The Monthly Digest

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,715 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

I thought this was quite tricky in places, particularly the NW corner, and featured a high proportion of words which are rarely encountered in modern conversational English (not round here, anyway). It seemed a lot ‘tighter’ than last week’s puzzle, even allowing for a couple of repetitions of wordplay elements (eg 32a/22d), and generally seemed very sound. I’m sure that ‘see’ in 7d is a misprint for ‘seen’.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 18a, “I lost pity and almost declined old rebuke (6)”. The wordplay is discussed below, but it is the definition that prompts this discussion. We often see ‘old’ or similar used to qualify a definition, indicating that the answer is given by Chambers as obsolete, archaic, Shakespearean, Spenserian, or anything else that shows that it is no longer in current use. Let’s take an example – BRUST, shown by Chambers as a Spenserian form of ‘burst’. We clearly wouldn’t define it as ‘old burst’ (far too similar), but what definitions could we legitimately use? Chambers is typically the primary reference, so is any definition that Chambers gives for ‘burst’ good for BRUST, eg ‘break open old’ or ‘old spurt’? The answer, in essence, is ‘yes’; if we look at the works of Spenser we find that it is actually things like hearts and bowells (yuk!) that ‘brust’, but this would generally be considered irrelevant – he may never have used BRUST as a noun in his poems to describe an act of bursting, but it’s likely that he would have done so if he’d had the need. There are, however, certain caveats – senses which Spenser could not even have contemplated, such as recent introductions like ‘tore apart the perforated sheets of (continuous stationery)’ and informal or slang meanings like ‘a drunken bout’ must be ruled out. With the clue in this puzzle, Spenser in fact used the word with the sense of ‘to scold’ or ‘to rebuke’, so the definition is very hard to fault.

Across

10a S. Indian tree, once wan, before being brought in (5)
A four-letter archaic (‘once’) word meaning ‘wan’ (a variation on a more familiar word) contains the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘before’ (‘before being brought in’).

12a Traditional American individual, about 50, with jaunty lid (7)
A three-letter word for an individual contains (‘about’) the Roman numeral representing fifty and an anagram (‘jaunty’) of LID. The answer is hyphenated, 3-4.

16a One practising psychotherapy, I use rolling in hospital bed (7)
An anagram (‘rolling’) of I USE is contained by a word for a hospital bed, the result being a term that might be applied to someone whose mantra is ‘Every Sunday, with every Azed, I’m getting  better and better’.

18a I lost pity and almost declined old rebuke (6)
One of those clues where a comma has to be inferred in the wordplay, here between ‘lost’ and ‘pity’. The letter I is omitted (‘lost’) from a three-letter word often indicated in cryptics by ‘wrong’, but also an old informal term for a shame (‘pity’) – the Billy Myles song ‘Have You Ever Loved a Woman’ (an Eric Clapton favourite) contains the lines “You just love that woman. / So much it’s a shame and a ???. / But all the time you know. / She belongs to your very best friend.” The resulting two letters are followed by a five-letter word meaning ‘declined’ which has been deprived of its last letter (‘almost’).

20a Poet’s handle: ‘past its best’ where English is involved (6)
A five-letter word meaning ‘past its best’ contains the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ (‘where English is involved’).

24a Extremes of accent in an Italian maybe, displaying a strong one (7)
The first and last letters (‘extremes’) of ACCENT are contained by a first name of Latin origin associated with many Italian men, in particular the Venetian explorer who discovered the toroidal mint. The ‘one’ in the definition refers back to the ‘accent’ in the wordplay.

26a Knockout in G and S? It may be fatal for asses (8)
The ‘knockout’ contained by the letters G and S was used to good effect by TE Sanders in one of the shortest Azed cup-winning clues on record, his entry for PADDY-WHACK (Azed comp 221) using just nine letters and a hyphen.

28a I live without (ultimately) dead parts of intestine (4)
The letter I (from the clue) is followed by a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] live’ (almost invariably followed in this sense by ‘a life’) missing its last letter, this being the standard abbreviation for ‘dead’.

31a Measure to beat heroin (5)
A neat clue, made harder by the number of possible synonyms for ‘to beat’ which could precede the usual single letter representing ‘heroin’. It turns out to be the sort that Messrs Squeers and Quelch would have quickly identified.

Down

1d Chat maybe opens up in Shakespeare (4)
Kudos if you got straight to the solution by reversing (‘up’) a Shakespearean word meaning ‘opens’ or ‘undoes’. Otherwise, the way in is through chat³ in Chambers, a dialect term for a pretty tatty tattie, the ‘maybe’ indicating that this is a definition by example.

2d Source of flummery fit to appear in fog? (8)
A four-letter word for a fit of the shivering kind is contained by (‘to appear in’) a word for ‘[to] fog’ in the sense of ‘[to] make indistinct’. The flummery relates not to pudding but to humbug.

4d What’s associated with chips, containing nothing sour (6)
I’d immediately decided that ‘fish’ was a bit to obvious as the companion for ‘chips’, but it took me a bit longer to get from chips to ‘carpenter’, and thence to Lewis Carroll, and from there to a five-letter word for the comrade who wished to talk, inter alia, of shoes, ships and sealing-wax. This word contains the single character that represents love at Wimbledon.

5d Youngster, type that’s dropped in (5)
A seven-letter word for a family of typefaces based on 16th century Flemish types (and named after an Antwerp printer of the era) loses consecutive letters IN (“that’s dropped in”) to produce a familiar word for a vegetable organism also given by Chambers as a figurative term for a young person (this sense is shown by the OED as ‘rare’).

7d Old rose, something from Canterbury seen in Church? (6)
The four-letter word for something associated with Canterbury (the antipodean one rather than its Kentish namesake) is contained by one of the two-letter abbreviations often indicated in cryptics by ‘church’. Chambers confirms the Canterbury association, and tells us that the answer is Spenserian, hence the ‘old’.

11d High Court order, one on page received by gardener (11, 2 words)
A two-letter word for ‘one’ is followed by ON (from the clue) and the usual abbreviation for ‘page’, this pair contained by a six-letter word for a cultivator, or (perhaps) a member of an all-girl dance troupe which first performed in 1894 and is still, apparently, going strong (albeit, I suspect, with a few changes in personnel). The solution is (5,6).

17d Showy plant, a flag planted in miraculous venue (8)
The letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for such things as a handkerchief, a newspaper or a sail are contained by the site of the wedding at which water was miraculously changed into wine, a much more difficult undertaking than the reverse process.

18d One sails northward in company describing islands? (7)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and a reversal (‘northward’) of a three-letter word for ‘the form and arrangement of masts, sails and tackling’ are contained by a word for a company. The answer is hyphenated, 3-4.

24d Combine in bit of work in muddled group cutting lee (5)
A three-letter unit of work is contained by a five-letter word for a muddled group from which the consecutive letters LEE have been removed (‘cutting lee’).

27d Soft, old, and heavenly, not real (4)
An eight-letter word meaning ‘heavenly’ has the consecutive letters REAL omitted (‘not real’).

(definitions are underlined)

In the absence of the puzzle on the Guardian website, I have uploaded a copy of the scan to the Clue Clinic.

The notes on the puzzle will be available later. I will remove this post from the front page when the puzzle eventually appears on the Guardian site.

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,714 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

Another plain puzzle – surely July’s competition puzzle will be a ‘special’? I tackled this one later in the day than usual, but it seemed to me quite tricky in parts, so I’ve rated it as being just above the middle of the range. A couple of the definitions struck me as being decidedly iffy.

Setters’ Corner: Today I’m going to look at clue 23d, “Change label for small bird left in charge of another (7)”. The parsing of the clue is covered below, but the point of interest here is the definition. Azed has (as he invariably does) avoided a trap which can catch out even experienced setters and, on occasion, their editors. This is to define a transitive verb as though it were intransitive. For instance, the verb ‘rename’ is transitive – in the active form it must have an object, ie you always rename something (a newspaper, a pet, a chocolate bar etc). When writing a clue, you might think that ‘supply new handle’ was a nice oblique definition which could be used in a clue where the context misleadingly suggests a handle on a piece of equipment, eg “Ewer man damaged leaking whiskey? Supply new handle”. But trying the substitution test, is ‘They renamed Opal Fruits’ the same as ‘They supplied new handle Opal Fruits’ or ‘The supplied Opal Fruits new handle’? No, it certainly isn’t, because ‘supply’ would need to have two objects, the thing being renamed and its new name. Easily fixed in this example – “Supply new handle for ewer man damaged, leaking whiskey”. Similarly, a definition like ‘supply new label’ without a pronoun would not be sound. Note, however, that something like ‘give new handle’ for RENAME would be ok, because ‘give’ can function as a ditransitive (two-object) verb – ‘They gave Opal Fruits a new name’.

Across

2a Decay enveloping bones with time in stone circle (11)
A six-letter word meaning ‘[to] decay’ (as rubber might) contains (‘enveloping’) the plural of a word for the ankle-bone and the usual abbreviation for ‘time’.

13a Type of sword, of something not unalike tar abandoned (4)
A seven-letter word (probably more familiar in its eight-letter form, certainly if you are an aficionado of Reliant sports cars) for one type of sword (‘something not unalike’, ie not unalike the answer) is deprived of the consecutive letters TAR in order to produce the type of sword that needs to be entered in the grid.

15a Strip from e.g. prawn almost always involved in first half of meal? (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘always’ has its last letter removed (‘almost’) before being contained by (‘involved in’ ) the first three letters of a six-letter word for a particular meal.

16a Piece of (Greek) pottery found in excavation (not the first)? (4)
This just about scrapes through as an &lit, where the whole clue serves as an indication of the answer. The wordplay has the first letter (‘piece’) of POTTERY (‘Why not GREEK?’, I hear you ask) enclosed by (‘found in’) a four-letter word for an excavation (the sort that council workmen might be responsible for) missing its first letter (‘not the first’).

17a Bone suffers? Take out (5)
A six-letter word meaning ‘suffers’, in the way that one suffers a charge for leaving your car in a shoppers’ car park for more than two hours, has the usual abbreviation for ‘take’ removed (‘take out’).

25a Improves version of indefinable quality in orchestral section (7)
A two-letter word for that special  je ne sais quoi is surrounded by a term for a subset of the windy part of an orchestra.

29a Girl switching parts in drive? (4)
A four-letter term for a child, typically disrespectful when applied to a woman at any later point in life, has its first pair of letters swapped with the second pair (‘switching parts’).

34a Translation from Latin left out – it’s not found in formal language (4)
An anagram of (‘translation from’) LATIN missing the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ (‘left out’) results in something that certainly ???’? found in formal language, but the definition here doesn’t work for me.

35a Liquor is Scotch to put in calendar? (10)
The letters IS (from the clue) and a four-letter word with a Scots sense of ‘to’ (in fact, the English meanings also include ‘to’, in a sentence such as ‘He renewed his passport to the end of 2028’) are put inside a word for ‘calendar’ in the sense of ‘to fix a time for (an event)’.

36a Style traced thus? (11)
A self-referencing clue – when the answer (‘thus’)  is applied cryptically to the remainder of the wordplay, it produces itself.

Down

4d Dry off to hide maze of blood vessels (4)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘to hide’ has a three-letter word meaning ‘dry’ (specifically applied to vin) omitted.

6d Came across upcoming opening – when? (7)
A reversal (‘upcoming’) of a three-letter word meaning ‘came across’ is followed by a word for an opening (typically in the, or least a, skin). The definition is somewhat puzzling – the answer means ‘in the time of’ (applied normally to a ruler, eg Henry VIII, or a pre-eminent individual in their field, eg Galileo) but that’s not the same as ‘when’ (with or without a question mark).

7d Divine drink maiden’s drained from fine porcelain (5)
A six-letter word for the drink of the Hindu gods is deprived of the usual cricketing abbreviation for ‘maiden’ (“maiden’s drained from [the drink]”).

8d Cal. City guy tops eminent scientist in local tasks (6)
A (2,2) phrase which could describe a fellow from the California city that ten out of ten crossword setters like best is followed by a two-letter abbreviation for a body of eminent scientists and, by analogy with RA, thus one of said scientists.

12d Soapstone that can be bought cold, set with diamonds, tons (10, 2 words)
A five-letter word meaning ‘open to bribery’ (‘that can be bought’) and the usual abbreviation for ‘cold’ are put around (‘set with’) a three-letter slang word for diamonds and the usual abbreviation for ‘tons’. The answer is (6,4).

18d Spoils set out? Not much of a stretch in India (4)
A seven-letter word roughly meaning ‘spoils’ (as in ‘she spoils that boy’) has the consecutive letters SET deleted (‘set out’) in order to produce a word for a distance that seems like a fair stretch to me if I were asked to cover it at anything above a steady walking pace, particularly before breakfast and without the assistance of a motor vehicle.

23d Change label for small bird left in cage of another (7)
A three-letter ‘small bird’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ (again) are contained by (‘in cage of’) the name of another bird (female), larger than the first one, if hardly a whopper.

32d Old and young one reared in Orcadian estate (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘old’ is followed by a reversal (‘reared’) of a term for a young person, specifically male outside of equestrian circles.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,713 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

Based on relatively recent history, I’d say that this plain puzzle was slightly above the average difficulty level. It was a pleasant enough solve, although I felt that several clues were not up to Azed’s usual high standards.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 24a, “Casualty transport serving some maimed evacuees (7)”. In the interests of clarity, I’m not going to beat about the bush regarding the answer to this straightforward ‘hidden’, MEDEVAC being concealed in the last two words. A couple of days ago, correspondent RJHe expressed some surprise that I had not remarked on 17a in last week’s puzzle, where CAD (‘old errand boy’) plus IE produces CADIE (‘Messenger from Scotland formerly’), since the two words are etymologically very similar. In fact, some dictionaries suggest that one is an abbreviation of the other. This constitutes a serious weakness in a clue, and could even be described as mildly unfair, since if you don’t know one of the words you’re unlikely to know the other.

Today’s clue could not be described as unfair, but it’s weaker than Watney’s Red Barrel – MEDEVAC is simply a contraction of ‘medical evacuation’, with ‘evacuation’ and ‘evacuees’ being far too similar. Setters should be careful to avoid clues where the answer and a word in the wordplay share an etymology, particularly if (as in the CADIE clue) they appear as the same part of speech (both nouns in that instance) and there is a similarity in their meaning. Try to avoid using two words which Chambers shows (i) under the same headword (eg TOP as part of the wordplay for TOP HAT),  or (ii) as having the same root (eg POT in the wordplay for POTASH). It is generally considered acceptable to use two meanings of the ‘same’ word in double definition clues, as long as they are completely different and lead specifically to the answer. The clue ‘Rat on lawn’ for GRASS fulfils these criteria – although the definitions are of the same word, the first sense involves a contraction of ‘grasshopper’, rhyming slang for ‘shopper’, which has then evolved into a verb.

Across

4a Russian spy unit treads westward, extremely racist? Not I (8)
A reversal (‘westward’) of a five-letter word meaning ‘treads’ (verb or noun) is followed by a word applied to an extreme racist, from which the letter I has been omitted (‘not I’).

10a A male child at home with little energy requiring treatment for flu (10)
A five part (1,3,3,2,1) charade, comprising A (from the clue), a word for a male, an informal word for a little lad or a small amount, a crossword favourite for ‘at home’, and the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’ (‘little energy’).

11a Set out to capture castle, a blow of old (7)
An anagram(‘out’) of SET containing (‘to capture’) a word for the sort of castle that moves (albeit only in prescribed directions) produces an obsolete form (hence the ‘old’) of a familiar word.

13a Trumpeter maybe showing off abandoned by king (4)
My initial interpretation was that a five-letter word for ‘showing off’ or ‘ostentation’ was to be deprived of the standard abbreviation for ‘king’ as used by Magnus Carlsen et al. This works perfectly well, but as David Mansell has pointed out, Azed undoubtedly intends us to get to the same result by removing the consecutive letters KING from an eight-letter word meaning ‘showing off’ or ‘bragging’. The definition is by example (just as ‘setter’ is a definition by example of DOG, since dogs come in many different varieties), hence the ‘maybe’.

15a Coarse fellow, Henry or Bill, in poetry (4)
A three-letter ‘coarse fellow’ is followed by the usual abbreviation for…well, not ‘Henry’ but ‘henry’. And the definition is a Spenserian (suggested by ‘in poetry’) word for a ‘bill’ or headland. Setters (of the non-canine kind) are allowed to deceptively capitalize words which in the cryptic reading of a clue should start with a lower-case letter, but I find it unsatisfactory. There’s a thought that it’s okay with nouns, because they are on occasion seen with initial capitals when they appear at the start of a sentence; this strikes me as a poor argument, and I would be hard pressed to come up with a sentence beginning ‘Henry…’ which concerns the SI unit of inductance. Much better if you can ‘hide’ the capital by putting a word such as ‘Stokes’ (for ‘S’) at the beginning of a sentence in your clue.

19a Spell of contact sport? It’s murder (6)
Here the wordplay leads to a (2,4) phrase which loosely corresponds to ‘Spell of contact sport’, the first part being a two-letter abbreviation for a particular contact sport. The question mark is definitely required, as this is not an expression that you would ever hear in real life and the order of the elements from the wordplay must be changed.

26a Sri Lanka, southern, mostly producing skinny layers (8)
The IVR code for Sri Lanka is followed by a seven-letter word meaning ‘southern’ missing its last letter (‘mostly’).

29a Dance music performed by singers out of bounds? (4)
A six-letter words for ‘singers’ (shown by Chambers as ‘esp N Am’ and much more familiar in the UK as an adjective) is stripped of its first and last letters (‘out of bounds’).

32a Javanese mulberry? Erect one alongside highway mostly (8)
A two-letter word meaning ‘erect’ is followed by a single-letter word for ‘one’ and a word for a highway, shorn of its final letter (‘mostly’, an unnecessary repetition from 26a).

Down

2d Dame’s place once for Scots chemise (4)
The ‘Dame’ here is the remarkable Sibyl Hathaway, who ruled her island from 1927 to 1974, including a period of occupation between 1940 and 1945. Cars are banned from the island’s roads, with only tractors, bicycles and horse-drawn vehicles allowed; ironically, there were no hedgehogs on the island to benefit from this restriction until they were introduced in the 1980s.

3d Name in floor peg? It reveals fault in timber (8)
The usual abbreviation for ‘name’ is contained by a two-letter verb with its origins in the boxing ring, having the approximate sense of ‘[to] floor’, and a five-letter word for a pin in the side of a boat to keep the oar in place.

4d Night owl resolute about work (7, 2 words)
A five-letter word meaning ‘resolute’ contains the usual abbreviation for a Latin word meaning work. The enumeration is incorrect – while the answer could be (4,3), that would require a definition which led to a verb; here the answer is clearly a noun, and the corresponding word is hyphenated, 4-3, so should be enumerated as (7).

7d Modern trendy, joker in Rhine heading north (7, 2 words)
Another misleading capitalization, this time of ‘Rhine’. A three-letter ‘joker’ is contained by a reversal (‘heading north’) of what is just another spelling of the West Country word ‘rhine’, meaning a ditch or watercourse. I don’t know what RJHe would think, but I don’t like this – it’s much the same as using, say, ‘sett’ to indicate SET.

9d Erstwhile footie star to take dinner out weekly? (4)
We are not looking for the surname of an ‘erstwhile footie star’ from which a four-letter word meaning ‘to take dinner’ must be removed (‘out’), rather the first name of a French World Cup winner who was named FIFA World Player of the Year three times between 1998 and 2003 and is known to his footballing amis as ‘Zizou’. The definition is again by example, so the question mark is required.

17d A lady mostly dressed in sacking? A dazzler often (8)
An anagram (‘dressed’) of A LADY without the last letter (‘mostly’, for the third time this week) is contained by a word for sacking in the material sense.

20d Canoe? One difficult to understand sailor holds up (7)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and a four-letter word meaning ‘difficult to understand’ or ‘gloomy’ are contained by a reversal (‘up’) of an abbreviation often seen in crosswords indicated by ‘sailor’. There’s a problem here, though – as Monk pointed out on this site a couple of months ago, in a situation like this where the sailor is being reversed but not the other stuff, the operand and the indicator must be next to each other – so the X in ‘X Y holds up’ must be reversed, while ‘X Y up holds’ (so here ‘One difficult to understand sailor up holds’) is the way to indicate that only the container, Y, is to be reversed.

22d Idle chat from peevish old fellow cop ignored after noon (6)
An eight-letter ‘obsolete or dialect’ word for a spider or a peevish person (spiders being well known for their peevishness) has the consecutive letters COP removed (‘ignored’) and is preceded by the usual abbreviation for ‘noon’. Strictly speaking, I suppose, ‘peevish old fellow’ should be ‘old peevish fellow’, since the ‘old’ is there to show that the word is obsolete, but I don’t think it really matters.

26d Rosette, dear in e.g. Savoy (4)
A ‘buy two get one free’ sort of clue, where the third definition is again by example, since not every ???? is a Savoy.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,712 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Another ‘plain’, and another puzzle that seemed to me very close to that green band at the centre of the difficulty spectrum.  My thanks to Roslyn for providing a scan of the crossword in its absence from the Guardian website; when I wrote these notes it still hadn’t made an appearance, so there is a possibility of transcription errors in the clues due to manual entry – let me know if you spot any! 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 6d, “Irani bowling introduces lifted trajectory – it’s intended to disconcert opponent (8)”. An anagram (‘bowling’) of IRANI contains (‘introduces’) a reversal (‘lifted’) of a word meaning ‘trajectory’, the result being the sumo wrestler’s version of the mandatory stare-in at every boxing world championship weigh-in. There are two points that I want to make about the clue. Firstly, the question arises from time to time about the validity of references made in clues to specific personalities – is ‘Tyson?’ acceptable for FURY? In my view, absolutely. But could it also indicate MIKE or FRANK? The fact that I’ve come up with those alternatives means that they came readily to my mind, but how many of the hundred people surveyed would consider them ‘Famous Tysons’? I think MIKE is still fine, since his fame persists, but FRANK is probably remembered now by only cricket fans of a certain age. The question a setter must ask themselves is how the majority of solvers are going to react when they work out the answer – is it ‘Aaah!’ or ‘Huh?’. Here the point is irrelevant – Ronnie Irani wasn’t exactly a household name even in his 1990s heyday, but you don’t need to know who he is in order to solve the clue. The other point this clue raises is how far a setter can stretch synonymity to produce a pleasing surface reading; I know well that feeling when you can’t find a synonym that fits the context and then when you’re about to give up hope you find one in a thesaurus that seems perfect. Consider it very closely! Do the two words really share a meaning? Thesauri include many words for things which are similar but definitely not the same, and you need to think carefully about whether you are being fair to the solver. I think that Azed has pushed things a bit too far here with ‘trajectory’, which seems quite different in meaning from the word it indicates. It’s always worth trying the ‘swap’ test – can you think of a sentence where one word could be replaced by the other without significantly changing the meaning?

Across

1a Abrasive tool limits unsightly smirch in sailor’s hobby (12)
The tool, which might be orbital or belt, contains (‘limits’) an anagram (‘unsightly’) of SMIRCH, and those familiar with the hobby from TV antiques programmes may know it by a similar nine-letter name. Incidentally, I’m no keener on ‘unsightly’ as an anagram indicator than ‘ugly’; they seem quite different from something like ‘disfigured’, which clearly suggests something that was in one state before being twisted into another form. 

9a Clan group turned up behind Scots manor? (4)
A reversal (‘turned’) of UP follows (‘behind’) a Scottish shortened form of a familiar four-letter word for a room in a house or for a manor-house.

12a Old-style lentils etc in soupes à l’étrangère? (6)
My first winning Azed competition clue featured an anagram in French, and here we have ‘à l’étrangère‘ indicating a rearrangement of SOUPES. I’m not sure that in French the phrase carries any sense of being ‘at large’, so it probably needs to be translated into ‘abroad’ before being interpreted cryptically.

18a Clubs provided with money for repetition of parts (6)
The clubs are the sort often wielded in puzzles by bellicose Maoris, and they are followed by (‘provided with’) the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘money’.

23a What’s enfolding shrimati, see? I’m this ———— possibly (5)
A composite anagram &lit, where the letters of SHRIMATI SEE are a potential rearrangement (‘possibly’) of IM THIS plus the solution. If you replace the blank with the answer, then the entire clue constitutes a (reasonably) sensible statement. The word ‘enfolding’ sits a little uneasily in the cryptic reading of the clue.

29a Court damns miscreant, one riding to hounds (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] court’ and an anagram (‘miscreant’) of DAMNS combine to produce the answer. I’m not convinced my ‘miscreant’, although it’s always interesting to see an indicator being used that I haven’t encountered before; I would probably have favoured ‘ruffian’ or ‘criminal’. I’m also doubtful about whether the transitive relationship of the solution to ‘foxhunter’ through ‘huntsman’ holds good,  but these are minor quibbles since the clue seems perfectly fair.

32a Head surrounded by escort going round old Jewish ascetics (7)
A four-letter ‘head’ (and a monstrous loch) is contained (‘surrounded’) by a word meaning ‘[to] escort’, and the whole lot is reversed (‘going round’).

33a The old mount special area, heart turning over (4)
The ‘special’ here does not lead to S, rather it qualifies the area as being one that is designated for a specific purpose. The resultant word has its middle letters swapped (‘heart turning over’) to produce the solution, given by Chambers as ‘obsolete’, hence the ‘old’.

Down

2d Sweet treat on marble? Skater may perform this (7)
A  charade of a four-letter ‘sweet treat’ and a ‘large or choice marble’ produces a skating term for a step from either edge on one foot in one direction to the opposite edge on the other foot in an opposite direction. This should on no account be confused with the Mohawk, a step from either edge on one foot in one direction to the same edge on the other foot in an opposite direction. Don’t try either at home.

3d Essayist’s harsh attack about capital (6)
A four-letter word for an attack contains the usual abbreviation for ‘upper-case’, shown by Chambers as representing ‘upper-case, ie capital’. It’s an odds-on chance that an ‘essayist’ will turn out to be Charles Lamb, aka Elia, and so it proves here.

5d Muslim of glorious memory has endless bubbliness (5)
The word HAS without its last letter (‘endless’) is followed by a word for ‘bubbliness’ that you might think has also lost its terminal character, but the three-letter form is an alternative spelling given by Chambers. The meaning given by that volume to the answer will explain the definition.

7d Shrines for holy ones, erected like Gaudi’s masterpiece mostly? (6)
Like the word which is going upwards (‘erected’) here, the masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi is unfinished. He started work on the ??????? Familia in Barcelona in 1883, and less than a quarter of the building was finished at the time of his death in 1926. The Spanish Civil War brought construction to a halt, although it was restarted in the 1950s and the thing is now more than half complete; another hundred years or so ought to do the trick, although it seems that some of the biggest constructional challenges remain. In 2010, what there is of it was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

10d Source of oil is shortly found in pork lard (6)
One of those clues that may involve getting the answer from the definition and working back to understand the wordplay, where a shortened form of ‘is’ is contained by (‘found in’) a word for lard made from pork fat, which isn’t shown by Chambers or OED as being obsolete but which I don’t remember coming across in Delia’s Complete Cookery Course.

11d Small monkey, one dashed off by Venetian master (4)
A two-letter word meaning ‘one’ is removed from (‘dashed off’) the name given in English to Tiziano Vecelli, the great Italian Renaissance painter who features in a rather fine limerick of my acquaintance, which I won’t include here for fear that it might prove a touch too risqué for the sensibilities of one regular correspondent 😉.

15d Beauty husband cut, a composite – great mishap (8)
An informal word for a beauty (along the lines of ‘peach’) with the usual abbreviation for ‘husband’ removed (‘cut’) is followed by the name of a familiar plant belonging to the Compositae (see the definition of ‘composite’ in Chambers).

19d Short blades and so on alternating with call for help (6)
The letters of a three-latter abbreviation meaning ‘and so on’ and  a three-letter appeal for help are regularly interwoven (‘alternating’) to produce the answer.

20d RC decoration encountered around part of Yorkshire? (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘encountered’  contains (‘around’) the sort of thing that you would be very disappointed not to see if you booked a holiday in a particular area of Yorkshire.

27d Second-rate tea, black – gosh! – with running water added (5)
A charade of the usual abbreviation for ‘black’, a two-letter exclamation of surprise (ie ‘gosh!’), and a dialect word for running water which frequently flows through cryptic clues.

28d Belief in supposed force? Nothing to uncover – ask away (5)
The single letter representing ‘nothing’ is followed by a seven-letter word meaning ‘to uncover’, from which the consecutive letters ASK have been omitted (‘ask away’).

(definitions are underlined)

In the absence of the puzzle on the Guardian website, and with thanks to Roslyn,  I have uploaded a copy of the scan to the Clue Clinic.

The notes on the puzzle will be available later. I will remove this post from the front page when the puzzle eventually appears on the Guardian site.

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,711 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A plain competition puzzle which I probably made harder work of than I needed to, but I would still rate it as close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. It struck me as being a perfectly good crossword, though perhaps lacking the élan of Azed’s very finest. The word ‘about’ appears as a containment indicator in no fewer than four clues, which seems to me like three too many.

Clue Writers’ Corner: There are certain ‘tricks’ that setters have to enable them to improve a surface reading without destroying the cryptic reading of a clue; these can  come in very handy on occasion. Azed uses some of his favourites in this puzzle:

1. Words linking the wordplay to the definition, or vice versa. In 15d, the wordplay is ‘getting’ the definition, while in 18a, the definition is ‘showing’ the wordplay; without these linking words the clues would make no sense.
2. Foreshadowing a wordplay element such that it can be referenced later in the clue. 5a is a good example of this, where the ‘Scotch stuff’ serves to introduce a word which does not become actively involved in the wordplay until it appears as ‘that’ at the end of the clue. The succinct version of the clue, ‘Glittering secretive about Scotch stuff’, is meaningless.
3. Using a pronoun to represent the solution, eg “I’m fat” for LARD. Plenty of examples here, including the ‘it’ in 3d (standing in for an adjective) and 4d (for a noun). The ‘She’ in 33a has two purposes – to represent the answer and to indicate that it is a feminine form.

If you’ve got a got a promising clue that nearly works – but not quite – then if you’ve run out of options in terms of changing individual words, look at how the clue might be rephrased to get round the problem. If you still can’t fix the issue, then it is probably time to ‘park’ that idea and try something else. You can always come back to it, but there’s no point submitting a clue which you know is unsatisfactory, no matter how much you like the concept.

Across

5a Glittering Scotch stuff – secretive about that (7)
A three-letter word for ‘secretive’ contains (‘about’) a Scots word meaning ‘[to] stuff’ (‘that’, ie ‘Scotch stuff’)

10a Couple of queens or a threesome? (9)
The question mark here really belongs to the ‘couple of queens’, suggesting a (4,5) phrase which equates to the (4-5) solution. In my youthful days (and long, long nights) of playing three card brag, we used to call this sort of threesome a ‘prial’ (though at the time I had no idea of its derivation, nor of how it was spelt, assuming that it was probably ‘prile’), with a prial of 3’s being the best hand of all (its happy arrival far too often coinciding with all the other players being dealt complete rubbish).

12a Sugary enzyme contained in blood vessel, right inside (8)
A (2,4) phrase meaning ‘contained in blood vessel’ (I would have preferred ‘contained by’, otherwise why bother with ‘contained’ at all) has the two-letter abbreviation for ‘right’ put inside.

16a Harsh tax north of the border about clear (8)
A five-letter Scottish tax (or a device to keep a bodily vessel such as that in 12a open) contains a word meaning ‘[to] clear’ (often indicated in cryptic clues by ‘free’).

18a One in suit showing the human body back to front (5)
‘Human body’ is probably one of the less familiar meanings of the word which is not to be turned the wrong way round but is to have the last letter (its back) moved to the start (its front); a more familiar meaning would be ‘the world’.

23a System for weighing left page caught in publicity (5)
Here the ‘left page’ doesn’t lead to two single-letter abbreviations, rather the two-letter abbreviation for the left-hand page of an open book. This is contained by (‘caught in’) a word for ‘publicity’, this one often indicated in cryptics by ‘broadcast’. The answer is the abbreviation referred to in the postamble.

27a Iris, not the character to lead in folk dance (5)
The name given to a type of English folk dance is deprived of its first letter (‘not the character to lead’) in order to produce the answer.

32a SA chap involved in disturbed matter with English, a minor affair (9)
A two-letter informal South African word for a man is contained by (‘involved in’) an anagram (‘disturbed’) of MATTER, the whole lot being followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘English’.

34a Will’s beetle we released from prong? (4)
The consecutive letters WE (from the clue) are released from a six-letter word for a type of prong used in cookery, the result being a Shakespearean word – this is Azed, so we can be pretty sure that the ‘beetle’ is not a relation of Alexander, but what Alexander chose to do after Nanny mistakenly opened the door of his match-box house.

Down

2d Start of hole in tooth causing anxiety (7)
A cryptic mindset is generally very helpful when reading clues, but here I saw ‘Start of hole’ and immediately translated it into H. As I eventually worked out, that isn’t what needs to be put inside a four-letter word for a tooth, instead it is a term for the starting point of a hole at golf.

3d Note Mac’s ball comes in – it’s not appropriate for wicket (7)
A Scots word for a ball ‘comes in’ (ie ‘arrives inside’) the sort of note that might be found in a wallet. The definition is intended to suggest that the (4-3) adjective which results would be inappropriate to describe a wicket gate.

4d Lung infection about over – it lasts a very long time (5)
The acronym applied to a respiratory disease first identified in 2002 contains (‘about’) the usual cricketing abbreviation for ‘over’. A cycle of 6,585 days (and eight hours) might seem astronomical enough, but in Babylon the answer here was the name given to the number 3,600, and thus (supposedly) to a period of 3,600 years, although a contrasting view that it consisted of 3,600 days has been proposed in order to rationalize the seemingly incredible statements of Berossos with regard to the lengths of the reigns of the antediluvian kings of Babylon.

9d Non-professional, i.e. amateur, I’ll appear in left centre (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘amateur’ and the letter I (from the clue) are contained by the theatrical abbreviation for ‘left centre’.

15d Resentment about wretch getting trading licence (8)
A five-letter word for ‘resentment’ or ‘vexation caused by wounded pride’ contains (‘about’, once again) a word for a wretch or a despicable person.

20d Give a ticking-off for singular mess (7)
In its plural form, the singular answer can be a mess, or nonsense; as it appears here, it means something along the lines of ‘[to] give a ticking-off’, although I think that might suggest something rather milder. It is usually seen as the verbal noun, eg in this snippet from the TLS:

Sir John French, CIGS, came down for open day at ‘The Shop’, gave everyone a ???????ing for slackness and indiscipline, and shortly afterwards retired the Commandant.

25d Liquors (Scotch) making pound by the sound of it (5)
The homophone could be for ‘beers (English)’ as well as ‘[to] pound’ (the required meaning of the latter is confirmed by Chambers).

26d Heads for the Levant, food containing hint of spice (5)
I was less interested by ‘Heads for’ as a first letter selection indicator than ‘Start of’ in 2d, ‘TL’ being an unlikely start to a word (‘Tlingit’ notwithstanding). An informal term for food contains the first letter (‘hint’) of SPICE; the second definition in Chambers for ‘Levant’ makes it a perfect fit in this clue, by dint not just of its sense but also of its age.

(definitions are underlined)

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,710 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

The recent numbering issue seems to have been sorted out on the Guardian website, which this week brings us a puzzle that I found hard to assess from a difficulty perspective. Very few ‘gimmes’, but nothing that took me too long to solve/parse either, so I’ve taken the easy way out and put it right in the middle of the range.

Incidentally, I see that in the solution notes for 2,707, Azed confirms that the ‘itchy’ word in 8d that was reduced by half was indeed PRURIENT; this always seemed more likely than the equally valid, but less familiar, PRURITIC.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 33a, “Club court (5)”. Clues consisting of just two words are likely to be of the ‘double definition’ sort, and so it proves here. The ‘club’ is a golf club, while the ‘court’ is a verb, having the the sense of ‘to woo’. This is a good example of a ‘2 defs’ clue, a type which when nicely executed will fulfil certain basic criteria. First and foremost, the definitions must lead either to two entirely different words or (as here) two completely  different senses of the same word – ‘Be careful to pay attention’ for MIND would be a very poor clue. Misdirection is important – suggesting different parts of speech in the surface reading is good (here ‘court’ appears to be a noun but is a verb in the cryptic reading), likewise (particularly if the two definitions relate to the same headword) the definitions being of different parts of speech. Glaringly obvious senses of the word(s) being defined should be avoided, and the clue as a whole should establish a misleading context (here, tennis). The word clued is almost certain to be relatively short, and at least one sense should be familiar to most, if not all, solvers. Double definition clues can add variety to a puzzle and be enjoyable to solve, but they should not be overused, and as much care should go into their construction as any other sort of clue.

So let’s pick a word with plenty of meanings, SPOT. Informal or slang senses can be a good place to start, and ‘spot’ has an informal meaning of ‘a small quantity’. A one-word synonym  is ‘little’, a noun which could appear to be an adjective in the surface reading. What about meanings of the verb ‘spot’? A familiar sense is ‘to notice’, and ‘notice’ can also serve as a noun. If we put the two together, we end up with ‘Little notice’. Before using the clue, we need to ask ourselves whether it could lead to more than one valid answer – a double definition clue for SPOT could easily lead also to MARK. This one looks ok, and while it’s not a great clue it shows how a respectable  double definition clue can be put together.

Across

1a Trip freely with disco music around – such as this? (7)
An anagram (‘freely’) of TRIP has a three-letter  informal word for a dance with pop music (‘disco music’ doesn’t quite hit the spot for me) put outside it (‘with … around’) to produce the name of a musical genre to which Damon Albarn and the Gallagher brothers made telling contributions. Which makes me think of Noel’s description of Liam, ‘a man with a fork in a world of soup’.

14a Dull shrub found around foreign state (8)
A four-letter shrub (which shares its name with the cupbearer of Olympus) contains (‘around’) the French word for a state, the result being one of those ‘formal’ words which largely remain captive in thesauri.

16a Lizard to pester losing tail, last character thereof? (6)
A five-letter word meaning ‘to pester’ is deprived of its last letter (‘losing tail’) and is followed by the name of the letter at the end of ‘tail’ (‘last character thereof’, ie of ‘tail’).

19a Convert a degree making switch – little new in that (8)
An anagram (‘making switch’) of A DEGREE includes the usual abbreviation for ‘new’ (‘little new in that’).

21a At a display, in being admitted (8)
The letter A (from the clue) and a five-letter word for ‘display’ (particularly of the ‘pomp and ceremonial dignity’ sort) contain the letters IN (again from the clue, ‘in being admitted’). The definition is not a word but a symbol.

27a Develop fondness, returning half of it (6)
A four-letter word for ‘fondness’ is reversed (‘returning’) ahead of the same word (in the normal direction) with half missing (‘half of it’, ‘it’ being the fondness word).

31a With duty performed, we hear, as directed (4)
I think Azed has been a bit naughty with this homophone clue. He is using ‘performed’ in the sense of ‘rendered’, but it’s a bit of a stretch. The answer sounds like a word meaning ‘with tax charged’.

32a Feature of wartime, castle holding on a bit, battered (10, 2 words)
The castle here is not in the air or Spain, but on the chessboard. It is seen containing (‘holding’) an anagram (‘battered’) of ON A BIT to produce a (6,4) solution.

Down

1d Little weak hush oddly retained by supporters, country-dwellers (12)
An anagram (‘oddly’) of the usual abbreviation for ‘weak’ (‘little weak’) and HUSH is contained (‘retained’) by a seven-letter word for supporters.

2d Rat tailed quivering mouse, spurred? (7)
The word RAT (from the clue) has its last letter removed (‘tailed’) and is followed by an anagram (‘quivering’) of MOUSE.

6d Those heartlessly after poet’s favour, keening for him (6)
I’m not too keen (no pun intended) on clues like this, where both the answer and an element of the wordplay are obscure words, albeit the latter here is a variant spelling of a more familiar word. The outside letters of THESE (‘these heartlessly’) come after a word for ‘favour’ given by Chambers as Spenserian. It had been around for a while before he used it, and it survived for a while longer, at least in the phrase ‘good ????’ or ‘goodly ????’.

8d Tree creature, passerine but not German (4)
A seven-letter word for ‘any passerine bird of the S American subfamily Thraupinae, closely related to the buntings’ has the three-letter letter abbreviation for ‘Germany’ omitted (‘not German’). The answer is confirmed by Chambers but perhaps erroneously, as it seems that the correct name of the critter in question is ‘Tupaia ????’.

9d Page with English lord, devious and pathetic, one laying claim to throne (12, 2 words)
An anagram (‘devious’) of the usual abbreviations for ‘page’ and ‘English’ together with LORD is followed by a word which has a meaning of ‘pathetic’ but is more familiar in its sense of ‘soft’ or ‘delicate’. I cannot see the (3,9) solution without thinking of Percy Warmneck.

12d Bucks, last in bank, stuff labelled ‘audit’ (4)
The last letter of ‘bank’ combines with the type of drink which was brewed for the day of audit at some Oxford and Cambridge colleges, producing a US slang word for money. The definition requires no geographical qualification, since ‘bucks’ in the sense of moolah is similarly North American.

15d Sedge plant yielding unpleasant smell, dry in Congo grown wild (9, 2 words)
A two-letter abbreviation for an unpleasant smell is followed by an abbreviation of similar length indicating abstinence from strong liquor contained by an anagram (‘grown wild’) of CONGO. The solution is (3,6).

20d Underrate fee, about to wash up (7)
A three-letter ‘fee’ or thing owed contains (‘about’) a reversal of an archaic word meaning ‘to wash’.

22d Men in the field dismissing bat for quid pro quo (6)
A nine-letter word meaning ‘a body of men drawn up in battle array’ has the consecutive letters BAT removed (‘dismissing bat’), the result being an old legal word meaning something along the lines of ‘tit for tat’.

28d Nick part of hiking kit, bed removed (4)
An eight-letter word for something that could well be carried on a hiking trip has a four-letter word for a bed (of the sort you might ‘hit’ when retiring) omitted (‘removed’).

(definitions are underlined)