“A Lump of Foul Deformity” (Crossword #33)
12 December 2021
Skirwingle

It’s not a blocked grid, it’s a bard grid. In a time when we can probably all call to mind “a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality” ... solvers are invited (though by no means required) to highlight three pairs of solutions that derive from a familiar playwright’s fondness for the barbed put-down.


Revert
Check
Save
Reveal
Reveal Letter
Solution
Across

  •  8  Recovering abstainer surrounded by alcohol (6)

  •  9  Safe places for young dramatist’s quills? (8)

  • 10 He spreads the word before a singer (8)

  • 11 Small dog with extremely vexatory disease (6)

  • 12 Stirred up garlic oil produces smoke (9)

  • 16 Sounds like a drive after dark leads to a compound (7)

  • 17 Corroborate identity of Antigonus’ pursuer and where they went (4,3)

  • 19 Associate small school with one charged? Negative! (9)

  • 22 Sort of blue soil (6)

  • 23 Graves showed us this Roman emperor and Danish king (8)

  • 25 Terrible idea: rum mixed with minimum of brandy liqueur (8)

  • 26 A French emperor was exiled here, returned powerless (6)

    • Down

  •  1  Awkward courtship where shrew gets entangled with him (9)

  •  2  Musketeer regularly annoys visitors (9)

  •  3  Knowing of chief pattern in fingerprints (4)

  •  4  Vivacity of childless Irish thoroughbred (7)

  •  5  Some stars recollect Isaac is Poe (10)

  •  6  What pours from fluid core in Lady M’s damned stain (5)

  •  7  Jack Ketch’s naval adventures, very exciting at first (5)

  • 13 The answer I put in: ludicrous – absurd! (10)

  • 14 Really not thinking of first person in play with Dane penned by troubled bard (5,4)

  • 15 Supported by the French, shark hunter raised five times as much... (9)

  • 18 ...Hit fishing boat with head of dogfish, absorbing energy (7)

  • 20 Spanish prince is missing in difficult periods (5)

  • 21 Vermicelli, perhaps, found at front of Waitrose or Marks & Spencer (5)

  • 24 Not-very-obscure fever (4)

    • Created with Raphaël 2.3.0
    1

    2

    3

    4

    5

    6

    7

    8

    9

    10

    11

    12

    13

    14

    15

    16

    17

    18

    19

    20

    21

    22

    23

    24

    25

    26

    PDF