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 2,699 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

For the first time in several years, I had the pleasure of solving an Azed puzzle in the newspaper itself, since we were staying within walking distance of a newsagent. I say ‘pleasure’, though actually I think the usual printed PDF is probably a bit easier to read and is nice and flat when attached to my crossword clipboard. Anyway, this one seemed to me probably the easiest for some while, helped by all four of the twelve-letter answers being anagrams. 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 13a, “Kitchen essential maiden kept in range down under (5)”. The usual abbreviation for ‘maiden’ (as in ‘He appeared at Lord’s and bowled a maiden over’) is contained by a Tasmanian term for a mountain range, producing a generic term for what I still think of as a ‘Pinger’ (we had a red one at home). A few weeks ago, a correspondent in Scotland queried, very reasonably, the use of ‘over the border’ (or the like) to indicate a Scots word. So what about ‘down under’ to suggest an Australianism, since if you are solving the puzzle in the US (or, indeed, Australia) then Tasmania is far from being diametrically opposite. However, a quick look in Chambers should allay any concerns: ‘down under’ is given as ‘in or to Australia and New Zealand’, so even in the global cruciverbal village there is no problem with a clue like this.

Across

1a Leaving vessel for a quick break? (9)
A three-letter word meaning ‘leaving’ and a six-letter vessel (a small one with a single mast) combine to produce a 3-6 term for a quick delivery at cricket which ‘breaks’ back at a right-handed batter.

14a Pub device next to Scotch, we hear (4)
A somewhat unconventional homophone clue, where the answer is a common word while the ‘sounds-like’ word is a Scots (ie ‘to Scotch’) one meaning ‘next’, most commonly heard as the last part of a (4,4,4) phrase which is sung whilst linking arms in quasi-masonic fashion.

15a A hydrous sulphate, one found in Morocco? (7)
A four-letter word for ‘one’ or ‘a single thing’ is contained by a three-letter term exemplified (hence the question mark) by ‘Morocco’ (see Chambers) or ‘mild’.

19a Two measures (large then small), component of stiffeners (6)
The first measure relates to 500lb of cotton, such as was picked by Lonnie Donegan and many others, while the second is a small unit of measurement from the printing trade, surely familiar to all crossword solvers. Is the answer a component of stiffeners? Corset is!

20a Volume to fail thus will make one sick (4)
When the usual abbreviation for ‘volume’ is followed by the solution (ie ‘to fail thus’), it makes a word meaning ‘sick’ (probably the noun is intended, although it could be the verb).

24a Last of tail, I’m out bowled, in the last period (6)
An anagram (‘bowled’) of the last letter (‘last’) of TAIL and I’M OUT, though I feel that ‘bowled’ (‘rolled or trundled’) is a little questionable as an anagram indicator.

33a To eat carefully, I avoided beef and cut out unhealthy stuff (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘to eat carefully’ is deprived of the letter I (‘I avoided’) and followed by a two-letter word for ‘beef’.

Down

2d One of biblical trio, I’ll be welcomed by padre without hesitation (5)
I (from the clue) is contained (‘welcomed’) by a six-letter word (the English translation of the Spanish or Italian ‘padre’) from which a two-letter ‘hesitation’ has been removed. The other members of the trio could be Good and Sweet.

4d Ancient tele needs adjusting with this – it makes a grumbling sound (12, 2 words)
The point of interest here is that the anagram fodder which ‘needs adjusting’ is ANCIENT TELE plus the single letter equating to the answer. This question is of purely academic interest, but since that letter appears at the end of the entry, is it necessarily part of the anagram fodder? As the clue is written, yes, because of the main verb ‘needs’; if the clue started ‘Ancient tele adjusted with this’, then it wouldn’t have to be.

6d Position of first in field, not second notice phoned in (6)
A (3,4) phrase describing the position of a runner (say) who is ahead of all the others in a race has its second letter omitted in order to produce the solution.

10d Mourn about a term sadly, Dido’s end in pyre? (9)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] mourn’ contains an anagram (‘sadly’) of A TERM followed by the last letter (‘end’) of DIDO.

12d Insects sank (so it’s said) with age (7)
I’m no fan of the partial homophone where the part of the answer contributed by the homophone is not a real word. Where it is a real word, I’m a little happier – so I can live with ‘said to observe heather’ for SEALING, but not for CEILING. Here the homophone for ‘sank’ provides a non-word constituting the first four letters of the answer, with a synonym for ‘age’ responsible for the remaining three.

16d Junior journo is in team, to help with grant (9)
A three-letter informal term for a journalist who typically writes, edits and proofreads articles is followed by the letters IS (from the clue) inside a four-letter word for a team.

21d Master that is holding children up for history error maybe (7)
Here we have the usual abbreviations for ‘master’ and ‘that is’ (in its Latin form), with the latter containing (‘holding’) a reversal (‘up’) of a four-letter word for ‘children’ – not one of the obvious ones like ‘kids’, but the plural of a word given by Chambers as an informal, especially North American, term for ‘a little lad’.

23d Regular tried a little, second (or third) coming first (6)
A six-letter word meaning ‘tried a little (bit of something)’ has the usual abbreviation for ‘second’ moved to the start (‘coming first’). The alternative ‘fork’ in the wordplay sees the third letter of the word moved to the start, the effect being exactly the same.

29d Eye up European badgers as a group (4)
The ‘eye’ that must be reversed (‘up’) ahead of the usual abbreviation for ‘European’ is of the private sort, being an informal term for an investigator.

(definitions are underlined)

Due to a staff outing, the notes for Azed 2,699 will be published rather later than usual.

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 2,698 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

I felt this one was close to the middle of the difficulty range, perhaps slightly below – the two (8,5) entries at top and bottom were very straightforward, but they were to a degree balanced by a few trickier clues for shorter answers. There were some neat clues, including a couple of nice double definitions.

Clue Writers’ Corner: A word which is applied to a person fulfilling a role gives the clue writer a lot of options when it comes to the definition. COSTERMONGER, for instance, could simply be defined as ‘Person who sells fruit from a barrow’. But that would be pretty dull, and certainly won’t impress the judge in a clue-writing competition. We can make it more personal (‘She sells fruit’), or completely impersonal (‘Source of fruit’). We can start to move away from the terms that would be found in a dictionary, eg ‘Wheeler-dealer’. But there’s no need to stop there – introducing potentiality (thus effectively producing a definition by example) broadens our range further: ‘You could ask me for a date’ or ‘Conferences might be my speciality’. Or we could get back to the dictionary definition but apply some heavy disguise, eg ‘I use mobile trading platform’.

Across

11a Sedge plant? Sign of what’s wrong after oversight (5)
The single-letter “sign of what’s wrong” follows a familiar word meaning oversight in the sense of supervision.

12a Clown, one of pair in circus to take offence (5)
The only letter which appears twice in CIRCUS (ie ‘one of pair in circus’) is followed by a word meaning ‘to take offence’ (probably more often seen describing the resulting sulks), the whole being a rustic, boor, churl, or clown, as well as a term ‘generally applied opprobriously, with a fitting epithet, to any person disliked’.

19a Wages shown in great detail (5)
A double definition, the second of which leads to a (2-3) shortened form of a longer adjective.

22a Corps in Indian army – does it feature in Aida? (5)
The standard single-letter abbreviation for ‘corps’ is contained by the Hindi word for an army, often used with a qualifier to identify a particular paramilitary force.

24a Delhi woodbine? I now hold one lit maybe (5)
A composite anagram &lit, where the letters of DELHI WOODBINE when rearranged (‘lit’, ie drunk) can form I NOW HOLD plus the solution (‘one’). The whole clue stands as an indication of the answer.

28a Crazy, getting tiddly tucking into that spirit (5)
A three-letter word for ‘crazy’ has a two-letter adverb meaning ‘on the way to being drunk’ (ie ‘getting tiddly’) put inside it (‘tucking into that’). I don’t like ‘tucking into’ (rather than ‘tucked into’) as an insertion indicator – the only meaning generally ascribed to it is along the lines of ‘feeding heartily or greedily on’. I would  prefer something like ‘Crazy, becoming tiddly getting stuck into that spirit’.

31a No longer sharp, impudent one covers rampant acne (8)
The four-letter word which contains (‘covers’) an anagram (‘rampant’) of ACNE is a term for an impudent person, much more often seen as an adjective meaning ‘impudent’ or ‘saucy’.

33a Idol in review that is circulating (5)
An informal short form of an eight-letter word for a review or periodical has the usual pair of letters representing ‘that is’ outside (‘circulating’).

Down

2d Equipment left under sacking on lake (8)
A three-letter word for a piece of sacking put over a chest of tea or under a feather bed is followed by (‘on’) the name of the lake which is number eleven in the global surface area rankings and surely number one in the cryptic crossword popularity charts. The usual abbreviation for ‘left’ brings up the rear, being ‘under’ the rest.

3d End snapped off pump handle in S. African briny (4)
A five-letter word for a pump handle (or something operated by hand or foot in a car) has its last letter removed (‘end snapped off’) to produce a South African word which can be applied to water containing a significant amount of salt.

5d Fielder removing top to display bags (5)
The name of a cricket fielding position is deprived of the consecutive letters TOP (‘removing top’) to produce the solution. Once a key position (WG Grace wrote of ‘the most expert ????-????ers at the time when ????-???? was even of more importance than the wicket-keeper’), it has no place in the modern game – Ben Foakes would be pretty miffed if Stokesy put a fielder there during the next test match.

7d Fish and fruit leaving dock (4)
An eight-letter fruit, specifically a large, pear-shaped one, has the consecutive letters DOCK omitted (‘leaving dock’). The fruit is so named because it was originally introduced to Barbados by the Captain of an East India ship who is not responsible for also introducing the expressions ‘suffering catfish’ and ‘blistering barnacles’.

8d Set of connected data from page penned in a rush (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘page’ is contained by (‘penned in’) the name given to two species of Californian bulrush. The answer is a suffix appropriated by technologists to describe a single set of values within a table of a relational database (eg ‘2695, Give & Take, Non-competition’ or ‘2698, Plain, Competition’ in a table of Azed puzzle types); ‘row’ is more commonly used, with the word here normally being confined to consideration of the internal structure of the table.

12d Tired old joke dispensed with head in treasury (5)
An eight-letter ‘tired old joke’ has a three-letter word for a head taken away. I don’t know why Azed has used a past active tense (‘dispensed with’) here, as this is not considered legitimate in cryptic wordplay (indicating something that happened in the past, rather than a state in the present or future). It needs to be ‘… joke dispensing with…’ or ‘…head dispensed with…’.

16d Toby has installed new metal for parts of door frame (8)
There are a couple of three-letter words that ‘Toby’ might lead to, and the one we want here doesn’t begin with a J. The alternative, together with an S on the end (‘has’), contains the usual abbreviation for ‘new’ and the name of a particular metal. As with 16, the verb form in the wordplay is unsatisfactory – ‘X installed Y’ doesn’t equate to ‘X with Y installed’. If it read ‘Toby has new metal installed…’ I might have had a little moan about the missing comma, but it would certainly have been preferable.

20d Antibody to do with gettin’ older (6)
If the two-letter piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’ or ‘to do with’ were to be declared offensive, it would mark a black day for setters (though I don’t think it would have any significance for Mary Poppins). Here it is followed by a five-letter word for ‘getting older’ which has been contracted analogously to “gettin””.

25d Very Burnsian sentences (5)
The first definition here indicates that the answer is a Scots word meaning ‘very’; the second turns out to be a verb.

29d Single explosion creates this damage round centre of volcanoes (4)
The tricky thing about this clue is working out where the definition stops and the wordplay begins. A word meaning ‘[to] damage’ goes round the middle letter (‘centre’) of VOLCANOES.

(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 2,697 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I made steady progress through this puzzle, but the number of clues which I marked as being worthy of comment suggested that it was at least in the middle of the difficulty range, perhaps even a scintilla above the halfway mark. Some entertaining clues, and only a couple of things with which I would take (minor) issue.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 13a, “Fruit creation of banana with raspberries (5)”. The name of a melon-like fruit is made up of a chunk at the end of ‘banana’ and a slightly bigger one from the start of ‘raspberries’. The ‘hidden’ clue (aka the ‘lurker’) is probably the easiest sort of all to solve, as the letters that make up the answer are not only in plain view but are in the correct order (or the exact opposite thereof in a ‘reverse hidden’, or ‘rekrul’). They are therefore very handy for providing the solver with a route into a puzzle, particularly a tricky one, but should not be overused – I would suggest  including no more than two in a normal puzzle, and certainly not going beyond three. The challenge for setters is to make them interesting – ‘Chap in Germany (3)’ for MAN is both very easy and very dull. Try to use a natural-sounding phrase as the hiding place, and look at using either a less familiar ‘hidden’ indicator (eg ‘quantity of valuable antiques’ for LEAN) or one of the many containment indicators which can legitimately suggest that one string is to be found within another (eg ‘several male nurses’ for ALMA). Another ploy, seen in the clue here, is to split the hiding place such that solvers have to butt the two pieces together, eg ‘caught between Scylla and Charybdis’ for ACHAR. It’s not exactly a ‘hidden’, but an appropriate clue to finish on is this one from John Henderson: ‘The real reason for the merger meeting of Volkswagen and Daimler? (6,6)’.

Across

11a Reduced height pursued by planes, very fine (8)
I know I said there wasn’t much for me to take issue with, but I think that indicating the seven-letter word which follows the usual abbreviation for ‘height’ (‘reduced height’) by ‘planes’ is pushing things. ‘Route of planes’ or ‘plane operator’ would have been fine.

12a Salad garnish Escoffier’s devised – not the off-licence! (5)
A five-letter informal term for an off-licence is removed from ESCOFFIER’S (ie ‘not the off-licence’) before the remainder is rearranged (‘devised’) to produce the answer.

15a Against hazard I released fish (5)
A two-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘against’ is followed by a word for a hazard (of the sort that frequently needs to be assessed these days) from which the letter I has been omitted (‘released’).

17a Rape without passion, ecstasy, look, being limited (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘without passion’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘ecstasy’ and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] look’ contained within it (‘being limited’).

19a Shellfish tooth, bits in the wrong order (5)
A five-letter word for a tooth or a notch (its Latin meaning), the stem of a longer adjective meaning ‘furnished with battlements’, has its first three letters exchanged with its last two (‘bits in the wrong order’). The result is the shellfish which yields mother-of-pearl.

25a Turk requiring fragrant stuff, tiny amount applied (8)
A charade of two four-letters words, the first being a fragrant oil (and Bismarck’s first name), the second a small amount or a tiny arachnid.

28a Corneal deposit? Philosopher has me accepting this (5)
When the answer is accepted (ie contained) by the letters ME, the result is the surname of a German-American philosopher who was influential in the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research (the ‘Frankfurt School’). In the early 1930s he fled to Geneva and thence to the USA, where the Institute was re-established. He served as an intelligence officer in WWII, and remained in the US when the Institute returned to Europe. He came to wider attention at the age of 66 with the publication in 1964 of One Dimensional Man, which condemned the ‘repressive tolerance’ of modern industrial society and saw students as the alienated elite who would sort things out. They did try, briefly.

34a Boy trapping sea birds – does it help to support budget? (8)
A three-letter ‘familiar form of address’ to a boy contains (‘trapping’) sea birds which are related to gulls and come in various forms; I still recall being attacked by one of the Arctic variety on Inner Farne (thankfully I was, as advised wearing a hat, since they tend to go for the highest bit of anyone they don’t like the look of). I suspect that the answer to the question posed in the definition, might strictly speaking be ‘no’, although a budget is ‘a fixed rudder on a barge’ so we know where Azed is coming from.

Down

2d Old woman’s taken over shift in Scotsman’s cravat (7)
The single-letter abbreviations for ‘old’ (standard) and “woman’s” (an invention of Azed, not infrequently seen) are placed above a word for a relieving shift (or a team race involving such ‘shifts’). The first four letters of the solution constitute the Scots form of a familiar preposition, and the answer is to be found in Chambers under the entry for the latter (there is an indication of where to look against the entry for the former).

3d Final exam one’s working on in overcoat (7, 2 words)
A two-letter preposition meaning ‘working on’, almost invariably in the phrase ‘?? it’, is contained by a coarse jacket in the Levant (and a slang term for a rough great-coat). The answer is (5,2), and is something that one might work towards at Cambridge University. In the cryptic reading, “one’s” could be taken as ‘one is’ (ie the final exam is the result of the wordplay) or ‘one has’ (ie the solver has a two-letter word inside a five-letter one’) – it makes no difference to the rest of the clue.

4d Mug for pet? (4)
The two words that share a spelling in this double definition clue appear in the required senses in this ‘joke’ (I use the word loosely – though it isn’t a ‘dad joke’ because I’m pretty sure my mum told it to me) from the late 1960s or thereabouts: “Don’t put the cat in the washing machine – you might get a sock in the ????”.

9d Drudge had nothing on disposing of bundle outside (5)
The wordplay here involves a (3,5) phrase meaning ‘has nothing on’ (like Adam pre-fig leaf) losing (‘disposing of’) a three-letter word for a bundle from its outside. I wasn’t conversant with the ‘drudge’ meaning of the answer, a word which post-fig leaf Adam had reason to remember.

16d Writer, English, gets wind up inside like a lot of old fossils (8)
The combination of a three-letter word for a ‘writer’ which will be familiar to all solvers of cryptics (but is not the author of “Swann’s Way”) and the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ is placed around (‘gets…inside’) a reversal (‘up’) of a word meaning ‘[to] coil’.

21d Backhand stroke fashioned by Rafa initially to a great extent (7)
The first letter (‘initially’) of ‘Rafa’ is followed by a (4,2) expression meaning ‘to a great extent’. The stroke in questioned would be executed not with a tennis racket but a sword or dagger.

23d Sad sack following one in a fog (6)
I remember reading the Sad Sack comic strips in my youth (I had a lot of American comic books, though I’m not sure where I got them from), but having no idea what a ‘sad sack’ was. I likewise missed the point of some of the names of D.C. Thomson comic strips and characters therein which had clearly been thought up in Dundee (‘King Gussie’ being one that particularly puzzled me). Anyway, the synonym required here is produced by putting the usual abbreviation for ‘following’ and the Roman numeral representing ‘one’ inside a familiar word for a fog.

24d Jacques maybe going topless, about right get-up (6)
The diminutive Jacques whom Eric Sykes referred to as ‘Harriet’ loses her first letter and is placed ‘about’ the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘right’.

26d Sojourn in vague W. European area of old? No thanks (5)
A ‘name given from the 14c by W European peoples to a vast, ill-defined area of E Europe and Asia’ is deprived of a two-letter informal form of ‘thanks’ (ie ‘no thanks’).

27d Bunter was part of it, forgetting Latin in tests (5)
A six-letter word for ‘tests’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘Latin’ removed, the result having nothing to do with the Fat Owl of the Remove or Lord Peter Wimsey, and everything to do with a series of strata, the other divisions of which are Muschelkalk and Keuper.

(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 2,696 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Having received a scan of the puzzle from Roslyn in time for breakfast, I made a quick start on this puzzle, but when it came to the bottom half in particular I thought there were some tricky parsings that raised the overall difficulty at least to the halfway mark. I wonder if it might even be slightly above the mid-point. Anyway, it was an entertaining solve.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 12d, “Is at MGM flicks after wine? It affects viewing badly”. The straightforward wordplay has an anagram of IS AT MGM following a four-letter sparkling wine which will be familiar to all solvers even if they’ve never touched a drop, and the surface reading is nice. The problem is that the latter is achieved only through the use of ‘flicks’ as an anagram indicator, and a look in Chambers confirms that while ‘flick’ can mean ‘to move or touch lightly and quickly’, it exists only in a transitive form. So you can flick a speck of dust or a Subbuteo man/lady, but you can’t just flick. One might argue that the OED gives an intransitive sense of ‘to move with quick vibrations’, but the OED offers all manner of meanings which crossword solvers cannot possibly be expected to know or be able to track down. Sometimes when writing clues one has to accept that there is simply not a word (here an anagram indicator) which can legitimately fulfil the required cryptic role in your proposed clue without destroying the surface reading, and that is the time for a complete rethink. Don’t be tempted to submit a clue which you know in your hear doesn’t work.

Across

7a Hooter signalling special police (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘special’ is followed by a four-letter word for ‘police’. Chambers might seem to indicate that the answer on its own is not sufficient to satisfy the definition, but others sources suggest that it is.

13a Silly tailor about to make mess of bright summer wear (10, 2 words)
An anagram (‘silly’) of TAILOR containing (‘about’) a four-letter word meaning ‘to make a mess of’ or ‘to hack about’ produces a (5,5) garment which some might feel should never have been allowed outside Honolulu.

14a Fencer no longer confident, pierced by delinquent? (8)
A familiar four-letter word meaning ‘confident’ contains (‘pierced by’) an informal term for an offender, of which a delinquent could be a youthful example (hence the question mark).

15a Meal of foreign brand (discontinued) (5)
A three-letter meal (and drink) is followed by a foreign word meaning ‘of’ (‘of foreign’) to produce a term for a resinous piece of pine used as a torch (ie ‘brand’) not seen since Elizabethan times (‘discontinued’).

26a I’m turned out in fur, long, outworn (4)
It might cross your mind that this could be a double definition clue, and had it started “I’m turned out in feathers…” then it could have been. But as it stands the wordplay involves a six-letter type of fur associated with the nobility having the reversed form (‘turned’) of IM removed (‘out’). The ‘outworn’ indicates that the answer is past its best before date, being shown by Chambers as Spenserian.

27a Favourite sweet’s middle in pecan nuts, a craving (9)
A three-letter word for a favourite and the middle letter of SWEET are contained by an anagram (‘nuts’) of PECAN.

29a Last in boozer moving forward, part of mass (5)
A word for a habitual heavy drinker has its last letter brought forward, producing ‘a phrase formerly interpolated in different parts of the mass’. Is that ‘part of mass’? Probably close enough, although some suggestion of that ‘formerly’ would have been good.

32a I’ll enter sale – pipe down (5, 2 words)
The letter I (from the clue) is contained by (‘[wi]ll enter’) a (chiefly Irish) word for a sale by auction, a homograph of which means ‘ a hypocritical, affected or perfunctory style of speech or thought’. The (3,2) solution is an instruction no doubt frequently heard in H. J. Heinz’s Wigan plant.

33a Member of strict order requiring waterproof before liturgy (8)
A charade of two four-letter words, the first being a traditional Japanese garment made of straw and combining pretty good rain protection with a rather poor fire rating. The second part is a word not just for a liturgy but also for any sort of religious ceremony.

Down

2d Little old boat, not once having a portable phone installed (7)
The two-letter obsolete form of ‘not’ frequently indicated in cryptics as ‘not old’ or ‘not once’ has the letter A (from the clue) and a four-letter informal term for a mobile phone (derived from what it connects to) inserted (‘installed’). The answer is more frequently seen describing an engine housing, the basket of a balloon or the gondola of an airship, but the long-obsolete meaning of ‘a little boat’ is the original one.

3d Filling stations? There’s fury when their supply is out (7)
A four-letter word for ‘fury’ has a word for what filling stations supply (given by Chambers as ‘N American, Aust and NZ’, but hardly unfamiliar in the UK) surrounding it (‘out’) to produce the word that in times not so long gone we regularly used when talking about places to fuel up the car.

4d Pod of a kind, pieces breaking the whole (6)
A three-letter term for the sort of pieces that are regularly handled by Magnus Carlsen is contained by (‘breaking’) a word for ‘the whole’ (or ‘everybody’). The answer appears in Chambers under a longer headword which has the same six letters at the beginning.

6d Caper may yield this injury – one falls after it (8)
A charade in three parts, comprising a four-letter word for injury, a single-letter word meaning ‘one’, and the three-letter spelling of a word for a waterfall (ie ‘falls’). The ‘caper’ is wild rue, a plant of the bean caper family.

8d Bilious? Have break, day off, cold before and after (6)
A seven-letter ‘break’ (from work, say) with the consecutive letters DAY removed (‘day off’) is both preceded and followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘cold’ (‘cold before and after’).

10d Head of department showing improvement when it’s cut (4)
A six-letter word for ‘improvement’ or ‘gain’ is deprived of the consecutive letters IT (“it’s cut”).

18d Endless time installed over in Paris as head of order (8)
Here we have to imagine a comma between ‘installed’ and ‘over’, since the three-letter French word for ‘over’ (‘over in Paris’) has a word for ‘time’ missing its last letter (‘endless’) inserted (‘installed’).

21d Cornish salt appearing as fool in lake (7)
A three-letter fool (of the sort once sought out on schoolchildren’s heads) is contained by the name of a lake regularly seen in cryptic crosswords. The word for the salt suggests that it ought to be Irish rather than Cornish, but it turns out to be a green arsenate of copper found in both places.

22d Against cuts provided by a single body, not terribly important (7)
The usual single-letter abbreviation representing ‘against’ goes inside (‘cuts’) a word meaning ‘that joins together’ (one of those adjectives which Chambers doesn’t define and of which the meaning is far from obvious, a source of frustration to setters).

25d Instrument trio finally lacking in harmony (6)
A nine-letter (musical) instrument has its last three letters removed (‘trio finally lacking’) in order to produce the solution.

28d Bits of ordure regularly alternating with matter in Glaswegian drains (5)
The ‘bits of ordure’ which must be regularly interspersed with a three-letter word for the sort of matter that might be exuded are the word’s first two letters. The draining refers to the removal of the water in which the neeps and tatties (say) have been cooked.

30d Remove crusts of foreign bread in exotic sandwich (4)
A four-letter foreign word for ‘bread’ (not French this time) plus the word IN have the first and last letters (‘crusts’) removed.

31d Mac’s lightweight entity, numskull shedding what he’s known to wear? (4)
I first of all thought that what the five-letter numskull was having removed was the letter that might be seen on his headgear, but on reflection I concluded that it was his ‘cap’ which was to be taken off. Either way, the result is the same, being the Scots word for a familiar unit of weight. I cannot see the word ‘numskulls’ without thinking of the six characters (Alf, Fred, Luggy, Snitch, Brainy and Blinky) who worked in the various departments that comprised “our man’s” head in the Beezer comic strip.

(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.  Should you have any problems with that link, there’s another copy here.

The notes on the puzzle are now available here. 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 2,695 ‘Give & Take’

Difficulty rating: (5 / 10)

Note: for anyone who is completely mystified by how the puzzle works, I would strongly recommend having a look at the fifteensquared blog for the most recent puzzle of this type.

A non-competition ‘special’, and the first Give & Take, I believe, since May 2018; I think the only one I’ve ever blogged was 2,285 (March 2016). This type of puzzle is not a particular favourite of mine, as I don’t really like non-words in a completed grid, but it made a change. I found it hard to assess the difficulty of this puzzle, so I’ve put it smack in the middle of the range for specials – I will gladly adjust the rating if readers feel that I have got it badly wrong. A few points for anyone who hasn’t dealt with one of these before: (i) most of the entries in the grid are not real words, any that are being incidental; (ii) the letter added to a down entry may already occur elsewhere in that entry (eg ‘Seal stations up (4)’ for STSOP, STOP with extra S, POSTS<); and (iii) across answers can be entered as soon as you get them, while you may not be able to enter down answers without some checkers if the wordplay doesn’t pinpoint the position of the extra letter. Don’t forget that the wordplay always leads to the complete grid entry, and take particular care both when entering the across solutions and when recording the additional letters in the down ones.

The next line of the poem does indeed have a relevance to the theme, although it perhaps suggests a rather more reciprocal relationship.

After the notes on individual clues I have included a checklist of the positions from/into which the letters should be removed/added. Let me know if there are any other clues which you would like me to comment on.

Setters’ Corner: A couple of points about puzzles of this sort (Give & Take, Letters Latent). Firstly, the clues should ideally not include ‘link words’ between wordplay and definition, particularly those which suggest equivalence (eg ‘is’, ‘making’), since the outcome of the cryptic wordplay is not the same as the word defined; Azed has generally adhered to this principle here, although there are a couple of exceptions (19a, 21d). Secondly, putting together a puzzle like this is complicated – bear in mind that each entry has to be deprived of/increased by a specific letter as demanded by the required message, and on top of that it is far from easy when setting a puzzle to deal with real words that become non-words. So a fine achievement? If you’re Azed, working without electronic aids, absolutely yes. A similar puzzle from an anonymous setter would impress me much less, though, because grid filling tools such as Qxw, when combined with a little technical skill, make it pretty straightforward to produce puzzles such as this.

Across

1a Preserve youth in wild area (9)
Since I had just started my breakfast when tackling this clue, the answer was starting me in the face! Later on, I’m afraid I found a bit of it on the puzzle. The wordplay has a three-letter youth inside an anagram (‘wild’) of AREA.

10a Pie transformed vapour to expose back abdominal parts (10)
An anagram (‘transformed’) of PIE is followed by a three-letter word equating to ‘vapour’ and a reversal (‘back’) of another three-letter word, this one meaning ‘to expose’ or ‘to broadcast’.

16a Parts of border changing places took shape (6)
The two halves of a four-letter word for a border (the obvious one) are exchanged. This is the only clue where consecutive letters are removed from the defined answer.

22a Cherishing Indian title separating names to coin I omitted (12)
Quite a tricky wordplay, with the four-letter spelling of the ‘Indian title of great respect given to a man’ being contained by two instances of the usual abbreviation for ‘name’ , the whole lot being followed by a word meaning ‘to coin’ (as they do at Llantrisant) from which the letter I has been omitted.

27a Rob to prepare for exams is dropping out (5)
There’s no doubt about the solution to be entered in the grid, supplied by a six-latter word meaning ‘to prepare for exams’ without the letters IS (‘is dropping out’), but the letter missing from the defined answer could be an A or an I – as it turns out, it is an A, but the only way to establish this with certainty is from the quotation. 

31a Fill with mortar, usually replacing one in clayey paste (7, 2 words)
The name for the creamy paste used by potters has the Roman numeral representing one replaced by the abbreviation for ‘usually’. The untreated solution is (5,2).

32a Malaysian wood component of older antiques (7)
Another one where determining the omitted letter is likely to be harder than finding the grid entry, which is hiding in plain sight; it’s the first letter of the untreated answer.

34a Acreage calls on grass (8)
The standard abbreviation for ‘acreage’ is followed by a word meaning ‘calls on’ or ‘consults’.

Down

1d Australian mountain measure: bit of hiking equipment? (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘Australian’ precedes a four-letter South African word for a hill or mountain and a two-letter unit of measurement used in the printing trade.

2d Scream, soil trembling, simultaneously feeling quake (9)
This is clearly an anagram (‘trembling’) of SCREAM SOIL, but the key to working out the answer is thinking of the stem which is common to several words with earthquake-related meanings and putting it in the middle of the defined answer.

4d What swimmers should avoid, a stretch of broken water rising in middle of rain (5)
Here, the letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for a stretch of broken water (which I associate particularly with a sort of tide) are reversed (‘rising’) within the letters in the middle of RAIN. The danger to swimmers is often seen spelt with seven letters, although this five-letter version is more useful to setters and thus may be more familiar to solvers.

6d Monkeys, dark-coloured, to caress, tailless (5)
A three-letter word for ‘dark-coloured’ which also means ‘sorrowful’ is followed by a word meaning ‘to caress with the lips’ from which the last letter has been removed (‘tailless’).

13d Awfully empty, time to stuff meat? It’s used for setting (9, 2 words)
An anagram (‘awfully’) of EMPTY is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ inside (‘to stuff’) a particular sort of meat, associated with schnitzels. The answer is (4,5).

21d Lecturer involved in mounting rows causing hurt (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘lecturer’ is contained by (‘involved in’) a reversal of a six-letter word meaning ‘rows’ in the ‘racket’ sense. The ‘causing’ here is an interloper and should be ignored.

24d End of cooling system brought to the fore? One goes after the dealers (5)
A nice example of this type of clue. The sort of cooling system that one might find in a car has the last letter moved to the start (‘End…brought to the fore’).

26d Lesson at Glenalmond? Duck French coming up after Latin (4)
The four-letter word that is reversed (‘coming up’) after the usual abbreviation for ‘Latin’ would presumably describe a duck scored in French cricket, being the French word for ‘nothing’.

(definitions are underlined)

Positions of omitted/added letters

Across:

In 1 across the letter is omitted from positions 1 and 4 / 6: 6 / 10: 7 / 11: 1 and 4 / 12: 2 / 14: 2 and 8 / 16: 3 and 4 / 18: 4 and 5 / 19: 8 / 22: 1, 8 and 10 / 25: 1 / 27: 3 / 29: 3 and 7 / 31: 5 / 32: 1 / 33: 3 / 34: 1, 4 and 8 / 35: 7 and 9.

Down:

In 1 down the letter is added in position 1 / 2: 1 / 3: 4 / 4: 1 / 5: 3 / 6: 3 / 7: 3 / 8: 5 / 9: 1 [or 2] / 13: 6 / 15: 3 / 17: 3 / 20: 4 / 21: 1 / 23: 6 / 24: 3 / 25: 4 / 26: 2 / 28: 3 [or 4] / 30: 4.