Phi Crosswords

phionline.net.nz

  • About me
  • Types of cryptic crossword
    • Solving crosswords
    • Outlets
  • APEX Crosswords
  • My other puzzles
    • BBC Music Magazine crosswords
    • Beelzebub Crosswords
    • Church Times puzzles
    • Enigmatic Variations
    • The European crossword
    • Independent Inquisitor
    • Independent: newspaper
    • Jumbos
    • Magpie
    • Other puzzles
  • Setter’s blogs
  • Book Reviews
  • Cats

Middle Eights

The structure of many songs is ABA, with an opening section A repeated at the end after section B, often known as the middle eight.  In this puzzle, all eight-letter answers are the middle eight letters of song titles (popular or traditional), clued by an anagram of the remaining letters.  Numbers in parentheses in these clues give the number of words in the title.  Thus ROIL (1) would lead to (Li)LLIBURLE(ro).

ACROSS

1              CLONER (4)

7              People getting University’s list of courses (4)

10           Utter fool loses head after rejection of one (7)

11           Rebutted argument about Old English swain (5)

12           DR H.T. (3)

13           Aware of one negative vote from Paris (4, two words)

14           Sailor placed to go round lake (4)

17           Nobleman that is seen by King before the due time (7)

20           Lout in yard a gangster cut (5)

21           Some vacuous impersonal smiles (7)

23           Animal with end of hind foot trapped is unable to srtir (7)

26           Meadow has mum attaching line to control dog (5)

28           Run Act I in play – until this? (7)

30           Very interested in chanting? Not half (4)

34           Hooter’s sound one ignored (4)

35           ERGS (1)

36           Female lecturer rejected article (5)

37           Engineers agreement to occupy property? That’s a record (7)

38           Girl, one tucking into nuts (4)

39           PISA (3)

DOWN

1              Mysterious act, deposing duke with little power (4)

2              Just feasible? Ends in total disarray (4)

3              Grub mostly for party, on reflection (4)

4              Rioting lets us engage in fisticuffs (6)

5              Town that’s religious, in short (6)

6              Head of army base picked up as a deserter? (4)

7              I take in extinct bird’s fate (5)

8              HOGMEN (4)

9              T. ERRED (3)

15           A princess of operetta – or of opera (4)

16           Animal showing elements of muntjac or giraffe (5)

17           ITCHER (3)

18           Eastern prince always supporting a leader of Muslims (5)

19           HAG HAT (4)

22           Money and skill evident in trading area (4)

24           Man, a fool, going up to bore (6)

25           Fur wrap, new, could make you hot (6)

27           Outlay is penny? Close (5)

29           Fruit, no end of a splendid example (4)

31           A great deal for very little – head off (4)

32           Mountain – you’ll see the writer on top of it (4)

33           Be dubious, rejecting wife’s claim (4)

PDF of puzzle

Solution

Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Share
Tweet
Pin

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Phi RSS feed

  • RSS - Posts

About me

This is the website of Paul Henderson, who sets crosswords for The Independent (London) under the pseudonyms Phi, for the Daily Telegraph (London) under the pseudonym Kcit, and anonymously for The Times (London) amongst many other outlets. For a more detailed biography see the About Me page.

Blogroll

  • Alberich Crosswords
  • Alchemi's puzzles
  • Anax Crosswords
  • Azed slip
  • Big Dave's Crossword Blog
  • Boatman Cryptics
  • Crossword centenary
  • Crossword Centre
  • Crossword Club
  • Crossword Unclued
  • CrosswordMan: Crossword construction software
  • Crosswords by Chameleon
  • Crosswords by Hasslethymi
  • Fifteensquared
  • George vs The Listener crossword
  • Guardian Crosswords
  • Hoskins Crossword
  • Hubble Crosswords
  • idothei
  • Independent Crosswords
  • Listen with Others
  • Listener Crossword
  • Magpie Crossword Magazine
  • One Across
  • Peter's Cryptic Crossword Corner
  • Telegraph Crosswords
  • The Stickler Weekly
  • Times Crossword Club
  • Times for the Times
  • Undisclosed Enumeration

Comments

  • MARK WATSON on Getting old
  • Erin on The perils of abbreviations
  • William F P on Covid strikes
  • Phixwd on A forthcoming loss
  • David Thomson on A forthcoming loss

Copyright © 2023 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in