Independent 10,051 by Phi

by

The usual sharp offering from Phi. He goes on producing these things week after week (to say nothing of all his other output) and the clues remain fresh and accurate.

Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.

With all those unches around the sides I was sure Phi was going to conceal a message there, and I was all set to say how he always manages to do this sort of thing without compromising the checking of various answers, but it seems that he hasn’t done so. Goodness knows what he has done.

Across
8 BATHER Almost crazy, that female swimmer (6)
bat{s} her
9 ICE DANCE Dean’s speciality, getting one man enthralled by church repeatedly (3,5)
1 CE(Dan)CE — the Dean is Christopher Dean of Torvill and Dean fame
10 LET ME SEE Take off the blindfold and I’ll offer some alternatives (3,2,3)
2 defs
11 RAKING Monarch depicted by artist at an angle (6)
RA king
12 SHERPA Mountain dweller absolute in dismissing an English father (6)
she{E}r pa — I like that Phi has said ‘an English’ to indicate that it is just one of the occurrences of the letter E; you so often seeing setters lazily saying things like ‘in dismissing English’, which could mean sh{EE}r
14 LAH-DI-DAH Had Prince dramatically recalled accepting Princess with a superior attitude? (3-2-3)
(Had Hal)rev. — the dramatic Prince is Prince Hal from Henry V
16 TRACKING STATION Cards inserted in pamphlet hurled into a radar establishment (8,7)
trac(kings)t *(into a)
18 GOALPOST Upright holy man behind sentimentality about upset pal (8)
go(lpa)o st, the lpa being *(pal)
20 CERISE Light red coating everyone initially applied to 4 (6)
c{oating} e{veryone} rise, 4dn being RISE
21 KISSED Child keeping letter back is touched (6)
ki(sse)d, the sse being (ess)rev.
23 BALLADRY Folk-singing etc completely overwhelmed by dreadful lines (8)
b(all)ad ry
25 AUTOMATA Robots running out in the morning, leading to American cheers (8)
a(uto)m A ta, the uto being *(out)
26 STRUCK Collided with small lorry (6)
s truck — it may be ‘with small, you have a word for lorry’, or the definition may be ‘collided with’ and then a straight charade; initially I thought the former, but now the latter seems likelier
Down
1 BAKE Stop avoiding right work in kitchen? (4)
b{r}ake
2 CHIMERICAL Fanciful of minister, say, to have him replacing a Liberal (10)
clerical with the first occurrence of ‘l’ replaced by ‘him’
3 FRASCATI Contents of Asti carafe replaced – with a different wine (8)
({A}sti caraf{e})*
4 RISE Salesman dodging repeat success (4)
{rep}rise
5 SEARCH Look for attention in school (6)
s(ear)ch
6 WALK King’s rule keeping up pace (4)
(K law)rev., the reversal rather unusually indicated by ‘keeping up’ — I can’t quite justify ‘keeping’
7 SCANDALOUS Dons casual pants, causing outrage (10)
(Dons casual)*
13 HARMONIOUS Honour aims when re-expressed? That’s agreeable (10)
(Honour aims)*
14 LIGHT Difficulty that’s not soft or trivial (5)
{p}light
15 INTERMARRY Popular period to support dumping leader and to try unifying countries? (10)
in term {c}arry — I don’t see the significance of ‘try’: when you intermarry OK this may to some extent unify the two countries involved, but are you actually trying to unify them?
17 TICKLISH Problematic mark of success is penned by left hand (8)
tick L(is)H
19 ORDEAL Struggle of French in language exam? (6)
or(de)al
22 SPOT Place best for climbing (4)
(tops)rev.
23 BEAM Fish out of river is a ray (4)
b{r}eam
24 ROCK Topless dress to startle (4)
{f}rock

*anagram

11 comments on “Independent 10,051 by Phi”

  1. Thanks to John and Phi

    All very good apart from 6d where UPPING would have been better IMO

    14a HAD is reversed as well

    15d I thought referred to the activities of the royal dynasties of Europe

  2. Nicely challenging and mostly very enjoyable with 10a, 14a & 7d fighting it out to be picked as my favourite.

    However I was disappointed to see two devices that I don’t like – a generic “man” in 9a and a using a “word” to describe a letter in 21a. But I know some will doubtless disagree with me.

    Thanks to Phi and John.

  6. The usual superb offering from Phi.  The precise cluing in 12ac and 2dn misled us at first into trying to find things to remove ‘ane’ and ‘il’ from, but full marks to Phi once we realised what was happening there.

    We wondered if there is a theme of LIGHT (14dn) – we can see SEARCH, SPOT and BEAM but nothing else – someone may find other references; we did mometarily consider BAKE but of course the plastic is spelt with ‘lite’.

    FRASCATI and GOALPOST vied with SHERPA and CHIMERICAL for our CoD

    Thanks, Phi and John.

  7. Yes, I wondered if there might be a LIGHT theme, but could only get as far as allan_c @6. Presumably we’ll be told if there’s anything else.

    I liked the surface for 23a (which brought Rambling Sid Rumpo to mind), the misdirection in the surface for GOALPOST and CHIMERICAL, because it’s one of those words that would make me sound very clever in the unlikely event I would ever use it.

    I was also glad to see ‘…Asti…replaced – with a different wine’. Makes a welcome change.

    Thanks to Phi and to John.

  10. Light is part of the theme: down the middle RISE, LIGHT & BEAM, all of which can be preceded by SUN or MOON. On the left: BATHER, BAKE, KISSED & SPOT, all SUN words. On the right: ROCK, WALK, RAKING & STRUCK, all MOON words.

    (OK, the BRB (but not ODE nor Collins) has SUNSTRUCK, but Cher wasn’t in that.)

  11. Thanks John for the blog.

    We read through the comments and laughed at allan-c@6 because we came up with the same possible scenarios including Bakelite!

    Thanks Phi for the illumination of the theme. An impressive grid fill and a pleasing solve.

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