Pleased to see a Morph puzzle this time. I haven’t blogged one for years and I always find them entertaining.
Also, they don’t offer the fear of not finishing.
1 Across is a perfect example of that: A relatively easy double def. with a humourous surface reading, plus delivering 8 first letters to help with subsequent solving.
In fact the grid itself gives the solver a lot of help having the maximum crossing points a grid can have, and most first letters are on crossing points.
So I was not surprised to find myself steadily working through most of the puzzle from top to bottom, clue to clue, with lots of crossing letters to help.
There were 4 left after the first pass, 1D and three down in the bottom right, the last of which proved particularly resistant.
Only one has a bit of a query, 22A, where I am now not sure if, how the second A comes from Afternoon. I am probably overthinking it.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SLEEPING PARTNER | He’ll go to bed with you, but his involvement is strictly financial (8,7) A Double Def. combining a literal and a figurative meaning into a suggestive scene. First one in. |
| 9 | ABDOMEN | Stomach muscle to work at, chaps (7) AB (muscle) DO (to work at) MEN (chaps) |
| 10 | OCULIST | Love is integral to religious sect, one helping us see the light? (7) O (love), then IS inside (integral to) CULT (religious sect) |
| 11 | ICE-SKATER | Winter Olympian perhaps performing trick with ease (3-6) (TRICK + EASE)* AInd: performing |
| 12 | DOHA | A carrier bearing building materials westward to Gulf metropolis (4) (A HOD)< Rev. Indicator: westward |
| 14 | HABANERAS | That woman’s maintaining a prohibition on salsa appearing regularly in Latin dances (9) A BAN (a prohibition) inside HER (that woman) then [s]A[l]S[a] |
| 16 | PHOTO | Italian valley enjoying opposite of cold snap (5) PO (Italian valley) around(enjoying) HOT (opposite of cold) |
| 17 | LEAPT | Did spring rental, with a parking space thrown in (5) A P[arking space] inside LET (rental) |
| 19 | BAIN MARIE | Bizarre mania for stuffing cheese in slow cooker (4-5) (MANIA)* AInd: bizarre, inside BRIE (cheese) |
| 21 | SWIM | Saw film regularly to experience immersion (4) S[a]W [f]I[l]M |
| 22 | TEA BREAKS | Britain takes to brew around end of the afternoon on these? (3,6) (BR[itain] TAKES)* AInd: to brew, around [th]E (end of the) A[fternoon] with the definition using a lot of the wordplay but somehow this doesn’t feel a full &Lit. I assume the second A comes from afternoon … maybe … |
| 25 | PERTURB | Volte-face by Caesar’s killer leaving us and theatre in dismay (7) BRUT[us] (Caesar’s killer – US) REP (theatre) All reversed (volte-face). Dismay as a verb. |
| 26 | IN ERROR | National newspaper spending a million on taking control of Northern Echo mistakenly (2,5) MIRROR (National newspaper – M[illion]) around N[orthern] E[cho]. Penultimate solved. I saw the answer but was not convinced as I could not get the wordplay – The Mirror doesn’t spring to mind as easily as other rags. |
| 27 | COTTAGE INDUSTRY | Working from home‘s too much in confined space, amid dirt, really exhausted (7,8) OTT (too much – Over The Top) inside CAGE (confined space), IN DUST (amid dirt), R(eall)Y (exhausted – emptied) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | SPANISH FLU | Bug ranges around India, at first having travelled rapidly on the air (7,3) SPANS (ranges) around I[ndia] then H[aving] (at first) FLU “flew” (travelled rapidly) Homophone Indicator: on the air. One of the last few to be solved. I almost put FLY – but it is travelled, not travel, and a very different sort of bug – beetle not virus |
| 2 | ENDUE | Supply nurse with what’s owed (5) EN (nurse – EN = Enrolled Nurse) DUE (what’s owed) |
| 3 | PUMPKIN | Question related to coach’s raw material before transformation? (7) PUMP (question) KIN (related to) Definition is a reference to the Cinderella story or at least the Disney version |
| 4 | NON-ATTRIBUTABLE | Inflexible upstart controlling national government ultimately, yet with power to give briefings like this? (3-12) IRON reversed (inflexible, rev. ind: upstart) around NAT[ional] (governmen)T then BUT (yet) ABLE (with power). Another clue where it is difficult to pin down where the definition starts within the wordplay. Certainly not a full &Lit, but more than a straight charade and suitable for these times when we are being ruled by whispers from the back room of Number 10. |
| 5 | PROCRASTINATION | Deferral of favourable credit on wine country (15) PRO CR (favourable credit) ASTI (wine) NATION (country) |
| 6 | ROUND UP | Collect drinks cheerfully (5,2) ROUND (drinks) UP (cheerfully) |
| 7 | NEIGHBOUR | Day out in Edinburgh spoilt after entry of old person from one’s home town? (9) (EDINBURGH – D[ay] + O[ld])* AInd: spoilt. |
| 8 | ROTA | Endless mechanical repetition’s adult pattern of work (4) ROT[e] (mechanical repetition, endless) A[dult] |
| 13 | GONE ASTRAY | Travel north towards rising sun’s beam, having deviated from course (4,6) GO (travel) N[orth] EAST (towards rising sun) RAY (beam) |
| 15 | BRATWURST | Sausage broke apart, containing uncooked end of meat inside (9) BURST (broke apart) around (containing) RAW (uncooked) around [mea]T |
| 18 | TEMPURA | Calorie-free crumpet, battered – a deep-fried speciality (7) (CRUMPET – C[alorie])* AInd: battered then A |
| 20 | MORCEAU | Animal experimenter fed canine titbit (7) MOREAU (animal experimenter – Ref. HG Wells’ “The Island of Dr Moreau” ) around (fed) C[anine] Very much the last clue solved. Another where the answer came before understanding the wordplay – tricky one – not so much perturbed by the steampunk vivisectionist as the use of canine to deliver “C” – was that intended to be cocaine? |
| 23 | AFRIT | One scared of local spirit (5) A (one) FRIT (scared) |
| 24 | SPEC | Looking up fungi’s description (4) CEP’S (fungi’s) reversed (looking up) |
This was an enjoyable challenge which, as beermagnet says, yielded steadily on working through it. I admit to being beaten by the parsing for 4d, and, given beermagnet’s explanation, I’m not surprised I struggled with it.
A = afternoon is given as an abbreviation in Chambers, so I think 22a is fine.
1a was my favourite.
Many thanks to Morph and to beermagnet.
Usually find Morph a lot harder than this. Failed to get MORCEAU. I thought the Dr was MORREAU so bunged that in without checking or parsing.
Although familiar with sous-vide as a method of cooking, I didn’t know BAIN-MARIE but worked it out from the clue. I would term 22a a semi &lit. I would probably just underline “these”. In 16a, “snap” should be underlined.
Thanks to Morph and beermagnet.
Lovely to have a Morph crossword to solve – as beermagnet says, its been ages
Lots to enjoy so thank you to Morph and beermagnet
Unusually quick Saturday solve for me too, but I couldn’t work out 4D at all, although ‘non-attributable’ had to be the answer, so thanks for the explanation. At 3D, I had never heard ‘kin’ used in this way, I would have used ‘akin’, but it’s in the dictionaries so fine. At 23D, the only time I’ve heard ‘frit’ was by Maggie T of Denis Healey. Apparently, it’s Lincolnshire dialect, which ties in with her native Stamford. Thanks Morph and Beermagnet.
I’m in the ‘couldn’t parse 4d’ camp so very well done to our blogger for unravelling it!
Nice to get another puzzle from Morph, I do like that he always gets some humour into his offerings – 1&27a got my votes today.
Many thanks to Morph and thanks to Beermagnet for the review.
Most of this went in easily, but we had one or two hold-ups. In 26ac we thought at first we were looking for the name of a newspaper and the enumeration suggested a foreign one so we spent some time trying to justify Le Monde until getting PROCRASTINATION ruled it out. Similarly BRATWURST put us right on 25ac where we were struggling to parse a tentative ‘disturb’. Apart from those there were no real problems though we couldn’t parse NON-ATTRIBUTABLE.
Favourite was PUMPKIN – a laugh out loud moment when we got it.
Thanks, Morph and beermagnet.
Thanks Hovis I have fixed 16a’s def.