We now have Phi-day on a Saturday. All very confusing this week but as we also blogged the Hob yesterday we realised that something different was happening this week.
We spotted PHILIP in the top unches and JAGGERS down the left hand side early on but were very confused by the right hand side, as we had WEMH?CK for quite a while. It wasn’t until we had completely solved the puzzle and searched online that we realised that PHILIP PIRRIP was PIP in ‘Great Expectations’ and that JAGGERS and WEMMICK were two father figures to Pip in the novel by Charles Dickens.
Thanks Phi.
JAMAICA inN (Du Maurier novel) missing IN or ‘not popular’
AN (article) DHOW (boat)
ALLEGe (claim) missing last letter or ‘tailless’ OTTER (river creature) reversed or ‘returned’
Hidden in paST YEars
GAS (impressive thing) TO N (note)
RUB (grate) I inside or ‘observed in’ CH (church) and EM (them)
Double definition – like many others, we’ve not seen any this year so far!
BEEB (Auntie as in BBC) cALM (quiet) missing first letter or ‘beheaded’. We had this down as BEE BUSH first although we couldn’t work out where the ‘U’ came from. We only realised our mistake when we eventually solved 18d.
A reversal or ‘reflection’ of NAMES (cites) SE (South East) around X (kiss)
S (first letter or ‘beginning’ of Stick) in a reversal of (‘regressive’) ILEUM (part of intestine)
cRIBS (cradles) missing first letter or ‘front’
An anagram of ROLE BY PHI – anagrind is ‘in developing’ C (first letter or ‘foremost’ of crosswords)
SUIt (fit) missing last letter or ‘mostly’ around or ‘receiving investment from’ UK (European country) and Y (yen)
An anagram of BOY – anagrind is ‘being upset’ – round EAR (attention) + OK (right)
ALL (everything) I (one) inside or ‘included in’ PATE (paste) – a new word for us
A play on the fact that if you were rich you may be able to afford to HAVE I.T. (computer equipment) MADE
IE (that is) RU (sport – Rugby Union) around or ‘involving’ C (cold) + N (note)
BO (US chap) HE ‘appearing in’ LAME (unsatisfactory)
ES (French for ‘are’) underneath or ‘supporting’ I (one) D (date)
PI (significant ratio) linked to POLY (college)
NO ICE (increasing feature of Arctic) around or ‘taking in’ T (time)
An anagram of BRUTE – anagrind is ‘reformed’ – around I (one) + ORBIt (sphere of action) missing last letter or ‘reduced’
ARCH (support) AIR (song) around or ‘engrossing’ M (millions)
PILL (medication) in POOL (water perhaps) all reversed or ‘served up’
SPY (agent) about NAP (nod off)
PUPILS (students) reversed or ‘misdirected’
Double definition although we took a while to work out that the second definition related to the object you use with a pestle and not the material that you use between bricks.
SAId (commented) missing last letter or ‘endlessly’ around K (king)
Too much of a slog for me to enjoy, with copious googling. Can’t blame Phi for my lack of knowledge though and I learned a bit. Was slowed down awhile by entering MACRO (MACRO + N) for 12a. Also thought 17a was going to end in BUSH, the final answer being one of the many unknowns for me today. Thanks to S&B.
Once again I had to finish this in a rush so didn’t look for ninas. Got stuck in the SE corner and needed electronic help to finish, though all seems fair and entertaining. Thanks Phi and B&J.
Quite hard and I had to sleep on this one to finish. My knowledge of Dickens is not good enough for me to have been able to identify the names in the Nina, and I had an incorrect ‘bee bell’ for 17a anyway. I entered URBI ET ORBI from wordplay without any idea what was going on, but smugly thinking that I’d found a mistake in the Latin grammar – of course I was wrong. I took the MORTAR ‘capable of absorbing crushing force’ to be the “bricks and …” sort, but the “… and pestle” explanation makes more sense as you say. I’m still not quite sure what ‘around’ is doing in 7a; is it part of the def?
I thought GETAWAY was very original. As my last in, I was about to give up on it before the penny dropped.
Thanks to Phi and B&J
I took “around” as part of definition in 7a. Wouldn’t it be just Jamaica otherwise?
Thanks to Hovis and Wordplodder – we have underlined ‘around’ to indicate that is part of the definition.
Not convinced that “around” turns Jamaica into an adjective (at least it held us up from entering an answer we’d said twice). Same with Gaston, which I didn’t enter because I can’t see gas as an impressive thing, but enjoyed the rest, thanks to setter and parser.
Ericw @ 6
How about “The beaches around Jamaica” / “The Jamaican beaches” ?
EricW- Jumpin’Jack Flash is a gas, gas, gas. You need to brush up on your 60/70’s slang.
thanks to setter and bloggerati.
A very satisfying solve, helped by the nina. With about half the grid filled we saw PHILIP in the top unches and had P as the first of the bottom unches, then we got SAKI and having guessed PIRRIP we saw that the left side unches had to be JAGGERS and a moment’s thought suggested WEMMICK for the right unches. After that we were well on the way with one or two write-ins such as GETAWAY and MUESLI.
We were held up on 13ac as we initially had ‘polyps’ for 6dn, though we couldn’t understand ‘ps’ as a ratio. Then we found POLYPI in Chambers, although as far as we can make out that plural form isn’t used in the tumour sense of the word.
Plenty to enjoy, including ALLEGRETTO, HYPERBOLIC and HAVE IT MADE.
Thanks, Phi and B&J
Not familiar with names for cities, nor gas for impressive thing. Two n for notes also.
Otherwise quite good, liked have it made.
Thanks Phi, bert & joyce
Geordygordy@8 very familiar with the Stones, but always assumed that JJF was a “an entertaining or amusing person” as my dictionary says, not an impressive one!
Two impenetrable Phi puzzles in a row for me, I’m can’t remember struggling so heavily with Phi previously. I enjoyed GETAWAY and MUESLI though. Thanks Phi and Bert&joyce.