Independent 6668/Phi

by
Across
1 (WAS)* in DON – Les DAWSON, my favourite comedian when I was young.
10 WING,C,HAIR
11 TO[-l]KE[-i]N – Tolkein was the first name that sprung to mind when I saw “fantasy writer” but I thought that “bumping off a couple of characters” meant taking two from the beginning or end of the clue so I dismissed it and started thinking of alternatives.
13 NOT in MOO,NOUS – MONOTONOUS doesn’t look like a word you could do an awful lot with so I think Phi has done really well here: “Dull, low intelligence, not internalised”.
15 MATE in AU,R
16 A,PEELS< – another good clue with a smooth surface reading.
19 OR in MASS – we’re used to seeing “men” indicate OR but “standard servicemen” does the job and also helps with the deception in “bog standard”.
25 PI[-p]ER
29 (EVEN)* in NERD
 
Down
1 DOWN,O in LAD – shouldn’t the definition be “podcast, say” as a podcast in one of many types of DOWNLOAD?
2 (NEW IN)*,BAG,O
5 (O,A[-s],A,RULE)* – AUREOLA. Looks easy now but at the time I had all sorts of problems parsing this.
14 (DANE I REACT)* – DERACINATE. Not an easy anagram.
17 [-cr]EDIBILITY – another one I had problems with as I thought I was looking for a word beginning C,R followed by something meaning “lacking in confidence”
21 I,C in POLY
22 BIG (going up),BON[-e]
26 hidden in “capitaL IM Assured”.

4 comments on “Independent 6668/Phi”

  1. I really liked “low intelligence” for MOO NOUS (I really must get more used to thinking MOO whenever I see “low”).

    My only real quibble was with CREDIBILITY being clued by “confidence”, are they the same?

  3. I had the same doubts as Testy over the equivalence of credibility and confidence. And yes an unusually difficult Phi, I thought. It took me ages to get 4A, 5D (my writing in AUREOLE didn’t help), 10A and 6D.

  4. The fact that in 11A you called him Tolkein and not Tolkien hasn’t in this case been a problem. Lots of people call him Tolkein.

    Sorry to be pedantic. Just thought I’d point it out.

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