Hoskins provides our Saturday challenge this weekend.
As usual from Hoskins, there are several references to sex and drugs but in our opinion, they are not as subtle as we would have expected.
For us, this was not one of Hoskins’ best puzzles – some of the clues seemed rather hastily put together – for example, ‘one’ is clued for the letter I no less than four times.
Sorry Harry – here’s to the next one!
I (one) BAR (boozer) round (‘drinking’) SO (like this)
T (time) AVER (state) + a reversal (‘reviewed’) of SAN (hospital)
An anagram (‘travelling around’) of I MOON GAL
LAd missing the last letter (‘short’) round (‘stealing’) O (old) LIT (literary)
RE (Royal Engineers – ‘soldiers’) + a reversal (‘knocked over’) of H (hard) SERF (peasant)
AD (bill) round (‘blocked by’) TT (teetotal – ‘abstaining’) E (English) N (knight)
U (uniform in the phonetic alphabet) GI (‘infantryman’) round (‘stuffed with’) L (large)
An anagram (‘changes’) of ALLUSION TO
An anagram (‘criminal’) of KNOCKS SALE
C (colt) in (‘beset by’) a reversal (‘flipping’) of GAS (flatus) – a slang term for heroin
RYE (grass) round (‘over’) I (one) BEd (part of garden) missing the last letter (‘trimmed’)
ROLL (tumble) in (‘tackled by’) TOP (excellent)
D (Dutch) kEEPER (goalie) missing the first letter (‘header’)
An anagram (‘up’) of PUBS RUNG – American submachine guns
A ST (street – ‘way’) O (old) DON (academic) round (‘describing’) R (rare) – we’ve never come across this dinosaur before
A homophone (‘picked up’) of XS (extra small – ‘clothing size’)
Hidden (‘about?’) in debtor’S NOT RAGing – not a good clue for an unpleasant answer
BOG (crapper) lOaF (alternate or ‘regular letters)
RELIEF (help) S (first letter or ‘head’ of save)
TA (Territorial Army – ‘old volunteers’) round (‘consuming’) E (ecstasy) – a slang term for marijuana
A reversal (‘served up’) of I (one) LAV (toilet – ‘can’) + ANT (worker)
Double definition
An anagram (‘upset’) of NANNA round T (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of flat) E (English)
HE’LL (‘that guy will’) CoAsT (alternate or ‘occasional’ letters)
An anagram (‘idiotic’) of PM I TELL + ER (Queen Elizabeth – ‘old head of state’)
An anagram (‘surprisingly’) of LINARES
M (first letter or ‘slice’ of meat) in (‘donning’) SEARED (burnt on the outside)
Double definition
A P (quiet) PEN (writer) DuchesS missing the middle letters (‘vacuous’)
I in LOG (record) C (contralto)
I (one) in B N (first and last letters or ‘case’ of brown)
I’m not convinced it makes for the best setting, if the setter is “tied-to” his or her trademark plays, which seems the case with Hoskins?
( flatus/ scag/ horse/ hooker/ crapper/ bog/ snot rag/ trollop/ ecstasy/ grass/ lav/ marijuana et al).
I was also a bit disappointed with the lack of craftiness in many of the clues, with the devices and definitions being far too obvious.
Using “LINARES” as fodder, for a poor answer, NAILERS, is not very pleasing.
I MOON GAL, for Mongolia? meh.
I got to thinking, it’s such a strange puzzle, there must be something I’m missing. The diagonal from top left is [ INN OR FOLK CLOUDS ], but might be just happenstance.
I recall, I have enjoyed previous puzzles from Hoskins, so I won’t be put off the next one, but it’s a raspberry for this one – sorry.
Ta and Ta to Bert and Joyce
Well spotted ENB@1 – but more likely it’s IN NORFOLK CLOUDS, and the other diagonal is ARE MY MOUNTAINS (excluding the crossing L from Norfolk).
I’ve no idea if there is any deep significance to this.
Thanks to Hoskins and B&J
I normally enjoy this setter’s puzzles but I found this one very disappointing.
According to Collins, TEA is old fashioned American slang and (surprisingly) XS is specifically American 🙁
Thanks anyway to Hoskins and to B&J.
DuncT@2 doh! Not very well spotted, by me, I fear.
I got transfixed by INN= Taverna, and FOLK = relations, and CLOUDS = isobars.
Then I decided that I was going down a road to Hell.
Your spot of the reverse diagonal is inspired.
Right…it’s a penalty kick for someone else!
I may be right out of kilter, but Norfolk has no highlands or mountains, so do they refer to the clouds, as their mountains?
Apart from that, I recall that in the 1960s, a racehorse owner tried to register his horse with the Jockey Club, as NORFOLK INGUD. It was declined.
I remember cycling home from work (in the 60s!) in Broadland Norfolk looking at the big bank of shining white clouds in the distance and imagining them as snow topped mountains. But I never heard of the saying that clouds are my mountain.