It’s the end of another week and once again Phi sets us a puzzle to solve.
The grid shouted out NINA but it wasn’t long before we realised that this wasn’t the case. Most of the clues were solved before we realised that there was a GRASS theme. It wasn’t necessary to know anything about the theme and actually it wan’t until we checked things in our Chambers app using a wild card *GRASS* that we realised just how many there were.
Canary grass is used for bird seed; citronella grass yields an oil used in perfumery and insect repellents; cane grass grows in swamps and marshes; crab grasses are weeds that take root in lawns and gardens; elephant grass is grown locally and is used as biomass; hair-grass is a narrow stemmed coarse grass; lemon grass is a fragrant grass used in cooking which yields an essential oil; panic grass is any grass in the Panicum genus; sago grass is used as fodder for cattle in Australia; star grass is a coarse seaside grass or a name for many grasslike plants with star shaped flowers or leaf arrangements; bent grass is any stiff or wiry grass; pepper grass is also known as pillwort.
Apart from the various species of grass we have: blue grass (a style of country music as well as a type of grass); a grass moth is a small light coloured moth that frequents grass; a grass snake is a a harmless ringed make.
Congratulations to Phi for an amazing grid-fill with more than 50% of the entries connected to the theme.
FLAW (mistake) reversed or ‘recalled’ about L (line) + LOWER (further down)
CANinE (tooth) missing ‘in’ (popular)
SO (very much) UP (ahead)
AN (article) in PIC (photo)
BAR (sandbank) C (about) reversed or ‘returning’
CARY (‘Grant perhaps’ as in the film star) around or ‘importing’ A N (new)
CID (detectives) ARe without or ‘ditching’ E (English) OPS (operations), all reversed or ‘backtracking’
BET (gamble) around or ‘absorbing’ N (number)
GRASpS (comprehends) without or ‘losing’ P (power)
STARt (opening) missing last letter or ‘without latest’
PRICk (point) missing last letter or ‘a lot of’ inside or ‘blocking’ CUTE (attractive)
LES (French for the) around or ‘about’ VIN (wine in French) all reversed or ‘regressive’
STEeP (expensive) with no repetition of E
Hidden (‘bearing’) and reversed (‘revolutionary’) in piaNO MELodies
H (hot) AIR (gas) – having a clip is something a great many people have been looking forward to this week.
U (university) L (lecturer) reversed or ‘recalled’ in BE (live)
An anagram (‘dispersed’) of INTO CELLAR
SAG (give way) O (over)
A clue as definition – H (first letter or ‘introduction’ of Hannibal) inside or ‘into’ E (European) and LEPANTo (battle) missing O or ‘nothing less’. Hannibal used elephants to help him cross the Alps. Many perished but the surviving animals were used in the battle of Trebia. The battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement that took place in 1571. It was the first significant victory of a Christian naval force over a Turkish fleet in the Mediterranean. Needless to say, we had to check the parsing of this clue.
OP (work) P (piano) with SLY (tricky) around the outside or ‘getting round that’
SWAiN (lover) without or ‘neglecting’ I
ACId (bitter) missing last letter or ‘mostly’ inside or ‘ticking into’ GROUSe (beef) missing last letter or ‘a lot of’
AC (account) inside or ‘penned by’ A (American) CIA (spies)
An anagram (‘flapping’) of VAIN above or ‘over’ L (Liberal) I DATE (see)
An anagram (‘dreadful’) of DELAY around or ‘involving’ QU (Queen) ATE (worried)
S (first letter or ‘head’ of serpent) NAKEd (like Adam and Eve) missing last letter or ‘mostly’
GRInD (hard work) without or ‘removing’ N (new) + LOCK (bit of hair)
S (first letter or ‘source’ of smoke) LIGHTED (burning)
PEP (quantity of energy) PER (a)
NO around or ‘restricting’ I (one) in SER (series)
A play on the fact that if you notice that something has munched part of your clothes – it was probably a moth. The answer is hidden (‘some’) and reversed or ‘up’ in clotH TO Munch. Mind you, Joyce remembers her mother noticing holes in her skirt when she was very young but it was her hamster that had been nibbling away at the large pocket he was nestling in whilst Joyce was eating a meal at the dinner table.
First and last letters only (heartlessly) of InjureD LadY
Very clever puzzle today and one of those lovely themes that don’t intrude on the solving experience. I twigged we were looking at grass reasonably early on and I think B&J have identified all the components. There is an ACACIA known as wattle grass in Australia (as I’m sure B&J discovered) but not strictly acacia grass.
Particular favourites included SWAN, PEPPER, GRACIOUS, SNIVEL, SPORADIC and the cunning WALLFLOWER.
Thanks Phi and B&J
Hats off to B&J for spotting this theme, I wouldn’t have got it in a month of Sundays. And of course to Phi for working in so many references. I assumed 13A had to be CANARY, though I had never heard of canary wine – I must try to find it somewhere. ELEPHANT at 2D was brilliant. Thanks Phi and B&J.
No CHRONIC or SKUNK?
copmus – fair point. There are times that setters in both the G and the I appear to have spent the weekend at Woodstock, so thick and fast come the illicit references. And today, squeaky clean!
I did rather better than usual for a Phi puzzle today, though spent too long trying to find an anagram of repellent to fit into a two letter cellar for an insect, and a few similar mis-parsings.
Missed the theme completely, but as bertandjoyce said, and amazing grid fill – kudos to Phi
I missed the theme and guessed ‘carany’ instead of the unknown CANARY ‘sweet wine’ for 13a, so failed on two fronts. Enjoyed this nonetheless and learned a few new terms along the way eg SOUP for ‘Developer’.
Thanks to Phi and thanks and well done to B&J for spotting and expanding upon the theme so comprehensively
We had someone in to mow the lawns while our mower was hors de combat. They usually gathered the clippings but for some reason this time they didn’t. So this grid was done after a vigorous afternoon raking.
I thought there would be a good range of grasses out there but the actual number I got in was very gratifying. But not SOUP, I think.
Whoops! Joyce shaded soup in by mistake. She didn’t list it in the ‘grasses’ however, a quick search revealed this –
Grass Soup is a semi-autobiographical account of the life of Zhang Xianliang during his 22 years in prison in Mao’s China
Thanks B&J and Phi missed most of the grasses do glad i wasn’t blogging. Good fun though