Independent 10,743 by Phi

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It’s Phi-day again. Where does the week go? We are not really doing anything but the days and weeks seem to go past so quickly.

We found parts of this a bit trickier than usual but when we had sorted things out, we wondered why we had struggled. For some reason or other we guessed that 2d included an anagram of EINSTEIN but we needed a few checking letters before we solved it.

We cannot see a theme – nothing new there. However, we wonder whether Phi wanted to include the 4 long answers and built the grid around those.

Thanks Phi – hope you are still doing OK in New Zealand.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1/4. Success – clear tape patched up historic Russian building (6,6)
WINTER PALACE

WIN (success) + an anagram of CLEAR TAPE (‘patched up’)

10. No idea why, but I’m at the scene (5,3,2,5)
YOU’VE GOT ME THERE

A whimsical parsing – if you were ‘at the scene’, you would be ‘there’

11. Energetic oil well sees abandonment of good conduct (5)
USHER

gUSHER (energetic oil well) without or ‘abandoning’ G (good)

12. Two girls returning, with friend about, describing many of the sights of Egypt (9)
PYRAMIDAL

DI and MARY (two girls) reversed or ‘returning’ with PAL (friend) around the outside or ‘about’

13. French engineer, in some reports, is quite a sight (6)
EYEFUL

A homophone  (‘in some reports’) of EIFFEL (French engineer)

15. The French aristocrat not sentenced to the guillotine? (3,3)
LET OFF

LE (French for ‘the’) TOFF (aristocrat)

16. Bore is quietly intense, not loud (6)
PIERCE

P (quietly) fIERCE (intense) without F (loud)

18. Exclamation of surprise on getting a vision during eclipse (6)
CORONA

COR (exclamation of surprise) ON + A

21. Repeating requirement: “Time to oust MP” (9)
ITERATIVE

ImpERATIVE (requirement) with T (time) replacing ‘ousting’ MP

22. Size Small, arriving later in sudden rush (5)
PASTE

SPATE (sudden rush) with the S (small) moving back or ‘arriving later’. The ‘size’ refers to the gluey substance you use for preparing the wall before wallpapering – had us confused for a while.

23. Energy in giant mammals perverted sexual attraction (6,9)
ANIMAL MAGNETISM

E (energy) inserted into an anagram of GIANT MAMMALS (‘perverted’)

24/25. Identical trees moved into filming area for TV programme (6,6)
SESAME STREET

SAME and an anagram of TREES (‘moved’) inside or ‘moved into’ SET (filming area)

DOWN
1. Unusual deviation on the rise, getting banned (3-3)
WAY-OUT

YAW (deviation) reversed or ‘on the rise’ as it is a down clue + OUT (banned)

2. Einstein’s decade? (7,8)
NAUGHTY NINETIES

A cryptic definition – an anagram of Einstein is NINETIES with ‘NAUGHTY’ being the anagrind

3. Arab leader always imprisoning me (5)
EMEER

E’ER (always) around or ‘imprisoning’ ME

5. Aerospace technology to change with intervention of several years? (9)
ALTIMETER

ALTER (to change) around or ‘with the intervention of’ TIME (several years?)

6. A top teacher coming from Eton’s changed: “I’m English and progressive” (5,2,4,4)
AHEAD OF ONES TIME

A HEAD (top teacher) OF (coming from) + an anagram of ETON’S (‘changed’) + I’M E (English)

7. Waugh, say, bringing name forward, maintaining consistency (6)
EVENLY

EVELYN (Waugh as in Evelyn Waugh, the author) with N (name) moving forward

8. Work on sales pitch, overlooking one truthful message? (6)
GOSPEL

GO (work) SPiEL (sales pitch) without or ‘overlooking’ I (one)

9. Graduate turned up before exam, perfectly happy to cheat? (6)
AMORAL

MA (graduate) reversed or ‘turned up’ as it is a down clue before ORAL (exam)

14. Security device: ranch will install one in actuality (4-5)
FIRE-ALARM

FARM (ranch) around or ‘installing’ I (one) REAL (in actuality)

17. Old lady supporting one in English mystery (6)
ENIGMA

MA (old lady) underneath or ‘supporting’ I (one ) in ENG (English)

18. Abnormal reaction, sacking a Liberal following Conservative ministers (6)
CLERGY

alLERGY (abnormal reaction) without or ‘sacking’ A L (Liberal) after C (Conservative)

19. Examinations reveal further cut on underside of hand (6)
FINALS

ALSo (further) missing last letter or ‘cut’ under FIN (hand)

20. Small island near France – the very thing for someone demanding solitude (6)
HERMIT

HERM (small island near France) IT (the very thing)

22. Sound of sheep initially dismissed after pastor finds fold (5)
PLEAT

bLEAT (sound of sheep) missing first letter or ‘initially dismissed’ after P (pastor)

 

13 comments on “Independent 10,743 by Phi”

  1. Great start to Friday, thanks to Phi. Couldn’t parse finals(LOI)so thanks to Bert and Joyce too.
    COTD 10A/ 13 A

  2. I struggled in the bottom half but got there in the end, with some help from a wordlist. Just to reassure myself that there was no better solution to 22A than PASTE, I checked the wordlist and found the strange word PUSLE listed there, which seemed a potential alternative at first, with ‘pulse’ as ‘sudden rush’; trouble is, it doesn’t quite work and there’s no such word! Thanks Phi and B&J.

  3. Like Panthes @1 I couldn’t parse finals. Nor way out – never heard of yaw – so thanks as ever to Bertandjoyce. Thanks also to Phi. So many good things but my cotd is Le Toff. Lovely bit of Franglais.

  4. A nice steady solve today and, like B&J, I have spotted no theme today. Which, with Phi, doesn’t mean there isn’t one! (I’ve discovered USHER did a song with the cast of SESAME STREET but that’s about as good as it gets. There’s also a HERMIT in the Fall of the House of USHER and, at one point, they read a book about a haunted PALACE. Neither of those constitutes a theme as far as I’m concerned)

    PYRAMIDAL, HERMIT, EYEFUL, CLERGY and PLEAT all get ticks from me today. Nice to see CORONA without virus attached for once.

    Thanks Phi and B&J

  5. Good Friday entertainment – 2 weeks early. Everything more or less understandable except for HERMIT; NHO the Channel Island before, but a good one to keep in mind for the future. Thankfully the cricketing ‘Waugh(s)’ didn’t occur to me first for 7d, otherwise I would have been well and truly stumped.

    I really liked ‘Einstein’s decade?’, both for the reverse anagram device and for the suggestion that a genius can also be a very NAUGHTY boy.

    Thanks to Phi and B&J

  6. I liked the NAUGHTY NINETIES as it’s rare that I get one of those reverse anagram clues. The WINTER PALACE is the home of the HERMITage and has doubtless featured exhibitions of artists AHEAD of their TIME. There is also the PYRAMID at the Louvre, but I can’t see any other museum references.

  8. Didn’t like clues at 7 and 13 where Eiffel and Evelyn could just as easily have been the answers but ‘Le toff’ still had me chuckling at the end (when I was trying to justify FIN=hand with no success) so a big thumbs up overall.
    Thanks to Phi and B&J

  9. We got off to a good start with WINTER PALACE as our FOI and didn’t have much trouble with most of the clues – FINALS and PASTE were tricky to parse (we had to check ‘fin’ for ‘hand’ in Chambers – where it’s noted as slang). Favourite was PYRAMIDAL. We can’t see a theme but Phi’s are often well hidden and not essential in solving.
    Thanks, Phi and B&J.

  10. Struggled even more than usual , just not in the zone I think

    SESAME STREET my favourite, enjoyed LETTOFF and the Einstein one I’d never seen this sort of clue before very clever

    Thanks Phi and BertandJoyce

  11. Anyone else think of NERVOUS NINETIES for 2dn? No? Well just me then. Many thanks to Phi and to BertandJoyce for a terrific blog.

  12. @11Matematico – yes. Entered NERVOUS confidently but had to reassess.

    Thanks to Phi and Bertandjoyce.

  13. Thank you Phi, also Bert&Joyce.
    I got there eventually- had to put it aside and come back as way too much time was getting spent staring in hope! Eg I just couldn’t work out 18A with a given C and fixating on exclamation as CRY. Of course once you stop CRYing, COR jumps in and you have it!
    Finals and Way Out were murder!
    Hermit was tough as I only knew a few islands off France (I know a lot more now!) Got it largely from check letters.
    Liked: Let-off and Naughty nineties
    Reinforced learnings today: sacking and ousting as indicators for letter swap.
    I agree with @8redddevil about Eiffel and Evelyn- gives you that nagging sense that it could easily be the other way round.

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