Here’s the latest from Phi, who continues to produce enjoyable puzzles every week.
The clues range from fairly straightforward to quite tricky, with a good range of clue types and surprisingly few anagrams. Thanks to Phi for the fun.
At last, it’s January. The less said about 2020 the better, but let me wish everyone a Happy New Year with the hope that 2021 will be an improvement.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | WINIFRED | Woman’s success if adopting a left-wing stance (8) |
| WIN (success) + IF + RED (slang for communist / socialist = left-wing). Some solvers object to defining a name as just “woman” or “man”; in this case I think it’s OK because the wordplay is very straightforward. |
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| 6 | DERAIL | Redirect Queen entering European parliament (6) |
| ER (Elizabeth Regina = the Queen), entering DAIL (Dáil – lower house of the Irish Parliament). I’m not sure the definition quite works: “redirect” has the sense of sending in a specific direction, though not the one originally intended, but “derail” suggests either stopping altogether or an uncontrolled change. Close enough for crosswords, though. |
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| 9 | CART | Vehicle requiring constant skill (4) |
| C (constant: lowercase c = symbol representing the speed of light) + ART (skill). | ||
| 10 | TRAIN WRECK | Macabre situation in West about to block railway? (5,5) |
| IN + W (west) + RE (about), inserted into (blocking) TRACK (railway). Slang for an embarrassingly unpleasant situation that just gets worse as it goes on, such as an ill-judged media interview that damages one’s reputation further rather than salvaging it. (Pick any one of a few examples in the past year.) |
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| 11 | CITIES | Names, including island locations (6) |
| CITES (names, as a verb; for example in a court of law, to name someone who should be called to testify), including I (island). Seems a somewhat loose definition to me: locations can be many places that aren’t cities. |
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| 12 | SEIGNEUR | Historical leader, English, brought in token European (8) |
| E (English) brought into SIGN (token), then EUR (European). Old French term for a lord (land-owner). |
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| 13 | EPAULET | US uniform symbol regressive goon allowed on both sides of uniform (7) |
| APE (goon = uncouth or clumsy person, or perhaps a hired thug), reversed (regressive), then LET (allowed), around (on both sides of) U (Uniform, in the radio alphabet). US spelling for what in the UK is generally called an epaulette: a decoration worn on the shoulder of a uniform to signify the wearer’s rank. |
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| 15 | TELLER | Tense chap dismissing first bank employee (6) |
| T (abbreviation for tense, according to Chambers, though I’ve never been sure who would use this abbreviation or which meaning of “tense” it refers to), then [f]ELLER (chap = slang for man) with its first letter dismissed. | ||
| 17 | ARGYLE | Limits to another gaudy line in fabric design (6) |
| First and last letters (limits) to A[nothe]R G[aud]Y L[in]E. Diamond pattern (diagonal checks), often used on golf sweaters, socks worn with kilts, etc – also spelled Argyll. |
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| 19 | ELYSIUM | Delightful state is unknown in obstinate bloke, on reflection (7) |
| IS + Y (mathematical symbol for “unknown”), inserted into MULE (obstinate bloke), all reversed (on reflection). The Ancient Greek version of Paradise. |
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| 21 | SNIPPETS | Newspaper items recommending spaying? (8) |
| A recommendation to spay domestic animals (to render them infertile) = SNIP PETS. | ||
| 23 | STEP ON | Suppress hurry, eradicating it (4,2) |
| STEP ON [it] (an instruction to hurry up / go faster), without the IT. Step on = crush or suppress. |
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| 24 | CONTROVERT | Working with trustee in secret dispute (10) |
| ON (working) + TR (tr = abbreviation for trustee, according to Chambers, though I’d never heard of it), inserted into COVERT (secret). As in controversy: to deny or refute a statement, or just to dispute (argue about) something. |
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| 25 | TREE | Push to give up Times, after reflection – saving this? (4) |
| E[x]ERT (push), giving up the X (mathematical symbol for “times”), reversed (after reflection). Extended definition: if you give up buying the print version of a newspaper such as the Times, you could claim you’re saving paper and hence saving trees. |
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| 26 | ERASED | Removed evidence of periods of French backsliding (6) |
| ERAS (periods), then DE (French for “of”) reversed (backsliding). | ||
| 27 | DESERVED | Just half-dead – beginning to rally – then died (8) |
| DE[ad] (half of “dead”) + SERVE (beginning of a rally, in tennis and other racket sports) + D (d = abbreviation for died). As in a just reward = a deserved reward. |
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| DOWN | ||
| 2 | IMAGINE | Think I’m not in favour of energy (7) |
| I’M + AGIN (dialect word for “against” = not in favour of) + E (abbreviation for energy). | ||
| 3 | INTRICACY | Complexity confounded any critic (9) |
| Anagram (confounded) of ANY CRITIC. Remarkably, this is the first anagram in the blog so far: there are none in the across clues. |
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| 4 | RATES | Raised some of these tariffs making payment to council (5) |
| Hidden answer (some of), reversed (raised = upwards in a down clue), in [the]SE TAR[iffs]. Tax based on property value, used to fund local government (council). |
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| 5 | DEAD SET | Determined daughter getting seated after a struggle (4,3) |
| D (daughter) + anagram (after a struggle) of SEATED. | ||
| 6 | DENTISTRY | Evidence of mishap is leading attempt to provide medical treatment (9) |
| DENT (evidence of mishap, for example damage caused by a vehicle collision) + IS, before (leading) TRY (attempt). | ||
| 7 | RERUN | Soldiers collapse after blocking one later appearance (5) |
| RE (Royal Engineers = soldiers), then RU[i]N (collapse), taking out (blocking) I (Roman numeral for one). A second or subsequent performance. I’d probably write this as “re-run”, but US usage generally omits hyphens when adding prefixes, and the UK is starting to follow the trend. |
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| 8 | INCLUDE | Find room for popular item like this, after intervention by Director (7) |
| IN (popular = fashionable) + CLUE (item like this, i.e. what you’re solving to get this answer), with D (director) inserted (intervening). | ||
| 14 | LIEGE LORD | Story: good part elevated Duke, a feudal nobleman (5,4) |
| LIE (story = slang for an untruthful account) + G (good) + ROLE (part, in a play) reversed (elevated = upwards in a down clue) + D (Duke). Similar concept to 12a, but more specifically involving the duty of military service on demand. |
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| 16 | LEICESTER | Sly look around cool street in British city (9) |
| LEER (sly look), around ICE (as a verb = cool by applying ice) + ST (street). | ||
| 18 | RANCOUR | Ill-feeling spread, attaching to most of monarch’s circle (7) |
| RAN (spread, as in colours running in the wash) attached to COUR[t] (monarch’s circle; most of = all but the last letter). | ||
| 19 | EAST END | Each will surmount small incline in part of London? (4,3) |
| EA (ea = abbreviation for each) before (surmounting = above, in a down clue) S (small) + TEND (incline, as a verb; tend to = incline to = be likely to). | ||
| 20 | MIOCENE | Rodents seen around old New England in geological epoch (7) |
| MICE (rodents), around O (old) + N (new) + E (England). A specific division of the geological timescale. |
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| 22 | PATHS | Current item I dropped in support of the old man’s ways (5) |
| TH[i]S (the current item), with the I dropped, after (supporting = below, in a down clue) PA (the old man = slang for father). | ||
| 23 | SITES | Small objects, not medium in places (5) |
| S (small) + ITE[m]S (objects) without the M (medium). | ||
If you look at each of the rows containing complete answers (2 answers per row), the final 3 letters of the first answer in the row are the mirror image of the first 3 letters of the following answer. I don’t know if there’s any significance beyond this; maybe something to do with SNIPPETS, but someone will doubtless enlighten us.
A good one to kick off the New Year. I was stymied by initially putting in a semi-parsed ‘divert’ for 6a, and even after I’d seen the error of my ways, my last in SEIGNEUR was very slow to yield its secrets. I don’t know that I think of a TRAIN WRECK specifically as a ‘Macabre situation’ but it’s a versatile term to describe all manner of stuff-ups and was my favourite today.
Thanks and a happy New Year to Phi and Quirister and to everyone else at Fifteensquared.
WordPlodder @1: well spotted. It’s the first of January, named after a two-headed god who looks both backwards and forwards; maybe Phi was thinking along those lines?
Is this meant to be the original blog for today’s crossword 3089 by Phi in the ‘I’? Because it isn’t. That would be Independent 9357 (10/10/2016)
WordPlodder @1: I think you might be on to something! Well spotted indeed. Very clever: I wondered if there would be a theme but hadn’t seen it. I’m another who went for DIVERT – VR being the queen splitting up DIET which was a European parliament of sorts and I was defeated by SEIGNEUR and, I’m ashamed to admit, CITIES which is obvious with hindsight but just wouldn’t come.
Particular favourites included: TRAIN WRECK (once I’d ditched the idea of Mae being the West), ARGYLE with its lovely surface, ELYSIUM because it’s a lovely word, INTRICACY – a splendid anagram and so succinct and three that were just fun to assemble as per instructions: DENTISTRY, LEICESTER and INCLUDE.
Sorry Aphid @3: I’m not understanding your post.
Thanks Phi and Quirister
Aphid @3: This blog is for today’s crossword 10677 in the Independent, not 3089 in the “i”. The Fifteensquared website doesn’t cover the “i” crosswords – I think you need to go to the “idothei” site at https://idothei.wordpress.com/, though it looks as though the blog for today’s puzzle isn’t there yet.
Oops! Mea Culpa. Thanks and apologies Quirister
Somehow I managed to complete this correctly, though I thought seven were very tough and obscure and I entered some of them in desperation. The mirrored three middle letters device was brilliant. Thanks Phi and Quirister.
Thanks@ wordplodder-thats the sort of thing I might have looked for in a Serpent
but I missed that
missed any Janus related theme but good all the same .. woefully slow tho.. wish I could blame wild partying… maybe next year
thanks Quirister n Phi
I failed to follow Quirister’s advice from a few days ago to look for a theme. So much for New Year’s resolutions. Kicking myself because it was so clever, but I probably wouldn’t have spotted it in any case. Congratulations to Wordplodder for doing so!
Yes, Janus-facing was the intent – a while since I’ve been able to target NYD. I rather enjoyed working ‘old New England’ into a clue.
Happy New Year everyone.
Very satisfying, as always with Phi. We looked for a theme but didn’t spot it.
Thanks, Phi and Quirister.