I wasn’t scheduled to blog today and so didn’t make any notes whilst solving. I am therefore relying on my somewhat deficient memory for the following.
I found this harder than usual to get in to and took nearly twice as long as usual to complete the grid. With hindsight this may just have been me feeling below par today, but perhaps this was not helped by some slightly morbid content (tumbrel/hearse, assassin/strangle etc), not to mention the various medical references.
On reflection, having completed the blog, this seems to be a rather gloomy crossword in many places both within the clues and in some of the answers.
Across
1 SCURVY S (onset of sleeping) CURVY (not straight)
4 ENDANGER END (close) ANGER (fiery reaction)
9 MOBILE dd
10 INCIDENT CI (101) in INDENT (order)
12 AVERSION A VERSION (cover, eg a new version of a song)
13 PANDER homophone of ‘panda’
15, 16 HALF-AND-HALF dd – in my youth this usually referred to half of bitter and half of mild in the same glass
20, 21 STEEPLEJACK ST (street) E E (energy doubled) [ap]PLEJACK (cider brandy with a p removed)
25 RENTAL *(LEARNT)
26 ASSASSIN ASS ASS (boobs) IN (fashionable) – ‘boob’ = stupid person = ‘ass’
28 STURGEON T (back of protect) in SURGEON (operator)
29 HEARSE HEAR (to pick up) S E (points, of the compass)
30 ON THE SLY *(honestly)
31 PROFIT cd
Down
1 SYMPATHY MY (setter’s) reversed PAT (gentle touch) in SHY
2 UMBRELLA [t]UMBREL (uncovered cart …..) LA (the French) – a ‘tumbrel’ was a cart that took prisoners to the guillotine
3 VALISE hidden word in ‘surviVAL IS Exceptional’ – a valise is an overnight travelling bag
5, 14 NONETHELESS NO NET (what daring high-wire performers may have) HE LESS (no men) – definition ‘however’
6 AMICABLE – with C (caught) removed becomes ‘amiable’
7 GREEDY G (start of grating) REEDY (piping) – I am assuming ‘after that and that’ is indicating being ‘greedy’
8 RETORT dd
11, 27 COUNTERFOIL COUNTER (scotch) FOIL (scotch again)
17 STRANGLE L (line) in STRANGE (unfamiliar)
18 SANSERIF *(fairness)
19 SKIN TEST dd
22 FRESCO *(FORCES)
23 INSULT hidden word in ‘HusseINS ULTimate’
24 CAREER E (drug) in CARER (nurse) – I was going to quibble about this one but Chambers does confirm that ‘career’ can be used as an adjective, as in ‘a career man’ = ‘a professional man’
I found it difficult too. On examination, it really does have a lot of gloom. Maybe Satori was having a bad day too! Hope tomorrow is more cheerful for you.