Independent 10,360 by Phi

by

The festivities are over and we have a Phi to amuse us at the end of this week.

When 12ac went in we did wonder about a cricket theme but cannot find any other thematic clues apart from 9ac. Quite a few of the rows have double letters in some of the answers but perhaps not organised enough to be a theme for Phi.

Thanks Phi – hope you had a good Christmas ‘down under’.

image of grid

ACROSS
1 Harm delivered by church leads to demonstration? (5)
MARCH

MAR (harm) CH (church)

4 Drink supplier: firm very much accepting withdrawal of complaint (6,3)
COFFEE BAR

CO (firm) FAR (very much) around or ‘accepting’ a reversal or ‘withdrawal’ of BEEF (complaint)

9 Unauthorised items about, say, bank rate? They’re often delivered (3,6)
LEG BREAKS

LEAKS (unauthorised items) around or ‘about’ EG (say) BR (bank rate)

10 Ring about source of noise in a couple of areas (5)
ARENA

RE (about) N (first letter or ‘source’ of noise) inside AA (‘couple of areas’)

11 Leaving prepared (7)
WILLING

Double definition

12 Groups returned, importing satisfactory fuels (6)
STOKES

SETS (groups) reversed or ‘returning’ around or ‘importing’ OK (satisfactory)

14 Opening to sensational ghost story from this German author (8)
SCHILLER

S (first letter or ‘opening’ to ‘sensational’) CHILLER (ghost story)

16 British author successfully heading for States (5)
WELLS

WELL (successfully) S (first letter or ‘heading’ of ‘States’)

18 Car avoiding Welsh inclines (5)
HEELS

wHEELS (car) without or ‘avoiding’ W (Welsh)

19 New economist, initially stumped, urges arrangements for savings (4,4)
NEST EGGS

N (new) E (first or ‘initial’ letter of ‘economist’) ST (stumped) EGGS (urges)

21 Spot water, presumably? (6)
NOTICE

A play on the fact that water is NOT ICE

23 Acid in section of railway (7)
CUTTING

Double definition

26 Lake with classic ship moving slowly (5)
LARGO

L (lake) ARGO (‘classic ship’ as in ‘Jason and the Argonauts’)

27 Clear river? Working time and time again to fill that (9)
EXONERATE

EXE (river) with ON (working) ERA (time) T (time ‘again’) inside or ‘filling it’

28 Calls about party in sporting locations (9)
RINGSIDES

RINGS (calls) around or ‘about’ SIDE (party)

29 Million bad things coming from these factories (5)
MILLS

M (millions) ILLS (bad things)

DOWN
1 A lot of letters about legislation in African country (6)
MALAWI

MAIl (‘letters’ missing last letter or ‘a lot of’) around or ‘about’ LAW (legislation)

2 Material implicating Government of King? (5)
REGAL

REAL (material) around or ‘implicating’ G (Government)

3 Appals a lot of cavalry – I fire wildly, breaking through (9)
HORRIFIES

HORSe (‘cavalry’ missing last letter or ‘a lot of’) with an anagram of I FIRE (anagrind is ‘wildly’) inside or ‘breaking through’

4 Not initially longing to accept guardian spirit or substitute (10)
CHANGELING

aCHING (‘longing’ – without first letter or ‘not initially’) around or ‘accepting’ ANGEL (guardian spirit)

5 To try to catch female is hard (4)
FISH

F (female) IS H (hard)

6 Cut up and cut heart out? That’s nice (5)
EXACT

AXE (cut) reversed or ‘up’ + CuT – missing middle letter or ‘heart out’

7 Good wishes for actor resulting in 9? (5,1,3)
BREAK A LEG

This relates back to 9ac – LEG BREAKS

8 Fools, amongst others, curtailed check again (8)
REASSESS

ASSES (fools) inside or ‘amongst’ RESt (‘others’ – missing last letter or ‘curtailed’)

13 Councillor is angry about Southern Network (10)
CRISSCROSS

CR (councillor) IS CROSS (angry) around or ‘about’ S (Southern)

15 Race turns out to be a downhill race (6,3)
CRESTA RUN

An anagram of RACE TURNS – anagrind is ‘out’

16 Threw game, being corrupt, for some good stuff in food (5,4)
WHEAT GERM

An anagram of THREW GAME – anagrind is ‘being corrupt’

17 One managing to follow opening of chapter from detective writer (8)
CHANDLER

HANDLER (one managing) following C (initial letter or ‘opening’ of ‘chapter’)

20 Monster, old, to retreat after disposing of soldiers (6)
OGRESS

O (old) reGRESS (retreat) without or ‘disposing of’ RE (soldiers)

22 Cuts choir and theatre activities (5)
CHOPS

CH (choir) OPS (short for operations – activities which take place in theatres)

24 Altogether uncovered at the end (2,3)
IN ALL

fINALLy (‘at the end’) missing first and last letters or ‘uncovered’)

25 Book on complete subject (4)
BEND

B (book) END (complete) – our LOI as it took a while for the penny to drop as far as the definition was concerned

 

6 comments on “Independent 10,360 by Phi”

  1. We found this a gentle stroll with no real problems.  We spotted the double letters too – there are some in the downs as well as the acrosses – and wondered about their constituting a theme; we can’t see anything else theme-wise, nor any nina.  We liked the LEG BREAKS/BREAK A LEG connection.

    Just one observation about 16dn – WHEATGERM is often encountered as one word rather than two.  Not that that makes any difference to enjoyment of the puzzle.

    Thanks, Phi and B&J.

  2. I noticed a lot of the solutions are author names (and some book titles, perhaps not purposefully). William MARCH, Jennie WILLING, Samuel STOKES, Friedrich SCHILLER, H G WELLS, Michael LARGO, Mark MILLS, Raymond CHANDLER. OK, a couple of these were clued as such. I noticed (via google) that there are also a Helen HEELS and a Stanley FISH but these may not be intentional. Thanks all.

  3. To be honest you’d have to be psychic to get this one. But I’ll offer you some hints:

    This is the 400th different grid I’ve designed for The Independent
    I did have CROSS at 22d as an eleventh thematic word, but ditched it because of CRISS-CROSS
    Hovis has identified seven of the remaining ten, but no, not authors

    Happy New Year

    Paul

  4. Thanks Phi but the ‘psychic waves’ are not coming through strongly enough. Could we have another clue please as google searches aren’t helping either?

  5. I wondered if there was some sort of a NZ connection. Ben Stokes was originally from there. When I found that Ngaio Marsh was from NZ I thought 1ac might be it, but it’s March not Marsh. So no I think, since none of Schiller, Wells or Chandler seem to have an Antipodean connection. And then I looked unsuccessfully for occurrences of CD (400).  Compact discs?

Comments are closed.