Independent 8,634 by Morph

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Despite the fact that I had to use Google to be sure of the various references to 1/18Ds, with the initial letter in lower case so as to become more general than that building to which tourists and black birds flock, I found this to be more straightforward than some of Morph’s crosswords. Which is not to say that it wasn’t good. It was.

Definitions in italics (although the 1/18D references are also definitions in a way, they are not in italics).

Across

1 Trade Union survey of southern European region (6)
TUSCAN
TU scan

4 Tawdry pap featuring return of violin player (3-3)
TWO-BIT
(bow)rev. in tit [= pap]

9 Colourful swimmer swears outrageously (6)
WRASSE
(swears)*

10 Outdoor king not finishing cakes – half gone (8)
ALFRESCO
Alfre{d} sco{nes}

12 Soft left? Right, a bit like Miliband, perhaps (7)
REDDISH
r Eddish — Ed Miliband

13 Diamonds, cards that might prevent flush? (3,4)
ICE PACK
ice [= diamonds] pack [= cards]

14 Make false claim about healthy food (5)
FIBRE
fib re

16 Found enjoyment right away putting effort in (9)
ESTABLISH
{r}e(stab)lish

18 Fire setter – everything’s incomplete and it’s not totally satisfying! (5,4)
LIGHT MEAL
light [= fire] me al{l}

19 Sugar-coating report of pop star’s confession? (5)
ICING
“I sing”

21 Number nurse mixed up for one refusing drugs? (3-4)
NON-USER
no. (nurse)*

23 Hero getting in scrape around Virginia (7)
IVANHOE
i(VA)n hoe

25 Part of speech I start to teach in Old English – how advanced top set is! (8)
OVERBITE
(verb I t{each}) in OE — referring to the top set of teeth

26 A northern composer lacking drive is socially inadequate type (6)
ANORAK
a N {Dv.}orak — Dv. is drive in street names

27 Reluctant to embrace sin and drink (6)
SHERRY
sh(err)y

28 Gun law needing new input (6)
CANNON
can(n)on

Down

1,18 Floor done afresh in urban attraction (5,2,6)
TOWER OF LONDON
(floor done)* in town

2 1/18D is difficult, a bit broken (5)
SHARD
‘s hard — a shard is a broken bit, I think it’s this not the fact that ‘is’ is slightly incomplete

3 Gone after consuming can? Not such a one (9)
ABSTINENT
abs(tin)ent — an abstinent (noun) will not be gone [= drunk] after consuming a can

5 Western film featuring hard drinker, means of communicating 1/18D (6-6)
WALKIE-TALKIE
W (alkie) talkie, referring to 20 Fenchurch Street

6 Push/ the boat (5)
BARGE
2 defs

7 Conductor represented saint and icon (9)
TOSCANINI
(saint icon)*

8 Pipe to enthral with expression of joy (6)
HOOKAH
hook [= enthral] ah [expression of joy]

11 He gets career working in 1/18D as kitchen helper (6,6)
CHEESE GRATER
(he gets career)* — referring to the Leadenhall building — I think we are being given two links to the clue, with two link-words

15 Drinks spiked with something stronger taken by northern freshers? (9)
BEGINNERS
be(gin n)ers

17 National figure dressed up in a tin bra (9)
BRITANNIA
(in a tin bra)* — I can’t establish that she was dressed up in a tin bra at any time, but suspect that she was, making this an &lit.

20 That lady’s man ending up in a pickle in 1/18D (7)
GHERKIN
her king with the final g moved to the top — king as in chess piece — and, as before, we seem to have two links to the answer, one as a straight definition [in a pickle] and one as an example of 1/18D

22 Horses with no time for antelope (5)
SABLE
s{t}able

24 1/18D chicken crossing road halfway to find big bird (5)
HERON
he(ro{ad})n — referring to the Heron building, also known as Milton Court

*anagram

12 comments on “Independent 8,634 by Morph”

  1. Thanks to setter and blogger. I managed most of it today – after a VERY lean period of mystification!

  2. An excellent puzzle, IMHO. I thought I was going to struggle at first, but once I had enough answers the checkers were helpful so I was able to finish relatively quickly. I like the way Morph gave two ways of getting each of the themed answers. ABSTINENT was my LOI after TUSCAN, and my only excuse for not seeing 1ac much sooner is that I was initially thinking eastern Med and of something related to Turkey.

  3. Nice one Morph, pity 1/18D fell straight away, was expecting some of the thematics to being things that pull, TOW-ers as it were, I suppose 6d could have been.

    Thanks John for the blog and identifying the towers themselves.

  5. Quite instructive, once I twigged the theme. I vaguely remembered about the CHEESE GRATER but the WALKIE-TALKIE was new to me till I googled it and found reference to the news item last year when solar reflection from its curved panels caused parts of cars to melt – giving rise to the alternaive name ‘walkie-scorchie’.

    Thanks, Morph and John.

  6. I wasn’t familiar with most of the London towers (except for the Gherkin) but they were gettable from the word play, so overall I thought it was pretty fair. I liked the ‘advanced top set’ in 25 which took a bit of head scratching before the ‘aha’ moment.

    Thanks to John and Morph.

  7. 17 dn. Nice one. Brittania’s armoured breastplate surely qualifies as a tin bra.

    Got fed up trying to work out why 15 dn should be alginates. Apart from the presence of ales and gin it didn’t seem to make sense. Quite right, it didn’t.

  8. I found this surprisingly easy. Didn’t even have to pick up the dictionary or open Google. Got 2dn fairly early which was my gateway to the theme. And I know my London towers. I was expecting the Post Office tower and the Natwest tower somewhere, except that they’re not called that now.

  9. We tumbled 1d/18d straight away, but then wondered how the Tower of London could be the theme. Then Joyce got 20d and Bert.(who is an architect) realised that this should be right up his street – even though he is not a big fan of big buildings – especially not the walkie-scorchie – an extremely inelegant building even before it started melting cars!! The rest of the towers fell into place relatively easily.

    Great to have an architectural theme for a change, but we also enjoyed 17d too!

    Many thanks to Morph for the fun and John for the blog

  10. The gateway clue did just wink at me, and it was among my first few in, which helped. Knew some of the ‘towers’ and worked out the others, but I didn’t twig till I’d finished that Morph was in fact giving us three goes at getting the themed clues. Most generous of him, and a riposte no doubt to those who live in the sticks and say that life does go on outside the Great Wen and how are we supposed to know all those London references.

    All good stuff. Specially liked OVERBITE today.

    Thanks to Morph and John.

  11. Thanks for all your kind comments – and for the blog, John. The theme was slightly on my mind as my work’s moving to 2dn later this year, so I had a hard hat tour last month.
    There are various different images of Brittania, but some definitely are a bit tin bra-ish.

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