Phi has as usual not let us down. There are some excellent clues here as always. I just don’t know how he can produce these things week after week.
Definitions underlined, in teal. Anagram indicators in italics.
For once I’ve seen the Nina, although whether I’ve drunk in its full glory is open to question. Round the outside of the grid the unches read ‘What will score four or six runs?’ And the answer to this is ‘a boundary’, the very perimeter that we are reading.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | SHEARS | Son tries topiary tool (6) |
| s hears | ||
| 9 | ECO-LABEL | Company brought in the French package, backing green marketing (3-5) |
| co. in (le bale)rev. | ||
| 10 | NEAR | Mostly ingenious and right? Almost right (4) |
| nea{t} R | ||
| 11 | STUFF | The way to advertise offloading power products (5) |
| st {P}uff | ||
| 12 | BIAS | Family member taken aback about a prejudice (4) |
| (sib)rev. round a | ||
| 13 | USED | Stuck together, ditching leader that’s no longer fresh (4) |
| {f}used — but my initial thought when I had …d was that it was ‘olid’, which according to Collins is foul-smelling and just about works here | ||
| 15 | IDEALISTIC | Fish of the most important kind I start to collect – in aspiration (10) |
| ide A-list I c{ollect} — I can’t quite see how the definition works: ‘idealistic’ is an adjective; is ‘in aspiration’ adjectival? Or perhaps the definition is just ‘aspiration’ and somehow this is an adjective? Surely it’s just a noun. Two sentences where ‘in aspiration’ and ‘idealistic’ are interchangeable don’t occur to me. | ||
| 16 | CANAPE | Primate going to prison gets a snack (6) |
| can ape — with ‘to’ in the sense of ‘next to’, where either order is OK | ||
| 17 | GEDDIT | Do you see good work on newspaper taking an extra day? (6) |
| g edit with an extra d | ||
| 19 | REAL TENNIS | Court activity, developing in earnest, ensnaring Earl at last (4,6) |
| (in earnest)* round {Ear}l | ||
| 22 | LOCO | Caught short, going in toilet that’s cracked (4) |
| lo(c)o | ||
| 23 | XMAS | Cross when receiving money in increasingly commercialised event? (4) |
| X (M) as | ||
| 24 | ALBUM | Nearly everyone has an unfortunate collection of photos (5) |
| al{l} bum [an unfortunate, presumably in the sense that a bum is unfortunate in his or her background] | ||
| 26 | RUHR | Part of Germany: sport here always ignoring English (4) |
| RU [sport: rugby union] h{E}r{E} | ||
| 28 | IMBECILE | The writer’s spiteful comments about the City may be foolish (8) |
| I’m bil(EC)e — I wonder why Phi says ‘may be’ — is that to avoid the issue of whether it should be ‘is’ or ‘are’? I’d thought, having raised this matter in these columns some while ago, that either was OK. | ||
| 29 | NESTLE | Holy man left in endless poverty is to stay snug (6) |
| ne(St L)e{d} | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | WHEE | Go by bike, covering length – yay! (4) |
| whee{l} | ||
| 2 | HARRIDAN | Battle-axe? King and I protected by tough one (8) |
| har(R I)d an | ||
| 3 | AS IS | Foundation without roof, with no further amendment (2,2) |
| {b}asis | ||
| 4 | TENURE | Hurry up in support for job security (6) |
| (run)rev. in tee | ||
| 5 | WOEFULNESS | We will accept love – something nasty rejects it – sad state of affairs? (10) |
| w(0)e f{0}ulness — the ‘it’ refers to ‘love’ | ||
| 6 | IAMBUS | One doctor in Australia is good for the foot (6) |
| 1 A(MB)us — a foot in poetry, of the same rhythm as ‘become’ — rather a long ‘link’, of three words or possibly four | ||
| 7 | LEGALISTIC | Support with a tilt is condemned initially according to law (10) |
| leg a list i{s} c{ondemned} | ||
| 14 | SOCCER MOMS | Organised parents come across oddly, abandoning academy for master (6,4) |
| (come across)* except that a is replaced by m — not a term I knew (although I had heard of soccer dads) — both a = academy and m = master are in Chambers but neither is in Collins so far as I can see | ||
| 15 | IMPRESARIO | Who might stage Iris, Mascagni’s foremost opera, possibly (10) |
| (Iris M{ascagni} opera)* — Iris was indeed one of Mascagni’s operas, but his foremost opera? Surely Cavalleria rusticana is the one by which he is mainly remembered? — semi-&lit. — you’d think it was Cavalleria Rusticana, but Google gives both | ||
| 18 | DOLOROSO | Daughter with sherry – feeling like drowning her sorrows? (8) |
| d. oloroso [a type of sherry] — doloroso is a musical term meaning ‘in a dolorous manner’ | ||
| 20 | LESSER | Queen not working, making tutoring not so important (6) |
| I’m clearly missing something here: probably ‘less ER’ means that we are getting less of The Queen, so she’s not working so hard, but ‘tutoring’ …? [As has been quickly pointed out, the tutoring is a lesson, the ‘on’ of which is replaced by ER. Thanks NeilW and Hovis (and no doubt others to come)] | ||
| 21 | NOBLER | Saboteur losing heart, becoming more high-minded (6) |
| nob{b}ler — a saboteur, being someone who sabotages, is someone who nobbles | ||
| 25 | MENU | United in support of fellows making food offering (4) |
| men [fellows] U | ||
| 27 | HALF | Vulgar upset after disposing of second quantity of beer (4) |
| (fla{s}h)rev. | ||
Thanks, John. LESSER is lesson (tutoring) with ER replacing ON (Queen not working). Thanks for explaining WOEFULNESS – I failed to see the O for it.
I parsed LESSER the same way as Neil @1 but it took me quite some time to arrive at this. Lots of wonderfully devious clueing. Really liked this one, despite the few niggles as detailed in the blog. What a marvellous nina to form the cherry on top. Thanks to Phi and John.
Would never have finished this had it not been for the boundary nina. Stuck in the SW corner, having put (S)OLID in 13a. Couldn’t parse 5d.
Glad I never thought of (S)OLID. Think I would have put it in with some conviction if I had – a solid answer to the clue.
One of the best Phi’s for the year I thought. Lots of challenging clues (eg LESSER and WOEFULNESS) and an accessible Nina, which helped me to solve the puzzle as well, to top it all off.
Thanks to Phi and John
Steady progress rather than rattling through today, but all the better for that. We pencilled in WOEFULNESS early on but couldn’t see the parsing till near the end. IAMBUS held ud up for a while, too; we couldn’t shake off the idea of the foot being that thing at the end of one’s leg. And we wondered whether DOLOROSO – obviously the answer to 18dn from the wordplay – was the correct way to describe a daughter – shouldn’t it be ‘dolorosa‘?
We did spot the nina before finishing for once. Can’t help thinking, though, that there won’t be too many boundaries (or overs, runs and wickets for that matter) this summer. It’s been announced this morning that the season won’t start till 1st July at the earliest.
LESSER and WOEFULNESS were among our favourites, plus ECO-LABEL and RUHR.
Thanks, Phi and John
Thanks to all who have commented, but so far nobody has mentioned 15ac. It looks wrong to me. It would be good if someone could explain why it isn’t wrong.
Thanks John. I came here wondering if anyone else had gone astray with (s)olid. Delighted to find I wasn’t alone. Can’t help with 15 though.
Many thanks to Phi.