Independent 9098 by Phi

by

To finish this crossword I used aids. Usually when I do so I regret it afterwards, feeling that the answer really should have been clear, but in this case there was no self-reproach since the words were so unusual that despite some help from the wordplay they would probably still be empty spaces. None of the answers at 4ac, 12ac, 4dn, 6dn or 7dn are in Chambers Crossword Dictionary (2006) and only 4dn and 7dn are in Bradford’s (2006). So far as I can see, anyway.

Perhaps these strange words were necessary so that Phi could maintain his Ximenean standards where checking is concerned while including a number of places with ecclesiastical connections. But I suspect that to say simply “places with ecclesiastical connections” doesn’t really get very far with what is going on here. If so it hasn’t detracted from the enjoyment of  a good crossword — despite those uncomfortable words.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 AMMO
Reward for valour secured by a round or rounds? (4)

a(MM)O — Military Medal
4 SHREWSBURY
Biscuit small animals store for winter, perhaps (10)

shrews bury
9 IRONBRIDGE
Place to visit museums, even before the game (10)

iron [= even] bridge — these museums
10 NAFF
Dreadful Northern fellows surrounding one (4)

N(a)ff
11/22 SHOPLIFT
Nick’s time at work involving work on line (8)

sh(op l)ift
12 STOURPORT
Town recreation includes series of matches (9)

s(tour)port — I spent ages trying to justify tock = series of matches
14 BATHOS
Nothing found in location of a dip or severe descent (6)

bath(0)s — baths as in swimming baths presumably
16 WHENEVER
Woman joining her forerunner in Western Region at any time (8)

W(hen Eve)R
17 BLOW AWAY
Means to follow calamity with a surprise (4,4)

blow [= calamity] a way [= means] — note that Phi eschews the sloppy setter’s use of ‘with’ as a link word: the definition is ‘surprise’, not ‘a surprise’, and ‘way’ goes with ‘a’
19 VANITY
I note returns in tax year implying self-satisfaction (6)

(I n)rev. in (VAT y)
20 WORCESTER
City in cowboy film cut down after invasion by monstrous creature (9)

w(orc)ester{n}
23 TINY
Small Greek character dodging rebellion (4)

{mu}tiny
25 TEWKESBURY
Abbey rejected feeble busker, sadly, before end of day (10)

(wet)rev. (busker)* {da}y
26 GLOUCESTER
German left to rescue unhappily blinded nobleman (10)

G L (to rescue)* — the Earl of Gloucester was blinded in King Lear
27 LOTH
Item 8 at auction – not inclined? (4)

Lot H — item 1 will be lot A, item 2 lot B, etc.
Down
2 MARSH MALLOW
Maritime plant to spoil area of little water around mouth of Mersey (5,6)

mar sh(M{ersey})allow — shallow a noun
3 OWN UP
Admit cry of distress on picking up wordplay (3,2)

Ow! (pun)rev. — I took a while to be sure that it was this, because ‘up’ is in both clue and answer, which I had not expected
4 SOROSIS
Alarm about soldiers is evident in club for American women (7)

S(OR)OS is
5 RADIO
Some avoid arguments raised in broadcast (5)

Hidden reversed in avOID ARguments — radio/broadcast are verbs
6 WEE FREE
Scottish churchman to go about covered in iron (3,4)

wee [= to go] F(re)e — this explains what a Wee Free is
7 BANDONEON
Instrument playing after prohibition ended (9)

on after (ban done)
8/24 REFILL
Long-term prisoner picked up litre for a further drink (6)

(lifer)rev. l
13 TWENTY-FIRST
Score, getting runs in hand – a cause for celebration? (6-5)

twenty [= a score] fi(r)st — do people celebrate these now that the voting age is 18?
15 HOW ARE YOU
Greeting love with weary shuffling in time that appears endless (3,3,3)

(0 weary)* in hou{r}
16 WHY
Query dairy product English exported (3)

wh{E}y
18 WRESTLE
Struggle with tossing, abandoning ship (7)

w restle{SS}
19 VERMEER

Minister upset as Queen is seen with the writer and painter (7)

(Rev)rev. me [= the writer] ER
21 TO WIT
Namely, an instruction for dealing with breakdown? (2,3)

tow it, a possible instruction for dealing with breakdown
22 LABEL
Identify murder victim found beneath lake (5)

l Abel
*anagram

15 comments on “Independent 9098 by Phi”

  1. Thanks to John and Phi – I was hard pressed to finish and couldn’t parse 23 ac I think the towns are all on the Severn. Is there a link of some sort to 13 down?

  3. Thanks Phi and John.

    The towns are all on the river Severn…

    This was hard going, but after having solved a few of the clues for the towns, the others fell in to place. WEE FREE and BANDONEON were new to me.

  6. John, I think you may need to invest in a newer edition of Chambers: all the down clues you single out are in the 2003 edition, though not the town names. (Or is my copy perhaps the older edition, SOROSIS, WEE FREE and BANDONEON having since been dropped?)

  7. I found this all straightforward, apart from a temporary hold up on SOROSIS; I thought it had to be something like that but could only think of ‘sorority’ which has too many letters anyway, and SOROSIS sounds more like a disease! Oh, and I couldn’t parse TINY.

    I thought the theme was fine, although overseas solvers unfamiliar with the geography of England might have been mystified.

    I don’t have Chambers Crossword Dictionary but the general Chambers (1998) has SOROSIS (under ‘sororal’), WEE FREE and BANDONEON.

    Thanks, Phi and John.

  9. I had a notion to do something with locations along a river, and it was a pleasant surprise to get these in in north to south order (and symmetrically arrayed). Mostly they also had meanings other than ‘town’, which was useful (the other half was christened in Tewkesbury Abbey, the biggest parish church in the UK). I suspect they’re all in both ODE and Collins, though I haven’t checked.

    I came across the WEE FREEs when living in Scotland and BANDONEON from listening occasionally to the music of Astor Piazzolla. So they went in without a second thought, really. Even SOROSIS felt vaguely familiar so I must have stumbled across it in an American novel. Presumably someone thought it sounded less plebeian than ‘sorority’.

  10. SOROSIS is familiar to anyone who has studied botany, it is a fleshy compound fruit, such as pineapple or a mulberry, such fruits are derived from several flowers – that is why the first women’s club in ‘America’ chose the name, also it sounds like ‘sorority’, vis-à-vis ‘fraternity’.

  11. Belated apologies, John, for failing to spot the word ‘Crossword’ in your reference to Chambers; I thought you meant the non-specialist dictionary.

  12. As we both originate from Bristol we spotted the theme early on. The uncommon words were clearly clued although we thought the ‘soldiers’ in 4d would be RA or RE. When we didn’t get our ‘congratulations’ we realised we should have remembered sorority.

    All this talk about versions of dictionaries and Chambers is a thing of the past now. The ipad version is brilliant and doesn’t need replacing because the pages are worn out either.

    Thanks Phi and John.

  13. One of these days I’ll finish a Phi-this was really good but beaten by at least a couple (and spotting the theme)
    Memo-must listen to more massive Attack

  14. Cookie @10: Ah, yes. I didn’t spot that meaning in Chambers as it was on the next page. Interesting, though, that the derivation is quite different – from Greek ‘soros’ (= heap), not Latin ‘soror’ (= sister). I wonder if those American women knew that.

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