Independent 7,524/Phi

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Lovely stuff as ever from Phi. Nothing overly difficult here, but great clueing and a fine range of cryptic devices.

Across
1 BULLDOG – BULL (nonsense) + DOG (to follow)
5 BITUMEN – TUM in BIEN
9 ODD MAN OUT – (ODD MAN)* i.e ‘out’ gives MAD DON
10 PYLON – [-electric]Y in P(owe) L(ine) + ON (supported by)
11 TITHE – THE about I.T
12 SEPARATED – APES rev. + RATED
14 GESTALT THERAPY – (APTEST + LETHARGY)*
17 MEDICAL TOURISM – (I-I’M ALMOST CURED)* &lit.
21 NICE – N[-ature] + ICE
21 HOURGLASS – Cryptic def.
23 HELLO – HE L(eft) LO[-w]
24 SALEM – M(illions) at SALE – An appropriate clue for Black Friday!
25 ACIDIFIED – A C.I.D + 1 in FED
26 SETBACK – TES[-t] rev., i.e. BACK
27 TREKKER – K repeatedly in TREE + E.R
Down
1 BRONTE – BRO + N[-0]TE
2 LADETTE – TED rev. in LATE
3 DIALECTIC – DIALECT + 1 C(onservative)
4 GLOSSOLALIA – LOSS in GO + (ALL)* + 1 A(mateur)
5 BAT – BAT[-s]
6 TAPIR – TAP + 1 R(iver)
7 MILITIA – I LIT in MA
8/20 NINE DAYS WONDER – (ANNOYED REDS WIN)*
13 PATRON SAINT – (PARTS NATION)*
15 EARTHRISE – RA rev. in (THERE IS)*
16 EMPHASIS – PHI’S SAME[-y])*
18 DOUBLET – beTTer
19 SELKIRK – I think this is ELK in SIRK, but this would suggest ‘upset’ as the definition?
22 GAMMA – G(ood) A.M (morning) MA mother)
25 ASK – [-c]ASK

14 comments on “Independent 7,524/Phi”

  1. I could be wrong, but I read 18dn as S[cottish] + ELK + IRK, with IRK = “upset” and “Scottish town” as the definition.

    Cheers for the blog. I got through this one relatively swiftly, but didn’t check the anagram and wrote in TOURIST rather than TOURISM at 17ac, which was silly.

  2. Excellent puzzle, thanks, Phi, and Ali for the blog. Agree with Simon re SELKIRK. Favourite clues, BULLDOG, MEDICAL TOURISM, DOUBLET. Not 100% sure but thought HOURGLASS might be double definition, referring to the instrument with sand and a well-proportioned lady as they say. Learnt a bit of astronomy too from 15 down that I worked out from the wordplay.

  3. Interesting to see medical tourism getting an airing with a very nice &lit clue. It proves that Indy setters are on the ball with new trends. I had a bit of trouble with 4 down, which I thought might be glossalalia, with ga as an abbreviation for game. I’d forgotten there is a game called go.

  4. Thanks, Ali.

    Very good puzzle from Phi, which I found not too tricky apart from two or three clues where I needed your explanations. We’ve had some hard ones in the Indy this week, so a nice balance of difficulty over the past five days.

    Lots of good clues. I’ve always thought the phrase was NINE DAY WONDER, but dictionaries do give it as NINE DAYS’ WONDER, with the apostrophe. EARTHRISE is also interesting: it cropped up in the Grauniad a few months ago, and then as now was easily solvable. But it doesn’t appear to be in any of the dictionaries. It was coined when the Apollo astronauts took the iconic pictures of the Earth rising above the moon’s surface.

    Here’s a link (I hope, I’m still struggling with this on fifteensquared):

    http://www.depts.ttu.edu/economicsandgeography/images/geog/earth_rise.jpg

  5. Not sure where 21 Nice comes from! Still got there quite quickly once I looked at it properly rather than stolen glances at my desk. Thanks Ali & Phi.

  7. Thanks for the blog Ali, and Phi for yet another enjoyable puzzle.

    Favourites were: 9A ODD MAM OUT, 26A SETBACK both with similar devices, 17A MEDICAL TOURISM, a contemporary term, and 4D GLOSSOLALIA, obtained from the wordplay, but a word with an unforgettable ring to it.

  9. Thanks for the blog, Ali, though I’m afraid there’s an ‘I’ missing at 25ac.

    Mind you, you’re not the only one: by my reckoning, 27ac. should have 3 ‘E’s’ – two from TREE and one from E.R.

  10. Thanks, nms, re EARTHRISE – it’s not in the SOED and I was remembering the comment about its absence from dictionaries from the Guardian blog. I guess it’ll only be used when talking about the Apollo mission pictures until we have another ‘small step for a man’.

  12. Of course good as usual from Phi. But I had some doubts over 13dn: the definition is ‘nationalist figure’ and there are plenty of patron saints who aren’t nationalist figures — St Cecilia, the patron saint (or possibly one of the patron saints) of music, wasn’t one to my knowledge. So is this definition by example? If so, not what one would have expected of Phi.

  13. NealH,

    Re-reading and thinking confirms that the clue says ‘queen’, lower case and with no article. I stand corrected.

    While there are patron saints for all walks of life, I think few would be able to name any other than those of their nation and those close to them.

  14. An aside re EARTHRISE, I think it was Michael Collins, the pilot of Apollo 11, who said the picture K’sDad linked to should be viewed rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise as that’s how they saw it from orbit.

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