Independent 9,145 by Phi

by

So many of these clues can be neatly and simply parsed that sometimes I feel as if I’m not doing the job properly. Some would say that I should be taking three lines to expound everything that’s happening, but I’m afraid I take the view that anyone who has got as far as reading this blog will have some ability at least to cope with the inclusions, synonyms, etc and if it can be explained simply then that is actually clearer.

Definitions underlined.

When I solved 12ac my heart sank and I feared that the theme would involve Tolkien, of whom I know precious little. I find his coinages tiresome, to say the least, and have always avoided him. But I’ve Googled and there doesn’t seem to be a Tolkien theme here, although there may well be one that has escaped me. What the actual theme is, if any, is still a mystery to me.

Across
1 AWAKENING Coming round naked, stripped and wrapped in canopy (9)
aw({n}ake{d})ning
6 SLOT Opening line’s swamped by drunk (4)
s(l)ot
9 TSARIST Old Russian man blocking suggestion mostly rejected (7)
(t(sir)ast{e})rev.
10 INERTIA Most of Aintree jumping blocked by one’s unwillingness to move (7)
(Aintre{e})* round 1 — jumping the anagram indicator
11 ROYAL King – true – not initially kinglike (5)
r {l}oyal
12 RIVENDELL Crime writer penning one volume featuring Tolkien location (9)
R(1 v)endell — Ruth Rendell — this tells you what Rivendell is (I’d never heard of it, although I may be the only person in the world who hasn’t)
13 POLYGAMIST Someone with the wrong number of ribs? (10)
CD playing on the double meaning of ribs as parts of the body and wives
16 TORC Band’s extreme position in topic? (4)
The extreme letters of topic are t and c, so the extreme position is t or c
18 LOUD Looked threatening, though not about to be thundery? (4)
lou{re}d
19 VOLTAIREAN Some potential space to inscribe one name of French writer (10)
(volt a(1)rea) n
23 GAS-BOTTLE It fuels gossip and courage (3-6)
gas [= gossip] bottle [= courage]
24 RIGHT Just a shock, getting cut off at the front (5)
{f}right
26 SCARCER Less common bird control device getting investment by college (7)
scar(c)er
27 CHICAGO US city, fashionable in days gone by (7)
chic ago [= in days gone by]
28 MARS Damages drinks can I dropped (4)
mar(tin I)s
29 PLEBEIANS President’s baseline involved common people (9)
p (baseline)*
Down
1 ANTHROPOLOGIST Scientist moving north, engaged by defence expert (14)
(north)* in apologist — someone who make an apology (= defence) for something, although I’m not quite sure about ‘expert’
2 ARABY A bit of sun seen around book’s romantic land (5)
a ra(b)y
3 ETIOLOGY US disease study to proceed, and proceed slowly, failing to end up before year (8)
(go loite{r})rev. y — US because it’s etiology not aetiology
4 INTERIM Popular description encapsulating Independent for the moment (7)
in ter(i)m
5 GRIEVES Is sad, cut up about one after end of suffering (7)
{sufferin}g (seve(1)r)rev.
6 SEEING Vision coming through slowly, having no power (6)
see{p}ing
7 ON THE MOVE Working with those people, mostly about going places (2,3,4)
on them ove{r}
8 HALLUCINATIONS Everyone oddly insouciant following hot fantasies (14)
h all (insouciant)*
14 LOUISIANA Oil in USA misused by American here? (9)
(oil in USA)* A — is this an &lit. referring to something in the history of Louisiana of which I’m unaware: I know it was bought from the French, but what oil had to do with it goodness knows, or is it just a straight clue?
15 ILL Bad source of liquor should have stone removed (3)
{st}ill
17 MIGRAINE Male that is gathering farm produce gets a headache (8)
m i(grain)e
20 OUTCROP Lump of stone not wanted in farm produce? (7)
out [= not wanted ] crop [= farm produce] — at least that’s what I think it is, although I’m very uncomfortable: what is the ‘in’ doing? Is it ‘not wanted in’ rather than just ‘not wanted’? Or, which is surely most unlikely, is ‘in’ a link-word?
21 TREACLE Current line in what could be maple syrup (7)
tre(AC l)e — alternating current
22 VOICES Faults besetting old expresses (6)
v(o)ices
25 GUAVA Fruit, a volume taking month to come up (5)
(a v Aug)rev.

*anagram

9 comments on “Independent 9,145 by Phi”

  1. Nothing too difficult, although I couldn’t see one or two parsings till I came here. I can’t see anything that could really be a theme, although 1ac could follow 8dn, and a 1dn might study 29ac, but that’s grasping at straws.

    Thanks, Phi and John.

  2. Thanks Phi and John.

    I really enjoyed this puzzle, but needed help with some of the parsing.

    I do not see a nina yet, thankfully there does not seem to be a Tolkien one – my husband read the books to our sons, not I (my parents would stay for a few weeks in the winter each year at a hotel in Bournemouth along with Tolkien and his daughter and another couple, my husband used to joke that he based some of his characters on them).

  3. 1D “expert” I think relates to the fact than an apologist for a cause or decision carries the meaning of one who apologises or excuses repeatedly or professionally.

    14D Terrible oil spill from BP rig and consequent gross pollution of areas of Florida, Louisiana etc.

    Thanks to Phi and John.

  4. Enjoyed it: thanks to Phi & to John: succinctness can never be wrong. POLYGAMIST was my CoD: neat, if very slightly tendentious (is polygamy inherently wrong? Discuss, warily). VOLTAIREISM needed a sturdy pair of nutcrackers: 4 subsidiary elements to find & at least 3 possible defs. in the last 3 clue-words alone. Premiership stuff!

  6. Thanks, Phi and John, all very enjoyable. The slowest part for me was trying to spot a man somewhere in the seven letters of TSARIST, but I managed the feat eventually. No such luck in spotting a theme though.

  8. Oliver Sacks has written many books in addition to AWAKENINGs – MIGRAINE, HALLUCINATIONS, SEEING VOICES, ON THE MOVE … probablythe best known is “The Man who mistook his wife for a hat”.

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