Have we overslept by 24 hours? Phi on a Thursday?
It’s been a strange week for us, with a hospital visit, a visit to the hairdresser for both of us and the first time into Nottingham city centre since lockdown began. And now we have Phi on a Thursday. What will happen tomorrow?
We found solving this puzzle a bit trickier than normal for a Phi, although once we started to write up the blog we wondered why.
If there is a theme, we cannot spot it but maybe Phi just wanted to include the lovely word at 21ac and the phrase at 9ac (he is a cat lover!).
Thanks Phi, hope all is well with you in NZ – we are so envious of you having Jacinda Arden as your PM.
AU (gold) TOPS (best) Y (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of security)
TACk (food) missing last letter or ‘a lot of’ + I ‘tucked’ in AND
Double definition, although Joyce had no idea about THESE crystal radio sets called CAT’S WHISKERS
GEN (information) reversed or ‘back’ around EDIN (shortened form of Edinburgh)
MITT (a hand) inside OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
MONS (WW1 battle) TRY (attempt) around or ‘securing’ O (old) SIT (position)
RESt (relaxation) without T (time). We had to check the legal use of RES which did not appear in Chambers but Merriam-Webster has it as
1 : a thing (as a property, interest, or status) as opposed to a person that is the object of rights and especially that is the subject matter of litigation a court with jurisdiction over the res of the suit
tACT (delicacy) without T (time) at the start
WINNING (persuasive) POST (correspondence)
CELL and NET – two ways of restraining
CAT (guy – as in dude) + H (initial letter or ‘beginning’ to hesitate) in CUP (tournament)
L (line) inside or ‘penned by’ FIBBER (storyteller) + IT reversed or ‘recalled’ + GIBBET (gallows)
Double definition
If a ship did not have as much ballast it would be LIGHTER
ANTONY (Shakespearean character) M (male)
If a narrative (telling) is abandoned THERE would be NO TELLING
A N (name) IS ‘inscribed’ in PIT (orchestra area)
YE (old world for you) S (succeeded)
I (independent) inside an anagram of CHAP’S RADIO – anagrind is ‘broadcast’
IF inside TESTY (quarrelsome)
An anagram of OUR CAT and THE FIBRE A – anagrind is ‘playing’
IS reversed or ‘kept up’ inside or ‘maintained by’ DODOS (old-fashioned types)
An anagram of A RUDE DOG NOT – anagrind is ‘trained’
OF reversed or ‘uprising’ inside or ‘captured by’ ARCHEr (Robin Hood say) with the last R (runs) missing or ‘off in the end’
WIND (meander) GAB (chatter) reversed or ‘in turn’
A play on the fact that Air on a G STRING is a musical arrangement of the second movement in J S Bach’ s Orchestral Suite no 3 in D major – we knew the arrangement but did not know which piece it was based on.
PST (attempt to attract attention) inside TIER (row)
stILL (remaining) with ST (saint – good man) omitted or ‘departing’
I find it hard enough to remember what day it is.
Agree that 21a is a lovely word.
8d always reminds me of the nonsense lyrics usually recalled as;
Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?
That’s my little ear worm gift to you all.
Thanks to Phi and Bertandjoyce.
I don’t want to worry you both further in your already strange week, but I think if you’d overslept by 24 hours then it would be Phi on a Saturday …
Excellent puzzle from our antipodean setter, as always. Good range of clue types, some interesting words, and a flashback to what seems like the 19th century with CELLNET. RES I got (wasn’t too tricky with the two crossers) and vaguely remembered it. It’s just the Latin word for ‘thing’, I think, though you’ll need Eileen to tell you which bit of the declension it is.
Following Hovis’ earworm contribution, with 21ac in mind I offer you How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria from The Sound of Music.
Thanks to B&J for blogging and to Phi for the early puzzle.
I don’t know what Hob has planned for tomorrow, but today’s was a Nina- and theme-free zone.
We found this an enjoyable and not too tricky solve. A theme-free zone, maybe but we did notice a few cats in either answers or clues. In fact our favourite was THE CAT’S WHISKERS.
We don’t see anything strange about our bloggers wondering if they’d overslept 24 hours; if you wake up on Thursday to find it’s Phi in the Indy you might think you were actually waking up on Friday.
No doubt Phi has been bumped from Friday because there’s something special lined up. A little research reveals several historically significant events occurred on 17th July.
Thanks, Phi and B&J
RES was new to me, and couldn’t see how GUY meant CAT or NOT RINGING meant ENGAGED, but the answers to the clues were obvious enough.
Two CATs in the grid, plus a cat and a dog in the clues doesn’t seem enough for a theme. Have I missed something?
Well, I’ve searched high and low, up and down, back and forth, perimetrically and diagonally both ways for a Nina and found nothing, so will have to come back tomorrow to find out. Very enjoyable, so thanks Phi and B&J. Looking forward to spotting tomorrow’s theme(s).
Tatrasman and NNI – Phi has already left a comment @ 3 to say that we are theme and nina free today.
Enjoyed this. My first thought for 9 – when I had hardly any crossers and had only read the 1st word of the clue – was the canine equivalent but I guess that’d be a bit too much even for the Indy!
Thanks to Phi and Bertandjoyce and let’s see what tomorrow brings…
For 17dn, would the “linited coverage” not relate to the G-string being an item of underwear?
The very first cryptic I ever did was by a NZ setter with the nom-de-croix M?y? of Auckland, on the alphacross app. Worth hunting down his puzzles.
Bit below par today, two short and only half parsed properly. The long clues in particular slowed me down, although as our hosts found, I can’t really see why – there’s nothing to complain about in the least. Thanks Phi and bertandjoyce.
It should say “Maya” above.