Independent 8,945 by Morph

(in a zone)*

{br}othel lo

‘Get back’ is ‘teg’; but Chambers says that a teg is a sheep in its second year, so that would mean that it is a one-year old sheep, surely?

(on boat)* round n — I’d not heard of this but its meaning was clear enough in view of the other words like it

tight “nit”, with ‘rumoured’ the homophone indicator

Hull 0, referring to Hull Tigers, the football team that has so far always been known as Hull City but which has applied to the FA to change its name — I may be out of date here and perhaps they already have the verdict

(He hit my skittles)* and so far as I can see a rather vague but perfectly adequate definition

m(ore)s — but ore isn’t precious metal, it’s merely the source of metal which may or may not be precious. I think it is intended that ‘or’ is the precious metal, but in that case how does one account for the e? Are me’s papers of some sort? Michigan Expresses? Somehow I don’t think so.

“why dangle?”, the homophone indicated by ‘I say’

(hotels)* 0

P(ICC)olo — the VW Polo and the ICC, the International Cricket Conference, that august, hem, body which controls the running of test matches

re du(C)es

He’s Sian — stuff = material seems a bit thin, but Collins has “the raw material or fabric of something” for ‘stuff’, so that’s OK

MP in (a skirt length)*

(gent amour – R)* — an &lit. referring to Romeo and Juliet, where the Montagues and Capulets were at loggerheads — Romeo was a Montague

2 defs, one of them referring to the programming language

fir kin — kin with fir coming first

good = top, nick = notch — I think, although I’m not absolutely comfortable with good = top, nor with the floating ‘In’, so if anyone has something better, then please tell us

chin [= face bit] chill a

glob al{l}, the l that is missing being from {oi}l — one might carp at the presence of ‘all’ in both the clue and the wordplay, when this could have easily been avoided — but perhaps it doesn’t really matter, or does it?

If you are seeking Dracula you are out for him; he comes out at night, so presumably during the day is sleeping (i.e. out for the count)

A cowcatcher takes (i.e. purloins) stock (i.e. cattle etc)

(has worse)*

(A I (long) am)rev.

r E Side — East Side as in New York etc

Dept h{igh}s — does ‘extreme highs’ mean ‘the extremes of highs’?

2 defs — I suspect this may have been done before, but that’s the trouble with double definitions: there are usually only two words in the clue and if their juxtaposition is felicitous then it is very likely that it isn’t original, even if to the setter on the day it is