i Cryptic Crossword S0132 by Phi
June 16, 2024
Difficulty rating (out of five): ⏳⏳⏳⏳
I found this rather difficult by Phi’s standards and, although I’ve given it the same rating as yesterday’s from Serpent, I found it much harder to sustain my concentration today, with shamefully frequent recourse to electronic aids (none of which were needed yesterday) and an ultimate fail at the end on BILLED which was clued as ‘Apparently laid-up’ in other words ILL in BED – too hard for me!
Oh well, there were some nice bits dotted around, and I was quite pleased for the wordplay to lead me to the answers on words like SAGUARO which I’d not met before; a sure sign of good clue writing. I liked PROOFREAD, ARRIVEDERCI and the use of SOCHI in MASOCHISTIC, but CoD for me is this one:
8d Indication of failing powers to support juvenile criminal (6,9)
No theme; here’s the answers: www.fifteensquared.net/2020/07/03/independent-10522-phi
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
This took me just a little more time than yesterday’s Serpent, with some decidedly tough clues. BILLED went in on a likely looking definition and crossed fingers. Lots of long answers, which can sometimes make things difficult.
Finished with much cheating but some very tricky ones – I’ll in bed, nice but a bit beyond me. Masochistic was the only fit but no way it means overly harsh in my head.
This was as challenging as yesterday but less smooth and less accurate, though I liked 19a. Half-finished, it would have been 14a for me to continue, so DNF as I wasn’t really enjoying it. Phi can do better and probably will next time.
My experience was Denzo-esque (🤔), although I persevered a little further and only cheated on the last few, including ARTESIAN (couldn’t get RAI out of my head for the broadcaster) and of course BILLED. Enjoyment level way below yesterday’s I’m afraid.
A solve similar to our blogger’s for me. Harder than typical for Phi. BILLED eluded me, and I gave up and used the reveal word button.