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Hi all. Hoskins is being Hoskins again; the self-description in 21d applies. I had to put my thinking cat (sic) on in the SW, but it yielded to application. All good fun as usual with the expected LATE-NIGHT DING-DONGS. Bouncers may EJECT this BAWDY FATHEAD for acting like a DANGEROUS YAHOO, but he’s a crossword WHIZZ so hopefully it will be a long time before he RETIRES. Thanks Hoskins!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, quoted indicators are in italics, specified [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 | No good getting into silly sodding rows (4-5) |
| DING-DONGS — NG (no good) getting into an anagram of (silly) SODDING | |
| 6a | Drug plane smuggling coke? Do this to get out of it! (5) |
| EJECT — E (drug) + JET (plane) containing (smuggling) C (coke) | |
| 9a | Dead soon … heading for tomb for 11 pm? (4-5) |
| LATE-NIGHT — LATE (dead) + NIGH (soon) + the first letter of (heading for) Tomb | |
| 10a | French banker fit to be tried in hearing (5) |
| SEINE — Sounds like (… in hearing) SANE (fit to be tried – in court) | |
| 11a | Beer imbibed by gut-chucking violent man (5) |
| VALET — ALE (beer) taken in by (imbibed by), ejecting the middle letters (gut-chucking), ViolenT | |
| 12a | I harshly censure a corrupt capital city (9) |
| ISLAMABAD — I + SLAM (harshly censure) + A + BAD (corrupt) | |
| 13a | One poaching beef in recipe with awful result (7) |
| RUSTLER — R (recipe) with an anagram of (awful) RESULT | |
| 15a | Engineer bore, with bit of sass, gets into bed? (7) |
| RETIRES — RE (engineer) + TIRE (bore) + a bit of Sass | |
| 18a | Cheats on holiday after ‘split’ with soprano (4,3) |
| RIPS OFF — OFF (on holiday) after RIP (split) and S (soprano) | |
| 20a | Masculine desire repelled Manchester United player (7) |
| MITCHUM — M (masculine) + ITCH (desire) + reversed (repelled) MU (Manchester United). I think that the intended player is the actor Robert Mitchum | |
| 21a | Prison guard’s twitch? (9) |
| BIRDWATCH — BIRD (prison) + WATCH (guard) | |
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| 23a | Old Mogul emperor seen in bleak barrio (5) |
| AKBAR — The answer is seen in bleAK BARrio | |
| 25a | Speed is ace (5) |
| WHIZZ — Two definitions | |
| 26a | Former inspector reported Treasury department (9) |
| EXCHEQUER — EX- (former) CHECKER (inspector), homophone (reported) | |
| 27a | I’m a boorish lout and I’m very happy about it! (5) |
| YAHOO — Two definitions | |
| 28a | Adore snug pants? That’s fraught with peril! (9) |
| DANGEROUS — An anagram (pants) of ADORE SNUG | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Returning soldiers spoken about abusively? Jesus! (9) |
| DELIVERER — RE (soldiers) and REVILED (spoken about abusively) all reversed (returning …) | |
| 2d | Port and smack served up by a head of languages (5) |
| NATAL — TAN (smack) written upwards in the grid (served up) by A plus the first letter of (head of) Languages | |
| 3d | Academic with a say over old artist (9) |
| DONATELLO — DON (academic) + A + TELL (say) + O (old). Over at Times for The Times there is the lovely term Ninja Turtling; I quote from their glossary: divining the existence of something highbrow or classical from something distinctly not, as in: “Of course I’ve heard of Donatello. He’s the one with the purple mask..” | |
| 4d | Check up about a vacuous gasbag being more annoying (7) |
| NAGGIER — REIN (check) reversed (up) around (about) A and GasbagG without inner letters (vacuous …) | |
| 5d | Pioneer? Hoskins is one, foremost of liars admitted! (7) |
| SETTLER — SETTER (Hoskins is one), with the foremost of Liars inserted (admitted) | |
| 6d | Move aimlessly around about small English town (5) |
| EPSOM — MOPE (move aimlessly) reversed (around) surrounding (about) S (small) | |
| 7d | Editor gets hot hotel food brought up in capital (9) |
| EDINBURGH — ED (editor) + IN (hot), then in reverse (… brought up) H (hotel) and GRUB (food) | |
| 8d | Scottish runner first to try marijuana (5) |
| TWEED — The initial letter of (first to) Try + WEED (marijuana) | |
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| 14d | Extremely lofty senior officer’s a bit off (9) |
| SUPERHIGH — SUPER (senior officer) + HIGH (a bit off) | |
| 16d | Conversation doubly offensive about each EU leader (4-1-4) |
| TÊTE-À-TÊTE — TET TET (doubly offensive) around (about) EA (each) followed by the first letter (leader) of Eu | |
| 17d | Drunk or sober, male wears satisfactory hats (9) |
| SOMBREROS — Anagram of (drunk) OR SOBER, which M (male) is inside (wears) + S (satisfactory) | |
| 19d | Old man ignoring final bill? Idiot! (7) |
| FATHEAD — FATHEr (old man) without the last letter (ignoring final) + AD (bill) | |
| 20d | Flash bum around heads of HSBC in High Barnet (7) |
| MOHICAN — MO (flash) and CAN (bum) around the first letters of (heads of) Hsbc and In | |
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| 21d | Wife-stealing villain that’s heartless as Hoskins? (5) |
| BAWDY — BAdDY (villain) that’s without its middle (heartless) inserting W (wife-stealing …) | |
| 22d | Bum in US court necking a drop of Zinfandel (5) |
| WAZOO — WOO (court) taking in (necking) A and the first bit of (drop of) Zinfandel | |
| 24d | A Parisian probing globe going around Mars? (5) |
| BRUNO — UN (a, Parisian) going into (probing) the reversal of (… going around) ORB (globe). Singer-songwriter Bruno Mars | |
Hoskins on particularly sparkling form today. Not just the bawdiness – every clue beautifully constructed. A joy to solve. I’d agree with Kitty that the SW was toughest with WAZOO and SUPERHIGH being nho and with BIRDWATCH being cunningly disguised. No particular favourites to single out; this is one of those occasions where everything played its part and I’d need to nominate virtually everything.
Thanks Hoskins and Kitty
I found this hard going but I preservered and got there in the end (albeit nho MITCHUM). Favourites were MOHICAN and BIRDWATCH.
I too found the SW corner the hardest, and although I normally have a eye out for it I only twigged that this puzzle was likely to be – and indeed is – a pangram once I’d got WAZOO, by which time it was too late to be of use!
Thanks both
Thinking cat! 🙂 liked it.
A playful meow to the BAWDY one?
A Kitty blog is as good as a Kitty blog. Lovely pics as usual. Thanks.
Thanks Hoskins for the fun puzzle.
Loved LATE-NIGHT, EDINBURGH, SOMBREROS and WAZOO (I was searching for the origin of this word but couldn’t find it). I am used to Mughal rather than Mogul (I’ve come across ‘media moguls’…). However, Chambers says under ‘Mogul’, (also Mughal).
I found this great fun. I thought 20d was going to involve moon, but it didn’t. Thanks for the proper parsing Kitty. The SW was my last corner to solve and it all arrived in a bit of a WHIZZ! From DING DONGS to SUPERHIGH in less than a mug of coffee. Thanks Hoskins and Kitty. Love the blog summary and the watching birds:-)
Thanks both. I liked BRUNO and MITCHUM, and made very quick progress before encountering a few issues, starting with RIPS OFF, as I’d entered ‘runs off’ where the ‘split’ might have been an instruction to run and the cheats element being in the sense of running off with an illicit partner….ah well. MOHICAN seemed obvious but I wasted some time trying to use ‘moon’ for ‘bum flash’ as ‘can’ did not readily suggest itself as the synonym and there is no US indicator in the clue. SEINE also straightforward if we accept the homophone as English people may pronounce it, but not the French. I’m unfamiliar with how in SUPERHIGH ‘high’ relates to ‘a bit off’ (smelly perhaps?) and that’s before I factor in that my two dictionaries do not acknowledge that the word exists.
“SUPERENJOYABLE” even though I entered SUPERRICH (taking “a bit off” to sort of mean “well off”) instead of SUPERHIGH which I’ve never heard of (nor has Chambers except as part of a technical description of frequency).
We had two American bums, but at least the answer to 22d indicated that fact although the wordplay for 20d didn’t.
Thanks to Hoskins and thanks too to Kitty for a great blog to accompany a great puzzle.
Harry on top form today although I did worry that he might have made up SUPERHIGH to suit his purposes! A check in Chambers assures me that it has a use in relation to ‘frequency’ so I guess it’s fair game for the bawdy one. Favourite today is BIRDWATCH particularly in light of Kitty’s laugh-out-loud illustration.
Thanks to Hoskins and to Miss Kitty for her usual high standard of review.
Thanks Hoskins for the entertainment. This was a DNF for me as I got stuck in the SW corner. I made the same mistake as TFO @5 and had ‘runs off’ instead of RIPS OFF. That made getting SUPERHIGH impossible; I also missed BIRDWATCH, not knowing it as ‘twitch’ nor seeing ‘bird’ as ‘prison.’ In any event the rest was fun with EJECT, RUSTLER, DONATELLO, FATHEAD, and BRUNO being favourites. Thanks Kitty for the blog.
A reasonably fast and fun solve but I need someone to tell me why bum is can.
It’s a pangram.
TFO @5 – sorry for not replying sooner. The sense we need is the 39th definition of high, adj in Chambers:
39. (of meat, etc) slightly tainted or decomposed, or, in the case of game, ready to cook
Collins requires less scrolling – it’s in at 12:
12. (of meat) slightly decomposed or tainted, regarded as enhancing the flavour of game
Ericw @9 – Can is North American slang for the buttocks, although as TFO and Rabbit Dave note above the American provenance isn’t indicated.
Well done to the pangram spotters AP and LInda. I think I wondered at some point because of the Zs and the J but never got round to checking.
Thanks Hoskins and Kitty. From above and my own experience the SW corner was tough. Birdwatch was very very good – lots of other plusses but that one stood out