Independent 8,882 by Phi

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Every Friday we have the same thing, a very satisfactory and pleasant crossword from Phi, with few if any points of controversy. Initially, when I saw the answer ‘raindrop’ I thought Phi was balancing out all those rock music Ninas we so often have, by having nicknames of pieces of music, possibly just by Chopin, but either he is, and I am ignorant, or this was a false lead.

As usual with Phi for some reason, I was slow to start but then made steady progress.

Lots of unches at the edges, so no doubt a Nina there. And the most peculiar symmetry in the grid — if you discount the top two and the bottom two rows, the grid is rotationally symmetrical in the usual way, but if you just focus on those four rows the grid has a vertical line of symmetry. The top and bottom rows of unches give ‘Which prophet’, which I can’t understand at all, and the sides seem to say nothing.

Definitions, where appropriate, underlined.

Across
6 DADA
Article in total backed art style (4)

(ad(a)d)rev.
8 ESMEE
Girl flees meeting (she’s embraced there) (5)

Hidden in fleES MEEting
9 OAKY
Describing tree as acceptable after change of heart (4)

okay with the middle two letters swapped
11 STOLID
Recalled points about line one being unemotional (6)

(dots)rev. round (l 1)
12 ALL MY EYE
But can’t I keep the lens? Nonsense! (3,2,3)

I don’t quite understand this, I think. OK the eye contains a lens, but why should I want to keep it? Seems a bit odd and I suspect I’m missing something.
13 EYELINER
Highlight for viewers: grain either side of English river heading West (8)

The viewers are the eyes. (r(E Nile)ye)rev.
14 ROLL ON
I can’t wait for some bread before working (4,2)

roll [= some bread] on [= working]
16 PROWESS
Expression of discomfort when trapped by journalists’ skill (7)

pr(ow)ess
19 BRITTEN
Composer possibly attacked by midges around river (7)

b(r)itten
21 FIERCE
Angry note dismissing volume supplied by church (6)

fi{v}er CE
22 INTERVAL
Space in blue-green, in which Bible’s placed (8)

in te(RV)al
25 ADVOCATE
Propose drink (single not double) before end of date (8)

advoca{a}t {dat}e — I wonder if something has been left out, since the only indication that it’s the ‘a’ which only appears singly is the ‘not double’ and the only double is a double a, but it would seem to be so much better to have ‘(a single not double)’ or even ‘(a single not a double)’ without harming the surface that I wonder why Phi didn’t do it
27 OUTPUT
Info from computer inconvenienced, showing switch in components (6)

‘put out’ with the components (the two words) switched
28 BOTANICAL GARDEN
Park-like area indicated in revised boating calendar (9,6)

(boating calendar)*
Down
1 WALLFLOWER
I don’t dance with everyone following description of depression? (10)

w all f lower
2 HENDON
Henry not appearing full-frontal in part of London (6)

H end-on
3 IMPAIRS
Politician’s attitude in support of one’s damages (7)

1(MP air)’s
4 CELLARER
One with concern about keg’s core couple of litres? (8)

c({k}e{g} l l)arer, &lit.
5 HOLY
Edges of halo likely reflecting sainthood (4)

h{al}o l{ikel}y
7 ANTSY
Nervous article, testy in odd places (5)

an t{e}s{t}y
10 KEYHOLE
Opening crucial stage of Open? (7)

Sort of 2 defs, one of them whimsically referring to the Open golf championship
15 LITERATURE
A lot of reality, true, gets misrepresented in fiction and poetry? (10)

(realit{y} true)*
17 RAINDROP
Organised medic’s time in theatre bringing in one quantity of water (8)

ra(1)n dr op.
18 SCENARIO
Trail cut short ahead of a city development plan (8)

scen{t} a Rio
20 WIRETAP
Spray of water (half pint) doing for bug (7)

(water pi{nt})*, the anagram indicated by ‘Spray of’
23 TROUGH
Depression that’s initially severe (6)

t{hat’s} rough
24 AMULET
Cross and tense chasing a talisman (6)

(mule [= cross] t) after a
26 OMAR
Name for Arab upset second Arab (4)

(mo.)rev. Ar
*anagram

13 comments on “Independent 8,882 by Phi”

  2. I;m baffled by the apparent question too. Hendon could have been substituted by head-on unless the n is someway vital.

  4. I didn’t have a clue about the relevance of WHICH PROPHET and a quick google has left me none the wiser. Having said that, I saw the possibility of it and it helped me with my last three answers at the bottom of the puzzle, OMAR, SCENARIO and WIRETAP.

    I saw the first part of the wordplay for ALL MY EYE as a play on my being asked for one of my lenses, to which I would reply no, it is ………. Not that that would really be my answer to such a bizarre request. There may be a much more logical explanation.

  6. As mystified as the rest by the nina. Agree with Andy @4 about ALL MY EYE. With all due respect to Phi the clue strikes me as rather clunky, as if it was devised rather hurriedly.

    But thanks nevertheless to setter and blogger.

  8. 12 ac. I am new to this hobby and read this blog to held me to understand the clues. Are synecdoches permitted in word play so that “lens” refers to “eye”?

  9. Hello trenodia, I think the setter is saying “if you take the lens I can’t have all my eye” so not really a synecdoche. Not the best clue ever but slightly amusing, especially with the Isiah reference.

  12. Ever since the Independent allowed us to devise our own grids I have been plugging away doing so, and this was the 200th. (I keep them on file and sometimes reuse them, hence the numbering.). So I thought I’d trot out one of my father’s old jokes to mark the event. That, and a bit of odd symmetry – I think everything has some sort of symmetric counterpart, just not always on the same principle.

  13. And another thing which I had been unaware of, and which Phi doesn’t mention in his post, is that today is one of those rare days when Good Friday and Passover coincide, so that’s what I thought the Nina was about, although Phi tells us that it is indeed one of his father’s old jokes.

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