Our setter’s roots are showing this morning…
Sayang’s domain is Malaysia, his native tongue 1, 4 across and there are at least seven further Malay words scattered round the grid. I’m giving ‘pyjamas’ the benefit of the doubt: Chambers says they’re Hindustani, but then Chambers doesn’t have ‘merbau’ so what do they know? Good educational fun. Thanks, Sayang.
| Across | ||
| 1, 4 | BAHASA MALAYSIA | Aha! Malay a basis for my domain tongue (6,8) |
| Anagram of AHA MALAY A BASIS. Some duplication here but ‘Bahasa’ was a new word to me, so I was grateful for the hint. | ||
| 9 | ALLURE | Every river is an attraction (6) |
| ALL (‘every’) + URE (‘river’). | ||
| 10 | ESOTERIC | Mysterious drugs to upset Morecambe (8) |
| ES (‘drugs’) + TO, reversed, + ERIC (Morcambe, late comedian). | ||
| 11 | DUGONG | Enjoyed touching tail of charming mermaid? (6) |
| DUG (‘enjoyed’) + ON (‘touching’) + G (‘tail’ of ‘charminG’). The dugong is the supposed origin of the mermaid myth. | ||
| 12 | PRINCESS | SS in pursuit of George and Charlotte (8) |
| PRINCE (‘George’) + SS to give Princess Charlotte. | ||
| 13 | BYE | No contest for free run (3) |
| Sporting double definition. | ||
| 14 | SLAYER | Small bed for Buffy, perhaps (6) |
| S[mall] + LAYER (a ‘bed’). From Buffy The Vampire Slayer, everyday stories of American school life. | ||
| 17 | RUN AMOK | Manage a donkey almost in a frenzy (3,4) |
| RUN (‘manage’) + A MOKe (shortened ‘donkey’). | ||
| 21 | PARANG | Accident involving a knife (6) |
| PRANG (‘accident’) includes A. | ||
| 25 | DAY | Many hours for Doris (3) |
| Double definiton. | ||
| 26 | EMERITUS | No orisons needed for meritoriousness presented to one honourably discharged (8) |
| Anagram (‘presented’, I guess) of MERITORIOUSNESS minus ORISONS. | ||
| 27 | UPROAR | Clamour at college, sound of pride (6) |
| UP (‘at college’) + ROAR (‘sound’ of a ‘pride’ of lions). | ||
| 28 | BULLETIN | Report of shot at home (8) |
| BULLET + IN (‘at home’). | ||
| 29 | UNPLUG | Remove from power (6) |
| Cryptic – or nearly – definition. | ||
| 30 | UNTHRONE | Rt Hon mixed up in a French move to topple (8) |
| Anagram (‘mixed up’) of RT HON in UNE (French for ‘a’). | ||
| 31 | USURER | Shylock, perhaps, firm in old city (6) |
| SURE (‘firm’) in UR (old Chaldean ‘city’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BRANDISH | Display health food (8) |
| Double definition, or nearly so. | ||
| 2 | HOLOGRAM | Look among two farm animals for 3-D image (8) |
| HOG & RAM contain LO (‘look’). | ||
| 3 | STRANGER | Rambler way in front and more off-beat (8) |
| ST[reet] = ‘way’ + RANGER (‘rambler’). | ||
| 5 | ASSURE | Give guarantee when certain (6) |
| AS (‘when’) + SURE (‘certain’). | ||
| 6 | ATTEND | Notice a dry object (6) |
| A + TT (‘dry’, teetotal) + END (‘object’). | ||
| 7 | STREET | The way to bemuse setter (6) |
| Angram (‘bemuse’) of SETTER. | ||
| 8 | ACCUSE | Zola’s charge (6) |
| From Emil Zola’s famous ‘j’ACCUSE’ speech and pamphlet in the notorious Dreyfus affair. | ||
| 12 | PYJAMAS | Threads for crashing out (7) |
| Cryptic def. | ||
| 15 | RUM | Spirit captured back live from Uranus (3) |
| Reversed inclusion in froM URanus. Not quite sure what the ‘live’ adds to the wordplay. | ||
| 16 | TOP | No.1 crackpot (3) |
| Anagram (‘crack’) of POT. | ||
| 18 | KAMPONGS | GPS, a monk reorientated for some villages (8) |
| Anagram (‘reorientated’) of GPS A MONK. | ||
| 19 | CAROLLER | Present time singer (8) |
| Another cryptic whole clue. Christmas is of course the time for presents. | ||
| 20 | AGAR-AGAR | A swimmer a newspaper turned to jelly (4-4) |
| A GAR (a ‘fish’) + A RAG (a ‘newspaper’) reversed (‘turned’). | ||
| 22 | MERBAU | No rot in arboretum cultivating tropical hard wood (6) |
| Anagram (‘cultivating’) of ARBORETUM minus ROT. | ||
| 23 | ZEALOT | Extremist to booze a lot of bottles (6) |
| Inclusion (‘bottles) in ‘booZE A LOT of’. | ||
| 24 | LINEAR | One-dimensional king accepting only the popular (6) |
| IN (‘the popular’) in LEAR (‘king’). Again, the ‘only’ seems a touch superfluous. | ||
| 25 | DURIAN | Fruit for desperate character who embraced spoonbender (6) |
| Desperate DAN surrounds URI Geller, celebrated fraudulent bender of spoons. | ||
*anagram
Thanks Sayang and Grant
Not difficult but quite enjoyable.
Think that RUN AMOK might have originated from there as well …
First visited Malaysia in 1984 and have spent a bit of time there over the years and do like it a lot ! Even got to acquire a taste for durian – which is no mean feat … if one has ever come across it (or at least the not so delicate bouquet that it has)!
Oops … see that you did shade AMOK …
I tried to put astone into 6d. It is a rather archaic version of astonish. However attend obviously works much better. I couldn’t believe that 4 was Malaysia as it seemed too easy. However with the down clues it eventually became clear. Always good to learn some new words even though they weren’t all in Chambers.
Thank you, Grant for the blog. In Internet usage, MY is the domain name for the country Malaysia.