Independent 9,888 by Phi

by

One of Phi’s more intractable puzzles, it seemed to me. The difficulty with his clueing, even though it is almost universally sound, excellent and imaginative, is that — as Carol Vorderman used to say on Countdown with respect to the numbers games when a contestant chose four large numbers — there are so many ways to go. The clues, although simple enough after the event, often have many possiblities. No doubt this is deliberate. It certainly is more fun than those clues where you say ‘well it must be that, but …’

Definitions underlined, in maroon [I must have done something wrong since they’re not in maroon. Never mind]. Anagram indicators in italics.

The theme seems to be vegetables: the words ‘vegetable’ or ‘veg’ appear quite a bit in the clues, and the answers contain more than a smattering of them. Is this part of some more general and elegant theme of which I’m not aware?

Across
1 BALLOONIST Air traveller, the fool, is blocking someone from Estonia? (10)
Bal(loon is)t
8 ADORNMENT Activity with sailors and soldiers – head of troops gets decoration (9)
ado RN men t{roops}
9/25 BEETROOT Time engaged in booze – very much turning purple (8)
bee(t)r (too)rev.
10 BEACON Signal to do time? (6)
be a con — if you are doing time (in prison), you are being a con
11 COLESLAW The French brought in lettuce required by regulation salad (8)
co(le)s law [= regulation — ‘required by’ is simply a link]
13 TROPIC Certain latitude, too much in Parisian style, reduced formality (6)
trop [French for ‘too much’] ic{e}
14 SNAPSHOT Responds sharply, with passion, seeing paparazzo’s aim (8)
snaps [= reponds sharply] hot
17 CELERIAC Chef regularly cooked almost all rice and veg (8)
C{h}e{f} (al{l} rice)*
19 APPEAR Turn up program that’s getting attention (6)
app [= program] ear
21 LAMPPOST Source of light unable to function, needing some current quietly introduced (8)
l(amp p)ost
23   See 26
25   See 9
26/23 BUTTERNUT SQUASH Vegetable spread served with crackers and Scotch (9,6)
butter nuts quash
27 MOUNTEBANK Buffoon displaying energy between two hills (10)
mount E bank
Down
1 BANDOLIER Prevent Light Infantry interrupting someone working in ammunition supply (9)
ban do(LI)er — a bandolier is a belt containing ammunition etc.
2 LEEK Topped smooth vegetable (4)
{s}leek
3 OUTGOING Disallowed assessment of racecourse without reserve (8)
out [= disallowed] going [assessment of racecourse]
4 NOBLE No bad feeling after abandoning one aristocrat (5)
no b{1}le
5 STEALTH Street in good condition showing no extreme shady activity? (7)
st {h}ealth{y}
6 SABBATICAL Book club in Calais arranged time for special project (10)
(b bat) in (Calais)*
7 POTATO Vegetable casserole: not entirely a small amount (6)
pot a to{t} [more likely, as PG says, pot ato{m}]
12 WATER-CHUTE Source of downpour possibly making the car and ultimately you wet (5-5)
(the car {yo}u wet)* — I can’t quite tell whether the ‘possibly’ is part of the definition or part of the anagram indicator: it seems to work either way`
15 PIPSQUEAK Anger about private secretary leading a king to deliver: “Twerp!” (9)
pi(PS)que a K
16 PASSABLE Dad’s transaction will secure billions, OK? (8)
pa’s sa(b)le — billions? I thought b = billion
18 LIMPOPO Greasy river offering unexciting work, nothing more (7)
limp op 0 — the ‘greasy’ is a reference to this
20 ELAINE Girl rested in middle of week (6)
lain in {w}ee{k}
22 PITON Pointless climbing – without this? (5)
(no tip)rev. and some sort of &littism going on here, since it’s pointless to try to climb without a piton
24 ETNA Something observed by many Italians in Vietnam (4)
Hidden in ViETNAm

*anagram

10 comments on “Independent 9,888 by Phi”

  1. For 11a, I felt that ‘it’s law’ means ‘it is required by regulation’, so didn’t see ‘required by’ as a link.

    Wasn’t convinced that a mountebank is a buffoon. Thanks to Phi and John.

  2. In relation to 18D see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limpopo_River#/media/File:GreasyLimpopo.jpg.

    Some nice stuff here, liked 1A, 14, 6.  Agree with @1Hovis about 27A.

    Thanks to Phi and John.

  5. Hovis@1: I wasn’t convinced by mountebank = buffoon, but it’s the first definition in Chambers.

    Didn’t seem to be getting anywhere when I started it at lunchtime.  Got about a quarter done.  Then came back to it and it all went in fairly quickly.

  6. Dormouse @5. So it does. How weird is that? Never seen it used that way – not in Collins either.

  7. This was just a celebration of how well our garden had done this past summer, particularly poignant as I look out of the window at the first really heavy frost of the winter.

    I’ve never really considered MOUNTEBANK as anything other than a buffoon in the sense of dumb show, clowning and fakery of that kind.  When you consider the sort of fairground background to the term, the categories start to overlap.

  8. Been out all day, completed this in less than an hour between 10.00 and 11.00 pm.  26/23 gave us a bit of trouble as we thought the Scotch might refer to whisky, but not for long, and we originally looked for ****lamp in 21 before we got 6.  OUTGOING was our LOI as we thought at first that ‘disallow’ was the definition.

    We wondered if the F-shaped blocks in each corner had any significance.

    Thanks, Phi and John

  9. Congratulations to Phi for another excellent puzzle, and also for being one of the prizewinners for the Sabre Listener puzzle. This was the first Listener I couldn’t finish in over a year (ignoring the numericals, which I  skip) – in fact I didn’t even manage to deduce where the answers I got went into the grid! Big respect, but please don’t give us any Sabre-type puzzles in the Friday Indy slot!

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