It’s Phi-day again!
The usual excellent puzzle from our regular Friday setter, although we found this a bit tougher than usual, with a few synonyms and abbreviations we had not come across before and a new word (for us) at 16d. We were particularly impressed by the crafty anagrams at 18ac and 26ac.
We have searched the grid for a theme, but, as frequently happens with Phi’s puzzles, we cannot see one – perhaps he will enlighten us later?
F (following) US (our team) SPOT (mark)
I (Independent) in PENS (writers) ON (working)
REP (salesman) round or ‘blocked by’ MA (old woman)
rEfLECTIONS (musings) without or ‘having lost’ the first and third letters
An anagram (‘arrangement’) of CLAVIERS
S (‘entropy’ as a scientific term) + IN FULl (completely) missing the last letter or ‘reduced’ – we struggled with this one as we did not know that S= entropy until we checked in Chambers
RUbbLE (remains of building) with ‘bb’ (books) removed
LOSES (fails) round or ‘retaining’ ANGEL (backer)
An anagram (‘outrageous’) of STAGED PORN
A MOSes (biblical character) missing or ‘avoiding’ ‘es’ (‘are’ in French)
A P (quiet) PEAL (ringing sound)
IS in or ‘adopted by’ CHAR (cleaner) MA (graduate) – the definition (‘attractive quality’) is carried over from the previous clue, as indicated by the … …
An anagram (‘out’) of MEASURING
FAIRS (markets) with the ‘i’ (India in the phonetic alphabet) moving back or ‘taking less forward position’
THE (article) in or ‘covered by’ WEAR (erosion)
An anagram (‘out’) of TRY IT + UM (‘some hesitation’)
FORE (warning – as in golf) VERy (extremely) missing the last letter or ‘curtailed’
An anagram (‘represented’) of MISSED OIL
A favourite on the music scene might fancifully be called a POP PET
TREAT (handle) ODES (some poems) round M (mobile) – this one took some sorting out as we weren’t sure about treat = handle and surprisingly we’d not come across m = mobile before
POT (quantity of money) round or ‘penning’ E (English) – amazingly we didn’t twig this one until compiling the blog
A reversal (‘upset’) of SON (boy) round THING (‘mild phobia’)
I (current) oN-OFF (intermittent) missing the first letter or ‘failing at first’
NEw missing the last letter or ‘short’ + STyLES (fashions) with the ‘y’ (variable) omitted or ‘cut’
An anagram (‘broadcast’) of WHAT fILM missing the first letter + SKY (TV channels)
LA (behold) MAIl (correspondence) missing the last letter or ‘a lot of’ round a reversal (‘turning up’) of ARES (deity)
A VAN (vehicle) and a reversal (‘picked up’) of AN (one) all in or ‘getting through’ SH (quiet)
A S (Sabbath) G (last letter or ‘ending’ of evening) in GLOW (warm light)
I (one) ‘stuck’ in a reversal (‘rising’) of MUD (mire) AT S (Sweden)
PRO (expert) FIT (‘well-trained’)
PARK (‘wildlife region’) A
A reversal (‘turned’) of UP + RR (Rolls Royce – ‘expensive car’)
There Goes Rhymin’ Phi Man again – for the fourth and final time…
Liked the idea in the clue for ELECTIONS. Thanks to BJ for the parsing of SINFUL (I thought entropy might be a sin in the Bible) and also for the correct parsing of TREMATODES. Top clue would the reversal in STADIUM. Very neat. Thanks Phi
The new word for me was 4D; I knew 16D but struggled to parse it – trying to work something out of lo-mail-dog didn’t help! Thanks Phi and B&J.
Yttrium made me second guess 13D and 21D.
Charisma was my favourite
My faves:
The APPEAL-CHARISMA combo, NESTLES and FARSI.
COTD: SINFUL.
AMOS
Does ‘es’ in French mean ‘is’ or ‘are’? Or both?
FOREVER
The underlined part of the clue works fine as the def. If we want to use up the remaining ‘over’, the def could be
taken as ‘over the longest period’, I think.
Thanks Phi and B&J!
Thanks Phi and BnJ
KVa @ 5 you may be confusing ‘es’ (second person, ‘are’) with ‘est’ (third person, ‘is’). They are pronounced the same.
Bagpipe music again. Thanks Frankie G. STADIUMS was my favourite. Thanks, all.
Thanks Simon S@6. Yes. I did confuse es with est.
Simon S and KVa @6 & 8 – at least neither of you were going for the 3rd person plural ils SONT for they ARE like me. I couldn’t parse it unsurprisingly.
Failed pretty miserably with LAMASERAI, as I guess unsurprisingly it’s a nho, didn’t know LA for behold, and I couldn’t get past the rising god being Eros, so I ended up with LOMASOREI. Was never going to parse SINFUL either.
Other than those I thought it was pretty straightforward this morning.
I think my favourite clue today was POPPET.
Thanks Phi and B&J for the blog.
Nice Friday fare. Though I wasn’t sure of the TREMATODES parse and, like our bloggers, had not encountered the entropic S before. I doubt I will remember it either. I had encountered LAMASERAI in the wild – but not sufficiently frequently to remember quite how to spell it!
Plenty to like including PENSION, VISCERAL, GERANIUMS, POPPET, NOTHINGS and GLASGOW.
Thanks Phi & B&J
Thanks for the comments so far but we cannot work out the ones from FrankieG and Petert. Can anyone let us know what we are missing please?
B&J
I vaguely recall that Phi once said there would be one last part of a particular theme (maybe a couple of months ago…not sure when) based on a poem (I think).
Of course, those knowledgeble will explain it all soon.
Was referring to this post from Phi:
Regular solvers will know that I have been making my way through the rhyming words of Louis MacNeice’s Bagpipe Music to seed my grids, and we’ve reached verses 6-8:
It’s no go the gossip column, it’s no go the Ceilidh,
All we want is a mother’s help and a sugar-stick for the baby.
Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn’t count the damage,
Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage.
His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish,
Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.
It’s no go the Herring Board, it’s no go the Bible,
All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.
Verses 9 and 10 will follow next year, I shouldn’t wonder…
Well done KVa for spotting that and remembering it. I like the way Phi takes inspiration from unlikely sources; it matters not one jot whether we solvers spot it – it makes no difference to the solve. But a secret pleasure for the setter and particularly nice when someone actually does recognise it. (Though whether anyone would have done so without Phi’s steer, I wonder …)
This is the poem
Thanks both. I am entirely aware that my iPad dictionary is inadequate, but it becomes my measure of what is achievable….it does not list LAMASERAI at all, nor ‘la’ for behold, so I entered exactly the same as Rocket@9; it also does not list treat as a synonym for handle so the forgotten TREMATODES also defeated me
I’ve heard of “lo and behold”, but not “la”
All the Indy appearances:
@https://www.fifteensquared.net/2022/09/23/independent-11216-phi/ – Verses 1 & 2
@https://www.fifteensquared.net/2022/11/18/independent-11264-phi/ – 4 & 5 (Nobody spotted this at the time)
@https://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/10/27/independent-11558-by-phi/ – 6, 7, & 8
@https://www.fifteensquared.net/2024/03/15/independent-11678-by-phi/ – 9 & 10
[There was also @https://www.fifteensquared.net/2011/03/02/inquisitor-1165-a-favourite-poem-by-phi/ – The ‘no go’ lines]
Completed it on the second sitting.
I first came across Bagpipe Music at least 40 years ago, but I’d totally forgotten Phi’s interest in the poem and missed the theme, as usual.
Stella @17. Shakespeare uses it a bit. It is not “behold!” Like in “lo and behold!”. But more like “you see?”
He uses la as an emphasiser or to show an asserevation. “…With my heart, la, with my heart!”. MWoW
Yes, that’s that particular poem by MacNeice completed. (I have my eye on another.)
There aren’t many settings with actual music – it may be the inherent musicality of the text that puts composers off. I see there’s one by the Battlefield Band (properly Scottish), but the one I recollect is by the NZ composer David Farquhar (who used to be my landlord), for six interweaving voices.
The es/est confusion. Years ago, in an earlier Independent puzzle, I used ‘es’ = ‘French are’ and someone wrote in (actual snail mail back then) saying it should be ‘est’ – then thought ‘Oops!’ and wrote in apologising. The Independent forwarded both letters – separately, three days apart, and in the wrong order.