This, one of Morph’s two-monthly (by which I mean every two months, whether or not that word exists) appearances, was as usual difficult. But fair, and good, with some nice clues.
The theme seems something to do with vegetables, as we have pak choi, chard, salad herb, rocket, and a few others. Whether or not there is any stronger link than this I leave to you.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MOONBEAM | Drop trousers and smile – that’ll brighten up the night! (8) |
| moon [= drop trousers] beam [= smile] | ||
| 5 | SPASMS | Wells manuscript contracts (6) |
| spas MS | ||
| 10 | RUMINATOR | I consider sailors’ drink ration insane (9) |
| rum [= sailors’ drink] (ration)* | ||
| 11 | KILIM | It’s found underfoot almost halfway across African mountain (5) |
| Kilim{anjaro} | ||
| 12 | TACKING | Pet facing away from master, turning to avoid blast? (7) |
| (cat)rev. king — ref. sailing, where you tack when going into the wind | ||
| 13 | ECHIDNA | Australian beast chained up (7) |
| (chained)* | ||
| 14 | OVERDRAMATISE | Drive me crazy with a roast ham (13) |
| (Drive me a roast)* | ||
| 18 | ARACHNOPHOBIA | Publisher’s head honcho working in Middle East region being wary of web developer? (13) |
| (P{ublisher} honcho)* in Arabia — the web developer is a spider | ||
| 22 | PROFANE | Gas containing fluorine in place of phosphorus turning the air blue! (7) |
| propane with its second p replaced by f — a nit-picker would say that the wordplay leads to frofane — and what’s the exclam about? It’s not an especially funny or clever or misleading clue. | ||
| 24 | PULSATE | Beat a bit of thyme into beans (7) |
| puls(a t{hyme})e | ||
| 26 | CHARD | Veg is cold and tough (5) |
| c hard | ||
| 27 | CROSSWORD | Right before the middle of function, almost nod off over this (9) |
| c(r)os (drows{e})rev. | ||
| 28 | CUEING | Writing 27, drop line that’s stimulating (6) |
| I had to wait for this, but since 27 is CROSSWORD, writing crosswords = clueing — c{l}ueing | ||
| 29 | ASSENTER | One nodding a cross in the box in commentary (8) |
| a “centre” — football, not the voting that I puzzled over | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MARATHON | French revolutionary honourable in the long run (8) |
| Marat hon. | ||
| 2 | OHMIC | 1/2-3/8 of midwestern states showing resistance (5) |
| For a long time I never understood this: it was obviously ohmic, with its connection to ohms, the measures of resistance, but the first bit? Oh yes: Oh{io} Mic{higan} | ||
| 3 | BANDIED | Put it about prohibition’s ended (7) |
| ban died | ||
| 4 | AUTOGRAPH | Car, one appearing in King George pub sign (9) |
| auto (GR (a) PH) — autograph and sign are verbs | ||
| 6 | PAK CHOI | Greens pick a rogue to enter house? On the contrary (3,4) |
| ho in (pick a)* — rather than the rogue entering the house, it’s the other way round — being set in my ways, I’d never heard of this and had to check it | ||
| 7 | SALAD HERB | Balderdash, rubbish – only one old penny for rocket? (5,4) |
| (Balder{d}ash)* — this time we are told that it’s only one of the d’s that is removed | ||
| 8 | SUMMAT | Muslim community gathered in street – a northern thing? (6) |
| s(umma)t — I had to check what an umma (ummah?) was: this | ||
| 9 | URGE | Encourage clearout after removal of leader (4) |
| {p}urge | ||
| 15 | EVAPORATE | Prepare ground for upcoming harangue and vanish (9) |
| (pave)rev. orate | ||
| 16 | AMORPHOUS | Passionate about leaders of public health lacking structure (not like me!) (9) |
| amor(p{ublic} h{ealth})ous — with a reference also to the name of the setter | ||
| 17 | LAVENDER | Stopper under WC that’ll make it smell nicer! (8) |
| lav ender — with all the names for WC one of the most obvious ones didn’t occur to me until late in the day | ||
| 19 | ABANDON | Oasis perhaps close to desert? (7) |
| a band [Oasis is an example of a band] on [= close to] | ||
| 20 | HOLY SEE | Stop leader abandoning French official residence where Pope holds sway? (4,3) |
| ho! {e}lysée | ||
| 21 | IPECAC | Melting icecap that’s hard to stomach (6) |
| (icecap)* — obviously an anagram, but this one didn’t appear immediately | ||
| 23 | ETCH | Cut top off fodder plant (4) |
| {v}etch | ||
| 25 | ABOUT | Engaged in a fight (5) |
| a bout | ||
*anagram
A CROSSWORD to have one [MOON]BEAMing throughout. There were a few I didn’t parse at first, but I left my brain fallow for a while and came back, which did the trick. Did need help to get KILIM/SUMMAT, which were both unfamiliar. Laughed when I worked out what the bit in brackets was doing in AMORPHOUS, and at various other points too.
Many thanks to Morph and John.
Thanks Morph and John
I held myself up on 17 by entering ARACHNOPHOBIC at 16 – ARABIC region for Middle East seems fair, and …IC seems a more accurate description of ‘being wary’ than …IA, to me at least. 17 was then very tricky!
Thanks, John.
Super puzzle: favourites RUMINATE, ARACHNOPHOBIA, OHMIC, SUMMAT, AMORPHOUS, HOLY SEE and PROFANE – I thought the wordplay was fine, as it said ‘gas *containing* fluorine’.
Simon S – I made the same mistake re 18ac initially but it makes perfect sense if you think of ‘being wary’ as a gerund.
Many thanks Morph – I really enjoyed it.
Found this very hard, ultimately failing on OHMIC. Guessed SUMMAT then googled ‘umma’, then guessed KILIM and had to look that up also. Tried various anagrams for ‘icecap’, then gave up and used an anagram solver. Another word I don’t remember ever meeting before. My favourites were MOONBEAM and ABANDON for clever surfaces. Thanks to S&B.
Goodness, that was hard – but well worth the effort even though I did finally admit defeat over 8d.
New word for me at 21d – doubt that I’ll remember it!
Favourite has to be 1a – solving that encouraged me when the going got tough further down the grid.
Many thanks to Morph for the challenge and to John for the blog.
always a pleasure to see Morph and thanks to John for the blog.
Just goes to show my dear old dad was wrong; tha can get summat for nowt wi t’Indy crossword
That was tricky! A number of words I hadn’t encountered before included, umma, ipecac and kilim, so a little bit of assistance was needed before completion. I did write kilim in before checking, but summat and ipecac eluded me despite metaphorically slapping my forehead when I saw summat. I had S_M_AT and used the letter reveal to get the U before the penny dropped. I guessed IPECCA and then Googled it and was presented with the correct answer. An enjoyable puzzle with plenty of lightbulb moments. Took me ages to see the parsing for CROSSWORD and I never did parse EVAPORATE.
Thanks John and Morph.
Everything just glided in magically until I hit HOLY SEE( didn’t know stop could be HO) and ETCH (didn’t know it could be fodder).But I really enjoyed this……also only knew the rug as KELIM, but it seemed a reasonable punt. Had heard that IPECAC was pretty unpalatable too, so that helped, as did my one and only stay in Yorkshire for SUMMAT!
Well-deserved thanks to Morph and John.
Nice stuff with 1a being the stand-out for this reporter. Thanks to The Plasticine Man for the puzzle and to The John for the blog.
We made steady progress through this till we were left with 27, 28 and 23. Eventually we worked out 27 but then couldn’t fathom 28. A real facepalm moment when a wordfinder suggested CLUEING. Doh!
But thanks, Morph and John.
Thanks Morph – great fun although we struggled on 21d and 11ac. Enjoyed the bit in brackets in 16d.
Thanks John, we needed to come here to check the parsing for 27ac.
Did this one on the way home from work yesterday and enjoyed it – plenty of nice misdirection but nothing too difficult. IPECAC was familiar from a Guardian puzzle earlier in the year.
Thanks to Morph and John
Actually I found it one of the easier of the puzzles, but hay for horses and all that. Thanks Mick and John, mind you I’d just read Mick’s book and was probably in his mindset.