By Mark Taylor and Jane Fitzpatrick AE
This month’s crossword solutions include the first two and last two lines of a seasonal poem by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan. These are found at 23a, 9a, 28a and 13a; 9a and 5d. Your compilers send our warmest wishes to all solvers for peace and joy across the coming month, and as good a new year as we could hope for – 9a, 10a!
Across
1 Deception I’ll wear? (4,2)
4 I’m taken aback after a computer-aided design gets an A in halls of learning (8)
9 Misjudge, in my cheery disposition? (5)
10 Noel Coward’s first play, Mrs Has It! (9)
11 Flat, but in tune? (4)
12 Stick burned in dojos sometimes? (4)
13 10a trimming, totally drained of whisky (5)
15 Faces whinging, abuse, some pranks – it sends him cranky! (7)
16 Rat scurried back to the bottom deck (4)
19 All cardinals gathered for an update (4)
20 Attentive dog’s command to circle ewe, we hear, and outer fold, turning back in (7)
23 Frightfully 9a! (5)
24 Zodiac medium reveals zenith (4)
25 D’oh – flipped ingredients from teaspoon! (4)
27 Short-lived boom takes mug aback – something to chew on (6,3)
28 Reportedly plant fruit (5)
29 Professional art is trying, with flair in the heart (8)
30 Unknowing, ate aubergine as ingredient in cake? (6)
Down
1 Improvising Motown, he found roots (8)
2 Star found in outback’s south, rising in Virgo, has no gravity (8)
3 Stone caught in phony X post (4)
5 Hesitating after Chris sang out hymn to Daisy (13)
6 Let off after departmental chief is indicted (10)
7 Mix up losing original jazz, on mike something heard indistinctly (6)
8 Tries, we hear, ore tests? (6)
10 He’s a free-loader, not working after dope found in wardrobe (7,6)
14 Spirit rides through generations (4,6)
17 Surely not on the flight path, missing France! (2,6)
18 Spooner’s assent to colour is a way of saying thanks (5,3)
21 Superior American people sail into old Washington (6)
22 Almost the whole wine barrel, we hear (3,3)
26 Supergroup: Palindrome! (4)