The usual tidy crossword from Phi. Things work smoothly almost every time. Phi often uses grids with unchecked letters at the sides, yet he always (I think) has at least 50% checking, which must be quite difficult to achieve in such cases.
Definitions underlined, in lightseagreen. Anagram indicators in italics (not that there are many: I only found one when I went through the blog to put things into italics; one wonders why Phi didn’t resist the temptation with this clue, and then have an unusual Nina).
Is this one of Phi’s double bluffs? Is it some obscure event that nobody will have heard of? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually something quite clear.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | MILLET | Satisfied about unfortunate grain (6) |
| m(ill)et | ||
| 9 | HARBOUR | Entertain hot passion, favouring Baron over Duke (7) |
| h ardour with the d replaced by b | ||
| 10 | CITRON | Ancient fruit-tree: it gets a bit of research in study (6) |
| c(it r{esearch})on — ancient because the original citron was the originator of the citrus fruits | ||
| 11 | SIDEKICK | Associate offering team a boost? (8) |
| side [team] kick [boost] | ||
| 12 | CHESS SET | Playing pieces German forces Earl to put in box (5,3) |
| ches(SS E)t | ||
| 14 | GIRTON | Clothed and ready for college (6) |
| girt [clothed] on [ready] — not quite sure how on = ready; no doubt there is some pair of sentences in which they are interchangeable — Girton is a Cambridge College | ||
| 15 | SAGO | Get depressed over cereal (4) |
| sag [get depressed] o | ||
| 17 | PEARL | A line about a paragon (5) |
| pe(a)r l — I always miss this, a = per (twice a day/twice per day} | ||
| 18 | FISH | To search France is hard (4) |
| F is h | ||
| 19 | BRECON | British leading American military survey in part of Wales (6) |
| Br econ/ECon/ECON? I can’t see this at all: it must be a reference to something I don’t know about — Google just throws up a whole lot of stuff about economics | ||
| 21 | HABITUAL | Somewhat united in protection of King Henry as usual (8) |
| H(a bit U)al — I was bit vague about King Henry and Hal, but this makes it clear | ||
| 24 | ACANTHUS | A bog therefore will supply decorative plant (8) |
| a can thus — can = bog in the lavatorial sense | ||
| 26 | TALCUM | Mineral corporation securing aluminium contract initially (6) |
| t(Al c{ontract})um | ||
| 27 | TAPIOCA | Expression of gratitude about a snap capturing ordinary pudding (7) |
| t(a pi(o)c)a — delicious | ||
| 28 | OYSTER | Head concealed in publicity material, shielding unknown secretive person (6) |
| {p}o(y)ster | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FINISH | End of European country after a Nationalist defects (6) |
| Finnish with an n missing | ||
| 2 | ALFRESCO | Old King’s company ditching Director outside (8) |
| Alfre{D}’s co | ||
| 3 | STONES | Ship carrying quality jewels (6) |
| S(tone)S | ||
| 4 | OHMS | Queen protected by large resistance units (4) |
| O(HM)S — her majesty in outsize | ||
| 5 | PRODIGAL | Lavish in support of archaeological work most of all (8) |
| pro dig al{l} | ||
| 6 | COOKER | Senior officer agreed with little hesitation to provide appliance (6) |
| co OK er | ||
| 7 | GRACIOUS | My cougar is running wild (8) |
| (cougar is)* | ||
| 13 | TEACH | School certificate achieved? Not entirely (5) |
| Hidden in certificaTE ACHieved — a good one, one of my last in | ||
| 16 | ATROCITY | A classical location is host to most of urban massacre? (8) |
| a Tro(cit{y})y | ||
| 17 | PANTHEON | Criticise article about memorial building (8) |
| pan the on — not quite sure what ‘memorial’ is doing: ‘pantheon’ means ‘temple of the gods’; if it’s their temple, how are they being memorialised? | ||
| 18 | FATALIST | American included in obesity register? I’d doubt I could affect that (8) |
| Fat (A) list — an obesity register is fancifully a fat list, hence the question mark | ||
| 20 | CANOPY | Shade article put into forge (6) |
| c(an)opy | ||
| 22 | BUTTON | Rear end supported by knob (6) |
| butt [rear end] on — on = supported by: if A is on B, A is supported by B | ||
| 23 | ACUMEN | Last word about copper’s penetration (6) |
| a(Cu)men | ||
| 25 | SPAR | In case of emergencies, cut piece of wood (4) |
| spar{e} — no, ‘case of emergencies’ isn’t ‘es’ as I expected | ||
Thanks, John. There’s a number of across solutions associated with PEARL… Including, of course, Pearl Harbour!
BRECON is just B for British followed by RECON.
Nice puzzle as usual. Beaten by SPAR over 50 words fit and I could only think of SLAT which I obviously couldnt parse and its so long since I had a puncture.
February 3rd is the 30th anniversary of my first Independent crossword and this is the closest Phi-day to it. There are a few more pearl-related answers in the down entries.
I struggled with some of these and did not finish. Like Copmus, I couldn’t see 25D and was fixated on Slat.
We found this towards the more challenging end of the Phi spectrum but did finish without help. SPAR was our LOI after we’d puzzled over it for some time and then the penny suddenly dropped.
For on = ready in 14ac we thought of something like “are you on for our trip tomorrow?”. And to expand on NeilW’s explanation of BRECON, Chambers has ‘recon’ as American military slang for reconnaissance.
A pity that Phi couldn’t have worked in ‘barley’ as another pearl-related entry – but one can’t have everything.
Thanks, Phi, and congratulations on 30 years of Indy setting. Thanks, too to John.
Congratulations Phi. We thought it may have something to do with PEARL, especially given its central location. We were however amazed when we searched Chambers and found a large number of related words which you had included.
Thanks John.