Independent 10,902 by Hoskins

by

To our delight, Hoskins pops up this Tuesday.

How does he manage to keep the ‘near the knuckle’ clues coming, while still giving us all a smile or two along the way?

We have a bit of sex in 4ac and 10ac, drugs in 2d and 11ac and rock & roll in 27ac, as well as many amusing surfaces and definitions.

We actually rattled through the puzzle more quickly than we expected, and then scoured the completed grid for a theme – it being Tuesday.

It took us a little while to recognise the four American Blues artists at 6d/10ac, 11ac/5d, 25d/14ac and 26ac/23d, who influenced many Brtitish rock and blues bands in the 1960s. Initially we wondered if they had all recorded on CHESS (1ac) records, but it seems that only 6d/10ac and 26d/14ac were on that label, so perhaps that’s a coincidence, rather than a thematic entry.

We were big fans of Cream in the late 60s, and it was wonderful to be reminded that one their best tracks, ‘I’m So Glad’, was written by 26ac/23d, and ‘Spoonful’ was written by 6d/10ac.

Many thanks to Hoskins for the fun.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. The Mating Game or Red and The Bodyguard? (5)
CHESS

CHE (Che Guevara – ‘red’) SS (bodyguard, as in the Nazi corps))

4. Rant in public bath ultimately about Roger (3-5)
TUB-THUMP

TUB (bath) T (last or ‘ultimate’ letter in about) HUMP (roger, as in to have sex)

9. Game flapper mixed a woeful gin (6,4)
GUINEA FOWL

An anagram (‘mixed’) of A WOEFUL GIN

10. Female depressed about habitual seducer (4)
WOLF

F (female) LOW (depressed) all reversed or ‘about’

11. Young man smuggling ecstasy for Guide (4)
LEAD

LAD (young man) round or ‘smuggling’ E (ecstasy)

12. Flash beam by tree near banks of Tynemouth inlet (5,5)
MORAY FIRTH

MO (flash, a very short time) RAY (beam) FIR (tree) + T H (first and last letters or ‘banks’ of Tynemouth)

14. Restaurant workers making one go to get drinks (6)
WATERS

WAiTERS (restaurant workers) with the ‘i’ (one) omitted or ‘going’

16. Jazz fan getting last of Coltrane? Bloody class! (8)
CATEGORY

CAT (jazz fan) E (last letter or Coltrane) GORY (bloody)

18. Cold more agreeable back in uninhabited Phuket region (8)
PRECINCT

C (cold) NICER (more agreeable) reversed or ‘back’ in P T (Phuket without the middle letters or ‘uninhabited’)

20. Chap punched by boxer, one from an African country (6)
MALIAN

MAN (chap) round or ‘punched by’ ALI (boxer)

22. Prince is one to have wobbler, getting discharge of workers (5,5)
ROYAL JELLY

A Prince is an example of a ROYAL + JELLY (‘wobbler’)

24. Sign of upcoming Labour power? Being led by tramp! (4)
BUMP

P (power) after or ‘led by’ BUM (tranp)

26. Sleep on right side of essentially fussy miss (4)
SKIP

KIP (sleep) after or ‘on the right side of’ (in an across clue) S (middle or ‘essential’ letter of fussy)

27. Festival where everyone covers The Faces? (10)
MASQUERADE

Cryptic definition

29. Does the job of a deputy tolerate wicked behaviour? (6,2)
STANDS IN

STAND (tolerate) SIN (wicked behaviour)

30. Quiet song soprano performs on guitar? (5)
PLAYS

P (quiet) LAY (song) S (soprano)

DOWN
2. Do drugs after American working girl gets home? (5)
HOUSE

USE (do drugs) after HO (American word for a prostitute – ‘working girl’)

3. Function with princess and earl without a fixed date in Rome (4,3)
SINE DIE

SINE (trigonometrical function) DI (princess) E (earl)

4. Wife sandwiched between vacuous Toronto couple (3)
TWO

W (wife) ‘sandwiched’ in T O (Toronto without the middle letters or ‘vacuous)

5. Baron associated with timeless TV corporation (5)
BELLY

B (baron) tELLY (TV) without the ‘t’ (time)

6. Tremendous hooter squeezed by husband in middle of night (7)
HOWLING

OWL (‘hooter’) in or ‘squeezed by’ H (husband) IN G (middle letter of night)

7. Airmail it off as well as old army collectables (9)
MILITARIA

An anagram (‘off’) of AIRMAIL IT – we’re not sure why ‘as well’ is in the clue

8. Secretary gets SLR finally, chaps coming round mostly say cheese (8)
PARMESAN

PA (personal assistant – ‘secretary’) R (last or ‘final’ letter of SLR) MEN (chaps) round SAy without the last letter or ‘mostly’

13. Flipping jerk interrupts True in gig (7)
RECITAL

TIC (jerk) reversed or ‘flipped’ ‘interrupting’ REAL (true)

15. I tape cork up in cavity full of gas (3,6)
AIR POCKET

An anagram (‘up’) of I TAPE CORK

17. My mount bolted, after shot of German weapon (5,3)
TOMMY GUN

An anagram (‘bolted’) of MY MOUNT with an injection (‘shot’) of G (German)

19. Slope conquered by bluff, spiky climber’s friend? (7)
CRAMPON

RAMP (slope) in or ‘conquered by’ CON (bluff)

21. Broad-minded artist involved in slander (7)
LIBERAL

RA (artist) ‘involved’ in LIBEL (slander)

23. Crowds outside of penultimate appearance of Derek and Clive? (5)
JAMES

JAMS (crowds) round E (penultimate letter or ‘appearance’ of Derek) – a reference to Clive James, the Australian critic, broadcaster and journalist

25. Dirty pal turning bishop into maiden (5)
MUDDY

bUDDY (pal) with the ‘b’ (bishop) changed to M (maiden)

28. Kid that gets up every morning, I’m told (3)
SON

A homophone (‘I’m told’) of SUN, which rises or ‘gets up’ every morning

 

16 comments on “Independent 10,902 by Hoskins”

  1. All the usual fun from Hoskins today. Everything went in smoothly except that it took me a while to get from Roger to hump in 4a until I remembered who the setter was.

    As a blues fan, I managed to spot the theme for once.

    Many thanks to Hoskins and to B&J.

  2. Didn’t get the theme today. For a while, I thought it may be another animal theme, after yesterday’s Brendan. Indeed, 20a is an anagram of “animal”, but it didn’t work out.

    I had a rather more convoluted parsing for SKIP. I took “essentially fussy” to be USS and then the right side of this to give the S. Prefer the parsing in the blog.

  3. I think Willy Dixon wrote Spoonful but Wolf was magnificent as was Muddy
    Why on earth do I not recall Skip James?
    I guess thats why they call it the blues

  4. Thanks copmus for pointing out our error. Howling Wolf recorded it but as you so rightly said, it was written by Willy Dixon. Still great to be reminded of the track though!

  5. Was staring at _O_A_ __L_Y for ages with 22 and 23 unsolved.

    All I could think of was total wally, but there were too many princes that fitted the bill for that to be right. It also seemed the wrong sort of rudeness for Hoskins.

    Completely forgot to look for a theme too.

    Particularly enjoyed the surfaces and definitions for chess howling and bump today.

    Thanks B&J and Hoskins.

  6. Quite an accessible Hoskins today: I picked up speed about a quarter of the way through, romped through the South and came back North to find plenty of helpful crossers. Though I needed the input of B&J to see the parsing for CHESS. (And that’s the second time in a week or so I’ve encountered SS for bodyguards; I didn’t know that was their origin and it hasn’t sunk in yet).

    Lots of wit and originality and the customary sprinkling of terms that remind us of the dangerous underbelly of society within which Hoskins does his thing! And a lovely ghost theme: to my musical shame, I only recognised two of the four artists though I was pretty sure BELLY was going to feature. HOWLING was a lovely clue.

    Thanks Hoskins and B&J

  7. At least I picked up a couple of the blues artists and I was happy to be educated about the others. The usual Hoskins entertainment, with the Hoskinsesque TUB-THUMP my favourite today.

    Thanks to Hoskins and B&J

  9. Lovely to see Hoskins ‘doing his thing’ again although I’m afraid I missed the theme despite knowing some of the artistes concerned.
    Tops for me were CHESS & MASQUERADE.

    Thanks to Hoskins and to B&J for the review and theme spotting.

  11. Thanks H & B & J. Enjoyed this muchly, mainly for the elegant and in many cases laugh-out-loud-funny surfaces – 4a, 9a, 10a, 6d and 28d stand out for me. Also loved the clever reference to Derek & Clive. ‘Discharge of workers’ is also nice.

    Missed the theme completely! Subtly done. Nice.

  12. I didn’t get the theme till the end, which is just as well as I would have been looking for an Etta. Great stuff. Thanks all.

  13. @B&J Wille wrote quite a lot of blues tunes but I have never heard him sing so here’s to the great deliverers such as Muddy and Wolf
    I have to mention Hubert Sumlin-a beacon of blues guitar playing.

  15. I had a feeling I had head of a record label called Masquerade: I was excited to find there is indeed a Masquerade Records but they are very small and established in 2013, and hence unconnected to the theme.

    Than you Hoskins for the fun and Bertandjoyce for the blog.

  16. Many thanks to J&B for the lovely blog and to all who solved and commented.

    Mev@10 is correct about Son House – if you haven’t heard him I would suggest giving his Death Letter Blues a go.

    I hope to see y’all next time around two weeks today on the 5th October with a medium-difficulty puzzle, but until then its cheers and chin chin to all from me. 🙂

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