Our Harry returns for our Sunday pleasure. If you know Hoskins you can guess what to expect.
Not sure what the lad was on this time, some unusual for me entries. Thanks Harry till next time.
Ugh, is this a well known phrase to you? [BADDY BIASED]* about
PAR – standard & { DA lawyer & S(outh) E(ast) for Kent } all reversed
RA – artist in BIRDS. No I’ve never heard of it either.
ASS for dope inside half of PE(te)
Sounds like principle
No W(ife) in (w)EASEL
An naughty [VET I EXPEL]*
Tip of R(efractor) in a trained WOODSMAN* Perhaps I’m missing something about the surface with woodsman
PI – piously religious & LES – French article
CELEB – celebrity & RAT – one who sings & E – mdma
I’M reversed in A GO for shot
A(merican) in EX – old & MINE – belonging to Hoskins
IT for sex in I(ndependent) MATE
Wouldn’t be Harry without references to flatulence. Sounds like “LITE or light BRIES”
Double definition
BED = have sex with, do the deed & FELLOW – don
D(etective) I(nspector)S & APPEAR – turn up. Lord Lucan vanished after his children’s nanny was murdered
{U(ni) & BA} inside princess DI
IS & A & CA(d) reversed
STRIP – get naked & (john stuart) MILL (who was particularly ill after half a pint of shandy)
You’ll need to be British and of the right age I guess to understand this. A cast [A CHAP PRIME] & E(nglish). The kids TV programme used it in lots of modelling back when I were a lad.
SILVER – a metal & A (rolling) STONE. It’s a racing track in the UK near Northampton
Hmm another for me rarity from Harry, STOOL – what milkmaids proverbially sit on & BALL – dance. It’s apparently a forerunner cricket and baseball with the maids using their stool to hit the ball.
I – one in an abandoned TROOPERS*
[SHEEP AS IM]* around
Hidden in morcamBE IN General
AGE – get on & N(ew) & (indecen)T
I(diots) & RATE – speed
I didn’t know BABY DADDIES or BRAIRDS either and STRIP MILL for ‘steelworks?’ went in mainly from wordplay. As intended, I was slow to cotton on to the correct sense of ‘track’ for SILVERSTONE.
Being a Hoskins puzzle, I had ‘behind complaint’ as the def for PILES; also fits in well with a few other answers. A tick for ‘Morecambe’ without an “Eric” in sight.
Thanks to Hoskins and flashling
I learnt three new things today: BABY DADDIES , BRAIRDS and STOOLBALL., with heartfelt thanks to Hoskins for indicating the provenance of the first two! I agree with WordPlodder @1 that “behind compliant” is the definition for PILES.
Many thanks to Harry for the fun and to flashling for the review.
1a was an odd choice with which to start: what a strange phrase and I’m not sure why it exists – isn’t every father a BABY DADDY by definition? And BRAIRDS is a deffo nho – but there don’t appear to be any other words that fit those crossers. I agree with our blogger – it is a typical Hoskins melange of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll: EASEL, IMITATE, LIGHT BREEZE, PAPIER-MACHE, SILVERSTONE, POSTERIOR and BEING being my favourites today.
Thanks Hoskins and flashling
RD @2: ‘behind compliant’ isn’t remotely Hoskins!!! 😉
BABY DADDY seems to be an American TV Sitcom. I did not know that before trying to solve 1A.
PM@4. Very good! My spellcheck didn’t pick that one up 🙁
I had come across babyfather as a term, so BABY DADDIES seemed a reasonable guess. PILES was for once a pleasure rather than a pain in the a***. Thanks, both.
A rare day where being an American helped…@PostMark a baby daddy is specifically an ABSENT father, per the clue – the Urban Dictionary defines it as “The father of your child whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved”. Lovely treat from Hoskins as always, and thanks to flashling for the blog.
Oren @8: I guess the UK equivalent is natural or biological father with the absenteeism implied by the very fact the phrase is used. Contrasted with adoptive, for example. I guess ‘baby daddy’ doesn’t imply absenteeism when I read it; every day’s a schoolday. (Especially when one turns to Urban Dictionary! 😉 )
PostMark@9 The English version is babyfather.
Often learn something new from a Harry puzzle but it usually concerns sex, drugs or rock ‘n roll – quite a surprise when today’s unknowns turned out to relate to absent American fathers, Scottish sprouts, steelworks and milkmaids’ dances! Perhaps his mojo gets confused on a Sunday?
Great puzzle and my favourite was LIGHT BREEZE – much more Harry-like!
Thanks to Hoskins and to flashling for the review.
Thanks both. Everything which was unfamiliar was very clearly clued, though i was slow to see abandoned as an anagrind in POSTERIOR
I grew up in Fife and had never heard of BRIARDS either.
PostMark@9 – after further review, I find that although Chambers doesn’t (yet) have it, Collins comes through with “the father of a child, esp a man who is not the current partner of the child’s mother”. So no need for the Urban Dictionary 😉
PM@3 : “isn’t every father a BABY DADDY by definition?”
Well, it depends how old the child was when when you adopted them 🙂
But more generally I guess it makes sense in the mouth of the mother concerned. “He’s [my/the] baby daddy”, as opposed to husband or partner.
Thanks Hoskins for infusing humour into the Sunday crossword but that’s no surprise. Yes, I came across some new words but they were all deduceible from the wordplay. My only failure was the familiar word BEDFELLOWS. My ticks included PASSE, EASEL, CELEBRATE, AMIGO, and POSTERIOR. I didn’t understand 7d so thanks flashling for the blog.
Great fun. A few new words/phrases in there but all very sympathetically clued so no complaints here.
I particularly liked (and laughed out loud at) PILES, my winner today, along with SILVERSTONE and IMITATE.
Many thanks Hoskins and flashling.
Never heard of BABY DADDIES. Heard of BABY MAMAS. It’s a common term heard in rap music.