Phi is in his usual place in the Independent crossword week with a Friday puzzle.
Phi often has themes in his puzzles, but today I can only see a couple of slightly obscure entries in the South East corner – AMENHOTEP and MORPHEMIC, plus a couple of pairs of entries with similar first four letters (CATATONIA and CATAMARAN) and (DISCUSS and DISCERN)
The Sherlock Holmes short story referenced at 26 across was new to me. I have marked that clue as an &Lit given that the sum total of the area occupied by the rat is SUMATRA and the story is about Holmes, but I’m really not sure
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | The chap’s showing no repetition of disapproving noise (3)
HIS (belonging to this chap; this chap’s) HISS (disapproving noise) without repeating the S at the end, leaving only one S HIS |
| 3 | At various distances, per distance respecified? (11)
INTERSPACED (with intervals between; at various distances) Anagram of (respecified) PER DISTANCE INTERSPACED* |
| 9 | Swindler against leaving extremely crowded place (7)
ROOKERY (there are a variety of definitions implying that ROOKERY refers to a crowded place – a breeding-place of rooks in a group of trees; a breeding-place of penguins, seals, etc; a crowded cluster of slum tenements; a place unpleasantly overcrowded with a particular group or type) ROOK (slang term for a card-sharp; swindler) + VERY (extremely) excluding (leaving) V (versus; against) ROOK ERY |
| 10 | Talk about adding extra section to sporting event (7)
DISCUSS (talk about) DISCUS (field athletics [sporting] event involving throwing a disc) + S (section) thereby putting an extra section after the existing S (section) DISCUS S |
| 11 | Area of Spain showing change of heart for mental condition (9)
CATATONIA (a type of schizophrenia characterized by periodic states of rigidity or immobility; mental condition) CATALONIA (area of Spain with the central letter L exchanged for a T [change of heart]) CATATONIA |
| 12 | Contribution to church – some expect it here (5)
TITHE (the tenth of the produce of land and stock taken originally as a tax for church purposes; contribution to church) TITHE (hidden word in [‘some] EXPECT IT HERE TITHE |
| 13 | Keynote backed by Conservative in Biblical reference (5)
TONIC (a keynote) (C [Conservative] + IN [reference] + OT [Old Testament; part of the Bible]) all reversed (backed) (TO NI C)< |
| 15 | Water craft seen in quantity of film about a West Country river (9)
CATAMARAN (sailing boat with two hulls; water craft) (A + TAMAR [West Country river forming much of the border between Devon and Cornwall) contained in (seen in) CAN (cylindrical container for storing film; quantity of film) C (A TAMAR) AN |
| 17 | King in the ancient past retaining fool, mostly on a routine basis (9)
REGULARLY (according to rule, law, order, habit, custom, established practice, mode prescribed or the ordinary course of things; on a routine basis) R (Rex; king) + (EARLY [in the ancient past] containing [retaining] GULL [dupe or fool] excluding the final letter L [mostly]) R E (GUL) ARLY |
| 18 | Remarkable cut-down weapon in tracking system (5)
RADAR (the use of high-powered radio pulses, reflected or regenerated, for locating objects or determining one’s own position; tracking system) RAD (excellent; remarkable) + ARM (ARMament; weapon) excluding the final letter (cut down) M RAD AR |
| 20 | African Christian’s missing start of vision (5)
OPTIC (descriptive of sight or vision) COPTIC (relating to Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians; African Christian’s) excluding the first letter (missing start) C OPTIC |
| 22 | Egyptian name represented on the map around capital of Egypt (9)
AMENHOTEP (Egyptian king who reigned from around 1525 to 1504 BC) Anagram of (represented) ON THE MAP containing (around) E (first letter of [capital of] EGYPT) AMENHOT (E) P* |
| 25 | Studied type of jazz while touring in Spain (7)
TRAINED (studied) TRAD (TRADitional; type of jazz music) containing (while touring) (IN + E [International Vehicle Registration for Spain]) TRA (IN E) D |
| 26 | Total area occupied by uncommon rat (according to Holmes, at least) (7)
SUMATRA (SUMATRA is a country which is said to be the home of a fictional rodent, The Giant Rat of SUMATRA, first mentioned by Arthur Conan Doyle in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire". As part of the tale, the protagonist, Sherlock Holmes, declares that there is a "story" connected with this rat, presumably a detective case he has handled. The name of the rat and its implied unpublished history were later used in works by many other writers.) (SUM [total] + A [area]) containing (occupied by) an anagram of (uncommon) RAT SUM (ATR*) A |
| 27 | Describing 18, I’d complain about including its first or last letter (11)
PALINDROMIC (RADAR, the entry at 18 across is a PALINDROMIC word) Anagram of (about) I’D COMPLAIN containing (including) R (first or last letter of RADAR) PALIND (R) OMIC* |
| 28 | Fool dropping piano from overture? (3)
ASS (fool) PASS (amorous advance; overture) excluding (dropping) P (piano) ASS |
| Down | |
| 1 | Bean or hard fruit (not soft) (7)
HARICOT (type of bean) H (hard, when describing pencil lead) + APRICOT (a fruit) excluding (not) P (piano; soft) H ARICOT |
| 2 | Hearts enthralled by kind Lilliputian (5)
SHORT (Lilliputians were very small [6 inches tall; SHORT] fictional people in the novel Gulliver’s Travels) H (hearts) contained in (enthralled by) SORT (type; kind) S (H) ORT |
| 3 | It will accommodate study on one US state just the same (9)
IDENTICAL (the very same; just the same) (IT containing [will accommodate] DEN [study]) + I (Roman numeral for one) + CAL (California; US state) I (DEN) T I CAL |
| 4 | Manipulative action unknown in Disney film? (3-2)
TRY-ON (an action or statement made to test out a person’s gullibility, tolerance; manipulative action) Y (letter frequently used to represent an unknown value in an equation) contained in (in) TRON (a Disney science-fiction adventure film released in 1982) TR (Y) ON |
| 5 | Excitedly heading for Rome and Italy, beaming? (9)
RADIANTLY (beaming) Anagram of (excitedly) R (first letter of [heading for] ROME) and AND ITALY RADIANTLY* |
| 6 | Suggest one will be dressed in mail (5)
POSIT (suggest as true for argument’s sake) I (Roman numeral for one) contained in (dressed in) POST (mail) POS (I) T |
| 7 | Sin about to turn up in twelfth month, turning up in groups (9)
CLUSTERED (in groups) (LUST [one of the seven deadly sins] + RE [about] reversed [to turn up]) all contained in (in) DEC (DECember, the twelfth month of the year) reversed (turned up) C (LUST ER<) ED< |
| 8 | Observe Germany is leading European research centre (7)
DISCERN (make out; observe) D (Deutschland; International Vehicle Registration for Germany) + IS + CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) D IS CERN |
| 14 | Close to remarkable, involving fine end to day (9)
NIGHTFALL (close of the day) NIGH (near; close to) + (TALL [remarkable] containing [involving] F [fine]) NIGH T (F) ALL |
| 15 | Carried on cooking herb (9)
CORIANDER ( a herb) Anagram of (cooking) CARRIED ON CORIANDER* |
| 16 | Chimp more developed regarding basic linguistic expression (9)
MORPHEMIC (regarding a simple linguistic unit that has meaning, and cannot be divided into smaller units) Anagram of (developed) CHIMP MORE MORPHEMIC* |
| 17 | Frequently blocking climbing unsuitable feature of building (7)
ROOFTOP (a feature of a building) OFT (frequently) contained in (blocking) POOR (unsuitable) reversed (climbing; down entry) RO (OFT) OP< |
| 19 | Salesman tucks in – second helpings? (7)
REPEATS (second helpings) REP (salesman) + EATS (tucks in to food) REP EATS |
| 21 | Maintain preservation – that’s the rule (5)
CANON (law or rule) CAN ON (continue to put in cans to preserve food; maintain preservation) CAN ON |
| 23 | Feel unhappy about second upset in race venue (5)
EPSOM (horserace venue) (MOPE [feel unhappy] containing [about] S [second]) all reversed (upset; down entry) (EP (S) OM)< |
| 24 | Limits to teachable skill, rearing fish (5)
TETRA (any of various species of tropical freshwater fish of the family Characidae) TE (outer letters of [limits to] TEACHABLE) + ART (skill) reversed (rearing) TE TRA< |
Nice, solid Phi today with some very pleasing clues inc ROOKERY, TITHE, REGULARLY, TRAINED, SUMATRA, SHORT, CORIANDER and ROOFTOP.
Two minor queries: for me, at least, the clue for CATATONIA was somewhat ambiguous. I approve of the use of ‘for’ on this occasion which should clarify which is the definition. But ‘change of heart for mental condition’ could still indicate a switch in the middle of CATA(t)ONIA. I find the parsing of TONIC slightly strange: I’m not sure our blogger’s parse quite does it as the ‘reference’ = IN is in the wrong place. I think the IN is straight from the clue and OT is being indicated by ‘Biblical reference’. This is probably a gap in my GK: is OT used as a reference in certain contexts? Otherwise it is a slightly awkward synonym for me. I shall await enlightenment.
Oh, and anagramming AMENHOTEP was a tough one! It’s a nicely done surface and I can see why it appealed to our setter but I needed a trip to Google to be confident of the solution.
Thanks Phi and
Sorry duncan: I only noticed my omission of thanks for the blog after the Editing time had run out!
PostMark@1
I entered CATALONIA initially at 11 across, but changed it when 3 down required the T in the centre rather than the L. It seems to be a feature of some replacement clues that different solvers interpret the replacement in opposite ways before a cross check determines the required entry.
For TONIC, I just used the IN from the clue unchanged and treated Old Testament as a ‘biblical reference’ given that it is part of the Bible. C (Conservative) IN OT (Old Testament; biblical reference)
I guess rookery if applied to a place of people is implying that they breed like ….
A few things to learn here, that tetra is (yet another) fish, and that Sumatra has a mythical rat referred to by Sherlock, and that Amenhotep is hard to spell!. Enjoyable puzzle though, thanks Phi and duncanshiell.
Strange that ‘rad’ also appeared as part of an Eccles clue including RADAR on Wednesday, likewise in a usage that I didn’t know. At 9A I was struggling to work with ‘crook’ rather than ‘rook’, not knowing the latter usage. I look forward to learning what the theme is! Thanks Phi and Duncan.
5d RADIANTLY – adverb = “beaming?” – not an adverb. Is the “?” there to get away with the mismatch?
There’s something to be found for those of a genetic bent.
As always, a lovely Phiday that provided just the right amount of difficulty. Many thanks to Phi and Duncan for a wonderful way to start my Friday!
Lovely Phiday fun. Thanks Duncan and Phi
Still cannot get theme even with Phi’s hint
Yup, the theme is CRISPR.
Seeing as this was *exactly* the theme of a recent Listener, I’m assuming either an homage, or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
Thanks both. Delighted to see PALINDROMIC as those of a Monty Python persuasion may never comfortably hear Bolton without thinking Notlob (it’s wrong I know). My issue with TONIC was that ‘by’ seems to be misleading, whilst aiding the clue only for its surface. I have now read up on CRISPR and gone straight back to watching the test match.
grantinfreo@4: The slums around Covent Garden and St Giles Circus were known as the Rookery, and I suspect there will have been others. It’s years since I read the Holmes stories, but if I remember rightly, the Giant Rat of Sumatra was a story Watson considered writing but decided the world was not yet ready for it.
Amenhotep hard to spell? With all the letters in front of you as anagram fodder? There were four pharoahs of that name, the last changing his name to Akhnaten and nearly bankrupting the whole Egyptian empire. If you are not into ancient history, he turns up in an early episode of Father Brown, and there is a Philip Glass opera.
Goujeers @12: Amenhotep hard to spell? With all the letters in front of you as anagram fodder? One is put in mind of Eric Morecambe: All the right [letters] but not necessarily in the right order.
Another enjoyable Phi puzzle, although the parsing for TONIC and SUMATRA passed over my head in the company of today’s theme. 16d a new word to learn and probably not use.
I’m with you PostMark on the Egyptian. It boiled down to two spaces and two vowels and I could imagine it either way. Rather hard to get hung up on the exact spelling as I suspect the kings in question never saw their name written using our alphabet and there’s probably no contemporary recordings to refer to to hear how they pronounced it.
Thanks Phi and Duncan.
I’m failing to set the theme :would someone care to enlighten me?
Mallimack @ 15
It passed over my head too, but I have established that CRISPR is an acronym for CLUSTERED REGULARLY INTERSPACED SHORT PALINDROMIC REPEATS [all entries in the grid] which are the hallmark of a bacterial defense system that forms the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology.
All good fun to end the week.
We saw CATatonia and CATamaran so wondered whether Phi had included names of his cats – we seem to remember one many years ago.
It wasn’t until we visited the site that we realised there was a different theme. A trawl through a Wiki page unearthed nothing until we suddenly realised what CRISPR was an acronym for.
Thanks to Duncan and Phi
Duncan @ 16. Gosh. Well, for once I don’t feel embarrassed to have missed it! Thank you.
Whereabouts in the Bible? In the Old Testament was my reading of Tonic. Is that enough? I got Solfa and couldn’t get any further.
Thanks to Phi, Duncan and Mw700
Am I the only solver who put He’s into 1AC? It’s SHEESH with no repetitions. A really fun puzzle but I missed the theme. Thanks as ever to Phi and Duncan.
Alliacol @20 – I did that too, but not with any confidence! Thanks Phi and Duncan.
In 9 ac I took ‘crow’ded to be a hint towards that family.
We’re with FrankieG@6 re parts of speech.