Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but it was a bit of a surprise to see Morph appear on a Saturday.
In fact, solving seemed to go smoothly enough that I started to wonder if I was blogging the wrong puzzle. Hopefully not.
One unfamiliar term at 17 across, but generous checking and clear clueing saved the day. Otherwise the only hold-ups were the last two in: the intersecting 19 across and 21 down. The former is probably a favourite now I see it, while the latter still leaves me with a slight question mark.
| Across | ||
| 6 | SURPLUS | Excess sulphur’s volatile without hydrogen (7) |
| SULP[h]UR*. | ||
| 8 | TAVERNA | Community worker returning to take control of state catering outlet (7) |
| AVER in ANT<. | ||
| 10 | RECAP | Go over and over with slow horse (5) |
| PACER<. | ||
| 11 | RIDERLESS | Out of condition perhaps without jockey (9) |
| Two definitions, the former slightly whimsical. A “rider” is a condition on a contract. Presumably the “perhaps” belongs to that one, but since a jockey is merely one example of a (horse, bicycle, etc.) rider, you can take your pick. | ||
| 12 | GLUT | Excess left in stomach (4) |
| L in GUT. | ||
| 13 | TONY CURTIS | One acting against US city is retaining brief (4,6) |
| CURT in (TO + NY + IS). | ||
| 16 | DEGREE | Extent of river as another is absorbed (6) |
| (EG + R) in the River DEE. | ||
| 17 | DRUPEL | A bit of fruit and a drop of red in the French dessert that’s rejected (6) |
| R[ed] in (LE + PUD)<. | ||
| 19 | PENINSULAS | Write rude remark curtly while sticking out tongue more than once (10) |
| PEN + INSUL[t] + AS. | ||
| 22 | LOTH | Holding back 8th item in auction? (4) |
| LOT H, as in the one following lots A to G. | ||
| 24 | EXCISEMEN | Cut soldiers who are pursuing duty (9) |
| EXCISE + MEN. | ||
| 25 | VYING | Outsiders in very popular government in contention (5) |
| V[er]Y + IN + G. | ||
| 26 | UP TO NOW | Doing nothing in Northwest yet (2,2,3) |
| UP TO + (O in NW). | ||
| 27 | RATHOLE | Short break included in price for whiskery type’s getaway? (7) |
| HOL in RATE. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BROCHURE | Pamphlet lifting Corbyn’s majority, putting Right in the shade (8) |
| Jeremy CORB[yn]< + (R in HUE). Excellent surface there. | ||
| 2 | CLIP | Cut fish not hard to serve up (4) |
| PILC[hard]. | ||
| 3 | STODGY | Dull old BBC boss found in place of debauchery (6) |
| (O + DG) in STY. | ||
| 4 | URGENT | Original chap demanding attention (6) |
| UR + GENT. | ||
| 5 | MASSES | Leader of men fools the people (6) |
| M[ystics] + ASSES. | ||
| 6 | SHRUG | Quiet game’s lost by show of indifference (5) |
| SH + RUG[by]. | ||
| 7 | SCROOGE | Score mistakenly, netting own goal? He’s not normally one to give anything away (7) |
| OG in SCORE*. | ||
| 9 | VIRTUOUS | Unconscious, getting up in grip of infection, becoming upright (8) |
| OUT< in VIRUS. | ||
| 14 | ILL | Morph is going to bad (3) |
| I‘LL. Strange clue. Is it actually grammatical? It doesn’t seem to make any sense, at least. | ||
| 15 | BRINGS UP | Introduces bear, deadly one perhaps? (6,2) |
| BRING + SIN. As in “bearing gifts”, for example. | ||
| 16 | DOE | Take tablet – one going for a buck? (3) |
| DO E. | ||
| 17 | DRAINER | Wet weather in Derby? Drop by place to get stuff dry (7) |
| RAIN in DER[by]. | ||
| 18 | EMOTICON | Expressive characters boosted bestselling book perhaps after chapter inserted (8) |
| C in (NO.1 TOME+<. A slight hesitation on seeing a plural definition for a singular entry, but an emoticon is typically made up of more than one character. | ||
| 19 | PRENUP | Agreement concerning new union between two partners starting out? (6) |
| I initially thought this was a fairly straightforward CD, but it’s far cleverer than that: (RE + N + U) in P[artner] x 2. | ||
| 20 | NICETY | Detail result of vocal exchange in Sunderland, say? (6) |
| NE CITY, switching vowels. | ||
| 21 | UNMOWN | Up-and-coming female, rejecting America to enter peacekeeping body, getting rank (6) |
| WOM[a]N< in UN. I can’t think of a context in which “unmown” and “rank” are synonyms, however. | ||
| 23 | HYGGE | Like omelettes hotel served up in Scandinavian way? (5) |
| (EGGY + H)<. Perhaps not an everyday term, but it cropped up in an advert recently, and I think I read about it once. This sort of thing. | ||
| 25 | VETO | Ex-soldier’s old bar (4) |
| VET + O. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Just bought a new Chambers and 23d does not seem to be there. had to dig deep to find 17a.
Shall I abandon my lifelong addiction to Chambers or avoid Morph in future?
Clues seem to be either too easy or too hard with not much in between. Thought the semi &lit at 19d was excellent. Yet again I forgot UR for original, so failed to get URGENT & TONY CURTIS. My dictionary gives one meaning of rank to be ‘showing vigorous growth’ and so ‘unmown’. Guessed Hygge and then googled it (not in my dictionary). PENINSULAS was a tough clue which I only got with a word fit, but I like it. Failed to correctly parse NICETY, so thanks for that Simon. Didn’t know DRUPEL, but DRUPE appeared recently in a crossword so I guessed this one and then checked it. Thanks to all.
Thanks Simon
Re your comment regarding 21dn, under ‘rank’ Chambers has:
1. Growing high and luxuriantly
2. Coarsely or excessively overgrown
copmus @1
HYGGE was recently added to the OED, according to an article I read a couple of weeks ago, but it is not yet in Chambers or Collins.
Hygge is all the rage here in the US – so many articles about it after the Danes were named the happiest people in the world. I don’t have Chambers, but I imagine that emoticon is a relatively new addition if it is there at all. Nice to see some fresh terms popping up. Simon – thx for the blog; minor typo in 1d (you have BRINGS UP as the answer), and on 5d I believe that the Leader of men is M[en], not M[ystics]. Agree with Hovis – LOVED the &lit in 19d. Thanks Morph!
Gaufrid@3 many thanks.
But Morph is likely to remain my Achilles heel!
thanks to Morph and Simon.
Before solving any crossword, I always look at the grid – and this seems an unusual one but I can’t see anything lurking.
What a load of complete cobblers this HYGGE business is…. “gemütlich” and “Gemütlichkeit” have been in Chambers since Hector was a pup
Meant to mention there is a missing S at the end of your anagram fodder for 6a.
Oh that’s annoying. I knew there was something going on.
There is an embedded theme.
Nice one Morph
The bottom right corner of the grid defeated me. I guessed 17ac and was then surprised it actually was a word.
HYGGE was all the rage in the UK last year. It’s a bit passé now, which is why some people haven’t heard of it.
BTW copmus@1: Is that a new edition of Chambers? My 13th edition has just fallen apart. Still usable, but a new edition would be useful.
Good spot Baerchen. A remarkable grid-fill for a puzzle that I found a bit hard-going. Thanks S & B.
Late to the party as I was at the S&B party yesterday, and we didn’t start this till late last night and had to finish this morning. Fell into a trap by entering VERTICAL at first for 9dn and also held up because the plural ‘characters’ in 18dn confused us.
DEGREE was CoD, with RIDERLESS a close second.
Thanks, Morph and Simon
Thanks to S&B – we have only just completed the puzzle.
Could someone tell us what the theme is please?
Hi B&J –
I’ll admit to not spotting it myself, but across the rows we have:
surpLUS Taverna
recaP RIDEless
GLUT TONY curtis
and so forth.
Many thanks Simon. Also thanks for explaining why EMOTICON can be described as expressive characters. We were very puzzled during the solve. Thankfully we were using the Crossword app which highlights incorrect letters in red as you enter them. Otherwise we would have struggled at the end.
Thanks Morph for the deadly puzzle – sorry we missed the theme.