Independent 8,897 by Phi

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What has caused Phi to move from his customary Friday slot? No doubt on Friday it will be the anniversary of something. But what? the Iranian US Embassy Hostage crisis (1980)? Probably not. The launch of the Hubble Space telescope (1990)? More likely, but Phi himself would have been very suitable for that. Lots more possibilities, but no doubt it will be something that Google isn’t pointing us towards, like the anniversary of some pop singer doing something.

Whatever the reason, we have the usual Friday excellence here. Nothing dodgy (or even untrustworthy) here.

There are lots of examples of fauna in the answers: turtle, wolf, tiger, fish, beetle, snake, shark, pig. Perhaps more that I haven’t seen. And perhaps that’s all it is, although I wouldn’t put it past Phi for there to be something else. The unches at the sides, which seem to be becoming increasingly common in grids nowadays, suggest something but don’t seem to help.

Definitions underlined.

Across
5 VOLCANIC
Like Vesuvius – very conical, erupting (8)

v (conical)* or (v conical)*, take your pick
8 STARCH
Prominent entrances to creature habitats in reserve (6)

star c{reature} h{abitats}
9 ACCUSE
Copper’s put in excellent report for crime? (6)

ac(cu’s)e — if you accuse someone of a crime, then in a sort of sense you report them for a crime, which I suppose is why there is a question mark
10 ON A PLATE
Easy to get nothing, tipster’s favourite being tardy (2,1,5)

0 nap late
11 TURTLENECK
Relent, showing embroidery in pleat in sweater? (10)

tu((relent)*)ck
12 WOLF
British writer losing some love for seducer (4)

Wo(0)lf — ref Virginia Woolf
14 LILY
Girl idly forgetting city map (4)

l(A-Z)ily
15 TIGER
Row of stadium welcoming good keen player (5)

ti(g)er — I’d always thought of a tiger as a good player, but the clue could hardly have been ‘Row of stadium welcoming good good player’ — Chambers does have ‘a formidable opponent or competitor’, which in a sense is a keen player
17 FISH
To try to catch female is hard (4)

f is h — in Chambers the intransitive sense of fish includes to try to catch, but the transitive sense doesn’t
18 TEAM
Side offers food for thought, switching wingers (4)

meat with the wingers (the m and the t) switching positions
20 SEARS TOWER
Waters rose, spoiling US building (5,5)

(Waters rose)* — the Chicago landmark
21 EPIGRAPH
Opening words: “What about rude fellow getting charge?” (8)

e(pig rap)h — so I’ve learnt something, having always thought that an epigraph was rather like an epitaph and came at the end; it comes at the beginning
23 MEEKER
More restrained cry of fright, landing in sea at Calais (6)

m(eek!)er — the sea at Calais is the French word for sea, which is mer
24 BEETLE
Car‘s front of bonnet, say – covering one removed (6)

bee t{i}le — ‘front of bonnet, say’ is ‘b, say’ or ‘bee’ — for a long time I was wondering if there was a car called a begtle
25 CHRISTIE
Thriller writer‘s chief character ultimately is Bond (8)

ch [= chief] {characte}r is tie — ref Agatha Christie, whose writings I’d always thought of as crime rather than thrillers, but I suppose at a stretch her books can be called thrillers
Down
1 CONCLUSIVE
Definite reassignment of vice-consul (10)

(vice-consul)*
2 INDECENT
Rude apprentice blocked by church (8)

inde(CE)nt
3 MALLOW
Flowering plant completely surrounded by work on lawn (6)

m(all)ow
4 SCOT
Caledonian guide losing half of us (4)

sco{u}t, the u that is omitted being u{s}
6 COUNTRY
Rural firm to withdraw effort? (7)

co un-try — fancifully, to un-try (not a word, hence the question mark) is to withdraw effort
7 CHOREOGRAPHIC
Hard work: load upset about setter planning organised movement (13)

chore then (cargo)rev. around Phi, the setter of this crossword — I wonder if Phi chose his own name because it is so useful to the setter — he often uses it — Glow-worm, together with most other setters for that matter, doesn’t have that facility
8 SHARK
Dodgy character captures hearts in Channel Island (5)

S(h)ark
13 LISTENER-IN
Phone tapper working inter-lines (8-2)

(inter-lines)*
16 ROSEMARY
Plant came up, beginning to revive in spring month (8)

rose Ma(r)y, the r coming from r{evive}
17 FLOWERS
Fine reduces for a bunch? (7)

f lowers
19 MIGHTY
Strong, masculine and significant, dismissing our side (6)

m {we}ighty
20 SNAKE
Untrustworthy character in Sweden uncovered cut (5)

S nake{d} — within the space of six clues we’ve had both a dodgy character and an untrustworthy character — any significance in that?
22 POEM
Old English used in premier piece of literature (4)

P(OE)M — PM = Prime Minister
*anagram

12 comments on “Independent 8,897 by Phi”

  1. I had to guess at “mighty” and stared at “incedent” for ages wondering if it was a word… but got there in the end.
    11A “turtleneck” was my favourite clue, which took me ages to work out.
    Thanks very much, both, and looking forward to see what happens on Friday!

  3. I found this a bit trickier than some of Phi’s puzzles but nothing to quibble about. The grid suggested a possible nina but there doesn’t seem to be one, although as has been said there is an animal theme in the answers. It took me a while to see and parse BEETLE at the end. Although the Sears Tower is now officially known as the Willis Tower it is still referred to by its original name. I visited the observation deck there many years ago and it is certainly a long way up.

  4. I thought I saw the beginning of a Bob Dylan theme emerging with LILY and ROSEMARY (as in the song Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts) but couldn’t take it further.

    Enjoyable crossword. Thanks to both.

  7. Thanks Phi and John.

    Hard going and needed help with some parsing. I did like CHOREOGRAPHY and TURTLENECK

    Leon W @6, there is also the TIGER BEETLE and sometimes the Tasmanian wolf is called the TIGER WOLF (sadly most probably extinct).

  8. Thanks John.

    We are blogging Phiday so were also surprised to see Phi today.

    All good fun. We knew there must be a theme but thought it was LILY at one point rather than TIGER.

    Thanks Phi for keeping us amused while eating our tea – or should we say supper? Perhaps Kathryn’s Dad will tell us which it should be! We seem to remember a conversation about this on a previous blog.

  9. B&J @8: We don’t call it anything, just eat it. Though if we go to a posh hotel it’s usually dinner; and it was definitely tea when we were in Scotland at the weekend.

    Thanks, Phi, for an enjoyable puzzle, and John for the blog.

  10. In a pub on Wellington waterfront at the moment so haven’t got my full list of TIGERS to hand – I think you can add COUNTRY and FLOWERS to the list. Set on the day my recording of Havergal Brian’s The Tigers arrived.

  11. Phi@10: I have that recording – listened to it twice now. I even remember when that performance was broadcast back in the eighties. Still didn’t notice the theme, though.

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