skinny

  14. Thanks both. I would add RCA as an extra record label contained within SARCASM which I assume unintended given comments of Skinny@12

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