Independent 10,749 by Phi

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An enjoyable Phi-day puzzle, though with a few tricky moments.

There are one or two slightly tenuous definitions, and a couple of places where I’m not quite convinced by the wordplay, though someone will probably correct me if necessary. Plenty of a-ha moments and some great surfaces; I like the image of a man-cave (and the ingenious anagram) in 17a, the brilliantly misleading surface of 7d, and the groan-worthy pun of 15d. Thanks Phi as always.

Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

ACROSS
1 GRAMPUS
Whale to blow endlessly, about to rise? (7)
GUS[h] (to blow; endlessly = last letter dropped) around (about) RAMP (to rise, as if climbing up a ramp).

An old name for what’s now usually known as an orca or killer whale.
5 SALERNO
Demand navy to attend old Italian port (7)
SALE (the amount of a commodity that is sold = demand; I didn’t know that usage but it’s in Chambers) + RN (Royal Navy) + O (old).

Port in south-west Italy.
9 THOUSANDS
A great many you once observed beside coastal feature (9)
THOU (old word for “you” = “you once”) beside SANDS (coastal feature).
10 MAVEN
Players welcoming a very dab hand (5)
MEN (players, for example in a sports team “down to ten men”) including (welcoming) A + V (very).

Mainly US usage I think, from Hebrew via Yiddish: it means a trusted expert in a particular field, who could also be called a dab hand at whatever it is.
11 EDITH
Time to return, pursued by hot woman (5)
TIDE (time, as in Eastertide) reversed (to return), followed (pursued) by H (hot).

I know some solvers don’t like “woman” representing “a woman’s name” because there are far too many options, but the wordplay is fairly clear and the crossers don’t leave much doubt.
12 CHAPARRAL
Fellow arrives beside a large thicket of trees (9)
CHAP (fellow) + ARR (short for arrives, used in flight schedules) + A L (large).

Area (in a hot dry climate) covered by thickets of small trees or shrubs.
14 WHISTLE-BLOWING
Tackling corruption with his band, reversing poor showing in Government (7-7)
W (with) + HIS, then BELT (band) reversed, then LOW (poor showing = unacceptably bad performance) + IN G (government). That’s a lot of pieces to put together.

Term for the actions of an insider within an organisation who raises concerns about bad practice: often to deal with corruption, but it could also be about unfair treatment, dangerous conditions, or just plain incompetence.
17 COLLECTOR’S ITEM
Male in pursuit of fancy electric tools – something one has to have? (10,4)
Anagram (fancy) of ELECTRIC TOOLS, with M (male) after it (in pursuit).
21 NERVELESS
Small second soccer team around end of October regressed, becoming flabby (9)
S (small) + S (second) + ELEVEN (soccer team), containing (around) the end letter of [octobe]R, all reversed (regressed).

An odd word with two almost opposite meanings: it can mean “weak and flabby” (as here), or “confident, without any sign of nervousness”.
23 NOBEL
Swedish inventor’s book appearing in festive season (5)
B (book) appearing in NOEL (Christmas = festive season).

Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor whose legacy founded the Nobel Prize.
24 REEVE
Former Hollywood actor appearing in bizarre event (5)
Hidden answer (appearing in) [bizar]RE EVE[nt].

Christopher Reeve, best known for the Superman films.
25 CHECKMATE
End of game sees friend following regular pattern (9)
MATE (friend) following CHECK (regular pattern).
26 OLYMPUS
Mount finale of festival, blocking version of my opus (7)
Last letter (finale) of [festiva]L, inserted into (blocking) an anagram (version) of MY OPUS.

Mount Olympus, highest mountain in Greece, and home of the gods in Greek mythology.
27 TANNERY
Attempt to secure outbuilding that’s ditched by leather works (7)
TRY (attempt), containing (to secure) ANNE[x] (outbuilding), with the X (by = multiplication symbol) dropped (ditched).

A place where animal skins are processed to make leather.
DOWN
1 GATHER
Understand good parent avoids force (6)
G (good) + [f]ATHER (parent), avoiding the F (force).

Gather = understand as in “I gather you’ve been there before”.
2 ABOLISH
A heavy arrow mostly is hard to stop (7)
A+ BOL[t] (heavy arrow, as used with a crossbow; mostly = last letter dropped) + IS + H (hard).
3 POST-HASTE
Quickly suggest reduced hydrogen in sample (4-5)
POS[e] (suggest, as in pose a question? I’m not sure about that), with the last letter dropped (reduced), then H (chemical symbol for hydrogen) in TASTE (sample, as a verb).

“As quickly as possible”; allegedly from instructions given to a “post” (16th-century courier) to “haste” when carrying an urgent message.
4 SANSCULOTTE
Revolutionary counts least in revolution? (11)
Anagram (in revolution) of COUNTS LEAST.

From the French Revolution: the aristocracy usually wore silk knee breeches (culottes), and referred contemptuously to the working classes who couldn’t afford such things as “without breeches” (sans-culottes).
5 SIS
Something identifying sibling, primarily (3)
Initial letters (primarily) of S[omething] Identifying] S[ibling].

Clue-as-definition: sis = familiar name for sister = sibling.
6 LEMMA
Proposition from Frenchman, then married in the country (5)
M (short for Monsieur = Frenchman) + M (married), in LEA (open country or meadow).

Lemma = a mathematical proposition to be proved, especially as one part of a larger proof.
7 REVERSI
Othello’s setback mostly provided by Iago, principally (7)
REVERS[e] (as a noun = setback = event that interrupts one’s progress; mostly = last letter dropped) + first letter (principally) of I[ago].

The surface suggests Shakespeare’s Othello, but that has nothing to do with the answer. Reversi is a board game dating back to the 19th century, played with pieces that are white on one side and black on the other; Othello is a variation on the original game, patented in the 1970s.
8 OENOLOGY
Studying wine, upset one over record year (8)
Anagram (upset) of ONE, then O (over, in cricket scoring) + LOG (record) + Y (year).

The science of wine and winemaking.
13 ARBORESCENT
A conifer ultimately carried aroma resembling a tree (11)
A + last letter (ultimately) of [conife]R + BORE (carried) + SCENT (aroma).

I’m not sure why the language needs a word for “having the shape or characteristics of a tree”, but apparently someone found a reason to invent it.
15 ONIONSKIN
Paper describing the leek? (9)
The leek is a vegetable in the onion family, so could be described as ONION’S KIN.

Onionskin = a type of thin, lightweight, strong paper, used for getting a lot of pages into a small weight / volume.
16 SCENARIO
No time at all to get wind of wild film idea (8)
SCEN[t] (get wind of = detect by smell, literally or figuratively) + A RIO[t] (wild, as in “the party was a riot” = was wild), with both instances of the letter T (time) removed (no time at all). At least that’s my best guess, though I’m not quite convinced by the RIO[t] part.
18 LARCENY
Clear criminal over US city crime (7)
Anagram (criminal) of CLEAR, before (over, in a down clue) NY (New York = US city).

Old word for unlawfully taking someone else’s property. In the UK it’s been replaced by a series of more specific crimes (burglary, robbery, theft, etc), but the word is still used elsewhere.
19 EMBRACE
Accept support after not-so-brief space (7)
BRACE (support, for example a knee brace) after EM (in typography, a space originally defined as the width of the uppercase letter M, therefore a relatively long space = not so brief).
20 SLEEPY
Agent, having secured shelter, ready to go out? (6)
SPY (agent), containing (having secured) LEE (shelter, especially from the wind).

Go out, as in “go out like a light” = fall asleep.
22 EYE UP
Carefully observe confirmation of a palindrome? (3,2)
Definition and cryptic definition: EYE is a palindrome, which would be confirmed by writing it UP (upwards in a down clue).
25 COS
Reduction in price for salad vegetable (3)
COS[t] (price; reduction = last letter dropped).

Cos = a variety of lettuce, otherwise known as romaine.

13 comments on “Independent 10,749 by Phi”

  1. I parsed SCENARIO as in blog (but with the A between SCENt & RIOt). Quite a few unknowns (MAVEN, SANS-CULOTTE (hyphenated in Chambers), ARBORESCENT) and some unknown meanings (SALE, NERVELESS). Got there in the end (unlike yesterday).

    CHAPARRAL was another unknown meaning. I remember there was a tv program called The High Chaparral but never watched it.

  2. Hovis @1: thanks, I’d forgotten the A of “a riot” – blog now corrected. Yes, I wondered about sans-culotte hyphenated, but some dictionaries (eg Collins) accept it as one word. And yes, I’d never watched the TV programme either, but remembered the name, so knew it must be a real word and just had to check the meaning.

  3. The day was young and pleasant when IK slolved this. Nice puzzle (as always Phi) and great blog
    The day could only get worse-whixch it did

  4. On Phi you can rely. Always both enjoyable and educational. I’d never heard of either grampus or reversi. The game Othello did occur to me but I’ve never played it, so that didn’t help! Knew the word chaparral from the never-seen programme but didn’t know the meaning.
    So, many thanks for the blog, Quirister – much needed. Sorry I can’t help with your slight doubts about 3d. I couldn’t account for the pos of poste haste except by suggest=propose and it’s very much reduced, not just a bit. Seems most unlikely. Sorry to hear your day got worse, copmus. If it’s any comfort, mine’s turning into a stinker.

  5. I didn’t have any issue with POSe for 3d. For what it’s worth, it is in Chambers thesaurus. I should have added @1 that REVERSI was another unknown for me but I had heard of the game meaning for Othello.

  6. A DNF for me as I stupidly misspelled ‘chaparral’ so couldn’t even find anything to fit 6D in a word list. 5A had to be ‘Salerno’ but I couldn’t parse it. Thanks Phi and Quirister.

  7. Nice n steady.. clues giving answers with unknown definitions.. as mostly already mentioned.. altho I’d add LEMMA to the list.. 3d was OK for me also… definitely needed Quirister for a handful also especially 1ac 2ac, both of which i knew but couldn’t completely explain… really enjoyable puzzle
    Thanks to Phi n Quirister

  8. Lots of substractions add up to a challenging puzzle for me. It’s strange how can know a word like CHAPARRAL, and some of its connotations, without knowing what it means. Thanks to Phi and Quirister

  9. I think this was my best performance to date with a Phi puzzle – needed less help than usual and finished it in about 40 mins spread over two sessions. (Though I did manage the jumbo Christmas puzzle he set under his own name in the Church Times unaided, but that took me hours.)

    I’m the exception to the rule in remembering watching the High Chaparral in my youth, but was taking a guess from the crossers on it having a tree connection.

    Thanks to Quirister for providing the parsings I didn’t get.

  10. I remember watching The High Chaparral, too.

    I also remember when Othello first appeared, it was marketed as a traditional Japanese game. ‘a commentator in a games magazine said it was Japanese in that they’d taken the traditional British game of reversi and then given it the name of a Shakespeare pla

  12. I hardly ever comment on Phi crosswords but hugely enjoy them.
    Precision plus meaningful surfaces, so consistently good!
    Today I must single out 17ac and 7dn, in particular.
    The first is a really wonderful anagram, and 7dn is a near-perfect clue (but 15 and 16dn are not bad either).
    As ever, many thanks to Phi & Quirister (for a blog that matches the puzzle).

  13. Very enjoyable, and we agree with Sil’s choice of COLLECTOR’S ITEM and REVERSI for our clues of the day, although we also liked OENOLOGY.
    We parsed 3dn taking pos[e] for ‘suggest reduced’ but on second thoughts could it be pos[it]?
    “I’m not sure why the language needs a word for ‘having the shape or characteristics of a tree'” – well, we suppose the metal and plastic thing we erect and decorate at Christmas might be described as ARBORESCENT.
    Thanks, Phi and Quirister.

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