Independent 11,320 by Twin

Twin’s second appearance here in the Indy

The setter gives himself a name check today, some chewy – why is that right? – moments, nice stuff for a Monday, thanks Twin

 picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Completely impractical to get herringbone trousers (10)
ALTOGETHER

Hidden or trousered by impracticAL TO GET HERringbone

6. Goddess lives twice (4)
ISIS

IS – lives twice, not the rather unpleasant Islamic group or the Oxford river or the rowing eight or …

10. Famous ship briefly stopping in Cherbourg, the Titanic (5)
LARGE

Cherbourg is in France so LE – french “the” with most or ARG(o) inserted. The Titanic did I believe stop in Cherbourg before the ill-fated crossing.

11. Legally, wrong thing charged after previous shakedown (9)
EXTORTION

EX – previous & TORT – legal wrong & ION – a charged thing

12. Major landowners at last run into conflict (8,5)
NATIONAL TRUST

A conflicted [AT LAST RUN INTO]*. The NT has had a few run-ins with right-wing groups recently

14. Train for a minor company, carrying liquor round (4-4)
CHOO-CHOO

CO(mpany) with HOOCH inserted & O – round

16. Correct line adopted by marketing (6)
PROPER

ROPE – line in PR – marketing

18. Pack of troubles surrounding on-off love (6)
WOLVES

Alternate letters of LoVe inside WOES – troubles

20. Controversial part of therapy is phony’s work (8)
HYPNOSIS

[IS PHONYS]* worked

22. Supply manager and renter make new deal (13)
REARRANGEMENT

[MANAGER RENTER]* supply

26. Glance over inside of private letter? (9)
INNKEEPER

Well hmm, you’ve got PEEK – look reversed inside INNER – private. Letter for Innkeeper? not overly convinced to be honest

27. A medic injecting heroin as needed (2,3)
AD HOC

H(eroin) inside A DOC

28. Bloody Mary’s edged into part of the curriculum (4)
RARE

An edged (m)AR(y) in R.E. – part of the curriculum

29. Labour cell struggling … with Labour? (4-6)
BLUE-COLLAR

[LABOUR CELL]* struggling

DOWN
1. Twin‘s quite unknown (4)
ALLY

To twin. ALL – quite & maths unknown Y

2. Men infiltrating Native American city (7)
TORONTO

OR – other ranks for men inside TONTO for native American, well, one in the Lone Ranger at least.

3. Visitor‘s initially embarrassed to break wind (5)
GUEST

E(mbarrassed) inside GUST for wind. More the sort of stuff Hoskins usually gets away with.

4. Three piggies abandoning base in direct confrontation (3-2-3)
TOE-TO-TOE

TOE as in the rhyme “this little piggy” so three of them one losing E – maths natural base, at least that’s how I think it’s supposed to work.

5. Unusually wide, say (5)
EXTRA

Double def cum cryptic def

7. Half of jury’s entertained by stint in Winter Olympics event (3,4)
SKI JUMP

Half of JU(ry) in SKIMP – stint, to be frugal apparently

8. Tree-dweller weaving thongs and belt (4,6)
SONG THRUSH

A weaved THONGS* & RUSH for belt

9. Congregation bent her out of shape, suppressing resistance (8)
BRETHREN

R(esistance) in an out of shape [BENT HER]*

13. Air crew restyled, including nothing gold and green? (3-7)
ECO-WARRIOR

[AIR CREW]* restyled with O inserted & OR – gold

15. Cricket balls caught top of helmet that’s in slips (8)
CHERRIES

C(aught) top of H(elmet) & IE – that is inside ERRS – slips. New cricket balls get called cherries because of the bright red colour

17. Anne was followed so well! (2,6)
BY GEORGE

Well George did follow Queen Anne

19. Student perhaps left job? (7)
LEARNER

L(eft) & EARNER for a good job

21. Over half of football team holding up used bum bag (7)
SATCHEL

SAT, as in used a chair & more than half of CHEL(sea)

23. Country previously known as China (5)
NEPAL

NE more commonly seen as née – birth name & PAL for china

24. Muse books live return (5)
ERATO

OT – books & ARE – lives all reversed

25. Mark Ruffalo’s ultimately lacking in award he could win? (4)
SCAR

(ruffal)O missing from (o)SCAR

 

15 comments on “Independent 11,320 by Twin”

  1. Thanks, Twin and flashling. Chewy indeed for a Monday morning and I struggled in places, but there are some really lovely clues here – BY GEORGE and NEPAL amused me. Your parsing of TOE-TO-TOE looks fine to me, flashling.

    Failed to get INNKEEPER. “Letter” is probably technically accurate but it’s certainly not the most obvious synonym!

  2. Top shelf, I thought. Don’t get SAT in SATCHEL. Top three would be EXTRA, for which I entered ULTRA i.e. ‘unusual’, CHOO-CHOO, WOLVES, INNKEEPER, SCAR and BLUE COLLAR. BY GEORGE, that’s more than three. Thanks.

  3. If something is chewy, you have to work at it. Unlike, say, Angel Delight, which goes down very easily. If this was a chewy puzzle, you could call today’s Carpathian an Angel Delight puzzle.

    Mmmm, now I’m craving Angel Delight. Butterscotch flavour, obviously.

  4. Cherries popped into mind as LOI today but I did recall the cricket term. Plenty of other creativity around and, whilst it wasn’t a stroll inn the park, everything fell into place. I parsed SATCHEL as did KVa so believe the def is simply BAG. Favourites today include ALTOGETHER, LARGE, CHOO CHOO, RARE, GUEST, TOT-TO-TOE and BY GEORGE. I was thrown by the unfamiliar NE but it had to be.

    Thanks Twin and flashling

  5. Pretty tough for a Monday with all eventually in, but with the SAT part of SATCHEL unparsed; yes, obvious now of course. I was interested to find out that CHOO-CHOO bars are still around after all these years.

    I liked the couple of cricket related clues, both of which (unusually) I managed to spot quickly and the surface for HYPNOSIS,.

    Thanks to Twin and flashling

  6. This was good fun although my repetition radar bleeped gently with “lives” = “is” in 6a and “live” = “are” in 24d.

    As a lifelong cricketer, I didn’t have any problem with CHERRIES but I was mildly surprised not to find it as a definition in either Collins or Chambers.

    My top picks are SATCHEL, ALTOGETHER and TOE-TO-TOE.

    Many thanks to Twin and to flashling.

  7. I thought this both very clever and very entertaining, my page is littered with ticks.
    ALTOGETHER got us off to a tremendous start, I also smiled broadly at CHOO CHOO and BY GEORGE.
    Many thanks Twin and flashling

  8. I’d forgotten that we’d met Twin not that long ago – needed a nudge from a friend to jog my ageing memory! I did find this one rather hard in places but persistence eventually paid off.
    Top three for me were CHOO CHOO, BY GEORGE & SATCHEL.

    Thanks to Twin and to flashling for the review.

  9. Thanks Twin and flashling

    RD @ 9 The Chambers app has “a new ball (cricket sl)” as definition 6 for cherry.

  10. A bit of a challenge and there were one or two parsings we couldn’t quite work out, such as SATCHEL – thanks, KVa for that enlightenment.
    We liked SONG THRUSH, WOLVES and BY GEORGE.
    Thanks, Twin and flashling.

  11. Thanks Twin. This was my 1st Twin crossword and I found it impressive. I needed a nudge or two to finish but I generally found it on a level I could handle. Great clues included 12a, WOLVES, INNKEEPER, AD HOC (nice surface), and SATCHEL. Thanks flashling for the blog.

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