Independent 9,246 by Morph

by

Morph has given us his usual very sound and pleasant crossword. It was always my impression that Morph’s clues were on the wordy side, but I counted them (yes I really did, I have to admit) and the average word-length of each clue is only 7, which compares quite favourably with Dean Mayer’s last Sunday Times puzzle of 6.8. I had always thought that Dean’s clues were particularly pithy, but this one was not all that far behind. Anyway, perhaps it’s a bit silly to focus on length: quality is what it’s about, and there was plenty of quality here.

As usual I have, so far as I am able to. looked far and wide in the grid and can see nothing. But Morph has had themes in the past and I bet he has one here.

Across
1 CONNECTICUT State of electric current after link severed (11)
connect [= link] I [= electric current] cut [= severed]
9 AQUAVIT A tremble, giving away hesitation – what you’re looking for is spirit (7)
a quav{er} it [= what you’re looking for]
10 RAGWEED First person in collective was angry about threat to crops? (7)
rag{we}ed — ‘in collective’ is another way of saying ‘in the plural’
11 GO TO GRASS Approach singer to retire (2,2,5)
go to [= approach] grass [= singer, someone who sings or snitches or sneaks, whatever word is appropriate; so far as I know there is no singer either of the Whitney Houston type or of the Fischer-Dieskau type with the surname Grass]
12 ROAST Dish of a sort, cooked (5)
(a sort)*
13 EGRET Leggy bird to welcome centre forward (5)
greet with its centre letter moved forward
14 UNOPPOSED It’s natural to get out of work if not challenged (9)
un(op)posed
16 CARTRIDGE React badly about dodgy grid that’s filled with ink (9)
(grid)* in (react)*
17 ETHOS That group’s back to front way of thinking (5)
those with the back letter moved to the front — too much like 13? Consider and discuss
19 ASPIC Like photo showing gel (5)
as pic — gel with a soft g
21 RAT-POISON A portion’s unhealthy! (3-6)
(a portion’s)* — &lit.
23 BASMATI Useless batsman – tail-ender out for one in Indian side? (7)
(batsman – n + 1)* — the Indian side is the Indian side dish, although I wouldn’t have thought you could call Basmati rice a side dish; perhaps there is a wider sense, or perhaps I eat my Indian food wrongly, putting the main dish on top of a bed of rice
24 RE-ELECT Put up again after changing sides halfway, and get in again (2-5)
re-erect with L for the R that is halfway through the word — ‘get’ a transitive verb here
25 LOGGERHEADS One making recording tails rival, at which they dispute? (11)
logger [= one making recording] heads [= tails rival as in the toss of a coin] — if they are at loggerheads they dispute
Down
1 COUNTER-PROPOSAL Rival bid in which location of tender appears illegal? (7-8)
proposal [= tender] appears in a location under the counter, or illegal — not immediately obvious to me, this one, and I had to be helped
2 NAVIGATOR Sailor, Russian, raised by reptile (9)
(Ivan)rev. gator [= alligator]
3 EXTRA Turkey cut up to go round further (5)
Tr in (axe)rev.
4 TURNSTONE Bird changes colouring (9)
turns tone
5 CIGAR E.g. Hamlet makes one sad, timelessly uplifting (5)
({t}ragic)rev. — I’d always thought a Hamlet was a cheroot, but close enough I suppose
6 THE CAT’S WHISKERS Cream? You may find some here! (3,4,8)
2 defs, one of them referring to the fact that when a cat has drunk some cream it will probably have got some on its whiskers
7 JANGLE Judge point of view to upset (6)
j angle
8 EDITED Checked raising of French marine force (6)
(de [= ‘of’ in French] tide)rev.
14 UNDER FIRE Don’t bake enough, coming in for criticism (5,4)
2 defs, one of them for underfire
15 PHENOMENA Pub bloomer picked up – they can be observed
p.h. (anemone)rev.
16 CRABBY Out of sorts, express sadness about university offer? (6)
cr(ABB)y — the university may have required an A and two Bs at A Level — I think ‘offer’ is just about OK because the offer is based on meeting these requirements
18 SANITY Remix it as New York State of Mind (6)
(it as NY)*
20 CLANG Sound found in Arabic language (5)
Hidden in ArabiC LANGuage
22 TORCH Burning up, holding roman candle (5)
(hot)rev. containing RC

*anagram

9 comments on “Independent 9,246 by Morph”

  1. ?Missed the parsing of 1d (v. neat once explained), didn’t know that ‘Hamlet’ is a brand of CIGAR and couldn’t understand the ‘ABB’ bit of 16d. Took far too long on BASMATI which I didn’t recognise as an anagram. Liked the ‘tails rival’ in 25 and THE CATS WHISKERS.

    Any theme has passed me by I’m afraid.

    Thanks to Morph and John.

  3. ‘Happiness,’ you may remember, ‘is a cigar called Hamlet’ (cue Jacques Loussier playing Bach’s Air on the G-string), so if it’s OK for its makers, it’s a cigar right enough.
    I liked PHENOMENA, with its unstrained 7-letter reversal masquerading as a pun, and the under-the-counter joke was a good ‘un, I thought.
    Thanks to John & Morph.

  6. Another enjoyable solve completed without help. I wondered if something was afoot when J,Q,V and X turned up in the NW corner, but although there’s an F there’s no pangram today.

    As yesterday it’s a toss-up for CoD again. This time between BASMATI for its great surface and THE CAT’S WHISKERS for reminding me of a colleague’s remark once when I bounced into work looking rather pleased with myself: “You look like a cat that’s had the cream” (except that I didn’t have whiskers in those days).

    Thanks, Morph and John.

  7. What? No politics in a Morph puzzle? What is this damn’d world coming to?

    Even without the politics, this was a fine and witty crossword. No special favourites, but THE CAT’S WHISKERS was clever (although THE DOG’S BOLLOCKS is the preferred phrase in our house). Thanks for explaining COUNTER PROPOSAL, John.

    Looking forward to Morph’s themed puzzle on 23rd June.

  9. Having just looked at the blog for today’s cryptic in another place I see that one comment includes this link to photos from the Derby S&B and other gatherings. Apologies if it’s been posted already on an Indy blog – I might have missed one or two days.

Comments are closed.