Santa’s given us a Phi on Christmas Day!
Fortunately, Phi has let us off fairly lightly with this festive offering, which we found to be an enjoyable, fairly straightforward puzzle. As it’s Phi and it’s Christmas Day, we knew that there must be a theme, but it took quite a while to notice that the first two lines of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ appear at the beginnings of the across answers (except in the middle row).
How does Phi keep up this standard when he is so prolific?
Thanks to Phi and Happy Christmas to him and everyone at 225.
O (old) MELEE (confusion) round T T (first and last letters or ‘limitations’ of toast)
O (love) after COMET (heavenly body)
A L (large) LOUT (aggressive man)
YEAS (positive votes) TIER (row)
An anagram (‘active’) of IF CURATE’S round H (husband)
F (US fighter plane) hULL (ship) missing the first letter or ‘heading off’
QUID is ‘what’ or ‘that which a thing is’ in Latin
BY (times – in arithmetic) in or ‘penetrating’ ASS (idiot)
FetISH (‘unusual attachment’) missing or ‘rejecting’ ET (alien)
J (judge) bOYS (young men) missing the first letter or ‘going topless’
We think this is a cryptic definition – going FULL CIRCLE is the same as going back to square one – we think Phi has added the question mark as one phrase uses ‘square’ and the other ‘circle’ – two very different geometric forms, or is he referring to ‘squaring the circle’?
AND (with) + a reversal (‘backing’) of NARROw (limited) missing the last letter or ‘mostly’
TRIAL (court case) round B (book)
Hidden (‘penned by’) and reversed (‘with a twist’) in acTUAL MUsician
An anagram (‘changed’) of PAY HASN’T
A reversal (‘turning up’) of AILEd (felt bad) missing the last letter or ‘mostly’ round or ’embracing’ MI (alternative spelling of the sol-fa note ‘me’)
ALL (everyone) pOTTED (concentrated) missing ‘p’ (power)
Double definition
Double definition
STEEP (exaggerated) LiES (fictions) missing or ‘abandoning’ ‘i’ (one)
CHAS (Charles) SIS (Anne – the Princess Royal, King Charles’ sister)
MOT (‘neat French phrase’) IF (provided)
ROsY (hopeful) missing or ‘sending out’ ‘s’ (son) A L (learner – student)
An anagram (‘changes’) of NO MAIN in a reversal (‘reflecting’) of OU (Open University)
A (area) TT (teetotal – ‘dry’) round or ‘containing’ FIRS (trees)
An anagram (‘sneaky’) of THIEF TO and R (first letter or ‘head’ of room)
A reversal (‘after review’) of OK (adequate) in ADS (promotional materials)
A reversal (‘going over’) of PANT (long) AC (account)
LIE (story) round AI’S (Artificial Intelligence – ‘modern innovation’s’)
AP (apparently) in NE (North-East)
Am I the first to comment? It’s almost as if everyone else is preoccupied with other things today. Another wonderfully clever puzzle from Phi. Merry Christmas to all setters, bloggers and contributors to 225.
Unlike our bloggers, I found this harder than usual for Phi.
Best wishes and many thanks to all.
Thanks for the blog and the puzzle and Merry Christmas to all involved with the Indy
well done, guys – quite a number I needed you to parse …. now we can enjoy the happy day.
Phiday is a wonderful Christmas gift – agree with DuncT @2 that this played a bit harder than most of his, but all quite fair. Thanks to all our setters and bloggers for a wonderful year!