Solving time : about 20 minutes
A classic Phi puzzle, very fair Ximenean clues with a few cryptic definitions thrown into the mix.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PAST+ORAL — ORAL is always a good guess for exam (aka viva). |
| 10 | HACK+ER — Nice to see hacker being defined as computer expert rather than in its more malevolent sense. |
| 15 | S(UN)UP — article from Evian gives us UN (rather tha UNE, LE, LA or LES). |
| 18 | OB+SERVING — OB = Old Boy = former schoolfellow, I’m not sure if OB appears anywhere other than crosswords. |
| 19 | (b)EAGLE — I looked at this one quite early and did a mental trawl through six letter dog breeds, ALUKI and ETTER are not birds I know of. |
| 20 | INHERITANCE — This was the last clue I got. I tried to read more into it than I think is there. Unless somone else can tell me what I’m missing this is just a cryptic definition. It’s the word accepted that confuses me. |
| 24 | EN(I)G+MA — A classic case of using On the contrary to switch the container and filling around to give a good surface. |
| Down | |
| 1 | PERSUASION — A novel and what it might take to get me to read it. |
| 3 | (b)ORDER — Book (b) is removed from immigration area, an odd definition for border. |
| 4 | AT FIRST SIGHT — anag of THIS IS GRAFT + (cour)T. This threw me for a while as Phi managed to hide the anagram material using innocuous words like IS and THIS. |
| 6 | COASTLINE — anag of SECTIONAL, one of those perfect longer one word anagrams that occasionally arises, cf CART-HORSE and ORCHESTRA |
| 11 | MERRY-GO-ROUND — A cryptic definition and the first clue that I got. The clue screamed out CD and the enumeration left no room for dithering. |
| 13 | SUI GENERIS — anag of REISSUING + (s)E(eries) By the time I got to this clue I had enough checking letters to work out the anagram confidently despite my failure to grasp Latin at the age of 11. |