Independent 10380 by Tees

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Some very smooth surface readings from Tees today.

This was much more restrained in term of pop culture references and was very pleasurable to solve.  Not much to criticise – maybe the long CD was a bit of a giveaway for some people but there was also some nice misdirection in clues like 11 and 27.

Across
9 ESTABLISH Found to be less habit forming? (9)
  (Less habit)*
10 LIEGE True subject and falsehood associated with good English (5)
  Lie + g{ood} E{nglish}
11 ORGANZA Sheer fabrication in South African newspaper? (7)
  Organ, ZA might represent a South African newspaper.  Organza is a sheer fabric made of materials such as nylon or silk.
12 FANATIC Force clown to entertain American zealot (7)
  F{orce} + antic around A{merican}
13 AJAX Koeman’s certainly in an unknown Dutch team (4)
  Ja (Dutch for yes, as Ronald Koeman is a Dutch football coach) in a X.  Ref to Ajax Amsterdam.
14 HORIZONTAL Prone to disturb zho on trail (10)
  (Zho on trail)*
15 SETTERS Sun perhaps initially seductive for compilers (7)
  Setter (the Sun sets) + s[eductive]
17 BOROUGH Town lad endlessly lacking in refinement (7)
  Bo[y] + rough
19 I GET AROUND Tees buys the beers for a song (1,3,6)
  DD
22 USER Employer in old city around southeast (4)
  SE in Ur
23 NEREIDS Bathing beauties tangled in reeds (7)
  (In reeds)* – a type of water nymph
24 RISSOLE Food only provided after danger reduced (7)
  Sole after ris[k]
26 SINGE Moers in Germany accommodates char (5)
  Hidden in Moers in Germany
27 SUPERGLUE Bond agent smashing luge in crash (9)
  Super(=smashing) + luge*
Down
1 JEHOVAHS WITNESS St John’s view as he converted sectarian (8,7)
  (St Johns view as he)*
2 STAGNANT Deer relative heading for tundra still (8)
  Stag + Nan + t[undra]
3 OBAN Find whisky here round bar (4)
  O + ban.  If you type Oban into Google, whisky and distillery come up immediately, so I suppose it must be famous for them.
4 BIGAMOUS Grand love affairs, not right, relatively criminal? (8)
  Big + amou[r]s
5 SHUFTI Female comes in close, one for look (6)
  F{emale} in shut + I
6 CLANGOUR Uproar as monkey hides duck beneath cape (8)
  C{ape} + langur around O.  Langur monkeys are native to Asia.
7 SEPTET Players notice team’s leader training inside (6)
  (See + t[eam]) with PT inside
8 PENCIL SHARPENER With which writer discovers new lead? (6,9)
  CD referring to pencil lead (which is actually graphite, an allotrope of carbon).
16 EXAMINER Inspector formerly an underground operative (8)
  Ex a miner
17 BANKRUPT Row right up close to boat on the rocks (8)
  Bank + r{ight} + up + [boa]t
18 UNSPOILT The Italian used in one northern location’s flawless (8)
  Il(=Italian “the” e.g. Il Duce = the leader) in (un (dialect one as “big ‘un”) + spot)
20 ERRANT Monarch to speak wildly — that’s out of place (6)
  ER + rant
21 OBSESS Oscar and Elizabeth taking in small hound (6)
  O{scar} + Bess around s{mall}
25 SURE Confident Republican in to take action (4)
  R{epublican} in sue

*anagram

6 comments on “Independent 10380 by Tees”

  2. I do like Tees Mondays (and other days too but he seems to have ‘Monday’ just right

    Lots to enjoy – I’ll even forgive the ear worm inducing 19a

    Thanks to Tees and NealH

  3. Some challenges but we got there in the end.  The SE corner was the last to fall as we were convinced for ages that we were looking for an anagram of ‘agent’ and ‘luge’, something starting ‘agglut…’ before the penny dropped.  And we thought we might have a pangram – it’s almost one; only Q missing as far as we can see.

    Thanks, Tees and NealH

  5. Good un Tees and thanks Neal. Struggled to get going and then it fell rapidly. Good to actually solve on the day again for once.

  6. By some coincidence, I was listening to Franz Berwald’s Grand Septet whilst doing this.  Still took me a while to get 7dn.

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