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 2,671 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A mix of straightforward and somewhat trickier clues, my overall impression was that this puzzle was of just about average difficulty. An enjoyable solve.

Setters’ Corner: Two general points this week, both relating to 31d, “Tramp in contact with a rowing vessel (4)”. Nothing wrong with this clue, a three-letter word for a tramp (in the poule de luxe sense) preceding the letter A, the result being a Malay rowing boat. In the context of the puzzle as a whole, however, we have a couple of issues. Firstly, the very same vessel, albeit with a variant spelling, turns up at 14a; this is very bad form indeed. The issue could have been avoided simply by making the answer to 31d STOA and changing 31a to SEBAT. Secondly, the synonym for ‘tramp’ appears with exactly the same meaning in the clue to 36a; this is certainly less heinous, but is still not ideal. On its own, this problem could easily have been fixed by changing the clue to 31a to something like ‘Pug once giving one a smack’.

Across

3a The old discern church councillor behind voodoo? (10)
A 3+2+2+3 charade to get things under way, two abbreviations being sandwiched by an archaic (‘old’) word meaning ‘discern’ and an adjective or adverb meaning ‘behind’.

14a Malay vessel turning up, cheers welcomed (5)
A reversal (‘turning’) of UP within which is contained (‘welcomed’) a three-letter word meaning…well, I would have thought ‘cheer’ rather than ‘cheers’.

15a Lunch? Pet, reverse of healthy, given tons (4)
Here we get two definitions for the price of one, and a wordplay that involves a reversal of a word for ‘healthy’ being followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘tons’.

17a Plant put aboard vessel (not Noah’s) (5)
A neat clue, where an eight-letter word meaning ‘put aboard [a] vessel’ has the term for the particular type of vessel constructed and captained by Noah removed (“not Noah’s”).

18a Jock’s suffered, being drunk after imbibing for all to see (4)
A Scots (“Jock’s”) word meaning ‘allowed’ or ‘suffered’ is produced by one of the many words and phrases used to describe someone in a state of inebriation containing the certificate given by the British Board of Film Classification to a film which is suitable for anyone to see

19a Horror flick, bore when denouement’s missing (6)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘bore’ in the sense of ‘conveyed’ is deprived of its last letter (‘when denouement’s missing’), the result being the title of a 1976 film which the aforementioned BBFC (when they were still ‘Censors’) unsurprisingly did not consider appropriate for viewing by minors or those of a nervous disposition.

22a Old letter, first from Simona kept till last? (5)
The Simona here is a Romanian tennis player and former Wimbledon singles champion; the first letter of her surname must be moved to the end (‘first…kept till last’).

24a Wretch keeping note in account (5)
The ‘note in account’ accurately reflects the containment of a single-letter abbreviation by a word meaning ‘account’ or ‘benefit’. I’m not sure that the solution can legitimately be considered to be doing the ‘keeping’, so that word is perhaps a gerundive rather than a participle. Or perhaps not.

26a Church dignitary’s having treatment involving mug (7)
A nicely disguised possessive adjective results from a four-letter word for ‘treatment’ containing (‘involving’) the sort of mug that might hold coffee.

29a What tar yields, measure caught in system of nets? (6)
A unit of measurement used in the printing trade is contained by (‘caught in’) a four-letter anatomical term for a network of eg blood vessels or nerves.

Down

1d Early invader? That means a bit of sacking (4)
The invader is of the sort generally associated with the Angles and the Saxons, the combined force supposedly having been led by Hengist and Horsa.

2d China closing border, original (6)
The first word in the wordplay is a bit of rhyming slang, leading to a three-letter word which contains (‘closing’ = ‘enclosing’) a word for an edge or border.

6d In some parts light rope caught round seaman’s ‘attachment’ (6)
When I used to take my scorebook to cricket matches, I would record the dismissal of a batsman who had been caught as ‘ct’. I can only think that Azed is using the same abbreviation here, although it does not appear in Chambers, and that it is being put round an adjective applied to ‘a seaman able to perform all the duties of seamanship and having a higher rating than the ordinary sailor.’ Why ‘In some parts light’? Pass. As I understand it, the item in question is a thick, strong thing, albeit not quite as thick as its bigger brother. Surely it should be something like ‘Relatively light rope’?

8d Old magistrate about to admit rudimentary gut (11)
A six-letter word for one of nine magistrates in ancient Athens is put around (‘about’) a word meaning ‘to admit’ or ‘to join in’.

11d Last among mixed-race people given promotion – something that’s not to be missed (7)
The last letter of a term describing the offspring of a white person and a quadroon (like a doubloon, but twice as big) is moved up a couple of places to produce the (4-3) hyphenated solution.

13d Searing pain that brings about a GI being deformed (9)
A six-letter adjective meaning ‘that brings about’ is followed by an anagram (‘being deformed’) of A GI.

23d German dramatist, genuinely inferior to British (6)
I’m not sure whether the ‘German’ here can legitimately be seen in the cryptic reading as separately qualifying both of the words that follow it, but it is indeed a word shown by Chambers as ‘Ger‘ and meaning ‘genuine’ which must be preceded in the answer by a two-letter abbreviation for ‘British’.

27d Time out for festival – one relaxes (5)
I can’t help feeling that ‘from’ would be preferable to ‘for’ here in order to indicate that the abbreviation for ‘time’ must be taken out of a word for a particular festival.

(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 2,670 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

This puzzle with a slightly unusual grid was certainly harder than last week’s, and the number of clues that I marked for comment led me to conclude that the needle on the difficulty meter was, if not bouncing in the red, at least somewhere past the halfway mark. I didn’t think it was one of Azed’s finest, but it was still a reasonably entertaining solve.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 12d, “Flax-cutter’s tool, form of wand English waved”. The answer is an anagram of WAND ENGLISH, indicated by ‘form of’ – and also by ‘waved’. It is perfectly acceptable to have two anagram indicators in a clue where one anagram is followed by another – if the solution here were DAWN-SHINGLE, the first element could be a ‘form of WAND’ and the second element ‘ENGLISH waved’; however, two indicators for a single helping of ‘fodder’ is one too many. Space is increasingly at a premium for many crosswords published in newspapers, so irrespective of style considerations an editor would almost certainly cut the wordplay here to ‘wand English waved’.

Across

5a Strong drink? After school dozes, having imbibed pastis (not wines) (8)
The usual abbreviation for ‘school’ is followed by a word for ‘dozes’ containing (‘having imbibed’) PASTIS from which a word for certain wines has been removed (‘not wines’).

14a Writer’s hollow task, article for the French (6)
The task is a Scot and N Eng dialect term for a day’s work or other defined quantity of work, while the writer is Sir Walter Scott, who visited the Wicklow Mountains in 1825 and mistakenly assumed that the name of a particular local river was a general term for a glen thereabouts. It appears in this erroneous sense as a hapax legomenon in Scott’s novel Redgauntlet.

15a Almost bare in earth? Treatment with this is useless (8)
A five-letter word meaning ‘bare’ with its last letter missing (‘almost’) is contained by a word for earth. The answer was the word chosen for competition 574, and a look at the successful clues illustrates the point that an obvious clue, even if beautifully succinct, is almost certain to be spotted by several competitors and is therefore unlikely to gain top honours.

19a Seek help with engraving (5)
A clue with two definitions, the second of which struck me as a bit sneaky; however, it does just about pass the substitution test, where replacing the answer with the definition in a real English sentence does not significantly alter the meaning (‘I help with engraving the trophy’). It could, conceivably, be a definition of the third headword in Chambers, but if that had been Azed’s intention surely he would have chosen ‘help with printing’.

25a Drum, one of a pair, is damaged? Could be ear skin (5)
A composite anagram, where a rearrangement (‘damaged’) of the solution (‘Drum, one of a pair’) and IS could produce EAR SKIN.

27a Earl unhappily admitted stress getting faster (10)
If you look at the wordplay in 8d, the two parts of the wordplay are in an unnatural order, but the comma between them provides the necessary pause (‘in the river, a fish’). Here there should be a comma between ‘admitted’ and ‘stress’, since it is a synonym for ‘stress’ into which an anagram (‘unhappily’) of EARL must be ‘admitted’. I meant to mention the definition, but had forgotten about it until reminded by Mark Z – the adjective here can only have the transitive sense of the associated verb, so ‘getting faster’ is no good. Something like ‘quickening’ would work.

31a Surgically remove bit of lump to nullify circles (6)
Here we have an example of the construction which Monk last week christened the CPIW (‘Crosswordese Present Indicative Wheeze’), aka the ‘disappearing relative pronoun’ – the wordplay equates to ‘bit of lump that to nullify circles’, but the word ‘that’ has been omitted, as it often is in spoken English (eg ‘the things he says’ rather than ‘the things that he says’). Here it is the first letter (‘bit’) of LUMP that a word meaning ‘to nullify’ or ‘to moderate’ goes round (‘circles’).

32a State about to welcome European artist (6)
That familiar two-letter bit of commercial jargon meaning ‘about’ or ‘concerning’ is here required to contain (‘welcome’) the surname of a Portuguese-British visual artist, forenames Maria Paula Figueiroa, who was made a Dame of the British Empire in the Queen’s 2010 Birthday Honours.

33a Depots currently fashionable offering protection for banks (8)
A charade of a five-letter word for ‘permanent military stations, depots or training schools’ and an adjective meaning ‘currently fashionable’

35a Title of distinguished Japanese book, short one (4)
The book is the abbreviated (‘short’) name of two books of the Old Testament, and is followed by a single-letter word for ‘one’.

Down

2d Graze by the sound of it in northern pastures(4)
A homophone for a word meaning ‘[to] graze’ or ‘scrape’ produces a Scot and N Eng term which I would have expected to be defined by ‘pasture’ rather than ‘pastures’.

3d What commuter catches in the morning, leaning back (first off) having caught elevated railroad (6)
A single-letter informal US term for an elevated railroad is ‘caught’ by a six-letter word meaning ‘leaning back’ with its first letter omitted, producing a 2-4 hyphenated solution. My immediate thought was that the definition was a good one, but on reflection I feel that while a commuter might ‘take’ the solution it’s unlikely that they would ‘catch’ it.

4d Nasty Aussie insect turned up entirely in belly (7, 2 words)
A three-letter word for ‘entirely’ (already seen in 29a) is reversed (‘turned up’) inside a word which means ‘[to] belly’ or ‘swell’, specifically as a sail might do.

10d Mantle, eastern, in puckered fabric (7)
One of those clues where you need to know either the answer or the six-letter fabric (the French word for ‘pleated’) into which the usual abbreviation for ‘eastern’ is inserted.

20d Trace rigidity without inner depth (7)
An eight-letter word for ‘rigidity’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘depth’ removed from inside it (‘without inner depth’).

22d Old helmet to recognize when lifted (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘to recognize’ (as in ‘I can recognize a composite anagram at twenty paces’) and a word for ‘when’ are both reversed (‘lifted’).

24d ‘Carry-on’ woman with chaps endlessly is responsible for such a caper (6)
The four-letter (familiar) subject of a 1964 film is followed by a word for ‘chaps’ without its last letter (‘endlessly’), producing the name of a large genus of plants of the caper family. The abiding memory of the film for some may be Amanda Barrie bathing in asses’ milk.

26d A ‘K’ a Singh’s deployed … is this? (6)
Another composite anagram, this time of the &lit variety. The letters of A K A SINGH when rearranged (‘deployed’) can produce IS plus the solution (‘this’), and the whole clue represents a definition (of sorts). You may, like me, applaud Azed’s inventiveness here while feeling that the clue is not of the highest order.

30d What may accompany bill topping millions? It’s grimy (4)
The expression formed when the first part of the answer accompanies ‘bill’ means ‘(of lovers) to kiss and talk intimately together’, while the ‘millions’ supplies a single-letter abbreviation.

(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 2,669 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

There were several answers that I wasn’t familiar with, but such was the accuracy of the wordplays (and the absence of obscurities therein) that I was able to complete the puzzle without recourse to Chambers. Combined with the friendliness of the long entries at the top and bottom of the puzzle, this suggests a difficulty rating significantly below average.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at  a clue from a non-Azed puzzle, “Could be Nissan parking is Cherry, perhaps that can see to it itself? (8)”. The answer is AUTOCARP [AUTOCAR + P], being a term for a fruit produced by self-fertilization, and there are a few points of interest here. The first is the use of ‘Could be Nissan’ to indicate AUTOCAR – Azed reckons that “barks like a dog and is man’s best friend” is OK for DOG, and I wouldn’t disagree, so that’s alright in isolation, but since ‘could be Nissan’ isn’t a noun phrase, adding the ‘parking’ to it is highly questionable. The biggest issue, however, relates to the definition. it’s a pretty horrible word to define accurately, and the setter has tried to do something interesting, so I’m prepared to accept that an autocarp, the result of self-fertilization, could be said to ‘see to itself’. What I can’t accept is the lone comma between ‘Cherry’ and ‘perhaps’ – this clearly tells us that the answer is a Cherry (or cherry) which can perhaps see to itself. The clue needs a second comma, such that the definition reads ‘Cherry, perhaps, that can see to itself’ – then we are looking at something which can see to itself, perhaps a cherry. When writing clues, it is important to check that in the cryptic reading the punctuation does not unfairly mislead the solver.

Across

9a Accepted bishop’s mild exclamation:‘Bedad!’ (5)
A single-letter abbreviation, a two-letter abbreviation for a title given to an Anglican bishop, and an expression of ‘surprise, joy, pity, complaint, objection, etc.’ (something of an interjection for all seasons) combine to produce an expression, the Irishness of which is not explicitly stated but is implied by the use of ‘bedad’ as the definition.

14a Speedster to drive round, holding on (5)
A three-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘to drive’ reversed (’round’) outside (‘holding’) ON (from the clue) produces a (3-2) hyphenated solution.

18a Names from the past I’m among shortly making comeback (6)
The letters IM (from the clue) are placed inside (‘among’) a word meaning ‘shortly’ and the whole lot reversed (‘making a comeback’). The names are the sort that Romans had between their praes and their cogs.

19a Maybe ironic address to friend year after sack? (4)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘year’ follows a word for a sack of a particular, woven material ‘used to cover a chest of tea, coffee etc’. The definition doesn’t seem quite right – the word (a favourite of Jim Strange in Endeavour) could be used when addressing a friend, but in that instance there would be no irony; that would come when Jim was addressing not Morse but a miscreant.

21a Application for military uniform left in money kept in accounts (6)
The single-letter abbreviation for ‘left’ is put inside the term for the bank money of account (as opposed to currency), producing the nickname of the character played by David Jason in Porridge, and the name of a product first used by the British Army to whiten Slade (as in the fictional prison) Wallace buckskin leather equipment in the nineteenth century.

26a Dim northerner needing to grasp difference ultimately between right and left (7)
A four-letter word meaning ‘to grasp’ or ‘to hold’ is followed by the last letter of DIFFERENCE (‘difference ultimately’) in between the abbreviations for ‘right’ and ‘left’.

29a Love making flip in second fruit tonic? (8)
A three-letter word for ‘love’ (in the sporting sense) is reversed (‘making flip’) inside the abbreviation for ‘second’ plus the name of a fruit. The definition is by example, hence the question mark.

30a Pear yielding dry unit (not vin) (6)
More fruit, this one comprising a three-letter word for ‘dry’ and a six-letter unit (of temperature) from which the consecutive letters VIN have been removed (‘not vin’).

Down

3d One bit of carpeting taken up in flat for hermit (7)
The Roman numeral for one and a three-letter word for a ‘bit of carpeting’ are reversed (‘taken up’) within a word for a place of one’s own, whether large or small.

12d Crushing formerly hurt struggling clubs in grip of problem (10)
An anagram (‘struggling’) of HURT precedes the usual abbreviation for ‘clubs’ inside (‘in grip of’) a word for a problem (as in ‘the ????? is…’). The qualification of the definition is incorrect – Chambers gives the answer as ‘dialect’ rather than ‘obsolete’ or ‘archaic’, so ‘formerly’ should be something like ‘locally’.

16d Prop not yet solid admits bloody lifting inside (8)
A five-letter word meaning ‘not yet solid’, as runny blancmange might be, has a three-letter word meaning ‘bloody’ reversed (‘lifting’) inside.

17d Flowers showing trouble rising in leaf divisions (8)
A three-letter verb meaning ‘[to] trouble’ is reversed (‘rising’) within a word for leaf divisions.

22d Bug, obscure, appearing on opening of speedwell (literally) (6)
A three-letter abbreviation is followed by the name (hence the ‘literally’) of the first letter (‘opening’) of SPEEDWELL.

27d A rag banned from local benefice as depravity (4)
An eight-letter word for the residence or benefice of a parson has the consecutive letters A RAG omitted (‘banned’).

(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 2,668 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

A significantly easier puzzle this week, with just a few longer entries that could pose a few problems. I note that Azed has got his way regarding the ‘Rules and requests’ section, which has been restored to its earlier form, minus the bits that had been included without his agreement. I think it’s a shame that email entries are not allowed from UK competitors, but there we are.

Nowhere in the online version of the puzzle does it say that the requirement is to write a clue for the word indicated by the asterisked clue at 5d, but that is what (as usual) is required. Unusually, the definition which Azed has provided for the competition word is not explicitly given by Chambers, but he didn’t have much choice without almost giving the answer.

Clue Writers’ Corner: The top-notch setter Monk was the subject of a ‘meet the compiler’ article published on the FT website in May this year. In the interview he is kind enough to mention this site in favourable terms, but there are other reasons to recommend the article – not only is it an entertaining read, but Monk makes a number of points about setting with which I almost entirely concur. A relevant observation that he makes about clue writing is: “Be objective: if a clue idea looks like it is leading you into an increasingly convoluted execution, back out and pursue another, simpler path.” This is a lesson that I learnt the hard way, on several occasions spending a long time working on what originally seemed like a brilliant idea before ending up with a clue that was horribly stretched, and then when I used the clue feeling as though I’d totally wasted the idea. No matter how good the concept, if you can’t make it work, give up and try something different – you may even be able to use a variation on the original idea on another day for another word. This is particularly relevant to clues for competitions, because if you, the writer, know that you haven’t done justice to the concept, then the judge or judges certainly aren’t going to be wowed by it. As soon as you find yourself thinking “I just can’t make this work”, it’s time to cut your losses and try a completely different tack.

Across

11a Student gaining qualification, part of reading list unfinished, only partly educated (5)
A bit of a ‘sound and fury’ clue, where a familiar-two letter abbreviation designating a person who has achieved a particular degree is followed by the word for the sort of thing that would be on a reading list, without its last letter (‘unfinished’).

13a Fashionable idols I embarrass leaving train (5)
The letter I (from the clue) is followed by a nine-letter word meaning ’embarrass’ (in its sense of ‘impede’ or ‘encumber’) from which the consecutive letters TRAIN have been removed (‘leaving train’).

14a Mime urbanites? Mixing in a —— set possibly (7)
A composite anagram &lit, albeit perhaps one drawn from somewhere closer to the trousseau than the top of the chest. The letters of MIME URBANITES when rearranged (‘mixing’) can potentially (‘possibly’) produce IN A, plus the solution (represented by the blank), plus SET.

16a Lose head in sin – hateful (4)
The name of a deadly sin (the one that hangs upside down) loses its head (first letter). The ‘hateful’ sense of the solution is given by Chambers as ‘obsolete’, so the definition here really should have been qualified by something like ‘once’ or ‘abandoned’. 

18a Israelite maybe chopping tree, half tubular in shape (10)
The term for a person descended from a specific son of Noah, possibly the eldest and possibly not depending on how you read Genesis 10:21, is followed by an anagram (‘chopping’) of TREE.

20a Neckband securing fidgety mule, touching on small ear bone (10)
The wordplay here has a familiar six-letter word for a neckband containing (‘securing’) an anagram (‘fidgety’) of MULE. The answer exemplifies the sort of words that I try to avoid in my own puzzles, horribly difficult to define accurately let alone interestingly.

22a Flowering bulbs, for instance fringing seascape (8)
A two-letter word meaning ‘for instance’ is put around (‘fringing’) a term for a seascape which is often seen indicated (somewhat inaccurately) in cryptics by ‘jolly’. The plants in question are recent hybrids of nerine bowdenii and amaryllis ‘Belladonna’. As advertised, the solution is not to be found in Chambers.

26a Vandal turned bloodshot going round snack bar (7)
A three-letter word for ‘bloodshot’ is put outside (‘going round’) a term for a snack bar and the whole lot reversed (‘turned’).

Down

4d Chest without central square beam (4)
The word ‘central’ is not necessary here, but it specifies the position in the word for a chest (in a human context) whence the usual abbreviation for ‘square’ must be removed.

7d ME island dwelling (small) protected by rail (7)
An ‘archaic and poetic’ three-letter word for a small dwelling is contained (‘protected’) by a name for the sort of rail that might be observed walking or swimming through the marshes of North America. The island is part of the Republic of Yemen and is to be found in the Indian Ocean.

12d Scuttled round mine entrance, unable to see (10)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘scuttled’ (in the way that Alexander presumably went about) contains (’round’) a three-letter word for a mine entrance (or a wire ring for a hook), the result being a 6-4 hyphenated solution.

15d Kay’s neighbour sitting on strange secrets – she has voting rights (9)
“Kay’s neighbour” is to be found in the alphabet, and is followed by (‘sitting on’) an anagram (‘strange’) of SECRETS.

21d Change characters in company appearing in old tale (6)
The usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘company’ is contained by (‘appearing in’) an archaic term for advice or a tale. The answer is a transitive-only verb, presenting a trap which Azed has neatly sidestepped by the addition of ‘in’ to the definition.

23d A member of the herd has dropped in as mentioned before (5)
A (from the clue) is followed by a six-letter word for a beast that might be a member of the herd, missing the consecutive letters IN (‘has dropped in’).

25d Saucy ex not appearing in buff (4)
Similarly to 23d, here a six-letter word for a ‘buff’ has the consecutive letters EX omitted (‘ex not appearing’).

(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 2,667 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

I thought last week’s puzzle was pretty tricky, and if anything this one was trickier still. Plenty of nice clues, my favourite being 21a.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at a clue that I noticed on one of the help forums, “Footwear found by Mr Jennings in a ship (5)”. The answer is SPATS, PAT (Mr Jennings) in SS (a ship). This raises a point about references to ‘famous’ people (real of fictional) in clues, where (as here) in order to solve the clue you need to know whom the setter is talking about. Like Azed, I’m far from being opposed to a bit of general knowledge being involved in cryptic crossword solving, and the potential for looking things up on the web  will compensate for a lack of knowledge in a particular area. However, I think that before introducing a particular person to a clue, setters have to ask themselves whether most solvers are likely to be familiar with them. Beyond those people whose fame is global and enduring, such as Mozart, Mickey Mouse and Muhammad Ali, the questions that setters need to answer are, I believe, (i) Is this person currently in the public eye?, and (ii) Is this person likely to be known to anyone who lives outside the UK but takes an interest in what goes on there? A clue featuring a celeb who fails these tests is likely to frustrate rather than entertain many solvers, and I think that Pat Jennings, although very well known to me, falls into the ‘avoid’ category. A little better would be ‘goalie Jennings’ or the like, but the only Pat I can think of who would definitely pass the test is the one with a black and white cat.

Across

1a Light blue marks on bird fluttering in its home? (9)
The usual abbreviation for ‘marks’ and an anagram (‘fluttering’) of BIRD are contained by the home of, say, a captive budgerigar. The definition here is technically not quite accurate, in that the answer isn’t itself a colour, it’s a word that when affixed to ‘blue’ describes a colour; strictly speaking, the term on its own is no more a colour than Vera is an aloe or Ogen is a melon.

11a Hairs of a kind in the ears, not so sensible (7)
The hairs here are of the kind that “are borne on the surface of a cell, that move liquid over its surface or act as locomotor organs in eg protozoans and flatworms.” Their name starts with a C, but the homophone (‘in the ears’) which we are looking for begins with an S.

12a In tumult old militiaman gets detached from Tim (5)
An eight-letter word for a Turkish feudal militiaman has the consecutive letters TIM remove from the start (‘gets detached from Tim’).

14a Glasgow bum after a drink begged endlessly (penniless) (6)
A three-letter word for a particular spirit is followed by a four-letter word for ‘begged’ from which the last letter has been lost (‘endlessly’). For good measure, Azed tells us that the missing letter is an abbreviation for pence, of the sort that went with L and S before decimalization.

18a Murrayfield ground? That’s armful I scattered (4)
A composite anagram &lit (although I couldn’t bring myself to underline the whole clue as the definition) which doesn’t really work for me. The idea is that the letters of MURRAYFIELD when rearranged (‘ground’)  form an anagram (‘scattered’) of the solution (‘That’) plus ARMFUL I, the answer being a Scots form of the word ‘earth’.

22a Tripped lightly, free of stones, round savoury snack (10)
A six-letter word meaning ‘free of stones’, as a jarful of olives might be, contains a word for a snack associated with Spain and usually found in its plural form.

25a Hat sailor wears back to front – he’s a fool (4)
This clue looks at first glance more complex than it actually is – the wordplay simply involves the reversal (‘back to front’) of the shortened form of a nine-letter word for the sort of hat a sailor might wear (or a strong, waterproofed sheet).

33a Boozer opening to give away? Hurried along (7)
A three-letter word for a hostelry (‘Boozer’) is contained by (‘opening’) a word meaning to ‘give away’ or ‘cast off’.

35a European in Kolkata? He accompanies clique in service as of old (9)
The letters HE (from the clue) following (accompanying) a four-letter word for a clique are contained by a word with several obsolete (‘as of old’) meanings, including ‘service’, but which now is generally understood as a price paid for services.

Down

5d Seine (say), wrong, free, rising up once wholly decayed (10)
A three-letter word for the type of thing exemplified by a seine (a fisherman’s friend), a four-letter ‘wrong’ (in the legal sense), and a three-letter verb meaning ‘[to] rid’ are all reversed (‘rising up’) to produce the (4-6) hyphenated solution.

6d Some with allergies avoid this surfeit, half of mutton (6)
You shouldn’t have any trouble with the answer or the four-letter surfeit, but you might be puzzled by the ‘half of mutton’. In English printing circles, a mutton was another name for an em quadrat – and half of an em is an en…

7d Shred songs Spooner-style? He may well be deaf (9)
Azed tends to reserve spoonerisms for the ‘specials’ that contain them in abundance, but here we have a rare escapee. A (3,6) phrase, with the songs having a distinctly Germanic feel, is spoonerized into a (3-6) answer.

8d Dance? No thanks, it’s obscure for poet (4)
A six-letter dance (in quick waltz time, apparently, though such things are strictly a mystery to me) loses a two-letter word meaning ‘thanks (‘No thanks’), the result being a Spenserian word meaning ‘conceal’ or ‘obscure’.

9d Sort of foot-lever let out to disentangle inside (7)
Easy to get the wrong answer to this one – putting a four-letter word that can mean (among other things) ‘to solve’ inside an anagram (‘out’) of LET will produce the more common spelling of the solution. However, it is a different word, often seen in puzzles defined by ‘tidy’, but which Chambers also explicitly gives as ‘to disentangle’, that must be inserted into the anagram.

13d Prince in position of steersman round a riverside French commune (10)
The usual abbreviation for ‘Prince’ is followed by a (2,6) phrase representing ‘in position of steersman’ containing (’round’) the letter A (from the clue). The answer relates to ??????????-sur-Saône, a commune in the Côte-D’or département of Eastern France.

15d Water bird I caught on lake, served in pastry (9)
The letter I (from the clue), the usual abbreviation for ‘caught’, and a four-letter word for a lake are ‘served in pastry’, ie contained in the sort of thing that Desperate Dan liked tucking into (horns and all).

20d Quiet sort of green lining recess (7)
A three-letter word for a shade of green (a better indication than for the blue in 1a) is contained by (‘lining’) the sort of recess often found at the east end of a church choir.

27d Unit of landed herrings one wrapped in special string (5)
Not a cran today, but that other measure of herrings loved by crossword setters, formed when a single-letter word meaning ‘one’ is ‘wrapped in’ a name for the middle string of the lyre.

29d Leading officer flourished lost banner with joyful cry (4)
The wordplay here would probably benefit from a bit of punctuation, but it involves a four-letter word for a banner from which the two letter abbreviation for ‘flourished’ has been removed (‘lost’) being followed by the sort of joyful cry which for some reason I tend to associate with cads and bounders, usually of the moustachioed kind.

(definitions are underlined)