Friday is Phiday.
My standard intro for the Guardian is “The puzzle may be found at …”, but I am at a loss here; the Indy site seems to say that Friday’s crossword is not available yet. Fortunately, the utility that I use to format the blog knows better, and produced the puzzle from … wherever. Anyway, apart from that little hitch, and an hour less than usual for the blog (we have gone on to daylight saving time, and the UK has not), my first Indy blog went well, with a familiar setter and a not too difficult puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | BUREAU |
Office recalled difficulty with water in Grenoble (6)
|
| A charade of BUR, a reversal (‘recalled’) of RUB (ay, there’s the, ‘difficulty’) plus EAU (‘water in Grenoble’). | ||
| 8 | ABUTILON |
Washing line moved to reveal flowering plant (8)
|
| ABLUTION (‘washing’) with the L (‘line’) ‘moved’. | ||
| 9 | NOW YOU’RE TALKING |
We’re getting on much better without the gag (3,5,7)
|
| Double/cryptic definition. | ||
| 10 | STRUMPET |
Working girl prepared to collar ex-President (8)
|
| An envelope (‘to collar’) of TRUMP (‘ex-President’) in SET (‘prepared’), with ‘working girl’ as a jocular euphemism for a prostitute. | ||
| 12 | TRIPOD |
Martian invader seen as result of taking drugs, too many drugs (6)
|
| A charade of TRIP (‘result of taking drugs’) plus OD (overdose, ‘too many drugs’), for a fighting machine used by the Martians in The War of the Worlds by H G Wells | ||
| 13 | COALMAN |
Composed article to engross old fuel supplier (7)
|
| An envelope (‘to engross’) of O (‘old’) in CALM (‘composed’) plus AN (indefinite ‘article’). | ||
| 15 | EPIGRAM |
Difficult problem in returning horse leading to sharp comment? (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of PIG (‘difficult problem’) in ERAM, a reversal (‘returning’) of MARE (‘horse’). | ||
| 17 | PEDALO |
Holiday hire? Bells ring to demarcate end of period (6)
|
| An envelope (‘to demarcate’?) of D (‘end of perioD‘) in PEAL (‘bells’) plus O (‘ring’). | ||
| 18 | ACOUSTIC |
Company in Australia leading movement regarding sound quality (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of CO (‘company’) in AUS (“Australia’) plus (‘leading’) TIC (‘movement’). | ||
| 20 | OLD FATHER THAMES |
River from the East had swirled round Luxembourg (3,6,6)
|
| An envelope (’round’) of L (IVR, ‘Luxembourg’) in ODFATHERTHAMES, an anagram (‘swirled’) of ‘from the east had’. | ||
| 22 | AGRONOMY |
Angry moo possibly a concern for rural workers (8)
|
| An anagram (‘possibly’) of ‘angry moo’ | ||
| 23 | COLUMN |
Study about reduced mass presented in newspaper article (6)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of LUM[p] (‘mass’) minus its last letter (‘reduced’) in CON (‘study’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PUT OUT MORE FLAGS |
Novel approach to increasing foot traffic? (3,3,4,5)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation, depending on FLAGS meaning flagstones, used for pavements; for the novel by Evelyn Waugh. | ||
| 2 | SEE YOU |
Hearing half of curt farewell (3,3)
|
| Sounds like (‘hearing’) C U (‘half of CUrt’). | ||
| 3 | TUTU |
Extremes of unrest repeatedly upset former Archbishop (4)
|
| UT (‘extremes of UnresT‘) twice (‘repeatedly’) and reversed (‘upset’ in a down light); for Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop and anti-apartheid activist. | ||
| 4 | PUT A STOP TO |
End time involved in stirring a lot of potato soup (3,1,4,2)
|
| An envelope (‘involved in’) of T (‘time’) in PUASTOPTO, an anagram (‘stirring’) of ‘potat[o]’ minus its last letter (‘a lot of’) plus ‘soup’. | ||
| 5 | TICKLING |
Heather’s pursuing instant source of amusement (8)
|
| A charade of TICK (‘instant’) plus LING (‘heather’), with ‘pursuing’ indicating the order of the particles. | ||
| 6 | HORNS OF A DILEMMA |
Difficult issue for Ashmolean – I’m beginning to discover cracks (5,2,1,7)
|
| An anagram (‘cracks’) of ‘for Ashmolean I’m’ plus D (‘beginning to Discover’). In the surface, the Ashmolean is a museum in Oxford. | ||
| 8 | AVERTS |
Deflects state borders of Texas (6)
|
| A charade of AVER (‘state’) plus TS (‘borders of TexaS‘). | ||
| 11 | PIANO STOOL |
Bench also option when playing (5,5)
|
| An anagram (‘when playing’) of ‘also option’. | ||
| 14 | LEAPFROG |
Line edited for page giving you a jump (8)
|
| A charade of L (‘line’) plus EAPFROG, an anagram (‘edited’) of ‘for page’. | ||
| 16 | GAIETY |
Understand party ultimately involves jolly good fun (6)
|
| An envelope (‘involves’) of AI (A1, ‘jolly good’) in GET (‘understand’) plus Y (‘partY ultimately’). | ||
| 19 | STABLE |
Secure small spot in restaurant (6)
|
| A charade of S (‘small’) plus TABLE (‘spot in restaurant’). | ||
| 21 | TACK |
Point to show direction (4)
|
| This seems to be a double definition, but I am not sure of the intended meaning of ‘point’ – perhaps a course taken in presenting an argument, or maybe even the corner of a sail. Either way, it is essentially the same word as the second definition. |
Thanks, Phi and PeterO!
The puzzle is available online. Maybe it was published a bit late.
Liked TRIPOD, PUT OUT MORE FLAGS and SEE YOU.
TACK:
Does ‘tack/point’ as a verb work?
When we tack drawing pins to a map, it means ‘to fix’ rather than ‘to point’. Hmm…Can’t think any better.
I had the same doubt about tack but ‘a thing … with a sharp end’ (definition no. 48 out of 75 in Chambers!) seems ok to make a double definition.
Quite a hard puzzle, I found. I liked the long ones, particularly the Ashmolean cracking. The ablution>abutilon switch has come up before but it always seems like a very difficult bit of wordplay, going from one not very obvious synonym to an obscure (to a non-gardener) plant.
Thanks to Phi and welcome to PeterO
I read TACK as a sailing term, you tack into the wind by pointing about 45° either side of the wind direction, so in that sense it’s a verb, but each leg is
a tack (the noun).
Otherwise I found this fairly straightforward.
Thank you Phi and PeterO.
I found this a rather trickier Phi today so was pleased to get to the end with just one silly mistake – LOI was HORNS OF A DILEMMA: I’d spotted the anagram, had most of it filled in and, for some reason, bashed in POINT for the first word. Doh!
The long solutions inevitably led to some piecing together of wordplay but it was all very clearly indicated so no complaints. Favourites include COALMAN, AGRONOMY, COLUMN, TICKLING, LEAPFROG, GAIETY and STABLE. Favourite long ‘un: NOW YOU’RE TALKING.
Thanks Phi and PeterO
This took me the best part of an hour. I was pleased to finish without aids and particularly to get ABUTILON for the reasons James has so well expressed.
FOI 7a LOI 16d. Liked 2d.
Tx to Phi and PeterO
Thanks both. Had not previously heard the expression OLD FATHER THAMES perhaps owing to my Northerner’s aversion to the capital, and took a stab at Put Some Flags Out as did not know the book, but should have read the clue more closely. I almost never detect a Phi theme so perhaps in the Waugh novel there is a COALMAN TICKLING a STRUMPET on a PIANO STOOL – happened a lot back in the day
Add me to the list who found this even more diphicult than usual. I got there without revealing anything so 100% in the eyes of the website, but I’d have had a very sparse looking grid with no extraneous help.
It seems to me that Phi clues generally fly in or they take an absolute age to winkle out.
Lots of lovely clues as usual today.
Thanks to Phi and thanks also and welcome to the Indy blog PeterO.
Of the long answers one is a book, one a film and one a song, so I was expecting the puzzle to be full of charades, but with Phi I only spot the themed that aren’t there.
Surely a tack is a metal point?
Goujeers @9
Surely, a tack in this sense has a point, and point could be used for tack by synecdoche. Do you have any justification for its use in this way? I have not been able to find any, and without that it is as loose a definition as other suggestions.
Thanks PeterO for standing in for us today. Welcome to the team of Indy bloggers too.
We thought this was quite tricky. We could not spot a theme and wondered whether Phi was just trying to include a number of long answers to fill the grid.
Thanks Phi – hopefully see you next Phi-day.
We thought this was towards the difficult end of Phi’s difficulty range, but we got it all in the end. We liked TRIPOD, COALMAN and LEAPFROG among others.
No theme that we can see but, apropos of that, the Indy reprint in the i yesterday was by Phi with a very similar grid and one of the commenters on idothei noted that “Whenever Phi does multiple long entries … we will invariably find the grid to be theme free.”
Thanks, Phi and PeterO.
LOI 8A – A?U?I?O? – with all the crossers
“Washing” had to be ABLUTION, and the “L[ine]” had to be “moved” to that suspicious gap between the “I” and the “O”…
ABUTILON – cue music and confetti – Phi has given us a St. Patrick’s Day present of an easy JORUM ©Eileen MMXXIII.
Also a TILT for me, and a nice thing to look at: 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abutilon#/media/File:Abutilon_theophrasti_2015-08-29_5732.JPG
Thanks Phi & PeterO