Independent on Sunday 1,710 by Skinny

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Hello all.  Another Sunday has come around, and with it another entertaining IoS puzzle.  I liked the 14a with 11a and much more.  Thanks Skinny!

 

Definitions are underlined in the clues below.  In the explanations, quoted indicators are in italics, explicit [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER.  For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.

 

Across

1a    Old actor depicted in toilet graffiti? (6)
BOGART
BOG (toilet) + ART (graffiti).  Of course you can also read this as a phrase, BOG ART being a whimsical term for toilet graffiti

4a    Playwright‘s single and in a bad way (6)
O’NEILL
ONE (single) + ILL (in a bad way).  I couldn’t immediately think of the playwright but was happy to look him up later: it’s American playwright Eugene O’Neill

8a    Unusual pinkish blood (7)
KINSHIP
An anagram of (unusual) PINKISH

9a    Attractive sow in someone’s pens (7)
WINSOME
SoW IN SOMEone’s contains (pens) the answer

11a   Cook‘s hot chap voyaged from the East (5,5)
DELIA SMITH
H (hot), TIM (chap) and SAILED (voyaged), all written from right to left (from the east)

12a   The height of an unknown monkey? (4)
APEX
APE X could denote an unknown monkey

13a   Author recalled introducing grand Greek character (5)
SIGMA
AMIS (author) reversed (recalled) containing (introducing) G (grand)

14a   Go away and advertise a gunfight (5-3)
SHOOT-OUT
SHOO (go away) and TOUT (advertise)

16a   Useless father takes drug – smack (8)
DEADBEAT
DAD (father) includes (takes) E (drug) + BEAT (smack)

18a   Inventor of latest pants taking time out (5)
TESLA
An anagram of (… pants) LA[t]EST without (taking … out) T (time)

20a   Force down (4)
FUZZ
Two definitions: a slang term for the police, or the nap of fabric

21a   Straighten out? Smashing! (10)
SHATTERING
STRAIGHTEN anagrammed (out)

23a   Fast food item the Spanish wrapped in cabbage (7)
SAVELOY
EL (the, Spanish) inside (wrapped in) SAVOY (cabbage)

24a   Radio covering end of Italy’s dictatorship (7)
TYRANNY
TRANNY (radio) around (covering) the last letter of (end of) ItalY

25a   Marine instrument tipped to still be around (6)
EXTANT
sEXTANT (marine instrument) without the first letter (tipped)

26a   Commercial head off around the start of December (6)
ADVERT
AVERT (head off) around the first letter of (start of) December)

 

Down

1d    It’s on a snooker table sounds are picked up (5)
BAIZE
A sound-alike: BAYS (sounds), are picked up

2d    Desperate for horse to take a journey (7)
GASPING
GG (horse) needs to go around (to take) A SPIN (a journey)

3d    Bring back checks on gallery (9)
REINSTATE
REINS (checks) on TATE (gallery)

5d    Number 8’s endless beastly noise (5)
NEIGH
N (number) + EIGHt is without its last letter (endless)

6d    This month fences go brown without delay (7)
INSTANT
INST (this month) goes around (fences) TAN (go brown)

7d    Island hit by America (9)
LAMPEDUSA
LAMP (hit) by USA (America)

10d   Start to fight and horribly mistreat the best side available (5,4)
FIRST TEAM
The first letter of (start to) Fight + an anagram of (horribly) MISTREAT

13d   Appropriate to support closure of business venture (9)
SPECULATE
PECULATE (appropriate) + the last letter of (closure of) businesS.  Did I know peculate?  I don’t know, only that having deduced it I was confident that it was true.  Until writing this of course, because a blogger who doesn’t look everything up is a blogger who will get egg on her face

15d   Lasted beyond Tuesday, to elaborate (9)
OUTSTAYED
An anagram of (… elaborate) TUESDAY TO

17d   Most stupid Australian’s enthralled by fancy diets (7)
DOZIEST
OZ (Australian) is inside (enthralled by) an anagram of (fancy) DIETS

19d   Top one is skilled at riding the waves, perhaps (7)
SURFACE
One skilled at riding the waves could be termed a SURF ACE

21d   School-run regularly cut (5)
SHORN
ScHoOl RuN with omission of regular letters (regularly cut)

22d   Group of fisherman at sea with this? (5)
NONET
Fishermen might well be floundering at sea if they have NO NET

 

20 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,710 by Skinny”

  1. I have to admit I used a thesaurus on ‘appropriate’ to see ‘peculate’. It is a word I’ve met before but would never have thought of it here without more crossers. Never heard of Lampedusa but it was the obvious guess once I had O’Neill so Bombedusa was out of the running. Didn’t properly parse 22d. I figured NO was probably an abbreviation for Naval Officer (hardly a fisherman, I know) and left it at that. Bit lazy on my part – must do better.

  2. Thanks Skinny & Kitty. Top blog for a top puzzle that was great fun from beginning to end, packed with humour and inventive wordplay. The reversal in DELIA SMITH is a great find. Also very much enjoyed the attractive sow and unknown monkey, but my favourite was KINSHIP – a perfectly formed clue.

    Peculate is one of those words I’ve come across before but struggled to dig it out.

  3. This was great fun with brief accurate clueing and nice smooth surfaces, despite finding two of my personal bugbears. The author’s name is O’Neill not Oneill as suggested by the enumeration and we had to play guess a man’s name to solve 11a.

    There were two new words for me – the island in 7d and “peculate” in 13d.

    With lots of ticks, my favourite was 1a which was joined on my podium by 20a & 19d.

    Many thanks to Skinny and to Kitty.

  5. NO NET

    Fishermen might be floundering (at sea) if they have NO NET.
    Have I understood it right?

    Thanks, S and K for the puzzle and the blog resp.

  6. I had to put in SPECULATE from the def too; like a few others PECULATE was a word I’d heard of before but couldn’t remember what it meant. I only knew LAMPEDUSA from the name of the author of “The Leopard”, who I now see was the last Prince of Lampedusa.

    Good to see TRANNY for ‘Radio’ again; takes me back a long time. I’ll excuse DOZIEST!

    Thanks to Skinny and Kitty

  7. Re 8A: isn’t blood dark red and sometimes almost black? Not what I would call “pinkish”.

    Re 24D: you’d have to be as old as I am to remember “tranny” as a radio!

  8. Quite tricky but very enjoyable with only the (for me) weakish lurker at 9a letting the side down.
    Interestingly 19d appeared in Dada’s Telegraph puzzle today clued in much the same way. TYRANNY made me laugh for all the wrong reasons but my top three are the excellent KINSHIP, a perfect clue of its type along with FUZZ and NONET.
    Thanks Skinny and Kitty.

  9. Peter@7
    You are right. Blood is ‘Unusually’ pinkish here. 🙂

    Valves. Transistors. I C chips… Switching constantly.

  10. Nice puzzle, pinkish seemed so unlikely.
    Anyone who hasn’t heard of Lampedusa must have not watched the news for the last twenty years. It is the closest bit of Italy to Africa, in 2014 receiving c. 50,000 migrants surviving the 60 mile crossing, compared to its population of 6,000.
    Is that Mavericks in the surfing picture?

  11. LAMPEDUSA is also the title of a very moving piece from Toumani Diabate about the migrants’ fate. I had ADVENT for ADVERT. It almost works. A very enjoyable puzzle and blog. Thanks, both.

  12. Relieved to see that others were also unfamiliar with PECULATE & LAMPEDUSA and chastened to learn that I should have remembered the latter.
    Tops for me in this enjoyable offering were KINSHIP & WINSOME.

    Thanks to Skinny and to our lovely Kitty – smiled a lot at the cat in the pocket but you lost me with ‘twitter beta’ – perhaps I’m too old to remember it?

  13. Thanks for comments so far, interesting as always.

    KVa @5 yes, “at sea” is meant in that sense. No idea if I had brackets in my original draft. I may have done. It seems a long time ago as I’m now busy ploughing through my EV blog. No rest etc, etc.

    James @10 yes, the photo is from the Wikipedia page on big wave surfing and is indeed taken at Mavericks.

    Jane @12 – no 😉 , Twitter beta is just meant to be understood as the precursor to the Twitter that we all know and have an opinion on. (The beta phase is a testing phase of computer software, apps etc.)

  14. Thanks both. I was unfamiliar with the island and the unlikely peculate as well, and only know SAVELOY as my daughter and son-in-law live in the Black Country, whereas I have not seen it on offer in chip shops in the North West

  15. Thank you, Kitty @ 13, I guess you don’t need to hear my opinion of Twitter but no doubt you can imagine it!

  16. An enjoyable crossword with no real problems although we were held up in the SW corner by the crossing DEADBEAT and SPECULATE – in our case once we got ‘speculate’ we remembered ‘peculate’. We thought 6dn was a little odd, since (the deplorable) ‘inst’ for the current month is simply an abbreviation of INSTANT.
    We liked the BAIZE illustration.
    Thanks, Skinny and Kitty.

  17. Kitty@13
    Thanks.

    You did not have brackets in your blog. I was trying to highlight that ‘at sea’ was rather figurative.
    With no net, fishermen might be ‘at sea’ while still being stuck on the shore. 🙂

  18. Thanks Skitty and sinny sorry too many runerspisms lately. Lovely puzzle thanks both even if I did get the date wrong do a blog for it before realising and deleting. Hopefully I’ll remember next week’s even though I too have finally succumbed to the COVID thingy. Bah.

  19. Thanks to Kitty for the excellent blog, and all who took the time to comment – it’s greatly appreciated. This may or may not be the last puzzle for a while as I’ve partially moved south to Cambridgeshire for a new job – honestly, it’s not been the easiest of times, and moments to write clues are few and far between, but it will settle down, and I will be back with you all at the earliest opportunity

    All the best from a combination of industrial West Yorkshire and rural-ish Cambridgeshire,

    Skinny

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