I haven’t had the pleasure of blogging a Hoskins puzzle for a while. Thank you Hoskins.
One of the things I like about Hoskins puzzles is that he doesn’t seem to worry too much about some of the more esoteric “cryptic grammar rules”. I get the impression he just writes what looks fun at the time. It feels a relief to get to solve and blog one of these from time to time.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | AGENDA | List of business information a lawyer withholds (6) |
| GEN (information) inside (…withholds) A DA (lawyer) | ||
| 4 | ADVISING | A V-sign I flicked to get round bit of drug counselling (8) |
| anagram (flicked) of A V-SIGN I containing (to get round) Drug (first letter, a bit of) | ||
| 10 | TROLL | Cost of crossing bridges? Going over river, and this! (5) |
| TOLL (cost of crossing bridges) contains (going over) R (river) – in Norse mythology bridges are guarded by Trolls who expect payment | ||
| 11 | ESSENTIAL | Vital European killers finally dispatched one gangster (9) |
| E (European) killerS (last letter, finally) SENT (dispatched) I (one) AL (Al Capone, gangster) | ||
| 12 | BOISTEROUS | Terrible issue with robot being thus? (10) |
| anagram (terrible) of ISSUE with ROBOT | ||
| 13 | SHOE | Pieces of silicon hooped over end of bicycle pump? (4) |
| first letters (pieces) of Silicon Hopped Over then bicyclE (end letter of) | ||
| 15 | SPINACH | Vegetable drinks knocked back by a companion (7) |
| NIPS (drinks) reversed (knocked back) by A CH (companion of honour) | ||
| 16 | BLIGHTY | Ugly urban district close to Burnley, England (7) |
| BLIGHT (ugly urban district) then burnleY (closing letter of) | ||
| 18 | SUMATRA | Problem with a craft going around island (7) |
| SUM (problem) with A then ART (craft) reversed (going round) | ||
| 20 | CAPITAL | Wealth is wonderful (7) |
| double definition | ||
| 22 | ALAS | It’s a shame a girl will have bottom pinched (4) |
| A LASs (girl) missing last letter (having bottom pinched) | ||
| 24 | APOTHECARY | Old drug dealer a hearty cop busted (10) |
| anagram (busted) of A HEARTY COP | ||
| 26 | DISCOURSE | Verbal communication one’s used in Dutch classes? (9) |
| I’S (one’s) inside (used in) D (Dutch) COURSE (classes) | ||
| 27 | SHAKA | Famous Zulu war chant that soldier’s leader starts (5) |
| HAKA (war chant) follows (that…starts) Soldier (first letter, leader) – Shaka Zulu (1787-1828), influential Zulu monarch | ||
| 28 | POT PLANT | Might one be seen in marijuana factory? (3,5) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| 29 | ADHERE | Hold second of parties with daughter in attendance (6) |
| pArties (second letter of) with D (daughter) and HERE (in attendance) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ANTIBES | Social worker and I live on drop of sherry and port (7) |
| ANT (social worker, a worker ant) and I BE (live) on Sherry (first letter, drop of) | ||
| 2 | EROTICISM | I come and stir up stuff to get you going! (9) |
| anagram (up) of I COME and STIR | ||
| 3 | DILETTANTE | It messes about with talented amateur (10) |
| anagram (messes about) of IT with TALENTED | ||
| 5 | DISTURB | Insult curt swine brought up creates upset (7) |
| DIS (insult) then BTUTe (swine, curt=short) reversed (brought up) | ||
| 6 | INNS | Boozers at home with son around noon (4) |
| IN (at home) with S (son) containing (around) N (noon) | ||
| 7 | IRISH | Language teacher welcomed by greeting from Oz? (5) |
| SIR (teacher) inside (welcomed by) HI (greeting) all reversed (from Oz, travelling upwards, as on a map) | ||
| 8 | GALLERY | Royal to visit ship museum (7) |
| R (royal) inside (to visit) GALLEY (ship) | ||
| 9 | DEARTH | Want curtains with bit of red lining? (6) |
| DEATH (curtains) containing (with…lining) Red (first letter, a bit of) | ||
| 14 | DISPLEASED | Ape did less monkeying around, being thus (10) |
| anagram (monkeying around) of APE DID LESS | ||
| 17 | HIT PARADE | Charts pirate had at sea (3,6) |
| anagram (at sea) of PIRATE HAD | ||
| 18 | STAND UP | Rise and wash (5,2) |
| double definition – it won’t wash/stand up both meaning it won’t work | ||
| 19 | ASPIRIN | Hopeful to kick ultimately habit-forming drug (7) |
| ASPIRINg (hopeful) missing (to kick) habit-forminG (last letter, ultimately) | ||
| 20 | CUTTER | Ship‘s surgeon? (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 21 | LAY BARE | Expose naked posterior of noblewoman, not duke (3,4) |
| BARE (naked) following (posterior of) LAdY (noblewoman) missing D (duke) | ||
| 23 | ASSET | A group covering bit of Something and Help! (5) |
| A SET (group) contains (covering) Something (first letter, a bit of) | ||
| 25 | GOAL | Target flipping criminal, put head of OPEC inside! (4) |
| LAG (criminal) reversed) flipping) contains (putting…inside) Opec (first letter, head of) | ||
Entertaining stuff, just right for a Sunday. SHOE was my LOI. Is there a name for clues where the answer is simply “thus”?
19D, I assumed that “to kick ultimately” meant the “g” was dropped from aspiring and that the definition was “habit-forming drug”, but I suspect your parsing is right.
21D An interloping “daughter” has displaced “duke”.
Thanks to Hoskins and PeeDee.
A quick but enjoyable solve for me. Had to think a little to see the meaning of “wash” in 18d. Held up a little by trying to parse “Banbury” for 16a. Saw the anagram (ugly) of “urban” in BY but it just wouldn’t work for obvious reasons.
Thanks to Hoskins and PeeDee.
This was great fun. It’s good to find a setter who understands that the best crosswords are those that entertain the solver, and this one certainly did that.
I didn’t know without checking that one of the specific meanings of BLIGHT in 16a is “ugly urban district” and I found 7d (IRISH) quite tricky to parse.
Many thanks to Hoskins and to PeeDee.
Thank you gwep, the duke has been restored to his rightful position.
I think you are doing Hoskins a grand disservice here, PeeDee. He manages to make it look like fun at the time but has the skill to do this while using correct cryptic grammar – esoteric or otherwise. While Eimi / The Indy is more relaxed than others in some respects (the grids, living people, subject matter etc), cryptic grammar is always very tight. I would be interested to know (without going all Hedgehoggy about it) which clues aren’t grammatically spot on – you maybe just mean his clues sound very natural?
Oh Eccles. What have you done summoning the H thing? Actually really enjoyed this. Puzzles should be entertaining.
Hi Eccles, thanks for the feedback. My intro might have come across the wrong way, I certainly don’t want to do Hoskins a disservice. I just mean that I enjoy solving his puzzles and when writing the blog I feel don’t have to worry about what is and what isn’t “allowed”.
An example of the sort of thing that prompted the comment is 9dn R as an abbreviation for Royal. It isn’t in Chambers and it isn’t normally used outside of a larger abbreviation. Some solvers hotly object to this, and for some setters questions like this are a serious issue. Do I care either way? Not really. If Hoskins and Eimi say it is OK in their puzzles then it is OK for me too.
Possibly the No R for Royal rule doesn’t count as cryptic grammar but falls under some other cryptic rule category. Either way, if this were an Azed or a Listener then I think it would be a matter for debate, but here it isn’t. I guess that’s is what I’m trying to say in the introduction: for me Hoskins blogs feel like a fun time, not treading the usual cryptic minefield of “the rules”.
All good fun, as always with Harry, but I did wonder why being boisterous would be an issue for a robot and why being displeased would make an ape monkey around less. Mere minor quibbles, but is that what you meant by not worrying too much about the rules, Peedee? Here the wordplay is impeccable, so no problem with the cryptic grammar, it’s just the definition is, perhaps, a bit loose. But I wouldn’t ask for the clues to be changed. I liked TROLL, POT PLANT and LAY BARE in particular.
Thanks for the reply – and thanks for the blog, too, they are all greatly appreciated (it felt a bit odd thanking the setter for a puzzle I hadn’t actually solved).
R=royal isn’t Chambers, but it is in Collins. Bertandjoyce have made the fair point before that it is perhaps expecting a bit much of solvers to have all the dictionaries and this is perhaps another case where the Indy gives more freedom to setters, as the other papers tend to have a specified dictionary – and some have a limited list of allowed abbreviations taken from that. Collins is free online, which may make things easier. There do have to be some rules in place of course, out of fairness to the solver, which is all it is about, really. Apart from trying to make it fun!
PeeDee @ 7
I think your comment “R as an abbreviation for Royal. It isn’t in Chambers and it isn’t normally used outside of a larger abbreviation.” highlights an inconsistency in dictionaries. S = Society *is* in Chambers, but again is seldom, if ever, seen as a standalone. In the same vein, B = Britain/British is supported, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on its own in the wild.
I think we have to accept, however reluctantly, that there are certain ‘unsupported’ or unusual abbreviations that have established tenure in crosswordland, and are thereby fair game for setters.
johninterred @8 – yes, that’s another example of the sort of thing I meant. It would have been better for me to have written “cryptic rules” rather than “cryptic grammar”. I enjoyed meeting both the displeased ape and the boisterous robot. Whether their clues were “fair” or not I will leave to those who care about such things and have a set of rules to judge them against.
Hi Simon @7 – when I’m blogging I try to take the setter’s position on what counts as fair game. I’m not really arguing for or against the R abbreviation, just citing it as a concrete example of something that people do argue about.
My personal view is that abbreviations, grammar and the “correctness” of language in general is arbitrary and different all over the world. One set of rules is as good as another as far as I am concerned. The setter sets out their stall and I try to play the game by their rules (apologies for the mixed metaphors here).
PeeDee@7. I think you meant 8d… whatevs. BTW at the Times Championship jamboree last weekend we were entertained by a sort of panel discussion with David Parfitt, John Grimshaw and Richard Rogan (the crossword editor). One of the points of discussion was That The Times has rather stricter rules on what is allowed in a crossword than most publications and they have a list of approved single letter abbreviations that setters need to adhere to. I don’t know if R for ‘Royal’ is one of those allowed. Incidentally, it didn’t matter a jot for me today as the clue worked fine for me. P.S. In the remote possibility that anyone reading here is interested, you can see my blog post of the event here… https://reinterred.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-times-national-crossword.html.
I neglected to say it was good to meet up with Eccles again last Saturday! Nice Christmas jumper mate.
Late in today but have to say that ‘R’ for royal didn’t trouble me unduly although I was surprised to see Hoskins use ‘being thus’ in two almost adjacent clues.
POT PLANT was my favourite but I also smiled at STAND UP – we had plenty of ‘stand up’ washes during my days at camp with the Girl Guides, small plastic bowls of water balanced precariously on tripods of lashed together twigs beneath a piece of flapping tarpaulin!
Thanks to Hoskins for the fun and to PeeDee for the review.
Thanks to PeeDee and Hoskins
What I like and admire most about Hoskins, and setters like him, is his ability to make it seem as if they are playing fast and loose with grammar, (I see no difference between “grammar” and “cryptic grammar”), whilst doing no such thing. It is a skill worth cherishing.
Which abbreviations are deemed acceptable can only ever be an editor’s choice, but I personally favour including anything that is listed in Chambers or Collins.
One thing I did notice in this puzzle was the use of “bit, drop, piece of” a few times. Not in the least unfair because we all know what it means, but quite unusual for Hoskins to use a similar device that often.
Very good fun puzzle, my favourite was the simple (in retrospect) 18d.
johninterred – thanks for posting that blog, looks like you had a good day and well done for getting through the first round. I loved the BIRD BATH clue. Would Eimi have published that? I hope so!
Dansar – good point about stressing seems in my intro. When I wrote the intro I hadn’t quite realised the importance of that. The impression of not caring about rules matters too.
Nice to see Hoskins again on a Sunday. My favourites were ASPIRIN, HIT PARADE and APOTHECARY and of course I appreciate 26a.
I will echo Eccles in saying that Hoskins is a master of cryptic grammar, and I have learnt a lot from him. My understanding is that the Independent uses Collins as its reference dictionary
I agree with what Eccles says. Hoskins always writes clues which say exactly what they mean. What a contrast to the last puzzle I commented on (Peedee knows which one).
As an example, I didn’t parse 13a, SHOE properly in fact. I took it as the first letters of the words silicon, hooped, over and end with ‘bicycle pump’ as the definition, which (of course) I didn’t understand. Looking back, that would have meant Hoskins had written a clue in the form [wordplay] of [definition], which I know he would never do, so I should have known I had parsed it wrong. If I had thought carefully I would have realised how the clue works and remembered that a pump is a type of shoe. (Of course Hoskins scrupulously appends a QM to show he is defining by example.)
I don’t think POT PLANT (28a) is simply a cryptic definition, btw, though I’m not sure how you would class it. The point is that a plant is a factory, so a marijuana factory might be seen as a POT PLANT and at the same time you might see a POT PLANT in one.
DEARTH was my favourite clue. Great pdm when I realised what ‘curtains’ meant.
Tony – interesting that you should mention that other crossword: I wrote the blogs for these two back-to-back on the same evening. I found blogging the first puzzle a bit of a chore but found blogging this one fun. This was precisely what motivated my writing the introduction. The process for writing any blog is usually the same:
1) explain the clue, wonder if someone will moan about XXX not conforming to some rule or other, sigh inwardly and move on…
2) explain the next clue, wonder if someone will moan about YYY, sigh and move on…
3) explain the next clue, wonder if someone will moan about ZZZ, sigh and move on…
As there are people out there who have contradictory ideas on what the rules of the game should be it can all get a bit dispiriting at times. What did it for me was that Hoskins doesn’t seem to care about whether rule xxx was obeyed, I get the impression that it is all just written for fun. So that lets me feel “I don’t care if anyone complains, it’s just for fun anyway!”. I end up writing the blog and smiling. Thank you Hoskins!
And as it turns out in this case those for whom the rules (grammatical and otherwise) are of paramount importance got to smile too. A win-win situation if ever there was one!
Peedee, thanks for the reply. I found it extremely ironic to see what you had written at the head of this puzzle, in the light of a) the free pass given the other one and b) the fact that Hoskins always takes the greatest care to ensure the integrity of his clues. A master in any field tends to make what he does look easy, but anyone who tries to set clues will soon find that it is not in fact easy at all to clue like Hoskins, with amusing surfaces and faultless grammar. Hoskins sets for many publications under various names including his legal name, David McLean and anonymously for the Times. I am sure the quality of his clue-writing is outstanding in all cases and meets the editorial requirements of whatever publication he is setting for, so the clue using ‘royal’ for R would probably not appear in a puzzle he produced for the Times, assuming it’s not on their ‘approved abbreviations’ list.
Regarding dictionaries, I do know that for the Sunday Times crossword, edited by Peter Biddlecombe, for which Hoskins sets as David McLean, the rule is that a word must either be in Collins or in both of Chambers and the ODE (not the OED). PB holds that Chambers is only really suitable as a reference work for barred puzzles, which need a wider vocabulary because of the higher rate of crossing. I’m not sure whether the Independent has a fixed reference work or not, but I’m pretty sure that something that’s in Collins is acceptable whether or not that’s a requirement.
Btw, after writing the remark about the clue for POT PLANT, I realised it’s a full &lit. I think it could have been written more straightforwardly as simply “It is seen in marijuana factory”, where it’s &lit nature is more obvious, but no doubt Hoskins had some subtle reason I don’t appreciate for cluing it as he did.
Oops! My English grammar slipped there. I meant, of course, ‘its &lit nature’ in the last sentence. (Barker’s Proof).
I liked the Hoskins puzzle, I think he writes good clues that are grammatically correct and I particularly enjoyed writing the blog. My intro is about how easy he makes it for me to write the blog. What the **** do I have to say to convince people that I’m not trying to criticise him?
I did find the clues in the Qaos puzzle a bit dull but I don’t like to criticise any setter in public just for that. It is my business when writing the blog to explain the clues not to judge them. If Qaos doesn’t want to follow the same rules as Hoskins then that is his business and it is not up to me to give him a free ride, a hard ride or any other sort of ride.
Peedee, I’m sorry as I have obviously upset you. I certainly wasn’t complaining about your blogging. It just seemed odd that you made a remark about this puzzle which seemed as though it might have been more appropriate to the other one. For the record, I didn’t find that one particularly dull, despite having a number of criticisms to make about the clues. I did feel a bit bad about publicly laying into the setter (whose name I deliberately avoided mentioning here) like that. I would have preferred to have made those remarks to him privately, say after a test solve. Still, I think they were worth saying and I hope that he read them and took on board what I was saying.
I think you upset Julie in Australia too.
PS, good on you for saying sorry. I’ve clearly got a bit overheated along the way too. However well meaning it was meant my intro was clearly a bit if am ill-judged f***-up.
Oops, didn’t mean to start ructions, sorry. Especially when we all agree!
I will just add,though, that as someone who taught myself to set before I could solve, (and I still am a weak solver) I find the clues that aren’t grammatically correct much more difficult than those that are, because I am trying to interpret the instructions in a way that makes sense to me. It is probably just what you are used to – certainly it didn’t seem to make the other puzzle any less solvable for most. One thing to show we shouldn’t be too bound by rules: there is probably a slight technical error in one of the greatest clues of all time: Bust down reason? (9), (try substituting it in a sentence) but wouldn’t it be a shame if that hadn’t been written?
Well – we came here to have a quick check after starting the puzzle this evening and reading all the comments took longer than the solve!
Great crossword – so much to enjoy.
Bert would like to take issue with Eccles though – Mad passionate lovers (7) is better. We had to google the other one as we couldn’t solve it but it did produce a groan, so thanks Eccles. The reason why it isn’t the best is that it lacks a good surface. You (Eccles) and Hoskins are good setters because your clues read well!
Anyway it’s late and also a day after it was published so it just remains for us to say thanks to S&B.
Just read the article in the i today about John Henderson – he also quotes the same clue – mad passionate lovers!
[@Eccles, no need for you to feel bad. It’s me that dialled the heat up. Btw, I was surprised to learn, talking to you at the George the other day, that you hardly ever solve puzzles and now I’m astounded to learn you were not a regular solver when you took up setting. Did you have a friend/lover/relation you wanted to please with cryptic crossword offerings, or what? Tony
PS After a struggle, I remembered the answer to “Bust down reason”, but still couldn’t remember why it was the answer, so had to Google it anyway. What a hoot!]