Independent 6,990 by Morph

by

A mixed week for me here. A handful of very good clues, some others (especially the dds) which I could take or leave, and a few I can’t fully explain. There’s a “cattle” theme going on too, of course. Over to you.

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.

Across
7 CATTLE GRID – CAT + (LEG “getting stuck in” DIRT<).
9 BEEF – B + FEE<.
10 FRETTED – dd.
11 FETISH – I think this is F[-avourite] + ET + I SH[-owed].
12 SKYWAY – SWAY “about” KY.
13 BULLS-EYE – (BUY + SELL + E)*.
15 IN DRIBS AND DRABS – (BRAINS + BRAINS + DDD)*.
18 EYE-SALVE – A LEVE[-l] “to include” YES.
20 ESKIMO – [-h]E’S KIM + O.
21 PLENUM – PLUM “about” [-ag]EN[-da].
23 RAREBIT – R + BARE* + IT.
24 MOOD – .
25 COWCATCHER – dd.
Down
1 CALFSKIN – .
2 STEELWORKS – hom. of “steal works”.
3 NEATLY – dd.
4 BRED – hom. of “bread”.
5 ABET – BEAT*.
8 DEFILED – dd.
13 BRACE – I’m assuming BR + ACE, but “BR” for “contract bridge” would be new to me and I can’t find a source for it.
14 STRIKE BACK – SLAP<. It took me a while, but fair play, this is excellent.
16 BULIMIC – ([-yo]U + I + CLIMB)*.
17 BUM STEER – dd.
19/6 YELLOW JERSEY – dd.
20 EARWAX – I guess this is [-d]EAR + WAX.
22 NODE – “most of modest”?
23 ROWS – ROW + S.

15 comments on “Independent 6,990 by Morph”

  2. 24a: “made low sound” might give “mooed” which is a homophone of MOOD. But I am unable to relate it to ‘pet’.

  4. Turning to Chambers:

    pet n a slighted and offended feeling; a fit of aggrieved sulkiness; the sulks,huff.

    This sense of the word is new for me.

  6. As for BR for “contract bridge”.
    Suppose we take ‘contract’ as a verb meaning ‘shorten’, if we ‘contraact bridge’ we might get BR!

  7. Good point, that does seem plausible in fact.

    I’m still struggling a bit with CALFSKIN, but Niall’s explanation does seem to work, especially CAL[-l] and FIN[-d]. SK for “seek” would also be new to me, but I can believe it.

  8. I did not quite understand the anno for CALFSKIN from what is stated above. So I wrote down the clue and then the answer on a piece of paper and worked it out. I am now satisfied:

    Hide and seek ends in discovery almost after stifled shout (8) CAL,F([S(ee)K]IN(d)

    Hide – def
    and – (connector)
    seek ends – that is, ends or edges of ‘seek’ – SK
    in – c/c ind.
    discovery almost – FIN(d)
    after – position ind.
    stifled shout – CAL(l)

  9. ‘Br.’ as an abbreviation for ‘bridge’ is in Chambers. And S & K are the two ends of ‘SeeK’.

    I thought the theme here was very neat (someone had to say it!), and while I have one or two beefs (ditto) about the cluing, I thought much of it was inspired, particularly the Beatles-themed double def. for FRETTING. And it was good to see the namecheck for Cow and Chicken, easily the best show ever aired on the Cartoon Network!

  10. Enjoyable as ever from Morph, but I struggled with a few here, largely as I stupidly entered BULIMIA at 16D. Loved the Beatles clue, but still don’t understand NODE?

  13. I should have set out the SK more fully in the CALFSKIN explanation at 1, that’s what I had in mind – seek ends = first and last letters.

    Thanks for NODE, that was very good.

  14. “Node” was the only one I couldn’t get here, and I’m grateful for the explanation. This was a pretty good puzzle.

  15. No time for a load of bull (sorry!) but I liked the clue for FRETTED. There’s a poem by Garcia Lorca which describes the guitar as weeping.

Comments are closed.