Independent on Sunday 1,780 by Hippogryph

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My first ever IoS blog.

Your regular blogger was unavailable today, so I volunteered to stand in – hope my style of annotation is OK with y'all. Regular service will be resumed next week.

I enjoyed this puzzle. Some of the clues were very well constructed, with my favourites being RUNWAY and especially SUSHI. It took me a while to see my LOI (BODE), but I got there in the end. (SETTER also took a while, because I originally threw in TESTER, bit couldn't see the link, then I had a facepalm moment)

Thanks, Hippogryph.

ACROSS
1 GORGONS
Monsters mostly guzzle on bison’s heart (7)

[mostly] GORG(e) ("guzzle") + ON + (bi)S(on) ['s heart]
5 FANFARE
Enthusiastic display of half-time pies and Bovril? (7)

UK football fans will often partake in a pie and a Bovril at half-time, so they could be described as FAN FARE
9 RANGE
Peeled fruit to bring to bear (5)

[peeled] (o)RANGE(s) ("fruit")
10 SURPLICES
Poland blocks cruises at sea displaying religious clothing (9)

PL (International Vehicle Registration code for "Poland") blocks *(cruises) [anag:at sea]
11 ACADEMICAL
Acclaimed new nursing area of university (10)

*(acclaimed) [anag:new] nursing A
12 ETNA
Occasionally falling from Estonia’s volcano (4)

[occasional (letters) falling from] E(s)T(o)N(i)A
14 PREVARICATE
Provide waffle right before I carve up pâté sandwiches (11)

PATE sandwiches R (right) before *(i carve) [anag:up]

18 KEIR STARMER
Model Sierra, almost market leader in UK soon? (4,7)

*(sierr market) [anag:model] where SIERR is [almost] SIERR(a)
21 WARD
Division is Guardian’s responsibility (4)

Double definition
22 DOMAIN NAME
Madame in on criminal network identification (6,4)

*(madame in on) [anag:criminal]
25 RATIONALE
Basis to restrict beer and … (9)

RATION ("to restrict") + ALE ("beer")
26 LICIT
… sex after heading to Long Island clubs is within the law (5)

IT ("sex") after L (long) + I (island) + C (clubs)
27 DIOCESE
Do ice dancing near South East London? (7)

*(do ice) [anag:dancing] near SE (South East)
28 MEANDER
The trouble and I take a circuitous route (7)

ME AND 'ER ("the trouble and I")

In Cockney rhyming slang, trouble and strife = wife, and Cockney's would traditionally pronouce HER as 'ER.
DOWN
1 GERMAN
Bollinger manufactures bottles of Mosel? (6)

Hidden in [bottles] "bollinGER MANufactures"
2 RUNWAY
I say, are you writing up boring event with touchdown zone? (6)

Homophone [I say] of ARE YOU + [writing up] <=YAWN ("boring event")
3 OVEREXPOSE
Take too many clothes off and ruin film (10)

Double definition
4 SUSHI
Quietly one pockets 2/3 of bus fare in Japan (5)

SH ("quietly") + I (one) pockets [2/3 of] (b)US
5 FIRE ALARM
Ranch dressing one genuine reason to leave restaurant in a hurry (4,5)

FARM ("ranch") dressing A (one) + REAL ("genuine")
6 NILE
Flower with blue and white roots (4)

Cryptic defintion – the NILE River ("flower", i.e. that which flows) has two major sources, the Blue Nile and the White Nile.
7 ALCATRAZ
Wimbledon champion taking time to become US Grand Slammer? (8)

(Carlos) ALCARAZ (the current men's "Wimbledon champion") taking T

Alcatraz was an infamous prison (or "slammer") on an island in San Francisco (well worth a visit if you're ever in the vicinity)
8 ENSNARED
Close screens, partners are entangled! (8)

END ("close") screens SN (South and North, "partners" in bridge) + ARE
13 CITRONELLA
Crestfallen or tickled about discovering oil? (10)

Hidden backwards [about discovering] in "crestALLEN OR TICkled"
15 ELABORATE
Christian perhaps rising to speak in a flowery manner (9)

<=BALE ("Christian, perhaps, rising) + ORATE ("to speak")
16 SKEWERED
Desk jockeys were inside and treated like pieces of meat (8)

WERE inside *(desk) [anag:jockeys]
17 LIBRETTO
Party animal turns up volume of opera lyrics (8)

LIB (Liberal "party") + <=OTTER ("animal", turns up)
19 RANCID
What Detective Chief Superintendent typically did to get rank (6)

A Detective Chief Superintendent may well have RAN CID (Criminal Investigation Department)
20 SETTER
This could be Eccles High Street (6)

*(street) [anag:high]

Eccles is of course a crossword SETTER
23 A-TEAM
Top performers regularly at the farm (1-4)

[regularly] A(t) T(h)E (f)A(r)M
24 BODE
Herald is bent on being heard (4)

Homophone [on being heard] of BOWED ("bent")

16 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,780 by Hippogryph”

  1. No sign of this being your first IoS, loonapick; you have risen superbly to the challenge 😉. Indeed, you did one better than me as I could not see (hear) BODE for the life of me. DOMAIN NAME, MEANDER, CITRONELLA and SKEWERED my faves today. Funny how short term memory fades – I’m not particularly a tennis fan but I was one of those marvelling at Alcaraz’s achievements last year. And we all noticed the potential for cluing Alcatraz at the time. 9 months is more than enough time for me to have forgotten that so it was only with all the crossers that that one fell. ‘ London’ is a fair but tough def for DIOCESE and I am delighted that a FIRE ALARM has never yet occasioned my over-hasty departure from a restaurant.

    Thanks Hippogryph and loonapick (what an odd world we inhabit, where those last four words are an entirely normal phrase to pen!)

  2. Welcome to the blogger panel Loonapick, a great start and the first of many hopefully! I’m struggling to think of an example of range = bring to bear. And I would have thought 20D was something of an in-joke, unintelligible for anyone starting out on Indie cryptics. That apart very much enjoyed, so thanks Hippogryph and Loonapick.

  3. PS. Just last week I had to exit the cafe in Pearsons department store in Enfield when the fire alarm went off, abandoning half of my meal.

  4. I thought this was great fun. However, I can’t see how “bring to bear” is a definition for 9a, even having looked through the various verbal definitions for RANGE in Collins. Also, despite being a UK football fan , I am utterly mystified by the Bovril reference in 5a.

    Many thanks to H & L.

  6. Tatrasman@2
    Thanks for the welcome, but I’ve been on the blogging panel for many years – I blog a Guardian puzzle three weeks out of five, an Azed once every six weeks and the FT every Thursday. I just haven’t done an IoS blog before today.

  7. Tatrasman and Rabbit Dave – Chambers has range = bring to bear as a transitive verb, although it is the 8th meaning, it also has to arrange, which may be similar.

  8. Nice to see you again, Hippogryph, although I could have done without the reminder of who is poised to become the next leader of the UK government! Some fun clues here, my top two being ALCATRAZ & OVEREXPOSE.

    Thanks to the afore-mentioned setter (not ECCLES!) and to loonapick for the review – hope you enjoyed your turn on the IOS.

  9. Thanks to Loonapick for stepping in with such a clear and accurate blog, and for the extra clarification of RANGE, it is much appreciated.

    Many thanks to the bloggers for the feedback, I’m pleased that you had fun solving it – it was certainly fun putting it together. Tatrasman@2, your comment regarding 20d is entirely valid – a learning point for next time. Also RD@4 I always associate a cup of Bovril and a pie at half-time on a cold day watching a football match but on reflection it may well be a regional thing and more popular in the Midlands?

    Thanks all and hope to be back soon

  11. ALCATRAZ was my Loi – even though that was the only tennis match I watched last year.
    Thanks H&L

  12. Good fun. My preferred fan fare is chunky chips with ketchup, but each to their own. I had to reveal 18a l as I couldn’t make a word from K-I- other than knit. That’s what happens when you live outside the UK and never read political news! PM May was just about to get in to bed with the DUP when I left. Larry the cat for PM.
    Thanks both.

  13. Well – congrats to HG on getting a fine puzzle in the IoS slot – I admit to having had a view of an earlier version of it. I said at the time, I thought “ME AND ‘ER” was one of the best bits of wordplay I’ve seen, even though the clue went through some revisions.

    I wanted to add my piece to the FIRE ALARM topic, especially seeing the way it’s been clued! Never been turfed out of a restaurant, luckily, but I do recall having to make a hasty exit from a supermarket, abandoning our trolley full of stuff. We waited outside for ages but there was no sign of anyone being allowed back in, despite it being a false alarm, so in the end we decamped to another supermarket. We’d salvaged our shopping bags, but I lost the token (instead of a £1 coin) which had to be inserted to release the trolley. If you’re reading this, Mr Waitrose, you owe me a £1-shaped token!

    My first thought on hearing a fire alarm go off used to be “is it one of ours?” You see, for my sins I spent a large part of my working life writing software for large fire alarm systems. But the one that went off in Waitrose wasn’t my doing…

    Thanks to loonapick for the blog

  14. Thanks Hippogryph. Even though I failed in the NW corner I enjoyed this quite a bit with FIRE ALARM, ALCATRAZ, ELABORATE, SKEWERED, LIBRETTO, and RANCID being my favourites. In CITRONELLA, I don’t think I’ve seen ‘discovered’ as a hidden indicator before — I’ll have to remember that — and I had no hope of parsing MEANDER. Thanks loonapick for explaining things.

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