This seemed to be a much harder Phi than usual. Once done it all seemed simple enough, as witness the simple parsing of almost all the answers. But in many cases the ‘synonyms’ that we had to find in the wordplay were not at all obvious. All perfectly fair, though.
The difficulty also was exacerbated by the large number of clues that required some sort of subtraction; at a quick count I found seven of them.
As usual with Phi I can’t see anything, despite his usual behaviour. No doubt it will be pointed out, but quite honestly I was so relieved to finish it all that I haven’t the energy to look further on what would probably be a wild goose chase.
| Across | ||
| 1/4 | PARISH REGISTER | Crashed airship – regrets account of deaths etc. (6,8) |
| (airship regrets)* | ||
| 10 | SUCCOURED | Relieved, went off to secure opening of unique cricket club (9) |
| s(u{nique}) CC)oured — not the opening of cricket, etc, since it says ‘opening’ not ‘openings’ | ||
| 11 | LILAC | Lines, including one account of a purple nature (5) |
| l(1)l ac | ||
| 12 | LIEU | Story backed by university place (4) |
| lie u | ||
| 13 | CHEAPSKATE | Careful fellow caught fish, bringing in a lot (10) |
| c (heap) skate | ||
| 15 | DICTION | Recording dropped from presentation and speech (7) |
| d{EP}iction | ||
| 16 | EARWAX | Obstruction to hearing to increase after sources of evidence affect retrial (6) |
| e{vidence} a{ffect} r{etrial} wax | ||
| 19 | VESSEL | Boat, very inferior, losing stern after spin (6) |
| v (lesse{r})rev. | ||
| 21 | LUTHIER | TV detective bringing in one instrument maker (7) |
| Luth(1)er — this crime programme — a luthier is a lute-maker | ||
| 23 | MATCHSTICK | Striker in game getting flak (10) |
| match [= game] stick [= flak] | ||
| 25 | PASS | He will avoid infatuations, making romantic approach (4) |
| pas{he}s | ||
| 27 | RUNIC | Operate reserve, mostly using ancient characters (5) |
| run ic{e} | ||
| 28 | OBTRUSIVE | Pushy, but is over getting upset (9) |
| (but is over)* | ||
| 29/30 | SPORTING CHANCE | Displaying most of church area provides a reasonable opportunity (8,6) |
| sporting [= displaying] chance{l} | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | POSTLUDE | Law Lord in promotional material cut last item (8) |
| post(Lud)e{r} — the Law Lord is Lud, as in m’Lud | ||
| 2 | RECHERCHÉ | Obscure singer about to enter here, dancing (9) |
| (Cher c) in (here)* | ||
| 3 | SHOP | Business chatter quietly positioned ahead of work (4) |
| sh! op. | ||
| 5 | ENDGAME | Final period distressed aged men (7) |
| (aged men)* | ||
| 6 | ILLUSTRATE | Show maltreatment involving Italian restaurant (10) |
| ill-us(trat)e | ||
| 7 | TULSA | Introduction to Texas, America, touring large oil industry centre (5) |
| T{exas} U(l)SA | ||
| 8 | RACKET | Fraudulent behaviour in book being ignored by group (6) |
| {b}racket — I found this very hard because bracket = group didn’t readily come to mind | ||
| 9 | URCHIN | Child, swaying about, naked? (6) |
| This took me ages and I’m still less than certain about it: it seems to be ch in {l}urin{g}. [Or, as David@1 suggests, {l}urchin{g}, which is simpler and more elegant and probably what Phi meant.] | ||
| 14 | MISS THE CUT | Fail to progress being late for hairdressing appointment? (4,3,3) |
| 2 defs, one of them fanciful | ||
| 17 | ANIMATION | Excitement? I’m in a state (9) |
| a n(I’m)ation | ||
| 18 | GRASMERE | Same rocks in slip piled up under good Lakeland location (8) |
| g (same)* in (err)rev. | ||
| 20 | LET-DOWN | Part of Ireland supporting poor service is a disappointment (3-4) |
| let [= poor service in tennis, although not that poor since it isn’t penalised] Down | ||
| 21 | LOCATE | Spot military leader coming in after time (6) |
| l(OC)ate | ||
| 22 | SMARTS | Woman picking up skills and intelligence in the US (6) |
| (Ms)rev. arts, to give a word that I didn’t really know | ||
| 24 | TANGO | T for ‘tawny’ and ‘travel’ (5) |
| tan [= tawny] go [= travel] — T in the NATO alphabet is Tango | ||
| 26 | GUSH | Say too much in giving us hope (4) |
| Hidden in givinG US Hope | ||
*anagram
I think 9 is lurching, stripped of its outside letters
Thanks David, yes I think you’re right. Blog amended.
What you said, John. Had to use a word fit for 1d since it’s not a word I know and the cryptic part was too hard for me to guess it. Parsed it ok once found though. Didn’t know LUTHIER either but did know of Luther even though I’ve never watched it. If there’s a theme, it’s over my head, as per usual.
Top puzzle from Phi which was almost as baffling as Puck in the Graun. Really good cluing.Dunno whether to look for a theme, like John(thanks for blog) but no doubt if there is it revolves around bus timetables in Barnsley.
After a lot of headscratching trying to think of a woman’s name for 22dn, we finally twigged SMARTS (which is in Collins but not Chambers). But we failed on 9dn where all we could think of was ORPHAN which we couldn’t parse apart from thinking that ‘naked’ referred to ‘nothing on’ – the O on the top, this being a down clue.
A good workout, though. Favourites were CHEAPSKATE and MATCHSTICK for being so obvious in retrospect.
copmus@4: Bus timetables in Barnsley? – A bit 2dn even for Phi, surely!
Thanks, Phi and John.
This was the occasional puzzle where the only theme is that I have accumulated several clues from previous puzzles where, for editorial reasons like ‘Word X only appeared yesterday, so I’ve changed it’, the original clue went unused.