Independent 9,840 by Phi

by

Whatever else? Phi has as always produced a pleasant and well-constructed crossword. As tends to be the case with him, everything is perfectly clear afterwards even though the actual method of solution may not have been obvious.  Many of these answers can be explained in one simple expression.

Definitions underlined, in maroon.  Anagram indicators in italics.

But also as always, so far as a theme is concerned I’m quite lost.  However, experience has told me that there’s not much point in agonising over Phi’s Ninas, since they are usually beyond me even when he tells us.  When I went through, putting things into italics because they were anagram indicators, there seemed to be nothing to do and I wondered if the Nina was that there were no anagrams. Certainly that was the case until about halfway through the down clues, but then there were a couple.

Across
1 DOMINO Dress to kill, securing male’s love (6)
Do (m) in 0 — do in = kill — one usually thinks of a domino as being that two-square thing, but it is also a type of hooded cloak
4 PASTOR Historic military forces chaplain (6)
past OR — while a pastor and a chaplain are both clergymen, a chaplain is a very specific type of clergyman: does ‘chaplain’ lead to ‘pastor’?
9 PLECTRUM Range not initially including source of legendary guitar accessory (8)
{s}p(l{egendary})ectrum
10 TUCKET Shakespearean flourish? Reduced returns – dark theatre tonight, ultimately (6)
(cut)rev. {dar}k {theatr}e {tonigh}t — a tucket is a flourish on a trumpet (archaic) — while Shakespeare is not a necessary concomitant of archaic-ness, there is a question mark so Phi is only saying ‘Shakespearean, perhaps’
12 COMBINATION LOCK Cracking material with a sequence of opening numbers (11,4)
CD so far as I can see; no apparent wordplay, but ‘cracking’ needs to be seen in the sense ‘safe-cracking’
13 FALSETTO Voice, strained, to falter, though one escapes fight (8)
fa(i)l set-to
14 STAIN Earlier time for holy man’s character flaw (5)
saint [= holy man] with its t earlier in the word
16 CADET Cool guy is accommodating of French trainee (5)
ca(de)t — cool cat
18 ENORMITY Look at cut involving standard computer material – it’s outrageous (8)
e(norm IT)y{e}
20 A STUDY IN SCARLET Top-grade education curtailed and mark granted? That’s novel (1,5,2,7)
A-studyin{g} scar let — at least that’s how I account for the A (studying for A level) although I don’t feel very confident [Jane and Hovis in the comments, and no doubt further people who will in due course post, reckon the A = simply top-grade, and education = studying. They’re probably right]
23 LONELY Individual restricted by friend heading off could become this (6)
{a}l(one)ly, &lit.
24 HEEDLESS Female scoundrel, say, embracing Duke without much thought (8)
hee(d)l-ess — a heel-ess is a fanciful definition of a female heel
25 THEORY That man is enthralled by right-wing notion (6)
T(he)ory
26 ASTRAY A second attempt to bring in one off-course (6)
a s tr(a)y
Down
1 DREAMLAND Source of nightmares has fellow clutching top of leg in terror (9)
drea(m(l{eg})an)d
2 METRICS Measures? The writer misleads, excluding kilo (7)
me tric{k}s
3 NEURASTHENIA What could be uneasier than a nervous condition? (12)
(uneasier than)*
5 ALUMNUS Former student, advanced student, group of students? Expression of doubt creeps in (7)
A L (um) NUS
6 TOKYO Satisfactory year in middle of pastoral capital city (5)
(OK y) in {pas}to{ral}
7 RETAKEN Back under control, less disorderly after uprising, with King installed (7)
(neater)rev. round K
8 EPIC Centre of spreading illness cleared? Awesome (4)
ep{idem}ic
11 TIMOROUSNESS It’s enormous, horrific, origin of someone’s lack of bravery (12)
(it’s enormous)* s{omeone}
15 ARTILLERY A railway brings in one cultivating the big guns? (9)
a r(tiller)y
16 CHAPLET Wreath in Alpine house including primrose at the front (7)
cha(p{rimrose})let
17 TODDLER Colourful spot set up to house large and small child (7)
(red dot)rev. round l
19 MEANDER Go around, taking article into repairman (7)
me(a)nder
21 TINGE A shade quiet in Germany? Just a bit (5)
Hidden in quieT IN GErmany
22 TOSH Hard drinker served up moonshine (4)
(h sot)rev.

*anagram

6 comments on “Independent 9,840 by Phi”

  2. Pleasingly chewy: there were a few I had to ponder awhile.

    DOMINO, TUCKET NEURASTHENIA and CHAPLET all needed to be teased out from wordplay.

    But a very pleasant workout indeed.  Liked (once I’d parsed it) STAIN and LONELY.

    Thanks to Phi and John.

  3. Had to ponder over the same four as Kitty and the female scoundrel made me laugh.

    Thought the ‘A’ in 20a simply represented ‘top-grade’ with the curtailed education only relating to the next two words of the answer.

    TOSH was my favourite.

    Thanks to Phi and to John for the blog.

  4. Same comment as jane@3 re 20a. Failed to get TUCKET. Never met this word before. I wrongly assumed from the clue that the answer was going to be a Shakespearean character with the first 3 letters being a word meaning ‘flourish’ (or possibly ‘flour-ish’ given the question mark) reversed and curtailed. Ah well, can’t win them all. Thanks to Phi and John.

  6. We’ve got DOMINO THEORY at 1/25 but I don’t know enough about it to tell if there are other related words.

    For some reason I entered COMBINATION BOOK at 12. Stupid.

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