Quite a struggle for me today, and there are various answers that I don’t really understand. Many of the clues are very nice, but it looks to me that they call on knowledge of some of the sort of stuff that people of my age don’t know about. And that’s no bad thing, if the result is that a younger generation is attracted to crosswords and doesn’t see them as preserves of the elderly.
Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
As often happens with me, when the crossword is difficult I breathe a sigh of relief that it’s over, and look no further for a Nina. There’s nothing obvious to me, now that I look.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HIGH TEA | What one eats, stoned on marijuana (4,3) |
| high [stoned] tea [marijuana] | ||
| 5 | CURSING | Abusing dog whistle? (7) |
| cur [dog] sing [whistle?] — I wasn’t convinced by sing = whistle but a boiling kettle sings, so yes OK | ||
| 9 | SONNETEER | Writer of poems enters one that’s nonsense (9) |
| (enters one)* | ||
| 10 | NOBLE | Use dubious means to win over half-hearted aristo (5) |
| nobble with only one b in the middle | ||
| 11 | PASTA | Finished first part of academic course (5) |
| past a{cademic) | ||
| 12 | SCAPEGOAT | Point more than once and vigorously attack such a one? (9) |
| S cape go at — the two points are S, the cardinal point, and cape, the geographical point, semi-&lit. | ||
| 13 | PATCHWORK QUILT | It’s used to cover up results of stitch-up (9,5) |
| Rather like a CD: a patchwork quilt is used to cover up, and a patchwork quilt is a result of a stitch-up in that it is the result of much stitching | ||
| 16 | BEEF STROGANOFF | Josh’s partner in curry house interrupting posh bloke after complaints – this dish isn’t Indian! (4,10) |
| beefs t(rogan)off — beefs = complaints, rogan = part of josh rogan, an Indian dish, toff = posh bloke | ||
| 19 | WHOLEMEAL | You’ll get no more to eat after this bread (9) |
| wholemeal bread, and after a whole meal you have finished so won’t get any more to eat after this | ||
| 20 | BOWEL | Waste processing centre‘s smell not entirely healthy (5) |
| B.O. wel{l} | ||
| 22 | ANTIS | One’s taken in by grafters’ cons (5) |
| ant(1)s — antis as in pros and cons — ants aren’t the first things that grafters suggest to me; how are they the same thing? | ||
| 23 | AUDITORIA | Examiner overturning top mark in halls (9) |
| auditor (A1)rev. | ||
| 24 | FARAWAY | Absent-minded scientist seeing wife where daughter should be (7) |
| Faraday with d replaced by w | ||
| 25 | EARLESS | Female aristocrat perhaps lacking sense (7) |
| a female earl might be an earl-ess, and the sense that you are lacking is the sense of hearing, because you have no ears | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HOSEPIPE | What comes with number of additives, found in dodgy pie shop, that’ll make veg greener? (8) |
| E [as in E-number] in *(pie shop), and a hosepipe may be used for watering a vegetable garden | ||
| 2 | GENTS | James Bond’s colleagues not alpha males (5) |
| {a}gents | ||
| 3 | THE WASH | Time to chop wood – bay (3,4) |
| t hew ash (the bay between Norfolk and Lincolnshire) | ||
| 4 | AVERSION THERAPY | Account’s what fall guy accepts in case of accessory getting special treatment (8,7) |
| (version [account] the rap [what fall guy accepts]) in a{ccessor}y | ||
| 5 | CARNAL KNOWLEDGE | We lack RE, and long desperately for it! (6,9) |
| (we lack RE and long)* — I think you can see this as a sort of &lit. (although the connection between Religious Education (or Reformed Episcopal or Right Excellent or Royal Engineers) and carnal knowledge is a bit doubtful), or simply as definition + wordplay, very good | ||
| 6 | RONDEAU | Poem, sadly unread, about love (7) |
| *(unread) about 0 | ||
| 7 | IMBROGLIO | Groom wrestling with libido leaving party in confusion (9) |
| (groom libi{do})* | ||
| 8 | GUEST | Visitor figured in hearing (5) |
| “guessed” | ||
| 14 | THE DOCTOR | She regenerated hood etc after reconstruction in centre of district (3,6) |
| (hood etc)* in {dis}tr{ict} — what is going on here? Who is the doctor? Has Morph decided quite arbitrarily to assume the doctor is female, or is something happening that I don’t know about? There may be, because in the dictionaries ‘the doctor’ is only part of the Australian expression ‘go for the doctor’, to make an all-out effort, news to me | ||
| 15 | OFFLOADS | Shifts dodgy consignments (8) |
| off [dodgy] loads [consignments] | ||
| 17 | FRETSAW | Fighter plane, one blowing up cutter (7) |
| 18 | ARBITER | Judge‘s a right attack dog, perhaps (7) |
| a r biter — I suppose that an attack dog may be a biter, but maybe I’m missing something | ||
| 19 | WHARF | Hotel far off with whiskey where voyager gets loaded? (5) |
| (H far W)* — a voyager may load things on to a ship in the wharf, although whether it’s then a fair stretch to say that the voyager gets loaded I’m not sure | ||
| 21 | WORSE | More bad language without a shred of decency – base! (5) |
| wor{d(ecency}}s e — e is the base of natural logarithms in maths | ||
14 down is most likely a reference to Dr Who, played this time round by a woman after the last regeneration from whoever played the role before. I stopped watching it after Jon Pertwee finished!
F is given as an abbreviation for fighter plane (e.g. F-111) in Chambers. To blow money is to waste it.
I took 5 down to be wordplay + definition. I too spent some time trying to interpret the clue as an &lit but I can’t really see much of a connection between religious education (or lack thereof) and sex.
cruciverbophile said what I was going to say so a simple ditto from me.
I’m sorry to say I found this very tough and not much fun with many of the clues too convoluted for my taste. On the plus side I did like 3d & 5d.
I never cease to be amazed at crossword setters’ encyclopaedic knowledge of drug terminology.
I thought this tough for a Morph and took a lot of muttering and some Tippex. Nice to see a different dish than the Wellington in 16a. I also smiled at 1a as I had to explain to someone the other day what a high tea was – possibly not one of the clues for the younger generation!
Thanks to Morph and John
5a: sing and whistle are both slang for being an informer.
Many thanks, John and Morph.
I agree that this was quite tough but not that there was no fun. My favourites were 24ac and 3, 5 and 7 down.
crypticsue @4 – Picaroon served up BEEF STROGANOFF yesterday. 😉
Thanks to Morph for the usual top-class puzzle and to John for the blog. I didn’t find this especially hard, and finished it in the usual sort of time – half the time spent on today’s Boatman with three clues left unsolved.
As Eileen says, a bit of deja-vu-all-over-again (copyright Gazza) with BEEF STROGANOFF but a completely different take of course. I thought the clue for FARAWAY was outstanding
I liked Josh’s partner.
Tough indeed and a lot of clever stuff one of those that one is pleased with oneself to have finished after a number of visits.
1A I thought was just that if having tea when stoned on marijuana, it would be a high/”high” tea. Not familiar with tea as (yet another) slang term for marijuana as seems to be suggested in the blog.
Josh rogan??
25A I think in the blog the word facetiously should be inserted before “be an earl-ess”, as an earl’s wife is a countess.
Thanks to Morph for a great puzzle and John for his (slightly testy) blog.
I enjoyed the challenge, was also baffled by Fretsaw and didn’t know the 1a meaning of tea, and as Rabbit Dave@3 said, we’ve seen a few of that ilk. I liked 25a, if only for reminding me of the earl who was awarded the OBE, and became an earlobe.
Thanks to Morph and John.
Thanks to John and Morph
Very nice, I like the way Morph avoids many of the tired abbreviations and creates his own style.
“Workers” to “grafters” is but a short step in 22a, but I wasn’t convinced by “results” in 13a – it suggests to me a plural answer. Minor quibble though.
Some head-scratching needed today, but nothing we couldn’t solve or parse with a bit of guesswork here and there (e.g. that ‘tea’ is slang for ‘marijuana’)
19dn – we just took it that the voyager could be a ship – ships make voyages just as much as people do.
We agree with cruciverbophile about 14dn – that’s how we saw it as soon as we read the clue.
Lots of great clues; we particularly liked BEEF STROGANOFF, FARAWAY, THE WASH and FRETSAW.
Thanks, Morph and John.
Yes, quite tough, only just finished it. In the end I only had to cheat on 12ac, although misspelling 16ac didn’t help.
14ac was almost a write-in as soon as I saw “regenerated”, but I have been watching Doctor Who since the first episode.