Independent 6,985/Phi

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Busy half-day for me today, so I’ll need to be brief. A tougher-than-usual Phi I thought, with impressive use of multiple grid entries for double-word clues intersecting in the grid. I fell down on 9/6 and 20 though!

Across
7 MANIFEST – NI,FE in MAST
9/6 ANCIEN REGIME – (MENACE REIGN,I)*
10 MONA LISA – ON in MA plus IS in LA
11 SEA CAPTAIN – EA,CAP in STAIN
13/3 WITHIN REASON – THIN in WIRE,SON
14 ANGLESEY – ANGLES,EY[-e]
15 TILLER – [-s]TILLER
17 RECOUP – RE,COUPO[-on]
20 SCURRILE – S,CUR,RILE – A new word for me
22/22 SILVER SCREEN – SILVER plus CR in SEEN
23 MAPLE SUGAR – (RAGE, A LUMP’S)*
24/24 WIRE WOOL – IRE,WOO in W[-ife] and L[-over] – Fantastic clue
25/21 METEOR CRATER – MET plus OR in (TERRACE)*
26 ALEHOUSE – HE rev. in A LOUSE
Down
1 CANOEIST – (NOTICES A)*
4 HARANGUE – H plus AN in ARGUE
5 ACT THE FOOL – (EACH LOT OF T[-hem])*
8 TEA BAG – A in BET rev. plus AG
13 HOLY ROLLER – “Wholly”,ROLLER (Rolls Royce)
16 EMISSARY – MISS In EAR,Y
18 PIE CRUST – E in PIC,RUST
19 ZEUGMA – [-m]UG in (MAZE)*

4 comments on “Independent 6,985/Phi”

  1. I found this pretty hard as well, and it took me a long time. Last one in was 15A: I guessed “tiller” and, fortuately, it checked with “Stiller” on Google – but I shouldn’t have got it otherwise. Some nice clues, but a Nina would have helped, given the large number of answers for which either the first letter was unchecked or formed part of one of the double grid entries.

  2. I couldn’t think of anything but ‘high roller’ for 13dn, so put it in without understanding it, and this made 15ac rather hard. But I’m not sure that I’d have got it anyway: ‘opportunity to direct?’ = ’tiller’. Hmmm…

  4. Didn’t get 15a eiher. ‘Scurrile’ was a new word for me too, but it looked as if it had to be something like that, and there it was in the dictionary! Not come across ‘zeugma’ as a crossword answer, though it’s the sort of turn of phrase that might well be used in cryptic clues.

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