Independent 9619 / Phi

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Another week is almost over and once again we have a Phi-day to celebrate it.

 

Regulars will be aware that Phi often has themes (sometimes hidden) within his puzzles, but as usual we haven’t been able to find one. There is an opera within the solutions at 14ac and we know Phi is particularly interested in music but cannot find any related answers. Can anyone help us?

We are on our travels again but this time there is an 8 hour time-difference. If there are any amendments  we may not be able to respond quickly.

Thanks Phi for another enjoyable solve – some excellent surfaces as usual. We particularly liked 9ac.

Across
1   Clever person from UK about to fix line back (9)
BRILLIANT BRIT (person from UK) round NAIL (fix) L (line) reversed or ‘back’
6   Fellow, university visitor, forgetting street in form of amnesia (5)
FUGUE F (fellow) U (university) GUEst (visitor) without or ‘forgetting’ ‘st’ (street) – a new meaning of the word for us, which kept us guessing for some time
9   Almost completely useless recording (5)
ALBUM ALl (completely) without the last letter or ‘almost’ BUM (useless)
10   Country resettling Romanians (3,6)
SAN MARINO An anagram of ROMANIANS – anagrind is ‘resettling’
11   Messenger to fail, coming in before time without first of letters (8)
EMISSARY MISS (fail) in EARlY (before time) without the ‘l’ (‘first of letters’)
12   Memory disorder unfortunately due to limit a lot of web language (4,2)
DÉJÀ VU An anagram of DUE (anagrind is ‘unfortunately’) round or ‘limiting’ JAVa (web language) without the last letter or ‘a lot of’
14   Gold and iron ring featuring in opera (5)
ORFEO OR (gold) FE (iron) O (ring) – not being into operas, we’d never heard of this Monteverdi work
15   Supplies will accommodate a non-professional (9)
LAYPERSON LAYS ON (supplies) round or ‘accommodating’ PER (a)
17   Outlaw in business pursuing game animals, bagging little special (9)
DESPERADO ADO (business) after or ‘pursuing’ DEER (game animals) round or ‘bagging’ SP (‘little’ special)
19   Limits to one accepting cigarette, though old enough (2,3)
OF AGE O and E (first and last letters or ‘limits’ of ‘one’) round or ‘accepting’ FAG (cigarette)
21   Enthusiasm to capture a brass sound (6)
OOMPAH OOMPH (enthusiasm) round or ‘capturing’ A
23   Promotional material – run charged item identifying godlike entity (8)
HYPERION HYPE (promotional material) R (run) ION (charged item)
26   Company against promotional material musician’s brought round – sweet stuff (9)
MUSCOVADO CO (company) V (against) AD (promotional material) with MUSO (musician – a new slang term for us) ‘brought around’
27   Decorative stuff hard to miss in approach to divination (5)
ICING I ChING (‘approach to divination’ – we had come across the word before in crosswords but did not remember what it meant) without or ‘missing’ ‘h’ (hard)
28   Invader of England switching directions for Greek island (5)
NAXOS SAXON (invader of England) with the ‘directions’ ‘s’ (south) and ‘n’ (north) ‘switching’
29   Witness quiet number entering examination (9)
TESTAMENT TAME (quiet) N (number) ‘entering’ TEST (examination)
Down
1   Audacious dance event supporting Bishop (5)
BRAVE RAVE (dance event) after or ‘supporting’ B (bishop)
2   Without saying too much, it’s provided to carry brine at sea (2,5)
IN BRIEF IF (providing) round or ‘carrying’ an anagram of BRINE – anagrind is ‘at sea’
3   Chalky material recalled found in Marsanne (not Semillon) (9)
LIMESTONE Hidden or ‘found’ and reversed or ‘recalled’ in MarsannE NOT SEMILlon
4   Articles about American trial broadcast from Sydney? (10)
AUSTRALIAN A and AN (articles) round US (American) and an anagram of TRIAL (anagrind is ‘broadcast’)
5   Roman official missing ridicule in song (4)
TUNE TribUNE (Roman official) ‘missing’ ‘rib’ (ridicule’)
6   Manage to catch luminance in distress signal (5)
FLARE FARE (manage) ‘catching’ L (luminance)
7   Instruments, black in form, mostly (7)
GUITARS TAR (black) in GUISe (form) without the last letter or ‘mostly’
8   Persuasive words showing merry Queen Cole (9)
ELOQUENCE An anagram of QUEEN COLE – anagrind is ‘merry’
13   Second year – year defined by interaction of sun and moon – having same meaning (10)
SYNONYMOUS S (second) Y (year) + Y (year) in or ‘defined by’ an anagram of SUN and MOON – anagrind is ‘interaction of’
14   Religious graduate taking Biblical book into Arab state for general worker (3-6)
ODD-JOBMAN DD (Doctor of Divinity – ‘religious graduate’) JOB (Biblical book) ‘taken into’ OMAN (Arab state)
16   Arrangement of Eroica set to offer strange stuff (9)
ESOTERICA An anagram of EROICA SET – anagrind is ‘arrangement of’
18   A million in Essex unexpectedly like gay marriage (4-3)
SAME-SEX A M (million) in an anagram of ESSEX – anagrind is ‘unexpectedly’
20   Foolish son entering excellent square (7)
ASININE S (son) ‘entering’ AI (excellent) NINE (square)
22   Money included in nineteen letters? Very small amounts (5)
ATOMS M (money) in A TO S (nineteen letters)
24   Government blocking insubstantial uprising at the end of the day (5)
NIGHT G (government) in or ‘blocking’ THIN (insubstantial) reversed or ‘uprising’
25   Power and skill in what musician plays (4)
PART P (power) ART (skill)

 

13 comments on “Independent 9619 / Phi”

  1. Thanks, both, and bon voyage (again …)

    We’ve had a good week in the Indy (well, okay, I wasn’t keen on Tuesday’s) and it was capped off by another good’un from Phi. I have no doubt there is a theme somewhere, no doubt musical, but I just enjoyed tackling the puzzle. There were a couple I couldn’t parse, so thanks especially for those (ATOMS and TUNE, since you ask).

    Liked ALBUM as well, and FUGUE was new to me in this sense.

    Thanks to Phi and good weekend to all.

  2. Almost a pangram but no K or Z. Maybe there’s a musical theme somehow related, you never know with Phi. A lot easier than his Listener last Sat, no unfamiliar words apart from Muscovado.
    Thanks to B and/or J, and Phi of course

  4. Well the opera normally has thE article attached as L’Orfeo (Monteverdi?) but thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.
    Thought GUITARS was a great clue.
    Thanks Phi and B&J

  5. Like Paul@2, I thought this was going to be a pangram. My first ones in already had F, J, Q, Y and 28a gave X so I was looking out for Z which never came. Didn’t notice K missing also. At the easier end for a Phi I thought. Rarely spot Phi’s themes and no change here. Favourite was ALBUM. LOI was TUNE which took a little while to parse. Also, muso was a new term for me but I knew muscovado so not a problem.
    Thanks to Phi and BJ.

  6. Well, we (me & my apprentice) spotted the theme before we were half way through. It’s just musical in various ways. We have BRILLIANT (Classics), HYPERION, NAXOS and TESTAMENT record labels, FUGUE (a musical form of which J S Bach wrote numerous examples) TUNE, ALBUM, OOMPAH, ORFEO and PART (which as well as being what it says on the can, can also be the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt). I think that’s the lot. Oh, yes there’s the EROICA in the clue to 16dn as well.

    We might say the puzzle is 1ac. We enjoyed it but there’s one small niggle over the enumeration of 14dn. We’d be happy with (3-3-3), (3,3,3), (3-3,3) but (3-6) seems bizarre!

    Thanks, Phi and B&J.

  8. Thanks for all the comments and many thanks to allan_c for uncovering the theme.

    As far as the enumeration of 14d is concerned, Chambers has it as 3-6.

  9. The best way to have a theme is to ghost it, I believe. That way no-one feels left out. Well, not really!

    Well-written, very nicely done.

  11. Very enjoyable easy-end puzzle, I thought. Whizzed through in a pleasurable fashion with only three up in the NE preventing a record Hoskins Vs Phi solve time. Fave clue was 18d though honours go to the solve itself so thanks to The Phi-ster for the puzzle and to The Globetrotters for the blog.

  12. I spotted all (?, hopefully) the – classical – record labels.
    And they’re all (?, probably) mentioned above except ORFEO.

    Nice puzzle but easier than Phi usually is, so agree with the previous speaker.

  13. ORFEO is also a major label, while I have also seen FUGUE, FLARE and DÉJÀ-VU on the lists.

    ODD JOB MAN – I used this recently in a debate with an editor who’d suggested I had hyphenated something wrongly. It’s a prime example of variance in this area, and whichever dictionary you follow (and they vary amongst themselves) you will have someone saying you got it wrong. So you can say you adhere to a specific dictionary, but the solver is still disgruntled with you because you chose the wrong dictionary, and switching dictionaries will misfire with the same solver on a different hyphenation!

    This is before you reach other interesting things like RUN UP, where the nounal and verbal uses differ.

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