Back to normality it seems: Phi has appeared for the last two Fridays.
There are two strange things about this typically pleasant crossword: the grid is strange and (yes I know he doesn’t always have them, but today surely he does) cries out that there is a Nina, but of course I can’t see it; and for the first time that I can remember Phi has departed from the Ximenean norm by having two answers (8dn and 13ac) with less than 50% checking. Not much less than 50% mind you, but still less.
Actually there is a third: Phi doesn’t so far as I can see have any recourse to an anagram in his clueing.
So come on Nina hunters, plenty of material there to work with.
I found this rather hard for a Phi, perhaps because there were no comparatively easy openers with anagrams. My excuse is the less than 50% checking on the two long answers, but that’s no good really.