Phi in his usual Friday slot.
I thought this was one of Phi’s trickier ones, though perhaps that’s just me. Spotting the alphabetical trick half-way through solving (the across entries begin with A – N in order) helped to fill a few gaps, but the film in 26a wasn’t familiar at all, and I was nearly defeated by 5d (finally seeing it at the last minute when I’d almost finished writing up the blog). I liked 19a’s encouragement to eat puddings, and I’ll have to remember that choral means “a lot of hard work by nearly everybody” next time I’m in a long choir rehearsal. Thanks Phi as always.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | APHORISM |
Saw a setter’s method initially adopting suggestion of alternative (8)
|
| A + PHI’S (our crossword setter’s) + initial letter of M[ethod], containing (adopting) OR (something said to suggest an alternative).
Saw = aphorism = an insightful saying. |
||
| 9 | BURSAR |
Artist’s difficulty after returning source of funding (6)
|
| RA’S (Royal Academician’s = artist’s) + RUB (difficulty, as in “there’s the rub” from Hamlet), all reversed (after returning).
Official in charge of finances, especially at an educational institution. |
||
| 10 | CAVIAR |
Eggs vehicle’s collecting the Latin way (6)
|
| CAR (vehicle) containing (collecting) VIA (Latin word for a road, used in English to mean “way”).
Fish eggs: a delicacy if you like that sort of thing. |
||
| 11 | DAIRYMAN |
Very many backing a new deliveryperson (8)
|
| MYRIAD (very many) reversed (backing), then A + N (abbreviation for new).
In the UK at least, there are still a small number of companies delivering milk to the doorstep; but I think “dairyman” suggests a farmer running a dairy farm, and there probably aren’t many people who do both. |
||
| 12 | EISENSTADT |
Instead set out for Austrian city (10)
|
| Anagram (out) of INSTEAD SET.
City in the east of Austria, near its borders with Slovakia and Hungary. |
||
| 13 | FADE |
Passing fashion’s energy to decline (4)
|
| FAD (a brief trend = passing fashion) + E (abbreviation for energy). | ||
| 14 | GREECE |
Consent to overlook a church in European country (6)
|
| [a]GREE (consent, as a verb), overlooking the initial A, then CE (abbreviation for Church of England). | ||
| 16 | HEALED |
Teacher will absorb article from France better (6)
|
| HEAD (short for headteacher) containing (. . . will absorb) LE (a form of the definite article in French).
Healed = better = recovered after illness or injury. |
||
| 19 | ICES |
Desserts? Against abandoning indulgences (4)
|
| [v]ICES (indulgences = pleasurable but bad habits), without the V (abbreviation for Latin versus = against).
Another name for ice creams. |
||
| 21 | JOURNALIST |
Judge our new top-ranking correspondent (10)
|
| J (abbreviation for judge) + OUR + N (abbreviation for new) + A-LIST (top-ranking). | ||
| 23 | KOESTLER |
Conflict of stork and eel depicted by Anglo-Hungarian writer (8)
|
| Anagram (conflict) of STORK + EEL.
The writer Arthur Koestler: originally from Hungary but developed his writing career after moving to the UK. |
||
| 25 | LINE-UP |
Sarky comments about new German squad? (4-2)
|
| LIP (sarky comments) around NEU (German word for new).
Squad = line-up = the players available for a sports team. |
||
| 26 | MARTYR |
50s Oscar-winner beginning to rattle someone victimised (6)
|
| MARTY (1955 romantic drama that won the Oscar for Best Picture: I’ve never heard of it but Wikipedia has) + first letter of R[attle]. | ||
| 27 | NOONTIDE |
Never to dine around midday? (8)
|
| NO (no! = never! = a refusal) + anagram (around) of TO DINE. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SPEAKING |
Celebrate hosting top discussion (8)
|
| SING (celebrate) containing (hosting) PEAK (top). | ||
| 2 | POLITENESS |
Work up stories about most of soccer team beginning to show refinement (10)
|
| OP (abbreviation for Latin opus = a work of music or literature) reversed (up, in a down clue), then LIES (stories) around TEN (most of an 11-a-side soccer team), then the first letter of S[how]. | ||
| 3 | CITRUS |
Fruit supplying vitamin, I believe? Not entirely (6)
|
| C (a vitamin found in fruit and vegetables) + I TRUS[t] (I believe) without the last letter (not entirely). | ||
| 4 | ABSINTHE |
Articles about book crime showing spirit (8)
|
| A + THE (indefinite and definite articles in grammar), around B (abbreviation for book) + SIN (crime).
Spirit = alcoholic drink. |
||
| 5 | PREY |
Not avoiding booze, quite a target (4)
|
| PRE[tt]Y (quite, as in pretty well = quite well = reasonably well), without TT (abbreviation for teetotal = avoiding booze). My last one in by a very long way: I could guess the definition from the crossers, but the wordplay almost defeated me.
Prey = target = an animal that is typically eaten by a larger one. |
||
| 6 | CANARD |
Record of visit suppressing an ugly rumour (6)
|
| CARD (as in visiting card or business card, given to remind the recipient of a visit or meeting) containing (suppressing) AN.
An old French-derived word for what’s now called “fake news”: a false statement circulated in order to discredit someone. |
||
| 8 | MEDIAN |
Newspapers etc, note, becoming central (6)
|
| MEDIA (newspapers etc) + N (abbreviation for note).
In statistics, the median value in a range of numbers or measurements is the one in the middle. |
||
| 13 | FULL-LENGTH |
Conflict in Gulf then covering two leagues at greatest extent (4-6)
|
| Anagram (conflict – it’s a pity we’ve already seen that in 23a) of GULF THEN, containing (covering) L L (two of the abbreviation for league, as in a sporting organisation). | ||
| 15 | CAJOLERY |
Coaxing a British physicist to ditch uranium during uproar (8)
|
| A + JO[u]LE (the physicist James Prescott Joule, whose surname is used for the scientific unit of energy) without U (chemical symbol for uranium), inserted into CRY (as in “hue and cry” = uproar). | ||
| 17 | DISSUADE |
Daughter, with another daughter embraced by drunk Aussie is put off (8)
|
| D (abbreviation for daughter), then another D contained in (embraced by) an anagram (drunk) of AUSSIE.
Dissuade = put off = try to convince someone not to do something. |
||
| 18 | FUN RUN |
Charity event mostly to provide money for series of performances (3,3)
|
| FUN[d] (as a verb = to provide money for), without the last letter (mostly), then RUN (series of performances, as in “the show is coming to the end of its run”). | ||
| 20 | CHORAL |
A lot of hard work by nearly everybody regarding singing (6)
|
| CHOR[e] (hard work) without the last letter (a lot of . . .), then AL[l] (everybody) without the last letter (nearly). | ||
| 22 | NELSON |
Scent navy being upset about end of admiral – this one? (6)
|
| NOSE (scent, especially in wine-speak) + N (abbreviation for navy, as in RN for the Royal Navy), all reversed (upset = upwards in a down clue), around the last letter of [admira]L.
Extended definition: Admiral Horatio Nelson – the navy were presumably very upset when he died during the Battle of Trafalgar. |
||
| 24 | SITE |
Place: it’s within borders of Shropshire (4)
|
| IT within the outer letters (borders) of S[hropshir]E. |
PREY, POLITENESS, CHORAL and NELSON were my top faves.
Liked many other clues.
Thanks Phi and Quirister!
You did better than me, Quirister – PREY beat me when it came to parsing, so many thanks for that. Yes, Phi was tricksy today and I did not spot the device in the solutions which is very neat. MARTYR was also unparsed and went in with a shrug and the assumption there was an actor called MARTY. Oh yes, EISENSTADT is nho as well and I resorted to reveal for the correct ordering of the first five letters I’m afraid.
Nice to see ABSINTHE as only yesterday on the G page I referred to the late great Willie Rushton’s unscripted contributions to Celebrity Squares with one of my favourite anecdotes. And ABSINTHE provides the other: ‘What is the substance used by women to achieve silvery/white/platinum hair?’ ‘Absinthe – as the saying goes, absinthe makes the tart grow blonder’ (It was a different age)
Thanks Phi and Quirister.
More or less what PostMark has said.
I’ve never heard of the author, but ok to guess once the crossers were in.
For me a chore is tedious, not necessarily hard to do and I’ve met a lot of people who use politeness as a veiled way of being downright rude.
[If not for Willie Rushton I would not be here. His Superpig was my survival manual when I had to fend for myself at university.]
Thanks Phi and Quirister.
LOi & COTD: PREY – pretty good.
Thanks Φ&Q
Like a hungry buzzard, I, too, landed on PREY at the last minute. I found this very hard, not helped by putting MAGISTRATE for JOURNALIST. Thanks, both.
Thanks Quirister, agree with you about PREY – that comes into my ‘never in a million years’ category; also nho MARTY.
I’m fairly new to regularly doing Indie puzzles, after a lifetime on the Graun, and generally find them harder (as well as a less agreeable online interface). Not sure if this is down to me or them…
Thanks both. I indulged in positive thinking and determined today was the day I spotted a Phi theme, which if the alphabetical device in the across answers counts, I did,….only I still had quite some difficulty solving the clues. Unlike Pete HA3@3 my first guess for KOESTLER was an author for the dyslexic,, otherwise similar unknowns to others. My personal view is LINE-UP is the team on the day, formed from the squad, otherwise they are not lining up, but feel free to disagree as we continue in the T20 International cricket and start up in the Euros; how many ‘years of hurt’ is it now?
Bullhassocks @6: I think the Indie setters are just different rather than necessarily harder – you get used to their style after a while. (Agree on the clunky interface, though.) Phi can sometimes be tricky because of awkward constructions or obscure words; the two you’ve quoted are good examples.
Quirister @8. Thanks for the reply; I will persevere, as I usually enjoy them, even if I have had to get used to admitting defeat a bit more often!
Just my usual moan that we shouldn’t have to know who the sitter is to solve a clue (7 across).