Unusual for Phi to appear other than on a Friday. Not sure if this means some themed puzzle is planned for this Friday 6 June. This I found very well put together as always from Phi, a little on the easy side, solving time 15 mins.
Recently I missed a Phi Nina, so, with only a little confidence, say I don’t see one here.
* = anagram < = reversed
ACROSS
1 AB (Blood group) SUR(e) D (Dracula at first). Reminds me of one of my favourite clues from the late Aquila (Bert Danher) “An alarming blood count? (7)” – answer at end of blog
5 D (YNAM) O many<
8 RELIGIOUS ORDER The quote is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet
11 GLIB Bilg(e)<
12 CHRONIC LED
13 T (E N) ON SAW (was not)<
15 HIP P O
17 SHARP PRACTICE
22 ASTRONOMER (star no more)* The ‘me’ has an extra significance as the Azed book reveals Phi is a trained astronomer
25 CHIC(k)
25/26 NOISE POLLUTION (sell-out opinion)*
27 P (l = left) IERS
28 EL NINO (on line)* ”Weather formation’ sounds a touch euphemistic
DOWN
2 BULL I ON
3 (p)URGE
4 DROP (HEAD COUP E) S New phrase to me that I was very pleased to work out from the excellent wordplay.
5 DE (of in French) SPOT
6 NEOLITHIC (into Chile)*
7 MUDFLAP “Flood map”
8 R IGHT AS RAIN (r this again)* r = runs (cricket)
10 RADIO BEACON (aboard on ice)*
14 NIPP (ONE’S) E (r)
16 TRUE BLUE Blue = waste (squander). Very much on the political right
18 AN T (H) ILL farm (vb) = till
20 ICH DIEN German for “I serve” Motto of the Prince of Wales
24 BU (R) N R = rex (king)
DRACULA
16D was the only one I had a question mark over so thanks for explaining that. The “waste” meaning of BLUE is one that is completely unknown to me (and all the dictionaries that are currently available to me)
Chambers gives blue as “to squander”, not that I’d ever heard of it before!
I found this quite a bit harder than the usual Phi offering, particularly the top half. Can’t argue with any of the clues though.
I wonder what we have in store tomorrow….!
BLUE = squander is in COD (given as ‘dated’), Collins, and, as indicated above, Chambers. I knew it only through crosswords though – can’t ever recall hearing it used.
This meaning of ‘blue’ was unknown to me too. Its homophone as in ‘blew the lot’ occurred to me, even without the usual ‘aural’ indicator. Perhaps tomorrow’s date is significant?
June 6 is D-Day
Probably not relevant, but R D Wingfield, creator of Inspector Frost, would have been 80 tomorrow.