Independent 10,092 by Knut Sat 16-Feb 2019

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I have been waiting for another Knut to appear on by blogging rota for far too long.

This one does not disappoint.  Entertaining and with all Knut’s trademark wit and topicality in full view.
I find Knut puzzles are very accessible, especially to get started, but that’s not to say they are a walkover.

Solving kicked off with the absurd anagram (and ridiculous definition) at 11A, and before long most of the grid was filled in.  After trying all the clues there were still around ten to get.  Some of those look innocuous in hindsight (e.g. Hinge, Subvert), and I am slightly embarrassed that 25a CYCLOPS took so long to get – absolutely outrageous (if accurate) homophone

For the final answer, GNOCCHI, I needed all the crossing letters – the second C from Cyclops meant it couldn’t be anything else – tricky wordplay and a definition I could quibble with.

I have doubts about a few bits of wordplay, for instance 10d and 20d 

Across
1 GET-OUT CLAUSE Tom’s aggressive strategy, reportedly an escape mechanism (3-3,6)
Homophone “clause” for “claws” which you may find on a tom (cat).  I first wrote in LET-OUT CLAUSE thinking of passively being let-out, rather than independently getting out oneself – that would be a more cat-like aggressive action.  The L stopped me getting 1d for a good long while
8 MADEIRA Backing a Rhode Island cheese cake producer (7)
A RI EDAM all reversed.  As you may guess I prefer Madeira in the liquid, rather than the cake, form
9 MUTABLE Manchester United leading the league? It might change! (7)
M[anchester] U[nited] TABLE (league)
11 IVANKA TRUMP Mischievous Mr V. Putin – aka “The Real Power in the White House?” (6,5)
(MR V. PUTIN – AKA)* AInd: Mischievous. I found this a pretty clear anagram. First one in
12 RIA Rotating air inlet (3)
AIR< rotating.  One from the geography O-level there
13 HINGE Complain wife’s leaving door open because of this? (5)
[w]HINGE
14 RUSTY NAIL Strong cocktail; one’s likely to get hammered! (5,4)
Hammered to knock it out of a piece of wood – or my hand – I don’t want to get drunk (hammered) on that, it would give me a fearsome hangover.   Not my tipple [Wiki]
16 MASS MEDIA New England states review funding for TV, radio, press (4,5)
MASS ME (Massachusetts and Maine – New England states)  , then AID< (funding, review[ed])
19 GATED Barred from leaving Georgia, Mr Cruz (5)
GA. (Georgia) TED [Cruz]
21 LOB Shot of Murray in National Observer (3)
Hidden in NationaL OBserver.  That Andy “re-hipped” Murray.  just because he’s now 6% titanium doesn’t mean he can’t play tennis to a high standard.  Bionic Andy might surprise us all, he’s got the determination.
22 DRAFT DODGER Doctor: “Forget dad running – he might claim to have bone spurs” (5,6)
DR (doctor) (FORGET DAD)* AInd: running. There might be a bit of a theme    Vanity Fair article 
24 STEROID Wicked Tories finally stopped growth medication (7)
(TORIES [stoppe]D) AInd: wicked.
25 CYCLOPS Sigh … Klopp’s sounding like an X-Men superhero! (7)
“Sigh Klopps” Homophone.  Not the setter of the Private Eye crossword [Wiki]
26 STUFFED SHIRT Pompous individual, head of state, US (retd) – Fifth Amendment (7,5)
S[tate] (US RETD FIFTH)* AInd: amendment
Down
1 GODDAMN Mattis getting upset over new expletive (7)
Jim “MAD DOG” Mattis [Wiki]  all reversed (upset) then  N[ew]
Struggled with this because of a rogue starting L.  Not many expletives start with an L
2 TRICKLE Patrick Leahy’s entertaining dribble (7)
Beautiful Hidden in PaTRICK LEahy’s
3 UNALTERED “New Renault”? Journalist: “Nothing’s been changed!” (9)
(RENAULT ED)* AInd: New
4 CYMRU Leaders of Caerphilly young men’s rugby union in Wales (5)
1st letters of Caerphilly Young Men’s Rugby Union
5 AUTOPSY Postmortem of K-pop star crushed by car (7)
AUTO PSY (The K-pop star who sang “Gangnam style”  [Wiki])
6 SIBERIA Small European airline chosen by Putin for no-frills travel? (7)
S[mall] IBERIA (European airline).  No frills but plenty of chills I fear
7 OMNISHAMBLES His Moslem ban turned out to be a policy disaster (12)
(HIS MOSLEM BAN)* AInd: turned out.  When Armando Iannucci coined this word for “The Thick of It“, and then it became word of the year 2012, who would have thought the shambles could get so much, so very much, more …
10 E-MAIL ADDRESS Vital ingredient of the Spam supply chain? (1-4,7)
WORDPLAY?  I do not know how to describe this.  I suppose it is a Cryptic Definition with a play on “Spam” as a foodstuff and Junk Email.  I solved it readily enough from both the clue and the perhaps more the letter count.
15 SPARTACUS Cool dude raps about American slave (9)
CAT (cool dude) and RAPS,  all reversed, then US (American)
17 SUBVERT Sabotage U-boat, making Trevor capsize (7)
SUB (U boat) TREV[or]<
18 MADE OFF Having escaped, angry enemy turned on France (4,3)
MAD (angry) FOE< (enemy, turned) F[rance]
19 GNOCCHI Jesus! Tory Government must be overthrown for starters! (7)
IHC (Jesus, a Christogram [Wiki]) CON G[overnment] all reversed (overthrown);
Alternatively CHI for Jesus, after CON G reversed, but that required starters to do double duty.
As far as I’m concerned gnocchi is not just for starters – in fact I had them as my main course yesterday.   I love ’em.  Despite that this was my last one in
20 TUGBOAT One pulling famous old Queen? (7)
Another where I don’t really understand the wordplay.  Is this referring to the tugs that pull liners like Queen Mary and QE2 etc. ?
23 ADDLE Go off equestrian supplier when he gets undressed (5)
[s]ADDLE[r]  A saddler is an equestrian supplier

 

12 comments on “Independent 10,092 by Knut Sat 16-Feb 2019”

  1. The usual great treat of a crossword from Knut.  Topical and brilliant at the same time

    Thanks to him and beermagnet

  2. I couldn’t put it better than crypticsue did. [11ac was, indeed, pretty clear and my first one in, too – but what a gem.]

  3. 20D I think refers to the novel The African Queen by CS Forester which features a steamboat as the central character

  4. I was going to call this a laugh a minute, but actually I think there were more laughs than minutes.

    Wonderful stuff.

    Thanks Knut for the fun and to beermagnet, especially for explaining ICH.  And to Graham @3 too for explaining 20d, which foxed me too.

  5. I had no idea about ‘Mattis’, the ‘bone spurs’ bit or the etymology of OMNISHAMBLES so, despite 11a, the theme passed me by. I also had trouble with a few non-thematic references such as the ‘K-pop star’ and IHC for Jesus – I’m more familiar with ‘IHS’.

    I agree about GNOCCHI not just being ‘starters’ and I too wondered about the ‘old Queen’ for TUGBOAT as referring to ‘the African Queen’, although I don’t remember this as specifically being a tugboat.

    I’m more than ‘slightly embarrassed’. I must have spent about 10 minutes on CYCLOPS as my last in.

    A challenge, but an enjoyable one.

    Thanks to Knut and beermagnet

  8. I don’t think that TUGBOAT needs any connection with ‘The African Queen’, the Queen liners are enough.  Great to see OMNISHAMBLES, even though it’s not my Chambers – invented by the splendid spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker of ‘The Thick of It’?

  10. As we said of yesterday’s Phi, we had quite a bit of headscratching over this but got there in the end without assistance apart from checking a few tentative answers in Chambers (and finding we were right).  Rather surprised after the dicussion of ‘caws’ and ’cause’ on Thursday that no-one’s complained about ‘claws’ and ‘clause’ today; not that we think there’s any problem.

    No real favourite, but we liked the four perimeter long answers.

    Thanks, Knut and beermagnet.

  11. Guessed that it was Knut today from the topical clues. Good fun and a few smiles.

    Enjoyable way to end the day – Thanks to Knut and beermagnet.

  12. Still haven’t quite got used to doing the Indie crossword on the phone – I did everything up to OMNISHAMBLES but then managed to lose the crossword, and couldn’t face retyping the rest. As usual this was inventive and entertaining.

    Thanks to Knut and beermagnet

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