i Cryptic Crossword 4177 by Hoskins
June 26, 2024
Difficulty rating (out of five): ⏳
An enjoyable outing today courtesy of Hoskins. A toned-down Hoskins? Perhaps so, compared to some of his more outré puzzles. Nothing to dislike, tons and tons to like, and here at least just enough to keep the mind ticking over. The country at 14ac gave me pause for thought at the close, and I had something of a moment at 1d when I convinced myself momentarily that Diana Ross used to be in The Three Degrees, but, well, it’s hot, we’re melting.
CoD? Just for the new meaning learnt, 11ac – “Rubbish German article about the Queen’s fancy man (8)”.
All the answers and parsing of the clues can be found in Fifteensquared’s blog from August 2020:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2020/08/02/independent-on-sunday-1588-hoskins/
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
A very gentle offering but good fun, just what I needed in this hot weather, although dare I say I was mildly disappointed by the lack of Hoskins’s trademark references?
PANDERER was new to me, but favourite today was my FOI, SUPREMO, no doubt influenced by the fact that my wife was a huge fan back in the day and on our first date in 1976 we saw the film Mahogany. Happy days…
Good to have a Hoskins. All ways creative and entertaining, even if he is in a different persona today.
I loved MIND GAMES.
Lots of good clues – I think the CoD was the only one I didn’t like, so vive la difference! Very much agreed, though, on the gentleness of today’s offering.
I agree with the egg timer rating – 35 mins start to finish. 14a last one in. 25a anagram took longer than it should have, even with many checked letters 🙄
thanks Hoskins for a nice, straightforward birthday crossword over an icy pint.
Happy birthday! 🙂
Definitely gentle for Hoskins but seemed to take a little more than one EggTimer. Nothing particularly good or bad but all enjoyed. Liked SPANISH GUITAR and MIND GAMES
No disappointment but a pleasant surprise in the lack of Hoskins’ tredemark references. ‘Potty’ for ‘commode’ and even PANDERER were hardly risqué – just adding a touch of levity to the proceedings. No stand-out CoD for me, it was all enjoyable.
we hadn’t seen a Hoskins for some time and this was great fun. Light, relatively gentle and very appropriate to the weather! We enjoyed the entertaining anagrams and the aforementioned 11 and 12a. It wasn’t as challenging as some we’ve tackled recently but it had enough chewy bits to satisfy. We also liked “mind games” and I thought 14a was a good clue of this type! (no one here has moaned about it!)
We are, as usual, working a day behind!