Independent on Sunday 1,717/Hoskins

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Hoskins has the Sunday Indy offering for us this weekend.

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

1 Tangled cable ties? We won’t have it!
CELIBATES
(CABLE TIES)*

6 What a vampire does is no good at all
SUCKS
A dd.

9 Blundering in chess? It’s an irritating feeling!
ITCHINESS
(IN CHESS IT)*

10 General weariness is some rotten nuisance
ENNUI
Hidden in rottEN NUIsance.

11 Ohio politician enthralled by my sex appeal
OOMPH
An insertion of O and MP in OH!

12 A pair of guys going over Dutch tenor’s revision
AMENDMENT
A charade of A, two lots of MEN around D, and T.

13 Fix a drink infused with pop mostly
APPOINT
An insertion of PO[P] in A PINT.

15 60s youth singers making a comeback for fame
STARDOM
A reversal of MOD and RATS.

18 Supporter punches a poor player in Lincoln?
ABRAHAM
An insertion of BRA in A HAM.

20 Drunk on beer, royal knocked over editor
LAGERED
A charade of REGAL reversed and ED.

21 Firm friend describing male in charge in a funny way
COMICALLY
An insertion of M and IC in CO and ALLY.

23 Ring back around lunchtime to get Plant
LILAC
An insertion of I for one [o’clock] in CALL reversed.

25 Coach in hospital unit gets poor treatment
ABUSE
An insertion of BUS in A and E.

26 High-rise domicile you permitted use of is windy
FLATULENT
A charade of FLAT, U and LENT.

27 Become more active after plonk is brought round by head office
HOT UP
A charade of HO and PUT reversed.

28 Unusual reactions for crosswords, perhaps
CREATIONS
(REACTIONS)*

Down

1 Pal I chat up (keeping under wraps old sausage)
CHIPOLATA
An insertion of O in (PAL I CHAT)*

2 Temp crazy American cut? I don’t know what to say!
LOCUM
A charade of LOC[O] and UM.

3 Fairly clever Brits high on drugs
BRIGHTISH
(BRITS HIGH)*

4 Old man in article on several Tory leaders’ history?
THE PAST
An insertion of PA in THE and ST for the initial letters of ‘several’ and ‘Tory’.

5 Women who nurse women with habits?
SISTERS
A dd.

6 Southern tough injecting MDMA and horse
STEED
An insertion of E in S TED.

7 Banknotes possibly overlooked by Tory candidate
CONTENDER
A charade of CON and TENDER.

8 Way to save family without any money
SKINT
An insertion of KIN in ST.

14 Soldier on horse of the greatest importance
PARAMOUNT
A charade of PARA and MOUNT.

16 Lad tunes out, having inhaled good hallucinogen
ANGEL DUST
An insertion of G in (LAD TUNES)*

17 Gives drugs to Hoskins and group on LSD coming up
MEDICATES
A charade of ME and SET ACID reversed.

19 Macho fellow I caught exerting bad influence
MALEFIC
A charade of MALE, F, I and C.

20 Reveal what a sunbathing nudist might do?
LAY BARE
A dd, but the clue is faulty because the second element requires the present tense, which would be LIE BARE (unless it’s a female sunbather and she’s stripped off to produce an egg). LAY BARE is the past tense.

21 Republican dons ready for economic collapse
CRASH
An insertion of R in CASH.

22 Vulgar bloke pinching primate’s bottom
CHEAP
An insertion of E in CHAP.

24 Story and books written about Navy Command?
LIE TO
A charade of LIE and OT for Old Testament reversed.

Many thanks to Hoskins for this Sunday’s puzzle.

25 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,717/Hoskins”

  2. Pleasant offering from Hoskins which was much less mentally strenuous than the Tyrus yesterday and I wasn’t complaining. Still, one new word in MALEFIC, which wasn’t too hard to work out from wordplay and its relationship to “maleficent”, and the new adjectival form of LAGER at 20a was interesting.

    I missed the problem with the tense in the second def of LAY BARE. One possible escape clause is that Chambers has the fourth sense of LAY as an intransitive verb as “To lie (archaic, nautical and non-standard)”. Maybe makes it OK then – just.

    [Off-topic: A message to the esteemed Indy crossword editor. The new colour scheme when solving online – me no Leica. Any hope of bringing the old colour scheme back, sans confetti? Thanks].

    Thanks to Hoskins and Pierre.

  3. Lovely puzzle from Hoskins as always, and thanks to Pierre for the blog.

    As long as we are sending bracketed messages to the editors, [totally agree with wp@2 on the color scheme, and for me at least the setter’s name no longer appears under the puzzle]

  4. A gentler than usual offering from Hoskins, though no less than usually referential to the drug scene, of which I was innocent until coming to the Indie crossword. Thanks Hoskins and Pierre.

    [PS My printout in recent days has grown substantially, maybe in response to complaints about small type, though this results in less space for notes – can’t please ’em all!]

  5. Fairly typical Hoskins; yes, Tatrasman @4, maybe a bit gentler than usual but all the normal drug and drink references abound. Well done Harry.

    Thanks Pierre and Hoskins

    [PS: On the colour scheme, I had an email from Arkadium on Friday:

    Well, I have good news for you. I’ve spoken to the development team at the weekly meeting, and after several feedback notices from players such as you, we have decided to change the color format of the Crossword puzzles to one that’s more pleasing to the eye. This change will likely appear next week, as our team works around the world and we’re close to the weekend. But we’ll have it in place next week.

    Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention once more. I hope the changes will help you enjoy the puzzles.

    I have never known whether anyone from the actual publications visits 225; for the Indy this is the only forum and referred to on the online site so you’d have thought so. I don’t know whether anyone from the publications does the puzzle online to see what the user experience is like. I feel they should. I cannot believe any solver would go away thinking ‘great user experience’ and I am very surprised at a development team that appears to leave the userbase entirely out of any revisions.]

  8. All the usual fun from Harry but with a few hmms this time.

    LAGER as a verb means to store beer according to Collins and Chambers. 28a is not much of an anagram, having to move just one letter. The answer to 20a should be LIE BARE.

    The rest was great.

    Thanks to Hoskins and to Pierre.

  9. Nice to see Lincoln make it to the definition part of the clue after much sterling work in wordplay. Maybe Hoskins is imagining the nudists having sex for LAY BARE????

  10. Surprised and disappointed 20d slipped through. The clue was easy to fix (“what a sunbathing nudist did”). It is a pernicious solecism that has no place among word lovers. Whenever I hear someone say, “I was laying there …,” I can’t help thinking, “What we’re you laying? A brick? An egg?” and I miss whatever is said next.

    Otherwise, a perfectly good Sunday solve. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  11. Thanks, Hoskins & Pierre. Agree with previous comments – very much par for the course, and enjoyable as ever. And yes, nice to have a relatively gentle one after yesterday’s battering from Tyrus.

    Like WP, I didn’t pick up on the lay/lie solecism. Yes, you’re technically correct, Pierre, but it didn’t bother me.

    I did pick up on the definition of LAGERED as mentioned by RD @8 – the beer style gets its name from being stored for maturation in cold cellars (Lagers, in German).

    However, “lagered” or more commonly “lagered up” are popular colloquialisms, so no problem for me.

  15. Learnt a new term in LAGERED and yet another version of the hallucinogen – Hoskins is good(?) for my education!
    Not keen on BRIGHTISH and took a while to justify HOT UP but I did rather like the clue for AMENDMENT.

    Thanks to Hoskins for the fun and to Pierre for the review – shame that none of our feathered friends put in an appearance for you today.

  16. Since the change to the Indie cryptic website, I’ve not been able to print the crossword. Does anyone know if I can access it in a way other than through the website?

    If it ain’t broke………

  17. Tilloubill @16. Not just me then. Today is the first day I have had trouble printing. In Chrome, I just get a blank screen which I left for several minutes to see if anything developed (it didn’t). Tried again with the same result. Then tried on Safari. This time the link to open in Acrobat didn’t work so I used CMD + P and this gave a perfectly fine printout. Lost 15 minutes of my life I’m not getting back though.

  18. [Hovis @17: the pedant in me cannot resist asking whether there are other 15 minute segments you are expecting to get back??? 😉 ]

  21. Hovis @17. Many thanks for that. I couldn’t print the crossword using Chrome or Edge. I downloaded Opera (apparently Safari no longer available for Windows 11) and success.

  22. Tatrasman @4 I didn’t like to bigger version but when printing the PDF under OTHER Settings there is an option to reduce the size. 75% is perfect for me.
    Ian SW3 @10 Nice rant about LAY rather spoiled by using solve as a noun in your penultimate sentence…
    Thanks to Hoskins and Pierre

  24. 1a set the tone for this very enjoyable puzzle with all the traits of this setter. Just the job over an early evening beer.
    Thanks Hoskins and Pierre.

  25. Thanks Hoskins for the amusement and Pierre for the blog. This was easy, especially when compared to his last crossword in the FT. My top clues were CELIBATES, STARDOM, and OOMPH. By the way this was the 1st time that I could print the Indy crossword from my phone so I’m happy about that feature.

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