Hello again. I enjoyed this crossword. It has no unknowns or obscurities (well, only a couple) and neat, concise clueing. It also features an Empress, two Presidents and a Prime Minister, a princely House, and the Raj. Stirring stuff. What did you think?
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tailor cuts curtain up for needle worker (13) |
| ACUPUNCTURIST – *(CUTS CURTAIN UP). Lovely misleading definition! | |
| 8 | Move somewhere to be inside (4) |
| STIR – A DD, one relating to a slang word for prison | |
| 9 | Bet with church to make impression on prior (10) |
| ANTECEDENT – ANTE (bet) + CE (Church, of England) + DENT, to make an impression on. | |
| 10 | Maybe vampire bit back facing inverted crucifix (4,4) |
| TRAP DOOR – PART (bit) rev., + ROOD (crucifix) also reversed. Apparently a trapdoor on a theatre stage can be called a vampire. Heaven knows why. | |
| 11 | Fame British sailors have around East (6) |
| RENOWN – E(ast) in RN OWN (sailors have) | |
| 13 | Stick number of fingers right into sponge cake? (10) |
| BATTENBERG – BAT (stick, sort of) + TEN (number of fingers) + R(ight) in BEG, sponge. I would have spelled it Battenburg, myself. So would Collins. But apparently either will do, and berg may actually be more accurate. Fun fact 1: a goodly subset of the British royal family had the family name Battenberg, which they Anglicised to Mountbatten in 1917. Fun fact 2: the colour scheme on British emergency vehicles is called battenberg marking, because it has squares like the cake. The scheme has spread to a number of other countries. | |
| 16 | Sudden twist was very impressive (4) |
| SLEW – a DD, as in: “Jerry made his Lamborghini slew across the road.” Collins doesn’t have the other meaning, but under the present tense SLAY, it has “to impress or amuse greatly.” So eg: “Jerry slew the audience with his wonderful impersonation of King Charles.” | |
| 17 | Female the Italian married in La Dolce Vita say (4) |
| FILM – F(ilm) + IL (Italian for “the”) + M(arried). La Dolce Vita is a 1960 Fellini film that I must have seen once but remember nothing about. | |
| 18 | Wasted detective having had enough, full of drink (10) |
| DISSIPATED – DI (detective) + SIP (drink) in SATED | |
| 20 | Kidnapping sons as might be expected (6) |
| SNATCH – S(ons) + NATCH. “Used to indicate that a particular fact or event is what you would expect and not at all surprising.” (Collins, natch) | |
| 22 | Cute little creature heir to Dubya? (8) |
| BUSHBABY – A small nocturnal primate, and a jocular reference to GW Bush, a US politician. | |
| 24 | Reparation arranged for old guardsman (10) |
| PRAETORIAN – *(REPARATION). The Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome famously “elected” several Caesars, including Caligula and Claudius. | |
| 26 | Praise God in recital (4) |
| LAUD – sounds like “LORD” | |
| 27 | Book done as it should be: one shops must stock (4,2,7) |
| JUST SO STORIES – JUST SO (done as it should be) + I (one) in STORES, shops. Rudyard Kipling’s best known work, probably. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Dispute where Conservative blocks amendment (11) |
| ALTERCATION – C(onservative) in ALTERATION, amendment. | |
| 2 | Lay bare one in Pigalle, disreputable sort (5) |
| UNRIP – UN (one, in Pigalle and elsewhere in France) + RIP, a disreputable sort apparently. Unrip and rip, two words I wouldn’t use, in that sense, in a single clue! My last one in. | |
| 3 | Blue Berets greatly enjoyed surrounding northern plain (9) |
| UNADORNED – UN (blue berets, that UN forces wear) + N(orthern) in ADORED, greatly adored. | |
| 4 | Bed stripped after cavorting of erotic clique (7) |
| COTERIE – *(EROTIC) + (b)E(d), bed stripped. A slightly disappointing answer to an otherwise intriguing clue. | |
| 5 | Governor to lose head covering cold sore (5) |
| ULCER – C(old) in (r)ULER, a headless governer. | |
| 6 | Singles coming into Modi’s land or Subianto’s? (9) |
| INDONESIA – ONES (singles) in INDIA. Narendra Modi is Prime Minister of India, and Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo is President of Indonesia. | |
| 7 | Sunbathing’s end in Punta Negra (3) |
| TAN – hidden, as above. I’ve always thought skin cancer was “sunbathing’s end,” but hey. | |
| 12 | Waterhouse novel involving second-rate location (11) |
| WHEREABOUTS – B (second-rate) in *(WATERHOUSE) | |
| 14 | Siren time and time again interrupting tsarina? (9) |
| TEMPTRESS – T(ime) + another T(ime) in EMPRESS. | |
| 15 | Musical flourish signals playing the same thing (9) |
| GLISSANDO – *(SIGNALS) + DO, ditto, same again. In recent crosswords, my inadequate musical knowledge has been sorely tested. | |
| 19 | U-boat with German markings finally surrenders (7) |
| SUBMITS – SUB (u-boat) + MIT (German for with) + (marking)S. | |
| 21 | Such gadgets as may be eye-catching? (5) |
| HOOKS – A CD, hooks and eyes, geddit? Mainly used for bras nowadays, so Wiki says.. | |
| 23 | Cold from the sea, dish served hot (5) |
| BALTI – BALTI(c), a sea with the C(old) removed. | |
| 25 | Government vessel raised (3) |
| RAJ – JAR (vessel), rev. | |
From my conversation with Gemini:
The theatrical “vampire trap” owes both its name and its ingenious mechanical design to a single, massively popular 19th-century melodrama: The Vampyre; or, The Bride of the Isles, which opened at the English Opera House (now the Lyceum Theatre) in London in August 1820.
The play was an adaptation by James Planché of a French melodrama, which in turn was based on John Polidori’s 1819 short story The Vampyre (the famous tale born from the same rainy weekend at Lake Geneva that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein).
To do justice to the supernatural villain, Lord Ruthven, the theatre needed a way for him to instantly vanish into thin air or materialise through solid walls and floors without the clumsy, slow movement of standard sliding panels.
How the Mechanism Works
Unlike a standard trapdoor that drops away vertically or hinges open like a cellar door, the vampire trap was designed for high-speed, seamless illusions.
The mechanism relies on two spring-loaded shutters or flaps (often made of flexible wood, canvas, or rubber-reinforced materialized panels) that meet in the centre.
The Disappearance: The actor literally leaps, falls, or is pushed directly into what looks like a solid surface.
The Reset: The momentum of the actor’s body forces the two leaves open. The moment the actor passes through into the understage (“the grave”), heavy springs or counterweights instantly snap the flaps back together into a closed, flush position.
To the audience looking on from the auditorium, the character appeared to pass straight through solid stone or timber in the blink of an eye. The mechanism could be built vertically into a piece of scenery (allowing a vampire to walk “through” a solid wall) or horizontally into the stage floor.
While the vampire trap allowed an actor to drop smoothly out of sight, it was part of an era of Victorian stage engineering obsessed with spectacular effects. It was frequently used alongside the equally famous Star Trap—an understage mechanism that used a counterweighted platform to violently catapult an actor upwards through a star-shaped series of triangular flaps, making demons, fairies, or ghosts appear to burst instantly out of the earth.
I texted my daughter who has been a theatre technician for c 25 years asking whether she had ever heard of a theatre trap door being called a ‘vampire’. She replied ‘Yes!! Definitely rings a bell’. I note the last definition of ‘vampire’ in Chambers is a stage trapdoor. But I still think ‘vampire’ as a definition of TRAP DOOR in a daily crossword is too obscure; luckily the wordplay was simple.
As to the puzzle, I finished in about 30 minutes but with a wrong answer, SKEW, at 16ac. I then went to the crossword dictionary to check if ‘skew’ is a valid synonym for ‘twist’ as I was unable to parse the remainder of the clue. I found it is, but the entry also listed SLEW as another alternative and I could see immediately that had to be the correct answer.
As a matter of interest, and as someone with a lifelong interest in theatre and backstage jargon, I don’t recall coming across ‘vampire’as a TRAP DOOR before today and that’s what prompted me to research its origins as posted above.
.
Great crossword with some amazing anagrams. I. was held up at the end with SLEW since I couldn’t convince myself that either meaning fitted. I didn’t know the vampire TRAP DOOR either but the wordplay was clear so I just took it on trust. Thanks to the previous post, I now know more than I nwws~
Never met the vampire before, nor BATTENBERG, but that was a piece of cake next to UNRIP, not knowing either the literal sense or “rip” in that sense. Thoroughly enjoyed.
My true NHO answer was battenberg; I had a vague feeling about the vampire and the rip/unrip clue, so I probably had seen those before. For crossword solvers, Kipling’s best known work is If, but I believe Just So Stories has appeared in the past. Hooks was very difficult, but slew was my last one in. If you are familiar with the concept of slew rate in electronics, you are more likely to think of it.
Time: 29:40
I had no idea about ‘vampire’–thanks, Jack, for the explanation–and waited until I had the P from POI UNRIP to put in LOI TRAP DOOR. DNK UNRIP, which struck me as rather like ‘unthaw’ (=thaw); but I knew ‘rip’, although it took me some time to recall it. I liked BATTENBERG; dnk the cake, but I knew the name.
Too hard for this little black duck. Had to seek confirmation after half an hour for the rip part of UNRIP and also for vampire = TRAP DOOR, which the internet seems to be only vaguely aware of.
Having allowed myself those liberties I thought I’d better confirm the existence of a BARTENBERG cake which at least saved me from a pink square.
Thanks Jerry and setter, some great clues in there today.
In fact two pink squares, along with two yellow ones and sugared marzipan around the outside – scrumptious!
Just a disgusting puzzle. Had to bail after 30 minutes with no candidate answers for (what ended up being) STIR, UNRIP, and SLEW, and after coming here to see the explanations, I’m sorry I wasted any brain power even trying.
STIR is a chestnut.
Aside from that Metagloria, how did you enjoy the puzzle?
I know this is tongue in cheek, but the sad thing is I *did* like a lot of the puzzle, even difficult stuff I had to fight for like TRAP DOOR and BATTENBERG and JUST SO STORIES. It just really sours the experience when I get stuck with, not just one, but a few small words that are impossible to parse and have no way of getting to the finish.
But they can’t have been “impossible to parse,” as so many of us did so.
RIP and UNRIP NHO, but the only feasible guess. Though it relied on the another best-guess, TRAP DOOR. Similarly SLEW after an alphabet trawl was yet another best guess, could just about have both meanings. Thought Joko was still president in Indonesia; must get out more. Otherwise enjoyable – Praetorian looked unlikely, liked the bushbaby, whereabouts I was expecting an actual place like Westbourne or something.
All quite quick until it wasn’t, and I gave up after 45 minutes with UNRIP undone.
34 minutes. I enjoyed this until I was nabbed by those short answers at the end. I should have seen STIR, a chestnut as Guy says, straight away but I still had real trouble with UNRIP – like JerryW, Guy and isla3 I didn’t know the answer or RIP in that sense – and SLEW was a real stretch. Didn’t know TRAPDOOR for ‘Maybe vampire’ either but wordplay was helpful.
Again, fortunate to have avoided a pink square.
12.05
DNK (but pleased to know now) the Vampire TRAP DOOR.
Only 1 biff (JUST SO STORIES).
LOI STIR/RIP
COD TEMPTRESS
Very nicely clued puzzle. Raced through in 13 mins, a very fast time for me. Didn’t know vampire = TRAP DOOR, kidnapping = SNATCH or lay bare = UNRIP. Thanks, jackkt, for your interesting account of vampire; one of our daughters is a theatre technician (married to an actor), I will ask her whether she knows vampire = TRAP DOOR. First in was ACUPUNCTURIST, last SLEW. Favourite four clues: to BATTENBERG, DISSIPATED, JUST SO STORIES and SUBMITS. Thank you Setter and Blogger.
Well, I was all but done in 35 mins but ground to a halt with (what turned out to be) SNATCH, HOOKS, UNRIP (had UNRAP) and SLEW (had SPED) . Got TRAP DOOR though, of course, I had no idea why!
I enjoyed the chewy anagrams.
Thanks Jerry and setter.
DNF, back in OWL Club with UNRAP rather than UNRIP.
– Didn’t know that a TRAP DOOR can be called a vampire
– HOOKS went in with a shrug
– Feel it’s unlikely that SLEW will be used in the ‘was impressive’ sense very often, but clearly it exists
Thanks Jerry and setter.
COD Battenberg
It doesn’t seem all that unlikely to me, slew = was impressive. I added an example to the blog.
I don’t think anyone would ever say that though: they would say ‘slayed’. I’m too old to be sure of this though, I will have to ask my kids later.
I think you’re absolutely right. Can’t think of any real-world situation in which a person would say ‘slew’ like that.
Even Slade’s big Xmas hit punningly refers to being ‘sleighed/slayed’ so ‘slew’ is simply wrong.
Using Slade as a lexicographical authority – pretty sure that’s a first around here!
Noddy Holder is the ‘to go to ‘ authority on any linguistic issue
I confess I’ve never come across ‘slayed’ before today, even though Chambers prefers it to ‘slew’. My copy of Cruden informs me that the KJV of the Bible has ‘slew’ thirty times and ‘slayed’ zero times. I’m not sure what that tells us.
9:46. DNK the vampire of course, but the wordplay was clear.
I’m not really familiar with either UNRIP or RIP in 2dn but they both rang a vague bell so have probably come up before. UNRIP seems to mean the opposite of what it’s supposed to.
MER at SLEW. I’m familiar with the second meaning but very much doubt that anybody who uses it would ever use this form of the past tense.
I can’t see why TEN relates to number of fingers. Am I missing something obvious?
The fact that thumbs are fingers? All of the usual dictionaries agree that the word ‘fingers’ can either include or exclude the thumbs according to context.
Thank you. I was not aware of that.
Well digital means of the fingers. All our digital printed stuff uses 0-9 (that is ten characters) to represent counts. So if the thumbs don’t count we would have been using octal all along and would not have had to struggle so much to understand computers (which usually use hexadecimal but in the old days computers used to use octal.)
Surprised that people didn’t know that the House of Windsor is really the House of Marzipan Square. It must be a joke that only worked in the forties and fifties. This puzzle was spoilt for me by UNRIP which I guessed and SLEW, which I didn’t. Thank you Jerry and setter.
30.59: I hit and bounced off a lot of this, finishing with HOOKS (not the most obvious gadgets) with a sudden d’oh moment as I realised what the eyes were catching. Much time lost looking in vain for the WHEREABOUTS of some toponym, and what followed UN in 2d to provide a helpful letter for STIR – not a chestnut for me. Obviously I’d not heard of that particular TRAP DOOR, but took it on faith. An unparsed NYMPHETTE stood in for the siren until she was impossible. Just avoided the U in BATTENBERG, bug being only just less spongy than beg. Should have got JUST SO earlier, which would have triggered an easier RAJ, and possibly a swifter unravelling of PRAETORIAN.
Congratulations (and not a little envy) to those reporting a breezy time for this one. And thanks to Jerry for his comments on BATTENBERG in particular, and to Jack for doing such extensive research.
One error with a GLISSANTO a word I thought I had remembered from previous crosswords.
SLEW went in with a shrug not really happy with either definition.
LOI HOOKS which whilst I can see how it works I felt was a bit weak. Edit: actually I didn’t get it- I had the mental image of a pirate with an itchy eye. I take that back.
Cheered up by an appearance of my favourite cake BATTENBERG although on doctors orders I won’t be enjoying for a while.
COD JUST SO STORIES
Thanks blogger and setter
‘….saddening glissando strings…’ from Aladdin Sane was my source
I didn’t have too much trouble in submitting quickly and correctly, but I biffed my LOI, and had NHO Subianto (thanks for the accompanying surname Jerry – I hope it doesn’t pop up in a future Jumbo because I’ll never remember the spelling!). Also thanks to Jack for his meticulous research on the vampire, which couldn’t be anything else but it’s good to learn why. I entered “battenburg” on the first pass, but luckily COTERIE put that one right.
FOI ACUPUNCTURIST
LOI UNRIP
COD HOOKS
TIME 6:08
What constitutes a surname in Indonesian is rather unclear .. I think what you are referring to is a patronymic. His father’s, and his sisters’ are therefore different. Subianto seems to be closest to being a surname.
20:06, with LOI UNRIP.
COD GLISSANDO. Nice to have the occasional use for my half-forgotten grade 5 theory from half a century ago.
I also forgot about hooks and eyes, and thought of a warning to an angler to be careful not to take someone’s eye out.
Thanks Jerry and setter
Gave up at the right time. RIP/UNRIP neither of which I knew. SLEW also, I did know the achingly hip “slay”, but I don’t think people who use this slang would use the strong verb “slew”‘rather than just saying “he slayed it”. Strong verb past tenses are on the way out chid, strode, wove etc.
The checkerboard decals on emergency vehicles are called Battenbergs.
COD BUSH BABY
(re emergency vehicles) As the blog said!
I would never use the word “slayed.” The past tense of slay is slew, for me.
A pity that’s so because ‘slew’ carries more force in sound than ‘slayed’ so deserves to survive. Just to add to your list, ‘throve’ and ‘thriven’ seem to be disappearing, also ‘strove’ and (though maybe just holding on) ‘striven’. All in normal use when I was young.
Well, dove for dive and snuck for sneaked seem to be making inroads in the other direction.
Good point. Both originally Americanisms that have snuck in to UK usage.
No! They have sneaked in 🙂
Flew through this, though nearly breezeblocked by UNRIP / TRAP DOOR. Submitted, with a shrug, to finish in 9’58”.
Loved the BUSHBABY clue.
Thanks jerry and setter.
UNRIP = ‘lay bare’? Really? Got it, faute de mieux, but not the setter’s finest hour IMO. Defeated by SLEW. The rest of this was OK, but forgettable.
DNF. First towel throw-in for ages. Should have been on Monday which was World Towel Day, I forgot to mention it.
A real breeze-blocker, all bar 5 done in about 15 mins then SNATCH and HOOKS were good PDMs but gave up missing UNRIP, STIR and TRAP DOOR on 35 ish. Yes, STIR was gettable and I had the rood part but the fun had stopped so I did too.
Enjoyed the anagrams for WHEREABOUTS and PRAETORIAN.
Thanks to setter and great blog as usual Jerry.
A second DNF on a bad day for me. For me this is full of obscurities and NHOs, including natch, slew (both meanings, there was no way I could have got this answer), hooks, vampire, rip and unrip (both seem completely archaic), dubya. These all made it not to my taste, and very difficult indeed (well, virtually impossible in fact). I also failed on TEMPRTRESS, though that was purely my fault. Given the fast times of the top solvers, is this just a case of a puzzle which is pure crosswordese?
Dubya is surely just an age thing, nobody who was politically conscious in the 2000s can have missed it. ‘Slay’ is an age thing in the opposite direction, but as I mentioned above SLEW grates to my ear: I think the Venn diagram of ‘people who use slew as the past tense of slay’ and ‘people who use slay to mean perform impressively’ is two non-intersecting circles.
I would have a said that natch and ‘hook and eye’ are commonplace, but one person’s GK etc etc.
The vampire is clearly obscure: nobody’s heard of it! RIP/UNRIP are at least a bit archaic and seem to have caused quite a few problems.
Agreed on all this. Had no idea about Dubya but I was about 10. Slay = performs well is definitely something I know, but nobody would ever say, eg. Kanye slew last night. It would sound completely absurd. To be honest, I think it would always or often be accompanied by “it” anyway (Kanye slayed it), so I don’t love it for that additional reason. (Here’s hoping Kanye is still relevant).
I’ve definitely heard it without (‘Kanye slayed last night’), more often than with I think although again it’s not really part of my everyday vocabulary.
DNF
Similar to RVI. All but UNRIP TRAP DOOR and SLEW pretty/very quickly but gave up on those even though I had DOOR and had considered SLEW. UNRIP? Really? Quite an inconsistent puzzle imho – lots to like but some odd head scratchers at the end.
23:50 – very fine stuff. Didn’t know the trapdoor – and thank you for the lovely explanation – and convinced myself UNRIP must be a word only because the other four vowels seemed even less likely. It was the pesky – but far from disgusting – chestnut STIR and the clever SLEW which held me up longest.
Alas, beaten by STIR and UNRIP, the former may be a chestnut but only if you have seen it before! UNRIP I knew neither the definition or the required word play RIP for a disreputable sort?
Such is life- I’ll try again tomorrow.
I was unaware of Subianto but it seemed pretty likely. The slew/slayed argument (for slaying an audience) I’m not sure I agree with: I’ve many times heard the phrase “slew the audience …” and it seemed to me to be a rather good clue, both parts unequivocal really. Much better than the CD at 21dn: hooks = gadgets? Vampire seemed OK although I was vaguely thinking of spiders and vampire bats and not knowing about it at all.
It looks as if we’re back to “Too many requests”, although if today, with its fairly short wait, is going to be typical then we can live with that.
If you say that someone ‘slew the audience’ (not an idiom I’ve come across but no matter), that’s a slightly different meaning: transitive as opposed to intransitive. The answer here is the latter: ‘the performer slew/slayed’.
Google knows everything, apparently, and s/he says “To “slew the audience” is a popular idiom meaning a performer absolutely enthralled, impressed, or shocked the crowd. It’s a spin on the phrase “slaying” the audience, typically reserved for an unforgettable, show-stopping performance or a perfectly delivered punchline that leaves listeners amazed.”
Note the words “popular idiom.”
“Was very impressive” vs “slew,” transitive vs intransitive not relevant surely? Both sound pretty action oriented to me.
Can’t believe that this little four letter word has created so much angst! (not you personally)
The definition in this clue – ‘was very impressive’ – is intransitive (you can’t say ‘was very impressive the audience’) so the answer has to be intransitive. ‘Slay’ in this intransitive sense is a modern usage and none of Collins, Chambers or the OED have it. ODE does, and interestingly all the past-tense examples use ‘slayed’.
Thanks @jerry. Nice puzzle, 20 minutes, except I couldn’t see any reason why TRAP (DOOR) was right, and didn’t believe UNRIP worked, and am still not impressed. Otherwise, SLEW was my LOI and I did see how that worked. I liked the Kipling clue.
My thanks to JerryW and setter.
Yes lots to like and not too hard.
Quite hard to get onto this site earlier. Too many requests.
10a Trap Door. DNK this def of vampire. I HHO a trapdoor spider and just shrugged and moved on.
16a Slew was a bit above my head too.
2d Unrip, NHO. I just had a one in 5 chance here and picked I for a correct answer.
3d Unadorned COD.
6d DNK the President of Indonesia. Didn’t need to.
15d HHO Glissando! Even before I tried to cram on musical terms.
Quite a few nice cryptic hints or definitions which I liked. But slaughtered by Slew then torn to pieces by Unrip as my solve disappeared via the Vampire. Thanks for the blog, jerry, and for the detail, jack
Well, I got there in the end, but it was a slog, and I crossed my fingers with my LOI, which was UNRIP (not a word I’ve used or heard of).
I used the ‘check word’ function several times, in the Simon Anthony “cracking the cryptic” way- “I’m not going to change it”.
Surprised at how low the SNITCH is. It felt tougher.
Thank you Jerry and Setter.
I liked it – 32 mins which is good for me. Agree with everybody else about SLEW and UNRIP. Surely unrip is a contradiction? You rip off an Elastoplast, not unrip it off. But there were some very smooth clues. In fact, like others, I had Skew, not Slew – I thought ‘skewed’ for twisted worked better. I worked out Trapdoor from thedefinition, but NHO in the theatrical sense. My FOI was Acupuncturist, LOI Unrip and CODs were Renown and Unadorned. Thanks Jerry and setter.
My old house-master used to refer to the Queen as Betty Battenberg. I’ve once or twice tried to make the cake, but it didn’t work out. Shop-bought is fine. I don’t mind the SLEW thing. Idiomatically or jocularly, you can take a transitive verb and use it intransitively. He wowed the audience. He wowed. Must have been on the old w.l. as I came in at 16’25”.
First one I’ve completed in a while, so thanks for that satisfaction. Problems with a couple of surfaces:
– DNK a trapdoor can be a vampire- bizarre !
– NHO rip as a disreputable type
– My GK did not extend to Pigalle being a place in Paris, or that chap (WNEM) being the leader of Indonesia. It does now.
My awareness of slang amongst those younger just about stretched to “natch” and “slew”
Chuckled at WHEREABOUTS, having spent a good while trying to anagram actual places – excellent clue !
Most rewarding – thanks to both setter and blogger
I wrote down SLEW but not in the crossword unfortunately. Unlike everybody else I went for SVER which isn’t even a word. Oh well, got the rest.
From TAN to UNRIP, where I’d had UNR-P lurking since early in the puzzle, in 23:29. Wasn’t able to post ealier due to the site being down and lots of other committments when it came back up. Enjoyed the puzzle, but lots of cogitation required! Didn’t know the Vampire definition for TRAP DOOR, but the wordplay was kind. Thanks setter and Jerry.