Independent 10,654 by Phi

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The usual thoroughly satisfying crossword from Phi. He must produce these very quickly, yet they are always beautifully crafted.

Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.

Phi hardly ever has less than 50% checking, yet here there are four such answers. That must mean that something is going on. It’s probably blindingly obvious, but I can see nothing. Ah yes, I see it now I think: down the middle we have CENTENARIES, and many of the people in the grid were born in 1920. But then what about Gandhi and Fahrenheit? Something more is happening, with this and the letter C appearing a bit on the left, and I suspect some Latin with the word down in the right unches, and the fact that Phi has clued TUMBRIL not TUMBREL.  Still a bit bewildered.

ACROSS
1 FOMENT Prompt indication of future trends in financial reporting? (6)
F(omen)T — the Financial Times
4 ASIMOV US writer omitting name of apostle in version of Bible (6)
A(Simo{n})V — Authorised Version — he was born in 1920
7 CHERUBIC Very sweet woman’s engaged in applying the third degree? (8)
c(her)ubic — if something’s cubic then it’s three dimensional, but I’m not sure I’ve really understood the link with the third degree
9 EMPIRE European country keeping parliamentarian in government (6)
E(MP)ire — government in the sense of holding empire over
10 EDIFY Variable administrators of chess taking step back to improve (5)
(y Fide)rev. — the chess administrators are Fidé (Fédération Internationale d’Echecs — it’s always called Fidé, so I don’t know if my accents are correct), the body that is to chess as FIFA is to soccer; and — at least a few years ago — almost as corrupt
11 NEURON One transmits notes about currency (6)
n(Euro)n
13 CHINA Friend in America goes to church (5)
ch. in A — it’s not a friend in America, it’s a friend in the East End: Cockney rhyming slang (China plate/mate)
14 PERCHERON Bird riding big horse (9)
percher on — percher = bird, I suppose in the sense that it perches (but the word is actually in Collins in this sense), just as in Crosswordland a number is something that numbs or a banker is something that banks (ie a river) — the percheron is a large breed of horse, as witness this
16 LIBRARIAN Book expert, one under one zodiacal sign not initially following another (9)
Libra {A}rian — the Arian is one under Aries
18 STONE A weight, carrying coals to Newcastle? On the contrary (5)
Hidden in coalS TO NEwcastle — on the contrary, because it’s the coals to Newcastle which are carrying the weight — at first I had a tortured explanation involving a ton in the SE, which doesn’t really explain the contrary bit — and this is thematic too: although the National Trust was formed in 1895, in 1995 a stone to celebrate 100 years of the NT was produced
20 GANDHI Limits to growth set by one Indian leader (6)
The ‘limits to growth’ are the letters g and h, then 1
21 RUMBA Drink provided by drink provider runs short? It requires steps to be taken (5)
rum ba{r}
23 MILIEU The writer’s turned round story associated with university environment (6)
(I’m)rev. lie U
24 SUBURBIA Recalled difficulty entering top-rated British and American city areas (8)
(A1 B(rub)US)rev.
25 SEEMLY Appropriate picture – source of light in heavens (6)
see m(l{ight})y — see = picture, my! = heavens!
26 STOLEN Hot line seen in various notes (6)
l in (notes)*
DOWN
1 FAHRENHEIT German physicist to succeed bottling hydrogen in the works (10)
fa(h)re (in the)* — how did you fare?/how did you succeed? They’re not quite the same, and should be ‘how did you fare?’/’did you succeed?’ — there must be a better example
2 MARTIAN “Alien to spoil it after turning up” – a Nationalist (7)
mar (it)rev. a N
3 NOBLY Honourably turned on by embracing ladies primarily (5)
(no)rev. b(l{adies})y
4 ADEQUACY Notice European harbour feature accommodating 100 – that’s competence (8)
ad E qua(C)y
5 IMPLORE Place having additional numbers around after I beg (7)
I m(pl)ore
6 OARS Males losing head are contributors to rows (4)
{b}oars — the rows are rowing events
8 CENTENARIES Times of commemoration seen with certain parties (11)
(seen certain)* — parties as a verb, so implying some agitation of the letters
12 FOUNDATION Start at one, working to produce primer (10)
found at 1 on
15 BRADBURY US writer, poet with change of heart, to get engrossed (8)
bard with its heart (ar) changed to ra, then bury = to get engrossed — Collins has ‘to occupy (oneself) with deep concentration; engross’ and gives this example: to be buried in a book — the US writer is Ray Bradbury, not to be confused with Malcolm Bradbury, who was English — Ray B was born in 1920
17 REALISM Pragmatic approach is adopted by field of study (7)
real(is)m
19 TUMBRIL Corporation anger reduced after introduction of British vehicle (7)
tum (B) ril{e} — tumbril is an alternative spelling for tumbrel
21 ROBOT Billion invested in basic automatic device (5)
ro(b)ot
22 WINE Drink popular between bridge partners (4)
W(in)E — the bridge partners are West and East

 

16 comments on “Independent 10,654 by Phi”

  1. There’s a sci-fi theme, with Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series and Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’.  There may be other related answers but I’m not familiar enough with either to identify anything else.  ‘Empire’ (Star Wars) and ‘Robot’ perhaps?  Others may know.  Very enjoyable so thanks Phi and John.

  2. All good fun from Phi on a Friday.  Pleased to say that we spotted the theme, but we don’t have anything to add to what Tatrasman has already noted, and wait for further explanation.

    We were quite happy with cubic = third degree, as relating to variables raised to the third power in algebra.

    We hadn’t heard of the PERCHERON, and needed a list of horses to find that, particularly as bird = percher didn’t leap out at us and we only had 4/9 crossers.

    Thanks to Phi and John.

  5. I ROBOT  FOUNDATION EMPIRE BICENTENNIAL

    They wrote a lot of books between them

    but my favourite clue is LIBRARIAN

    I also have a soft spot for draught horses(and draught beer)

    I look forward to Phi to start Friday as the Indy is available earlier than the others

    Thanks Phi and John

  6. got there in the end.. quite a lot of interesting misdirection but “On the contrary” didn’t help me to solve 18ac..

    thanks to Phi n John

  7. A satisfying solve with some head-scratching and a theme that passed us by even though it’s not exactly an obscure one.

    LOI, after using a wordfinder, was FAHRENHEIT which we shoulf have known but we were misled by the description ‘German’; we always thought he was Danish or, like Celsius, Swedish.  Actually, Wikipedia tells us he was born in Gdansk, then known as Danzig, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although it was a German-speaking area.

    Plenty to like, including NEURON, PERCHERON and ADEQUACY.

    Thanks, Phi and John.

     

     

     

     

     

  8. Just a thought, if we’re going down the sci Fi route then there’s a Tumbril Ranger vehicle in a video game called Star Citizen. Maybe I’m overthinking that clue though!!
    Have to say favourite answer (and favourite horse) was/is Percheron.
    Thanks to Phi and John

  9. John noted the spelling of TUMBRIL and wondered if it was significant: there was a Sci-Fi magazine called Tumbrils edited by James Blish who knew Asimov though I don’t know whether the latter ever contributed to stories to it.

    Ray Bradbury did write Dandelion WINE and The Wonderful Death of Dudley STONE.  There’s also a nice quote from him, “I am a LIBRARIAN. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy…”  But I suspect those are all coincidence

    I did a bit of random Googling to look for other links – and felt the Internet was playing with me.  There is a Jamie Bradbury who rode a PERCHERON heavy horse to a championship victory in 2017, there appears to be a GANDHI library that has works by both Asimov and Bradbury, I didn’t look any further…  Again, all coincidental.

    Phi does normally drop in – I’ll be interested to see what he says about the theme.

    Thanks P&J

  10. I found this tough – foment, percheron and timbrel all new words to me, and inspite of being an Asimov fan I didn’t notice the connections to his works. Favourite clue was 4a, though I initially parsed it as King {James} and tried to include an S assuming it was Stephen King.

  11. I had noticed that bot Bradbury and Asimov were celebrating their centenaries this year and then nearly forgot to do the puzzle. (It seems Asimov may actually have been born in 1919, but he always celebrated his birthday early in January.)
    I specifically put in FAHRENHEIT, MARTIAN and WINE on the left, and FOUNDATION, EMPIRE and ROBOT on the right. Anything else was fortuitous!

  12. Percher is not quite like number/banker. The class of passeriform birds which includes about half of all bird species is essentially defined by its members being perching birds.

  15. I found this one hard going and only got there in the end with a lot of cheating.  A pity, as I was a great Asimov fan.  Actually met him once.  (Never really got on with Bradbury, though.  A bit too sentimental for my taste.)

  16. This was tough, and I failed on FOMENT. I struggled on the centenarians, despite having read lots of their books. Even after sticking in ASIMOV on the basis of the crossers I couldn’t see the parsing, “omitting N of SIMON” being just a bit too clever for me. Similarly BRADBURY required all the crossers and then reverse parse. “Limits to growth” was also a doh-provoker, having seen this device before but not spotting it. Not being much of a partygoer, I was slow to catch on to its use as an anagrind, so CENTENARIES was one of my last in. For a long time I was looking for appropriate in 25a to have its 26a-related meaning, but it was the more obvious SEEMLY after all, so I’m not sure whether Phi misled me or if I tripped over myself there.

    Thanks Phi for the challenge.

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