Independent on Sunday 1,291 by Poins

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Another Poins for me this week, making that six in a row. Poor chap must be getting fed up with me.

This one was pitched at a fairly standard IoS level, though I did struggle with 1 across and 6 down for some reason. I guessed the former without understanding it, while the latter beat me completely. No doubt readers will be able to help.

There seem to be an enormous amount of clues squeezed in to very dense grid, so we certainly get our money’s worth.

I notice this one was misnumbered as 1,290 in the paper, but that really didn’t matter beyond confusing me a bit when it came to blogging.

Across
1 CLAUSE Legal action over line in Bill’s article (6)
Presumably CASE and, er, some other stuff going on. I’m not even sure where the def is.
4 SKIPLANE Speak in Luxembourg about a form of transportation (8)
(SPEAK IN L)*.
9 MALICE Timid people assuming gangster’s evil intent (6)
AL Capone in MICE.
10 CONSIDER Think about where footballers want to be in Costa Rica (8)
ON SIDE in CR.
12 ROLE Part of gold given back to the French (4)
OR< + LE.
13 UNITE A Native American set about returning home to make one (5)
IN< in UTE.
14 NUTS Potty starts to niff under the sink (4)
N[iff] U[nder] T[he] S[ink].
17 SCARLET FEVER Cliff always felt fantastic before getting this disease (7,5)
SCAR + FELT* + EVER.
20 GROUP CAPTAIN Mass murderer’s clothing likely to be rank (5,7)
GROUP + (APT in CAIN).
23 SNUB Check for nitrogen in advance (4)
N in SUB.
24 HEARD Tried to find one amongst the rabble (5)
A in HERD.
25 REST Support for some of Saussure’s theories (4)
Hidden in [saussu]RE‘S T[heories].
28 DEFINITE Sure to be wearing it after fellow’s swallowed by river (8)
(F + IN + IT) in DEE.
29 DOMAIN Kill to acquire mother’s estate (6)
MA in DO IN.
30 ON THE SLY They arrest a couple of Slavs after working under cover (2,3,3)
ON + (SL[avs] in THEY).
31 GRUDGE Resentment shown by German character in Dickens (6)
G + Barnaby RUDGE.
Down
1 COMPRISE Include old politician in Conservative revolt (8)
(O + MP) in (C + RISE).
2 ALL CLEAR Everybody needs explicit permission to proceed (3,5)
ALL + CLEAR.
3 SICK Put up with removing tons of vomit (4)
S[t]ICK.
5 KNOW THE SCORE Be acquainted with most of them before reckoning to be experienced (4,3,5)
KNOW + THE[m] + SCORE.
6 PASS What a hooker may do for change (4)
Stumped. Would anyone with more knowledge of the subject matter be present?
7 ARDOUR Determined after gunmen returned fire (6)
RA< + DOUR.
8 EGRESS Gallons on board before ship’s departure (6)
G in (ERE + SS).
11 INSTRUMENTAL Music case (12)
Two definitions: music without vocals/the instrumental case.
15 GLORY Attempt to take in Lorca’s opening lines of praise (5)
(L[orca] in GO) + RY.
16 TEMPT Try to persuade me to take time in retirement to exercise (5)
(ME + T)< in PT.
18 FACE CARD Jack for instance resisted admitting about reporter’s source (4,4)
(CA + R[eporter]) in FACED.
19 INSTANCE City upset after failing to finish second is a case in point (8)
INSTAN[t] + EC<.
21 USED TO Familiar with American editor at best falling short (4,2)
US + ED + TO[p].
22 OUTFIT Not in appropriate clothes (6)
OUT + FIT.
26 ANKE Girl edges away from drunk (4)
[t]ANKE[d], I think. I initially assumed it would be ANNE, but was not able to find any ?ANNE? words meaning “drunk”.
27 MOOR Opportunity arising for Othello perhaps (4)
ROOM<.

 

* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition

 

7 comments on “Independent on Sunday 1,291 by Poins”

  1. Thanks Simon and Poins,

    1ac C(L)AUSE
    6d A rugby hooker may pass, and pass = change
    26d cANNEd

    SCARLET FEVER was very nice.

  2. Thanks S & B.
    I agree with Muffyword on 1a, 6d and 26d although I wasn’t convinced by cause = lawsuit until I checked Chambers.
    Thought 6a a bit weak, maybe there’s an alternative parsing somewhere, and for 26a I prefer Simon’s Tanked to Canned as an expression for “drunk”, but the online version has Anne and I suppose Anke would need some indication of the name being German?
    I liked 17 and 20, both held me up for some time.
    Hadn’t heard of the UTE indians, which was my LOI after trying to fit Comanche, Sioux, Apache…… A google to check Ute revealed an astonishing number of tribes.

  3. I would have said panned for drunk – it’s certainly a term I used … rather too often – but I can’t see it in any dictionaries.

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