Independent on Sunday 1,695 by Silvanus

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So back to my own IOS slot and a welcome return for Silvanus

I note there’s a Nina in the grid, no need to know anything about it to solve. Some great stuff here.

 

ACROSS
1. Ready to introduce simple woollen fabric (8)
CASHMERE

CASH ready & MERE simple

5. Republican wearing skimpy beachwear generates crowd (6)
THRONG

R(epublican) inside THONG

9. Antagonistic criminal claiming over one grand’s been stolen (8)
INIMICAL

I inserted and G(rand) removed from a criminal [I & CLAIMIN(g)]*

10. Virtually delighted to find unit for measuring angles (6)
RADIAN

Almost RADIAN(t)

12. Fruit fly, back near fiancé every so often (9)
TANGERINE

GNAT reversed & alternate letters of nEaR fIaNcE

13. Swimmer from school having change of heart (5)
TENCH

TEACH with middle letter changed

14. Length of metal, tungsten, about to carry current (4)
WIRE

W – chemical symbol for Tungsten & I – current & RE – about

16. Musical instrument, extravagant present? (7)
SERPENT

Well an old one anyway. and extravagant PRESENT*

19. Ultimately terrific article probing a strange mystery (7)
ARCANUM

((terrifi)C & AN – article) insode A RUM

21. Spanish city force to scrap uniform requirement primarily (4)
VIGO

Vigour without U R(requirement)

24. Fellow describing time in prison cell (5)
PETER

T(ime) in PEER – fellow

25. Bar Ronnie refurbished, easy decision to take (2-7)
NO-BRAINER

A refurbished [BAR RONNIE]*

27. Increase offer (6)
EXTEND

Double def

28. Rhona regularly squeezes misshapen orange sponge (6-2)
HANGER-ON

(r)H(o)N(a) around a misshapen ORANGE*

29. Bishop leaves Suffolk town for Greater Manchester one (6)
ECCLES

B(ishop) removed from (b)ECCLES

30. Confusedly, game once having Europeans replacing Americans (4-4)
PELL-MELL

The old game is PALL MALL with the As replaced by Es

DOWN
1. Note Conservative meeting Chief Medical Officer, scratching head (6)
CHITTY

The CMO is Chris Whitty so it’s C(onservative) & a headless (w)HITTY

2. Emaciated-looking broadcaster hosting international news (6)
SKINNY

Now I stood in to do the blog last week by SKINNY and I thought that’s a coincidence, I(nternational) & 2 N(ews) inside SKY – broadcaster, then I solved the next clue.

3. Humiliation essentially stops Warren becoming a grass (5)
MAIZE

Middle of (humil)I(ation) inside MAZE – warren. Aha I thought both Indy setters, I wonder if there’s more…

4. Appreciate what Madame Tussauds’ waxworks are lacking reportedly? (7)
REALISE

Sounds like they lack REAL EYES

6. Snuggle round rather novel fireside feature (9)
HEARTHRUG

A novel RATHER* inside HUG

7. Half of football team, extremely engaged and aligned (8)
ORIENTED

half of (leyton) ORIENT & extremes of E(ngage)D

8. Reports of firearms produced by thugs son abused (8)
GUNSHOTS

An abused [THUGS SON]*

11. Banker, upset, suppresses fury he’s getting sacked (4)
TEES

Banker as in river. Its SEETHES reversed with HES at the end removed

15. Stupidity concealed by sovereign or ancestors? (9)
IGNORANCE

hidden in sovereIGN OR ANCEstors

17. US lawman that is caught with electronic listening device (8)
EARPIECE

wyatt EARP & I.E. & C(aught) & E(lectronic)

18. Overjoyed still after case of cybercrime is overturned (8)
ECSTATIC

Case of C(ybercrim)E reversed & STATIC

20. Brother married Greek, finally keeping old name (4)
MONK

M(arried) & O(ld) & N(ame) & end of G(ee)K

21. Very angry about boxer’s debut in ring (7)
VIBRATE

V(ery) & IRATE with B(oxer) inserted

22. Dishonest account, rued to some extent (6)
UNTRUE

Hidden in accoUNT RUEd

23. Beverage Gwyn perhaps picked up for engineer (6)
BRUNEL

Sounds like BREW NELL

26. Maybe Guardian point of view that’s promoting extremism originally (5)
ANGEL

ANGLE – point of view with the E(xtremism) up a bit

As you see below lots of current Indy setters are hidden in the grid.

picture of the completed grid

16 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,695 by Silvanus”

  1. Thanks Silvanus and flashing.
    Quite tricky, but nice. Couldn’t parse CHITTY, TEES and PETER.
    Missed the theme as well though many of the names registered, but not together…well.

  2. Took a while to see the theme, which then helped to solve PETER and ECCLES near the end. Some quite hard ones including CHITTY (hadn’t heard of this for ‘note’ and didn’t know the name of the CMO), the parsing for INIMICAL, the barely known ‘Spanish city’ at 21a and the not in the list of usual suspects ‘football team’ at 7d.

    Thanks to Silvanus and flashling

  3. That was a lot of fun except for the fact that I think ‘ignorance’ is very different from ‘stupidity’. You could say that students go to University to help overcome their ignorance in a topic but hardly their stupidity.

  5. Funnily enough, I suspected a theme from my first entry – SKINNY – so, for once, it was of some help. Particularly with TEES for which I needed flashling’s assistance, the parse having beaten me. Despite that early success, the NW corner held out the longest and I did wonder, for a while, whether Silvanus might have squeezed in Hoskins before WIRE put paid to the only available slot.

    ECCLES, REALISE, EARPIECE and the rather sweet BRUNEL were my favourites today.

    Thanks Silvanus and flashling

  6. Thanks both. A rarity that I spotted the theme very early, although a few unknowns still slowed me down including W denoting tungsten – no wonder I struggled with sciences. I agree with Hovis@3 – when on jury service the defendant reacted very aggressively to the prosecution barrister asking if he was ignorant of something, which was intended to mean unknowing, which he mistook for stupidity

  7. It wasn’t until I’d finally wrestled my LOI to the ground – TEES – that I spotted the theme. Would have been quite a help if I’d found it earlier in the solve!

    Absolute favourite here was REALISE with CASHMERE & EARPIECE taking silver and bronze.

    Many thanks to Silvanus for a most enjoyable puzzle and to flashling for the review.

  8. Very good, and a refreshingly well-written puzzle as compared with some of the alternatives available to me of a Sunday.

  9. We enjoyed solving this one and noticed the theme fairly early on.

    Joyce suddenly thought that 20D could be DONK – a setter from the past – before rereading the clue – sorry Monk! Brought back some good memories though of Donk and Rorschach – we wonder what they are doing now. Hopefully still interested in crosswords.

    Anyway, thanks to Silvanus for the fun and memories and flashling for the blog.

  10. @hovis I went to a supposedly excellent university in the fenland area. Not sure it helped with either. @TLP who are you? What have you done with the real TLP 🙂

  11. Right in the Goldilocks zone, Only one NO-BRAINER, but I managed to work them all out in the end, with a little help from the theme.

  12. I always enjoy this setter’s puzzles in the Telegraph so it was a bit of a Sunday treat to find him here today.
    I totally missed the theme but I only know five of them anyway
    I’ve noticed how the dreaded “next chart please” CMO has started creeping into puzzles but “he” made me smile today.
    Suffolk and Greater Manchester also share a Bury, nothing to do with the clue, just a thought. Rambling now so to cut to the chase, in a strong field, my winners were HANGER ON, EARPIECE, VIBRATE and ANGEL.
    Thanks Silvanus and flashling.

  14. Many thanks to flashling for his decryptions and to everyone who took the trouble to comment. I wondered if one or two of my named fellow setters might pop in, but they seem a very reticent bunch!

    Just to say, rightly or wrongly, both Collins and Chambers list “stupidity” as a synonym for “ignorance”.

  15. Thanks Silvanus for a nicely-crafted crossword. I spotted the theme with TEES and that helped me solve SERPENT, VIGO, and RADIAN. Thanks flashling for the blog.

  16. We spotted the theme early on, which helped with some entries where we weren’t quite sure otherwise – PETER and BRUNEL for example; a few, such as TEES, were write-ins. Favourite was SERPENT.
    Thanks, Silvanus and flashling.

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