Independent 9,845 by Morph

by

Very nice crossword from Morph today. Lots of good clues, with convincing surfaces.

Definitions underlined, in maroon.  Anagram indicators in italics.

My usual cursory inspection of the unches reveals nothing, but that means little. No doubt there is a whole lot there that I haven’t seen.

Across
1 HIGH SEAS Top notes audible in the main (4,4)
“high Cs”
5 EMBLEM Mass behind stadium ends missing logo (6)
{W}emble{y} m
10 IDIOMATIC Foolish to cling to degree of particularity in language (9)
idio(MA)tic
11 MALTA Island whisky’s ace (5)
malt A
12 ALLEVIATION Making light of computers and artificial intelligence in book from the east (11)
(no(IT AI)vella)rev.
13 COD You’ll pay for that joke (3)
C.O.D. — cash on delivery
14 FEMUR What’s inside leg measurement – perhaps moleskin trousers? (5)
f(em)ur — em is the measurement, fur is the perhaps moleskin, trousers a verb
15 TALL ORDER Group of animals including giraffes perhaps facing tough task (4,5)
order as a taxonomic rank, and also in the common term ‘tall order’
17 RETRIEVES After avalanche, I run Everest rescues (9)
(I r Everest)*
19 SAPID Tasty food like hummus, say, returned (5)
(dip as)rev. — I tripped up here since I thought that a dal was an essential ingredient of hummus and so had ‘salad’ (well some people find it tasty, although that’s not a word I’d use) but it seems that it’s only in special hummus and not there generally
20 SOP Very soft piece of bread (3)
so p
22 NON SEQUITUR Bizarre question in reversed sequence that doesn’t follow (3,8)
(question)* in (run)rev.
24 GONER Promiscuous type embracing navy chap who’s hopeless (5)
go(n)er
25 SEDITIOUS Suspicion surrounds publication without name that promotes disorder (9)
s(editio{n})us — I’m a bit uncomfortable with the definition here: if something is seditious it promotes disorder, but what is the place of ‘that’? Or is ‘that’ just a link-word?  In which case we have seditious = promotes disorder, which still seems a bit odd
26 TYPIST Key worker reported Asian drunk (6)
“Thai pissed”
27 INVEIGLE Give line designed to persuade (8)
(Give line)*
Down
1 HAIFA City integral to Bahai faith (5)
Hidden in BaHAI FAith
2 GUILLEMOT With seabird circling, I get book to look up ‘auk’ (9)
gu(I)ll (tome)rev. — evidently a guillemot is a type of auk
3 SAMOVAR Russian vessel to circulate endlessly in western European river (7)
Sa(mov{e})ar — the existence of this river was a slight doubt, not helped by my stupidly assuming that St. came before everything under S in the list in Pears Cyclopaedia
4 ATTRACTIVENESS Looks at a TV screen – it’s broken (14)
(at a TV screen it’s)*
6 MEMENTO It’ll remind me to put sex first (7)
me men to — ‘me’, then ‘to’ with ‘men’ (sex, I suppose, although if it’s sex it should surely be ‘man’; ‘male’, really. Maybe it’s OK as in terms like ‘the gentler sex’) first
7 LILAC I’ll enter name coming up for tree (5)
(cal(I)l)rev.
8 MEANDERED Malicious act involving end of cigar resulting in wound (9)
mean de({ciga}r)ed — wound to rhyme with sound
9 ACHILLES TENDON A cold needs not to spread – get a tissue (8,6)
a chill (needs not)*
14 FORESIGHT Anticipation of conflict about valuable resources (9)
f(ores)ight
16 DIPHTHONG Two characters heard at the same time in first half of Mousetrap (9)
In the first half of ‘Mousetrap’ there are two characters which make one sound — ‘ou’, although this is only an example of a diphthong, so should Morph have said ‘perhaps’ or some such?
18 INNARDS Guts sardine, after cutting off tail, to stew with end of lemon (7)
(sardin{e} {lemo}n)*
19 SCUTTLE Dish in sink (7)
2 defs so far as I can see; it can’t really be much else. You might argue that sink and dish are really two similar verbs for the same thing, unless dish is to be seen as a noun and a coal-scuttle is a type of dish, which seems a bit unlikely.
21 PIN-UP Excited after getting private number for model (3-2)
P.I.N. up [= excited] — personal identification number
23 ROSIE Lee’s partner for cider or tea (5)
Laurie Lee wrote Cider with Rosie, so his partner for Cider was Rosie, and Rosie Lee = tea (CRS)

*anagram

8 comments on “Independent 9,845 by Morph”

  1. Thanks John. In 19d I think “dish” can be read as a verb (“to ruin”), which is vaguely synonymous with “[to] scuttle”.

     

     

  2. Thanks John and Morph.

    Great puzzle – favourites were NON SEQUITUR and ACHILLES TENDON.

    Re19dn: to scuttle a ship is to sink it.

  3. Similarly puzzled by SCUTTLE, hopefully better minds than mine will see the obvious.

    All is forgiven though for ROSIE, which I thought was delightful.

    Thanks Morph and John

     

  4. Sorry, wasn’t very clear about ‘scuttle’.  I’ve amended the blog slightly (words > verbs) in the hope of improvement.  My point is that the two verbs dish and sink mean very much the same thing, so for it to be a good DD one of them needs to be interpreted in a quite different way.

  7. Most enjoyable with TYPIST & GUILLEMOT being my picks of the day.

    Did have to look up SAPID and the river in 3d and took far too long over the parsing of FEMUR – silly now that I look back on it.

    Many thanks to Morph and to John for the blog.

  8. I agree with the praise given to this.

    Had a couple of loose ends to tie up in Chambers (SAPID and SCUTTLE, which is in as a shallow basket so works for me).

    Really wanted 13a to be KID …

    Favourites were IDIOMATIC, TYPIST, GUILLEMOT and MEMENTO.

    Thanks Morph and John.

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