Independent 8793 / Phi

Phi has given us a fairly standard crossword today       There is however a slight nod towards the season with entries including the words CHRISTMAS (3/8/20), SEASON (9 across), SWEET (17 … Read more >>

Independent 8,792 by Crosophile

Initially I felt ill-disposed towards this, because of my obsession (some would call it a hang-up) with less than 50% checking, something that appears several times in the grid. But actually this is a perfectly pleasant crossword with some nice clues.

The inadequate (in my opinion) checking is sometimes excusable if there is a Nina and the setter is trying to get normal words into the grid. But in this case the Nina (which for once I’ve seen, although perhaps there is more) is fairly simple: look at the seven-letter words going diagonally from top to left, top to right, etc in the grid. They are all of a kind, and, further, the shape of the words surrounds something that may also be regarded as one of these.

Definitions underlined.

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Independent 8,787 by Phi

As usual with Phi I was a little slow to get started as few answers seemed to be obvious, but once going it all seemed clear enough. And then I came to a long halt with the last three, 21ac, 19dn and 22dn, which wouldn’t budge. The somewhat unusual sense of ‘clipped’ is my excuse; although it isn’t perhaps all that unusual, being the first item in the second Chambers definition.

In the end it was the usual very pleasant Phi experience. Lots of single-letter abbreviations here: is this a theme? (l = league, d = depth, f = farthing, n = note, E = European, r = runs, h = hard, n = name, m = millions, o = old, s = son, again n = note, and perhaps others I’ve missed.)

The unches at the top and the bottom spell out two words which no doubt send us to some series of books that escape my experience.

Definitions underlined.

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Independent 8783 by Kairos

I found this ultimately a little unsatisfactory because 16 and 15 across were rather obscure and your only recourse, if you didn’t know the words, was to guess. Apart from those two, it … Read more >>