Independent No 6838 by Morph

by

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed

A moderately difficult puzzle with solid clues, but just a couple (8 down and 14 down) that seemed to rely on some knowledge that I don’t have. I haven’t been able to confirm the answers because the cryptic crossword link doesn’t seem to be working since they added the new “Puzzles” page in the path.

Across
6 First Impression: Impression = cast, as in dentistry.
9 Sight: Sigh + t.
10 Sarcastic: hidden, reversed.
11 Diddling: Did + ding around l.
13 Degree: [ma]de gree[n].
14 Fourth dimension: (of our minds in the)*.
17 Column: Colum[bus] + n.
19 Scrape up: scrap + EU p.
22 Constable: cons + table (as in periodic table of elements).
23 Sense: S + en + se. A reasonable knowledge of French is required here. En is “in” in French and “se” is the reflexive pronoun as in “se laver”. “Nous” is also a French word meaning “we”, so there was some nice misdirection.
25 In Seventh Heaven: sin* + event + have* in hen.
Down
1 Brag: garb<.
2 Statelet: S + TA + Tet around le. The Tet Offensive was an event in the Vietnamese war.
3 Escape: Last two letters of superheroes + cape (what a good superhero wears).
4 Wintertide: (die written)*.
5 On Screen: Censor* + [r]en[t].
6 Fused: Fed around US. Quite topical at present
7 Masoned: Mad[e] around s[t]one + &lit.
8 Rare ?: The full clue is “Unusual word formed from texting abbreviation and what it stands for”. I’m assuming rare from the “unusual” bit, but don’t follow the rest. My knowledge of mobile phone speak is fairly bad, so it’s possibly something I’ve never heard of.  
12 Doubleness: Blue* inside done + SS.
14 Focaccia ?: “Australian quits UN food body over what’s said (in book) to be in the rye bread”. I assume the definition is “rye bread”, but I don’t know what the UN food body is supposed to be.
15 Macbeth: Match* around E B (as in B side of a record).
16 No answer: double definition. I think the idea is that you get zero marks for a missing answer i.e. a round ring.
18 Motive: MOT + I’ve.
20 Preen: P + re + en.
21 Oban: O + ban.
24 Nova: 3 definitions – star, Vauxhall Nova + no va, where va is Spanish for “go”.

12 comments on “Independent No 6838 by Morph”

  3. 14dn – the UN food agency is the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and “Caccia” sounds like “Catcher” (in the Rye – book by J. D. Salinger); the definition is just “bread”.

  5. It might be a good idea to update the link printed underneath the clues in the newspaper itself, since that still has the old address. That’s assuming anyone still buys the paper after today’s 25% price hike.

  7. One or two I’m not sure about:
    25ac: ‘Joyful occasion’ is nounal, but the answer isn’t, so what’s the definition? In any case, how does the wordplay work? It seems to be (sin)*, (have)* in even then, or something …
    7dn: what’s the definition? The whole clue hardly means ‘masoned’.

  8. 25ac makes perfect sense to me.

    Definition:

    Joyful = in seventh heaven

    Wordplay:

    occasion = event
    sin all over the place first = in s = in sevent
    have frolics = have*
    in bridal party afterwards = in hen (hen party) = in seventh heaven

  9. I concur with Geoff’s interpretation of ‘NO ANSWER’.

    Surprised that noone has mentioend the Nina in this puzzle! The ordinals from 1st to 7th are either included in or alluded to by answers in the respective rows: first impression, [second] sight, [third] degree, fourth dimension, [fifth] column, [sixth] sense and seventh heaven.

  10. 7 dn – the definition is ‘made out of stone’. A bit tricky since it involves MAD(e) and S(t)ONE but Morph has played fir with the question mark at the end.

  12. Re the rising costs of newspapers; I have just returned from a trip to the ‘Old Dart’ and most hotels have free copies of papers at the reception desk, mainly the Indy, just go in and pick one up, the hotel dosen’t mind they don’t pay for them.
    Patrick.
    PS is ‘masoned’ a word?

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