Morph challenges the grey matter this Saturday – and some of the clues made our brains hurt!
However, we sorted it all out in the end. 12ac caused the most head-scratching. We think we’ve got the parsing right, but, if we have, it does stretch the imagination rather further than normal – but it is a Saturday puzzle and we should expect some unusual clueing.
We were also stumped initially by the unusual (to us!) abbreviations in 15ac and 24ac, but all-in-all a very enjoyable solve to start the weekend and prepare us for the IQ!
Across
1 Gate leads to open-air opera, where you can go outside? (8)
PORTALOO
PORTAL (gate) + first letters or ‘leads’ to Open-air Opera
6 Promise once shown by Dire Straits? (6)
PLIGHT
Double definition
9 Broadcasting directors holding competition somewhere warm (6,8)
AIRING CUPBOARD
AIRING (broadcasting) BOARD (directors) round or ‘holding’ CUP (competition)
10 After drink, eating piece of meat, one gets tropical disease (8)
BERIBERI
BEER (drink) round or ‘eating’ RIB (piece of meat) + I (one)
11 Old Listener’s bizarre (6)
EXOTIC
EX (old) OTIC (of the ear – ‘listener’s’)
12 Dick’s rooftop dancers win competition (10)
SWEEPSTAKE
We’re a bit doubtful about this clue – we’re pretty sure that ‘Dick’ relates to Dick Van Dyke who was one of the SWEEPS who apparently dance on the roof in the film of ‘Mary Poppins’ (which we have never seen) + TAKE (win)
15 Resto in Westward Ho! (4)
TRAT
Another one we struggled with – it’s a reversal (going west’) of TART (‘Ho’ – an American term for a prostitute), giving a short form of ‘trattoria’ – ‘resto’ being a short form of ‘restaurant’ (it’s not in Chambers, but the online Oxford dictionary gives it as a North American informal term)
16 Band missing end off Firestarter (4)
TORC
TORCh (‘Firestarter’) without the last letter or ‘missing end’
18 Hard-done-by setter will buy a drink for editor (3-7)
ILL-TREATED
I’LL (‘setter will’) TREAT (buy a drink for) ED (editor)
20 Informer nabbing partners in Jersey City (6)
NEWARK
NARK (informer) round or ‘nabbing’ E W (east and west – partners in Bridge and other card games)
21 Routed, Asterix losing as emperor of Romans starts to surround outside (8)
EXTERIOR
An anagram of asTERIX (without or ‘losing’ ‘as’) – anagrind is ‘routed’ – in or ‘surrounded by’ the first letters or ‘starts’ of Emperor Of Romans
24 US pol suppressed nugget of information held by celeb that’s lurid (14)
SENSATIONALIST
SEN (senator – ‘US pol’ – abbreviation for politician – new to us!) SAT ON (suppressed) round or ‘holding’ I (first letter or ‘nugget’ of ‘information’) + A-LIST (celeb)
25 Extract from drug that’s legal (6)
ELICIT
E (drug) LICIT (legal)
26 One who’s up late, with long raves (5,3)
NIGHT OWL
An anagram of WITH LONG – anagrind is ‘raves’
Down
2 Old enough to start having a smoke? (2,3)
OF AGE
Clue-as-definition: O E (first letters or ‘start’ of ‘old enough’) round or ‘having’ FAG (a smoke)
3 Long period at school with computer studies followed by English – that could be bad for woodwork (7)
TERMITE
TERM (long period at school) IT (computer studies) E (English)
4 Thrust end of épée just below vital organ (5)
LUNGE
E (last letter or ‘end’ of ‘epee’) after or ‘below’ (in a down clue) LUNG (vital organ)
5 Rarely having gained admission, acting lewd with rude gesture (4,2,1,4,4)
ONCE IN A BLUE MOON
ONCE IN (‘having gained admission’) A (acting) BLUE (lewd) MOON (rude gesture)
6 Noble securing elevation ahead of favourite – someone pulling strings (9)
PUPPETEER
PEER (noble) round or ‘securing’ UP (elevation) PET (favourite)
7 Clear up what’ll make female male? (4,3)
IRON OUT
If you take ‘fe’ (IRON) OUT of ‘female’ you get ‘male’
8 What’ll make air churn mid-ocean? (9)
HURRICANE
Clue-as-definition: an anagram of AIR CHURN – anagrind is ‘what’ll make’ + E (middle letter of ‘ocean’)
13 Sandwich may be on this set of courses? (9)
WHOLEMEAL
A ‘set of courses’ could be described as a WHOLE MEAL
14 Fix a boob, and keep trying (5,2,2)
STICK AT IT
STICK (fix) A TIT (boob)
17 Senior officer pinching girl? Typical! (7)
CLASSIC
CIC (Commander in Chief – ‘senior officer’) round or ‘pinching’ LASS (girl)
19 Emergency aid delivery Ireland gets provided in case of argument (7)
AIRLIFT
IRL (Ireland) IF (provided) in A T (first and last letters or ‘case’ of ‘argument’)
22 Pluck pheasant’s tail and eat up (5)
TWANG
T (last letter or ‘tail’ of ‘pheasant’) GNAW (eat) reversed or ‘up’
23 How much WW2 graffiti started up being drawn (2,3)
ON TOW
Ubiquitous WW2 graffiti featuring ‘Mr Chad’ started with ‘WOT NO….’ – reversed or ‘up’
Thanks to B&J for sorting out the American pol and the WW2 graffiti – Mr Chad was new to me.
Another fun puzzle from Morph with 5,6 & 13d taking podium places. Yes, I did initially fall into the sand trap with the latter!
Despite the unusual abb I did also rather like Westward Ho.
Thanks to Morph and to B&J for the blog.
thanks to Morph for the usual blend of headscratching and chuckles. Thanks too to B&J for the blog especially for the unravelling of ON TOW.
I thought the clues for SWEEPSTAKE and TRAT were outstanding
Very enjoyable. Agree TRAT was outstanding.
The graffiti reference in 23d made me smile, and it wasn’t the only clue to do so, but then that’s what you expect in a Morph crossword
Thank you to Morph for the very enjoyable Saturday treat and to B&J for the blog
TRAT was our LOI, arrived at a bit differently. We saw Westward Ho as meaning a reversal of ‘ho’ to ‘OH’ for Ohio, implying ‘trat’ to be American usage. Our only problem was that searching online for ‘trat’ turned up a discussion forum where several US-based contributors said they’d never encountered it as short for ‘trattoria’. But we decided it couldn’t be anything else, since Chambers has it, although not specifically indicating British or US usage.
We got SENSATIONALIST and ONCE IN A BLUE MOON from crossing letters without bothering to parse them. Otherwise everything was pretty straightforward although some headscratching was needed. Favourites were AIRING CUPBOARD, SWEEPSTAKE, NIGHT OWL and ON TOW.
Thanks, Morph and B&J
Missed TRAT and couldn’t parse ON TOW but I was chuffed to get the ‘Dick’s rooftop dancers’ reference, even if it did mean being reminded of that execrable accent! OF AGE was very clever and the parsing of SENSATIONALIST was satisfying to eventually work out.
A small point, but BERIBERI is not strictly speaking a ‘tropical disease’ confined solely to the tropics, but is a nutritional deficiency disease caused by thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency (WHOLEMEAL bread would help) which can occur in non-tropical climes.
Challenging but great fun. Thanks to Morph and to B&J