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 2,657 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

This was the sort of Azed puzzle which I suspect will not have given regulars too many problems but might have proved tricky for those less familiar with his little idiosyncrasies. Overall it seemed to lack the élan of Azed’s very finest, and there was a degree of repetition, most notably of ‘disheartened young’ to indicate YG.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 8d, “Hide from downpour (4)”. Not so long ago I clued the plural of this word as ‘Hides buckets’, and it is one which lends itself nicely to a double definition clue, a type which adds variety to a crossword but should, I believe, be used sparingly – a couple in any puzzle is quite enough. The most important thing to my mind is that the two words being defined should either be homographs, ie (as with this clue) they appear as separate headwords in Chambers, or the two senses referenced in the clue should be plainly distinct. I don’t therefore consider ‘Tense finish’ to be a satisfactory clue for PERFECT, since both meanings clearly share the sense of completion associated with the Latin verb perficere from which they derive, although you could argue that the clue still provides two different routes to the answer; I certainly have no issue with ‘Boots have these drugs’ for UPPERS. Otherwise it’s just a matter of finding two definitions which can be combined in an interesting way; if there are multiple headwords in Chambers, the definitions in the clue certainly don’t have to match exactly, so for SLATE, a clue like ‘Dull dark blue carpet’ would be entirely acceptable. Triple definitions, eg ‘Twist greatly impressed US Army’ for SLEW, should be used with extreme frugality – about one a year is probably enough.

Across

1a Common weed of various colours, deep round inside (8)
A four-letter adjective meaning ‘of various colours’ (Browning’s piper being thus described) contains a reversal (’round’) of a word meaning ‘deep’, as a voice might be. The answer contains a couple of hyphens, while the word ‘weed’ seems particularly appropriate.

7a Fabulous tree, one inhabiting downs? Certainly not (4)
When you see ‘certainly not’ or the like in a clue, it usually means that you must infer the opposite of what has been previously stated. Here it could have meant that rather than ‘one inhabiting downs’ you should read ‘downs inhabiting one’, but in this instance it is just a single word which must be ‘turned round’, so a one letter word meaning ‘one’ is to be put inside (‘inhabiting’) a word which is the polar opposite of ‘downs’.

11a Horse painter setting aside barrel inside for farrier’s scraps (5)
There are not too many horse painters to choose from in crossword land – if it’s not Munnings then it has to be George ??????, famed for his depictions of horses but classified in his lifetime as a sporting artist and thus excluded from full membership of the Royal Academy. The solution is produced from his surname by omitting (‘setting aside’) the usual abbreviation for ‘barrel’; since this letter occurs twice in the name, and both instances are ‘inside’, Azed might have written the clue as ‘Horse painter setting aside one barrel for farrier’s scraps’.

14a Form of help cutting monstrosity as abandoned, cable system (7)
An anagram of (‘form of’) HELP is contained by (‘cutting’) a five-letter word for a monstrosity from which the consecutive letters AS (at the end) have been lost (‘as abandoned’).

17a Search in litter for portion of dead tissue (6)
Chambers gives ‘litter’ as “a state of confusion and untidiness with things strewn about”, so ‘in litter’ very accurately indicates an anagram.

28a The old rise in line dressed grandly (7, 2 words)
An obsolete three-letter word meaning ‘[to] rise’ or ‘to mount’ must be inserted into an anagram (‘dressed’) of LINE. The solution is (2,5).

29a Deep sound ordinary in piccolo? The opposite (5)
This clue works almost identically to 7a, with the usual abbreviation for ‘ordinary’ being contained by the Italian word which means the opposite of ‘piccolo’.

30a Classical poet, one that disappeared mysteriously (5)
Marcus Annaeus is known for his only surviving work, De Bello Civili, a historical epic describing the war between Julius Caesar and Pompey. It stops abruptly during book 10, with Caesar fighting for his life, which suggests that the author was waiting for a further call from the commissioning department of the BBC (or their Roman equivalent) which never came. The name by which Richard John Bingham was commonly known has become synonymous with mysterious disappearances and periodic sightings, most recently (46 years on) in a Buddhist commune in Brisbane.

Down

1d Collage showing chemist finally serving prince in place of king (7)
The surname of a French chemist and microbiologist must have its last letter (‘finally’) changed from the usual abbreviation for ‘king’ (in a monarchical context) to the one for ‘prince’. A hyphen is also inserted.

2d Travel as young often do? I love going round the old world (9)
The letter I (from the clue) and a three-letter word for ‘love’ in the sense of ‘zero’ are put round the Latin word for the Earth.

6d Mugs spoke up about what’s central to knowledge (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘spoke’ is reversed (‘up’) around (‘about’) the middle letter of (“what’s central to”) ‘knowledge’. Both the definition and the answer are slang terms for the same things.

16d Night-time attack happened, catching one stiff (8)
A four-letter word for ‘happened’ contains (‘catching’) the Roman numeral for ‘one’ and a word that means ‘stiff’ in a Paul Hollywood kind of way, describing something that has ‘fallen’ during baking. The product is a term for a night attack derived from the Spanish word for a shirt, a result of the attacking party’s practice of wearing shirts (though not with numbers, names or advertising material for betting firms) over their armour as a means of mutual recognition.

20d The first always comes last after spirit has left (7)
A slightly convoluted wordplay has a four-letter word meaning ‘comes last’ following a two-letter spirit and the standard single-letter abbreviation for ‘left’. The nones and the ides were less predictable, but this chappie was always ‘the first’.

23d Mount rode up, showing overlapping piece of armour (6)
The combination of “a hill or ancient mound formed from the accumulated debris from earlier mud or wattle habitations [in Arab lands]” (‘mount’) and a three-letter word meaning ‘rode’ or ‘had a seat on’ is reversed (‘up’)  to produce the answer.

24d Cooked pastry base shouldn’t be like this, very like an omelette (first off)! (5)
A word describing the sort of bottom abhorred by Mary Berry is formed by putting a two-letter word for ‘very’ in front of a four-letter word, appropriate to describe an omelette, from which the first letter has been removed (‘first off’).

25d Like votes when cast under being distributed (5)
The definition here makes reference to the name of a vessel used for holding tablets, lots, or balls in the process of voting or casting lots, originally in ancient Rome.

(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 2,656 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

After the devilry of last week, a plain puzzle that seemed solid rather than spectacular, and was, I felt, around the middle of the difficulty spectrum.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 29a, “I must fill crack in minor joist (6)”. The wordplay has the letter I being inserted into a five-letter word meaning ‘[to] crack’ in the sense that one might crack a crossword clue, producing a term for a joist of secondary importance. The point of interest here is one of the classic grammatical traps for setters concerning verbs which require a different person in the surface and cryptic readings. In this instance, ‘I fill crack in minor joint’ seems obvious, but the cryptic reading requires a verb in the third, not the first, person, so ‘I fills crack in minor joint’, which is accurate but doesn’t read too well. The same issue applies to other words (eg ‘we’), because a wordplay element is a ‘thing’ and invariably needs to govern a verb in the third person. It is usually possible to work round the problem by selecting a form of the verb which is the same in both situations, typically with the aid of an auxiliary verb – as in the clue here, or the alternative ‘I will fill crack in minor joist’.

Across

14a Trendy clothing outlet recalled period in Haifa? (4)
The fashion company whose name must here be reversed (‘recalled’) was founded Barbara Hulanicki, and its first shop opened its doors in Abingdon Road, Kensington, in September 1964. Its lasting fame was sealed, though, by the move in 1973 to the old Derry and Toms building on Kensington High Street. It rapidly became known as the ‘theatre of fashion’, but its popularity was not accompanied by financial success and it closed down in 1975.

How do you know which component in the clue is to be reversed to form the word indicated by the other? You don’t – at least one checker is required before you can enter the solution.

16a Bill left during tea dealt with while eating (7, 2 words)
A three-letter word for a bill of the sort that you might get in a restaurant and the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ are contained by (‘during’ – not an insertion indicator I like, but there we are) an anagram (‘dealt with’) of TEA.

19a King being absent to judge very stupid, needing to concentrate again (10)
A six-letter word meaning ‘to judge’ deprived of the chess players’ abbreviation for ‘king’ (‘King being absent’) is followed by a five-letter word meaning ‘very stupid’.

23a Wolf giving growl, endlessly noisy (5)
A five-letter word meaning ‘growl’ missing its last letter (‘endlessly’) and a single-letter abbreviation usually indicated by ‘loud’ (ie ‘noisy’) combine to produce the answer, which is not a noun, as the clue might seem to suggest, but a verb.

25a Rare herbs? Transposing last pair, better (5)
The plural of a word for a herb or vegetable shown by Chambers as ‘now rare except as combining form’ has its last two letters transposed, thus making a word which somewhat counterintuitively means ‘[to] better’. Checked letters aside, could it be the ‘better’ word which has its last letters interchanged? Yes, as with 14a, either interpretation is possible.

30a Cox maybe in difficulty with one in the bow getting slewed? (9)
The ‘Cox’ here is the man who made particle physics cool, and was at one time a rock musician. His first name is contained by a three-letter word for a difficulty or hindrance, the combination having the Roman numeral representing ‘one’ at the start (‘in the bow’). ‘Slewed’ here is the slang term meaning ‘drunk’.

31a Rigorous about brief response to one of PMQs – it’ll end here? (7)
A four-letter word meaning ‘rigorous’ or ‘strict’ containing (‘about’) an abbreviated form of a word for ‘answer’ (‘brief response’) produces the name given to the printed reports of debates in parliament. It was the surname of Luke, an English printer who printed the Journals of the House of Commons from 1774 until his death, and his son Thomas Curson, who added the name to the title of the official reports of parliamentary debates and proceedings in 1829.

32a What’s no good in Turkmenistan’s capital? Wrong, actually (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘no good’ is contained by the name of the letter which appears as a capital in the word ‘Turkmenistan’. The sort of money indicated by the answer would be good there, although you’d need to have a lot for it to be much good.

Down

1d Young star embracing love, right? It precedes carnival in WI (7, apostrophe)
A four-letter theatrical term for a juvenile lead contains the usual single-letter representation of ‘love’ and a two-letter abbreviation for ‘right’.

3d It may prompt a blessing, hence following raised palm (7)
A three-letter word for a palm frequently seen in South America and barred crosswords is reversed (‘raised’) and followed by a four-letter interjection meaning ‘begone!’ (ie ‘[get thee] hence[!]’).

6d Merriment immediately leading to energy in the midst of happiness (10)
A four-letter word meaning ‘immediately’ or ‘subsequently’ and (‘leading to’) the standard abbreviation for ‘energy’ are contained by (‘in the midst of’) a word for (extreme) happiness.

9d She may fit out Rose in formal attire (9)
An anagram (‘out’) of ROSE is contained by a five-letter word for a gentleman’s formal evening wear.

20d Nark near taken in by very good fabrication (7)
A two-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘near’ is ‘taken in’ by another two-letter word, this one meaning ‘very good’, while a word for a fabrication brings up the rear.

21d Arty Yank is cut short, protected by English thrall classically (7)
A shortened form of ‘is’ (‘is cut short’) is contained (‘protected’) by the usual abbreviation for ‘English’ and a five-letter word for a thrall (or serf) in ancient Greece. The answer is a US spelling, hence the ‘Yank’.

24d Ligaments revealed in turning over a garden plot (5)
A (2,3) phrase for a garden plot or small piece of ground in South Africa is reversed (‘turning over’) , resulting in ligaments which restrain the motion of a part of the body.

27d Christian love rises to envelop one (4)
It’s not ‘nil’ that needs to rise and envelop a single-letter word for ‘one’, but a similar slang word also meaning ‘nothing’.

(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.

Note: It’s been pointed out by a forum user that the online version of the puzzle doesn’t include instructions for submitting your entry. They should read:

Send correct solution (one only) and clue to replace definition asterisked (on separate sheet also bearing name and address, securely attached) to Azed No. 2,655, PO Box 518, Oxford, OX2 6WX. Entries should be received by Monday week at the latest. Emailed entries from overseas will be accepted, addressed to jcrowther2000@hotmail.com. £35, £30, £25 prizes and Azed bookplates for the three clues judged best.

You should include both your clue (ie the ‘devilled’ form, similar to the clues in the puzzle) and the undevilled form, with the spacing and punctuation that show each version in its best light, eg

Solution: HEARTSORE

Clue: As craftsmen they are trained in tally, well qualified

Original form: As craftsmen they are trained in the art, so really well qualified

Azed 2,655 Printer’s Devilry

Difficulty rating: (4.5 / 10)

I thought we were probably due a PD, and so it proved. With PD clues, you must forget about the usual rules, because there are no definitions, and no wordplay as such. Each clue tells a little story, but a sequence of letters has been removed and the gap closed up; punctuation may also have been altered, and on occasion spaces added or removed elsewhere. The removed letters will always form a word or phrase which can be found in Chambers. The key to solving a PD clue is to identify the word in the ‘devilled’ (shortened) version which is likely to contain the break. If we look at 32a, “Offered a better deal we pass (4)”, it look as though in order to complete the story we must do something with the word ‘pass’. By telling us the deal was a better one, Azed surely wants us to know that this improved offer was accepted. So if the deal was better than the one previously available, the price would have been lower than it was before, and therefore we will have PA?? ??SS than we would otherwise have done. Do those missing four letters spell out a word that is in Chambers? They surely do.

Remember that Azed will have chosen his words carefully, and each one will be there for a reason. Note also that the word in the devilled version which contains the break may also appear in the undevilled form, eg ma/in could be ‘main drain’ [Indra being the answer]. You may find that with some of the longer entries you have to work out the answer from the checked letters and then reverse engineer the undevilled version of the clue – this is quite normal.

I find Azed’s PD puzzles enjoyable to solve, presenting as they do a very different challenge from the standard crosswords. Below the notes I have included a checklist of the break points, indicating also those clues where a change of punctuation or spacing is involved. Apart from that, I’ve only included notes for a few clues, but I’ll happily provide hints (or confirmation of answers) for any others on request.

Clue Writers’ Corner: It took me a while to work out what makes a good PD clue, but in essence there are two key elements, and I would suggest that those who have not written PD clues before look at the successful entries from the last couple of competitions, for ERATHEM and TORSE.

Unlike conventional clues, where words cannot simply be added simply for the benefit of the surface reading and ‘telegraphese’ is entirely acceptable, the undevilled (full) form of the clue must read as a proper piece of English prose; the devilled version must make some sort of sense, but a cracking undevilled version and an ‘ok’ devilled clue will always beat a clue which reads reasonably well in both forms.

The clue must tell a single story, and there must be enough information to give the solver a reasonable chance of working out the answer – “Should wealthy patron list rooms to work in? (6)” is Azed’s clue for ENDART from the last PD puzzle […patron lend artist rooms…] and gives the solver plenty to work with, but “I list a room” would be both woefully inadequate and very dull.

Don’t forget the bit about the break not occurring at the beginning or end of words, so GO/ON being a contraction of GO AFTER SON or GOT ONE ON would be highly undesirable, while GOT ONE SON would be fine. Although the answer can simply be removed from the middle of another word (as in 11a here, or L[ACER]ATE), it won’t produce a prize-winning clue. And while clues which require wholesale modification, such as Norah Jarman’s remarkable winning entry for MINARET, ‘Bunter-whine starts with ja/w open: “Cease – condone – Wharton, please!’ [Bunter whines “Tarts with jam in are twopence – a second one, Wharton , please!”] were popular at one time, the great majority of successful entries in recent years have thankfully been much simpler in their construction.

Incidentally, for MINARET I preferred the clue that was placed second, Colin Dexter’s rather neat “I ran into a tree first time; examiner expressed hope I’d run into for/est”. I think it’s probably more to current taste.

Across

15a To feed your veg patch, be sure, that’s what you must apply (8)
Like me, your initial thought may be of ‘manure’, but it’s a different word for the same thing that’s involved in the last element of the insertion. A minor spacing change is also involved.

17a Expressing displeasure his voice carried very nasal whine (5)
Two commas feature in the undevilled version, one after ‘displeasure’ and the other following the first element of the insertion, wherein one word becomes three.

19a Such foul plans it’s possible dated over time (8)
One word becomes two here, the foulness of the plans suggesting who might originate such things and the ‘over time’ indicating that they were developed over a significant period.

28a Following cue is a told of how the tribe began (8)
The word that must be split isn’t hard to spot in this ‘one-becomes-three’ clue which suggests a bit of traditional story-telling around the campfire.

31a Forming part of their crest, sagged with heraldic devices (8)
A tricky one – the ‘gged’ turns into three words, the first being a term for ‘two lines drawn from the edge of the escutcheon and meeting at right angles in the fesse-point’, while the ‘sa’ is integrated with the text that precedes it.

Down

2d With new evidence coming to light, the police plan to release mail (5)
I originally thought of ‘bail’ here, and on reflection I wonder if something like ‘judge approves plan to release mail’ would have been more accurate.

7d Asked to recommend a holiday, resaid: ‘Such I’d go for every time’ (12)
Kudos if you worked the whole thing out from the clue, but the exact position of break does suggest itself, as does the the first word of the insertion, based on the three letters before the split and the ‘holiday’.

19d The cake’s nearly finished – who’s going to have thing on top? (7)
It isn’t the production of the cake (the wedding sort, perhaps) that’s nearly finished but the consumption thereof, so only a few final bits remain.

20d In versions affecting lakeside areas of New England (7)
An apostrophe must be inserted in the undevilled form of this one, and of course Azed wouldn’t mention New England unless it gave a very strong pointer towards the location that you’re looking for.

21d I like anything provide by the Taj Mahal but thy favourite (7)
Not hard to spot the break point, or the first and last letters of the answer (which combine with the split word to make two new words), so it’s just a matter of deciding what the Taj Mahal might serve up that could fit in the middle.

26d Are napkins the only way to stop baking everywhere? (5)
The key here is sussing out that ‘napkins’ are the sort usually referred to as ‘nappies’.

(definitions are underlined)

Break Points

Across

1: pa/t [p]; 6: s/old; 11: tar/t; 12: pa/’s [p]; 13: pa/ts [p]; 15: s/ure [s]; 16: no/t; 17: ve/ry [p]; 19: d/ated; 22: se/aring [p]; 23: str/iving; 25: Be/th [p]; 28: cu/e; 30: ver/mination; 31: sag/ged [p,s]; 32: pa/ss; 33: lo/tion; 34: la/med [p].

Down

1: b/aking [p]; 2: ma/il; 3: b/rain; 4: rear/ed [p]; 5: th/en; 7: res/aid [p]; 9: dodg/y [p]; 10: mu/tters; 14: germ/anic; 18: Ger/ry; 19: th/ing; 20: ver/sions [p]; 21: th/y; 24: c/asing; 26: b/aking; 27: Fa/un [p,s]; 28: h/ome.

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 2,654 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

An enjoyable puzzle that was, I felt, definitely trickier than average, featuring as it did a generous helping of obscurities and archaisms.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 12a, “Local droning noise spread during transmission of data (5)”. The wordplay here has a three-letter word (past active tense) meaning ‘spread’ or ‘diffused’ (usually applied to colour) inside a two-letter abbreviation which Chambers gives as representing  ‘data transmission’. The question this raises is how much latitude setters have when indicating abbreviations which are purely that, ie they would never be seen as having lives of their own as, say, PC or CD might (“My PC doesn’t have a CD drive”), or those ‘volunteers’ in 17d do (“He’s in the ??”). Could ‘tick’ be used for CR (credit) or ‘big’ for LG (large)? We’ve all seen ‘good man’ for ST (saint), but personally I’m not keen. ‘Navy’ for RN is better – at least one of the abbreviated words is there. I’m very happy, though, to accept Morecambisms (all the right words but not necessarily in the right order), so I’ve no problem with ‘transmission of data’ for DT or “constable that’s special” for SC.

Across

6a School science subject in short, child trailing in clumsy patch (5)
I don’t recall this being a subject in its own right at my school, but it’s a three-letter contraction of a six-letter science which must be followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘child’.

14a Disused dagger, ineffective with edge half gone, getting oiled? (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘ineffective’ or ‘useless’ is followed by one half of the word EDGE and a two-letter slang term meaning ‘on the way to being drunk’ (ie ‘getting oiled’). The answer in the sense of a small dagger is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’, hence the ‘disused’.

15a Record? Two couples left kept awake when it’s spinning (5)
A nine-letter word meaning ‘kept awake’ or ‘unable to drop off’ must be reversed (‘spinning’) and deprived of the pairs of letters at the start and end (‘two couples left’).

20a Sickly drink? At first swallowing very little (10)
A well-disguised break between definition and wordplay, the latter involving a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] drink’ being followed by a four-letter word for ‘at first’ containing (‘swallowing’) a three-letter adjective (given by Chambers as Scottish, which of course it is, but an rarity it is not) meaning ‘very little’.

26a Sounds ‘ostile in the front, having 18? (8)
A five-letter word which could conceivably mean ‘sounds hostile’ (certainly in the sense of making one’s disapproval of a performance known) is deaspirated in the same way as ‘hostile’ has been and then placed inside a four-letter word for the front (often in a nautical sense). The highly apposite reference is to the solution at 18 across.

27a Alternative to the Vulgate a Catholic mostly recalled (5)
A (from the clue) and a term for a Roman Catholic (or a classical language) from which the last letter has been omitted (‘mostly’) are reversed to produce the solution.

28a Curls tight round either half of hair dressed in a bunch (7)
An anagram (‘tight’) of CURLS is placed round either half of a four-letter word for ‘an elaborately dressed head of hair’ (ie ‘hair dressed’).

30a One should know how to negotiate traffic island, having ingested books (5)
A three-letter island or reef has ‘ingested’ the usual abbreviation for ‘books’ (not ‘NT’ or ‘OT’, which are sometimes indicated in this way, but not by me – see Setters’ Corner above).

Down

3d Centre of faith wavering, broken by severe Islamic services (6)
The three letters at the heart of FAITH (‘centre of faith’) are rearranged (‘wavering’) around a word meaning ‘severe’, as a nasty cold might be.

4d The old agree about splitting leave (7)
That oft-seen two-letter bit of commercial jargon for ‘about’ is put inside (‘splitting’) a word of French origin meaning ‘permission to depart’. I did wonder why Azed had chosen a definition which bore such a close resemblance to the archaic (‘old’) answer, but the two obvious options share either their first three letters or their last four with it.

5d Type of vaccine, cube maybe swallowed three times daily (6)
The ‘cube maybe’ which has been ‘swallowed’ by the instruction seen on medical prescriptions for ‘three times a day’ is the sort first produced by Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company in 1910 and sold for a penny each. During World War I, 100 million of the little fellows were apparently sent out to members of the British armed forces as part of a standard set of emergency rations, each in its own individual box.

6d Pass, last dropped, making veteran smoulder? (6)
The name of the pass which forms the border between Italy and Austria has its last letter dropped, producing an obsolete word meaning ‘to burn’.

8d The sound of cavalry approaching line in force? (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘line’ is contained by a slang term for those comprising a force of law and order, the result describing sounds which would almost certainly accompany the arrival of the cavalry unless the horses were travelling through mud or shod in slippers.

9d Sea mist shrouding rees fluttering in umbellifer (8, apostrophe)
The wordplay here has the four-letter word for a raw sea mist on the east coast of England or Scotland containing (‘shrouding’) an anagram (‘fluttering’) of REES (the plural of ‘ree’, the female of the ruff, if you were wondering). The solution is hyphenated, 5-3.

10d King occupying hidden house rented privately (12, 3 words)
The monarchical abbreviation for ‘king’ is contained by (‘occupying’) an anagram (‘hidden’, an interesting choice of indicator) of HOUSE RENTED. The (5,3,4) solution is a literal translation from a (3,4) Latin expression. According to Brewer’s, “The origin of the phrase is obscure but the story is that Cupid gave Harpocrates (the god of silence) a ????, to bribe him not to betray the amours of Venus. Hence the flower became the emblem of silence and was sculptured on the ceilings of banquet-rooms, to remind the guests that what was spoken sub vino was not to be repeated sub divo.”

17d Riding east, stop taking in volunteers (8)
You might think that following the usual abbreviation for ‘east’ it was a four-letter verb meaning ‘[to] stop’ which is containing the two-letter abbreviation for a group of volunteer reservists, but that would leave us a letter short of the solution. The ‘stop’ is in fact an organ stop, a fifth above the basic pitch (I don’t profess to know what that last bit means).

19d Grass ignoring cue to spill the beans, owning up (7)
A six-letter grass has the consecutive letters CUE removed (‘ignoring cue’) and is followed by a word meaning ‘to spill the beans’ (in a way that might be likened to a canary).

28d Even though old-fashioned he wrote memorable plays (5)
The second definition here is the surname of the American playwright probably best known for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, first staged in 1962, and deserving of fame for its name alone. I am put in mind of a music critic who observed that the band Blue Öyster Cult “write better titles than most bands write songs”.

29d Climbing lowest end of range, e.g. Atlas? (4)
A three-letter word for ‘lowest’ and the last letter (‘end’) of ‘range’ are reversed (‘climbing’) to produce an archaic term for the type of being that Atlas personified.

(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 2,653 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

I found the difficulty of this one hard to assess – a large number of obscure solutions, but most of them clearly signposted by the wordplay. I marked fewer clues that normal for comment as I solved the puzzle, so I’ve given it a rating just below average. It was a bit of a surprise to see what is essentially the same word appearing as the answer to two clues (2d and 26d) – something to be avoided by setters wherever possible.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 14a, “With a belly to stuff, that’s me tucking in (5)”. A dialect word meaning ‘with a belly’ results from ME being put inside a word meaning ‘to stuff [out]’ or ‘to pad’, the point of interest here being the wordplay. I’m not comfortable with active forms of ‘tuck in’ being used to indicate insertion (you don’t tuck in to bed unless you’re very hungry indeed), but even putting that to one side the wording seems a little cumbersome. As a setter, it’s always worth looking at a few alternative phrasings of clues like this in order to get the one that sounds most natural (as long as it’s sound, of course) and, where possible, that eliminates any superfluous words such as the “that’s” in this clue. Here, I think something like “With a belly to stuff, Azed tucked in” would be just a little more succinct.

Across

11a Pants of a kind, number available in XX? (6)
I thought at first that perhaps ‘XX’ here was intended to be ‘XXL’, with the XL indicating OS, but in fact what we have is a two-letter abbreviation for ‘number’ being contained by a word which describes XX on the basis that they are capital Greek letters rather than Roman ones.

13a Quail, once done, one we brought on (7)
A four-letter word meaning ‘done’ is followed by a single-letter word for ‘one’ and the letters WE (from the clue); the ‘daunt’ meaning of ‘quail’ (rather than the solution) is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’, hence the ‘once’.

15a Column moulding including dark ornament (on top often) (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘dark’ or ‘sorrowful’ is ‘included’ inside a four-letter word for a large moulding, which can also be spelt with five letters and describes a doughnut, though not the sort you should try to fill with jam. The answer is an ornament typically worn on a hat.

20a House with filthy hovel, about right as lodging for poet (6)
The usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘house’ is followed by a three-letter ‘filthy hovel’ containing (‘about’) the standard abbreviation for ‘right’. The word appears in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene:

 Yeeld me an ?????? mongst the croking frogs,
And harbour here in safety from those rauenous dogs.

29a Indian tree, one put with a different genus from the east (5)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ is followed by a reversal (‘from the east’) of the name given to the maple genus, producing a tree from the betel nut family.

32a M for mooch (4)
The first definition in this double definition clue comprises just a single letter. I’ve no problem with ‘C’, say, being used to indicate ‘see’, and while I would have my doubts about ‘I’ for ‘India’, I’m glad to see Azed embracing the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. The second definition relates to a slang word of uncertain origin, dating back to the nineteenth century. As Edgar Wallace wrote in The Lady of Ascot:

I believe in a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay and no ???ing

Down

2d Unfriendly Scots needing to relax after fine (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘fine’ is followed by a word meaning ‘to relax’ or ‘to abate’, almost invariably used in the context of pain or disease. The answer is one spelling – Chambers offers only three, but the OED has more than thirty to choose from – of a Scots word meaning ‘estranged, cold or unfriendly’.

4d What footpad was into, clumsy, bagging little weight (7, 2 words)
A five-letter word meaning ‘clumsy’ contains the two-letter abbreviation for an avoirdupois weight rarely encountered these days (though frequently consumed north of the border). The solution describes the sort of crime that a highwayman lacking an equine partner was reduced to; his mounted counterpart could aspire to something at a more elevated level (8, 2 words).

5d Word stuck on chest after piece of work? It denotes high-achieving organization (11, 2 words)
A four-letter word for, well, a word is placed before (‘stuck on’) a three-letter word for a chest, and the combination is put after a four-letter word for an occasional piece of work or an odd job.

10d Boy certainly hugs flirt jiggling her knick-knacks once (11)
A three-letter word for a boy is followed by a word meaning ‘certainly’ which contains (‘hugs’) an anagram (‘jiggling’) of FLIRT. The solution is given by Chambers as hyphenated, 4-7, but it looks more like two words that the Bard simply juxtaposed, resulting in their sole appearance together in Antony and Cleopatra:

Say, good Caesar,
That I some ???? ??????? have reserved,
Immoment toys, things of such dignity
As we greet modern friends withal, and say
Some nobler token I have kept apart
For Livia and Octavia, to induce
Their mediation, must I be unfolded
With one that I have bred?

16d Loo drain needs fixing: it’s said to be bung as before in Perth (8)
A straightforward anagram and a rather more complicated definition. Chambers refers to the proverbial use of the solution (the “it’s said to be” bit), and ‘bung’ is an Australian (‘in Perth’) slang term for ‘dead’; initially I thought the ‘as before’ was unnecessary, but I see that the latest edition of Chambers shows the term as ‘obsolete’.

19d Riddle about soak coming up ‒ devoid of ideas? (7)
A three-letter setters’ favourite meaning ‘[to] soak’ is reversed (‘coming up’) inside a dialect word for a strainer used for milk – I’m not sure I would be inclined to purchase my daily pinta from anyone who routinely used a riddle for the job, particularly if they were also keen gardeners.

23d Old 3-D film, damn mixed type (6)
One of the many euphemistic substitutes for ‘damn’, this one relating to the first letter of the word, is followed by a printer’s word for a confused mixture of type. The term for a 3-D film was coined by the wonderful Dilys Powell in 1953, a play on the use of ‘weepie’ to describe a tear-jerker. The boom in 3-D films, which included The House of Wax starring Vincent Price, lasted just a couple of years , but it led to conventional films being described for a while as ‘flats’ or ‘flatties’.

26d Stranger in Edinburgh given meal regularly with room (5)
A three-letter word meaning ‘given [a] meal’ is regularly interspersed with the usual abbreviation for ‘room’ and the solution is…another of those variations on the word already seen as the answer to 2 down, this time in the role of a noun.

(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 2,652 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A 13×11 puzzle that struck me as being close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum.  I didn’t think it was one of Azed’s very best, and a couple of clues seemed a tad unsatisfactory. There were, however, no |androids in evidence this time.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 13d, “Lady’s maid getting money that’s very little worked better (9)”. Quite a neat clue, where a three-letter word given by Chambers as meaning ‘a French five-centime piece; a tiny amount of money’ is followed by an anagram (‘worked’) of BETTER. It occurred to me (as I’m sure it did to Azed) that “Lady’s maid getting very little money worked better” would be neater still. However, ‘a tiny amount of money’ is not quite the same as ‘very little money’, the latter not equating to a very little sum of money, and Azed has chosen a wording which more closely matches the true sense of the word. I applaud the precision which Azed has deemed appropriate. That said, I think the point is a subtle one and some editors would have accepted the alternative form, which it would be hard to describe as unfair to solvers.

Across

12a Bird you probably won’t see appearing regularly in the urinal (4)
I admit that my first though here was TERN, although I was a bit surprised about the extra L that the odd characters of the ‘the urinal’ delivered. Of course, Azed has ruled that option out by way of the definition, which certainly wouldn’t apply to a tern (I still vividly recall being attacked by an arctic one on the Farne Islands) but certainly is relevant to the correct bird, described by Chambers as ‘now probably extinct’.

14a One akin to goosefoot? It’s found amid the alien corn (5)
The letters IT (from the clue) are to be found contained by (‘amid’) the French word for ‘corn’ (ie ‘alien corn’). I make no apology for repeating Norah Jarman’s successful clue from Ximenes comp 1140:

20a … Live, including muggins, hackneyed stuff, old hat (7)
I don’t remember seeing ‘muggins’ used before to reference the setter, but here the letter I must be joined with a four-letter word for ‘hackneyed stuff’ before being placed inside a two-letter word meaning ‘live’. Often in Azed’s puzzles when two clues are joined by ellipses they are linked from a solving perspective, but here the ellipses are there purely to suggest a surface reading which spans the divide.

21a Reactionary so-and-so from Norway earned terribly old German money? (13)
The IVR code for Norway is followed by an anagram (‘terribly’) of EARNED and a six-letter word for an obsolete German coin, although the best known variety surely comes from Austria. The Maria Theresa ?????? is a silver bullion coin that has been minted continuously since 1741. All Maria Theresa thalers minted after 1780 bear the date ‘1780’. At least 400 million of the coins have been minted, and they are still being produced.

23a Salamis probably featured this meatier recipe, one cut (7)
In 480 BC, the Greeks defeated the Persian fleet off the island of Salamis in the largest naval battle ever fought in the ancient world. Numbers of the boats in question are a little sketchy, but it seems that the Greeks had about 370 of these vessels. while the Persians had…well, quite a lot. The Greeks would have you believe that it was 1,200, but they would say that – 600-800 seems a more likely figure, given that the Persian fleet had suffered a few strokes of bad luck, most significantly when losing 400 or so in a storm of the coast of Magnesia (where the milk comes from). Anyway, the Persians should have won, but they didn’t. The wordplay involves an anagram (not obviously signalled) of MEATIER R (‘recipe’) without the A (‘one cut’).

27a Poultries straying (apart from pair inside) lay away from brood? (7)
A couple of slight oddities here – the fact that the ‘pair inside’ POULTRIES which must omitted prior to being anagrammed (‘straying’) is not specified (I’m fine with that – there are only six possibilities), and the ‘from brood’ in the definition seems to fulfil no purpose other than improving the surface reading (I’m not so keen on that).

32a Native of New Mexico maybe, last character to attend advanced instruction (4)
Another slightly strange one. The last character (of the alphabet) is clear enough, but the ‘accompany’ sense of ‘attend’ is archaic, and ‘advanced instruction’ doesn’t seem to adequately indicate the remaining three letters (why not just ‘college’?). All suggestions gratefully received.

34a Energy to preserve? Torn about reverse of that, rarely holding back (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘torn’ is put around (‘about’) a reversal of the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘energy’ plus a three-letter word meaning ‘to preserve’. The solution is shown by Chambers as ‘rare’.

Down

4d ‘Little’ girl in Rome played quietly above hall (5)
Azed rarely if ever uses a forename as a solution without giving some supporting indication, and here he tells us that in Latin the name means ‘little’. The wordplay has the usual single-character abbreviation for ‘piano’ (‘played quietly’) over the Latin word for a hall.

8d Fashionable, but lacking some French ‒ it mustn’t be forgotten! (5)
A three-word French expression meaning ‘fashionable’ is missing (‘lacking’) a two-letter French word for ‘some’, producing the name of a fort in Texas associated with an 1836 battle. Originally built as a Catholic mission for the purpose of converting Mesoamerican Indians living near the growing town of San Antonio, it was given its name by Spanish cavalrymen in honour of their home village, ????? de Parras. According to legend, when confronted by the might of the Mexican army, the rebel commander of the fort, William B. Travis, drew his sword and traced a line in the sand with its tip. He asked every man who was willing to defend the fort to the death to cross it. Only one man didn’t cross The battle became legendary almost immediately after it ended. The insurgents’ fatal refusal to surrender to the Mexican forces served to stimulate other rebels to continue fighting General Santa Ana and his army. In the month that followed the battle, the now-famous cry of “Remember the ?????!” was used to rally the rebels. Johnny Cash even wrote a song about it. Among those who lost their lives were Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, giving me an excuse for repeating this favourite schoolboy joke: How may ears did Davy Crockett have? Three – a left ear, a right ear, and a wild front ear. I’ll get me coat…

10d Sailors in service as once watched which way they rowed? (7)
The ‘sailors’ here leads to the two-letter abbreviation for ‘Royal Navy’, which is contained by a five-letter Elizabethan (‘as once’) spelling of a word for service, more familiar with an A in fourth position rather than an E, and almost invariably seen these days only in a couple of expressions, in one of which it has the meaning of ‘role’ or ‘place’. The definition caused me to raise an eyebrow or two – I see what Azed is getting at (they could see where they were going when they did this), but it’s a bit of a stretch.

22d Proud as before, old copper is on top of the facts (mostly) (6)
The old copper is two letters long and the sort that the Detectorists might turn up (along with the ring pulls and scaffolding clamps); it’s followed by (‘on top of’) a word for ‘the facts’ from which the last letter has been removed (‘mostly’).

25d Zemindar’s fitted out men with this tailor (5)
A composite anagram, where the letters of ZEMINDAR are a potential rearrangement (‘fitted out’) of MEN plus the solution (‘this tailor’).

26d Herd maybe accepts old dialect that’s spread (5)
A biblical word for ‘cows’ (‘Herd maybe’) contains the usual abbreviation for ‘old’, the result being a term which was originally applied to the common literary dialect of the Greeks from the close of classical Attic to the Byzantine era, but has been extended to include any language or dialect in regular use over a wide area in which different languages or dialects are, or were, in use locally. 

28d Attempt taking in old information from the US (4)
An informal word for an attempt (as in ‘a pound a ???’) contains…that abbreviation for ‘old’ we’ve just had in the previous clue! The answer is a slang term, originating in the US, for “up-to-date or ‘inside’ information, ‘low-down’”.

29d Sound unit, as it’s said, worked with machine? (4)
Azed falls into the trap here of the ambiguous homophone. We have know way of noing which is the soundalike (“as it’s said”) and which is the solution. It turns out that the answer sounds like the sound unit.

(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 2,651 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

I thought this was pretty tricky in places, with some well-constructed clues showing plenty of esprit. Note that the vertical bar preceding ‘android’ in the clue for 26a should be ignored, and that the correct enumeration for 22a is ‘(4)’. May I take this opportunity to wish all readers a very happy Easter – I trust that the bountiful bunny brought you all the goodies that you could wish for.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 10d, “No gentleman on board fishes a lot (5)”. A term for someone who is clearly ‘no gentleman’ is bordered by the letters SS, producing a word which satisfies the two definitions, ‘fishes’ and ‘a lot’. The questions is, can ‘on board’ legitimately indicate ‘contained by SS’? We have to interpret it as shorthand for ‘on board ship’ – I think this is a bit of a stretch, but we know what Azed means, we’ve seen it before (at least in his puzzles!), and I’d be hard pressed to describe it as unfair (except, perhaps, for a computer trying to solve the puzzle, which makes me like it all the more). I think that similar considerations apply to something like ‘having retired’ meaning’ contained by the letters BED’. All very much in the cryptic spirit, I would suggest, although some crossword editors might see it differently.

Across

1a German company trades in name of electric firm, leading handle (12)
A five-letter verb meaning ‘trades’ is contained by the three-letter abbreviation for the name of the British electronics, communications and engineering company, founded in 1886, which at one time during the 1980s was Britain’s largest private employer. A four-letter word for a handle brings up the rear.

11a Betty’s identified as this Henry, perhaps (5)
You could argue that this is a double definition, the first element relating to the tool used by burglars which was originally known as a ‘Betty’, then a ‘Jenny’, which became a ‘Jemmy’ and (on occasion, following gender reassignment) a ‘Jimmy’; the second definition relates to the famous novelist.

14a Stubble after end of March? Crazy then! (6)
The last letter (‘end’) of ‘March’ is followed by a dialect word for a stubble field, the result being a term which might suggest craziness specifically at this time of the year.

15a Dancing around is … Dippy possibly (8)
Dippy has something of a split personality; discovered in Wyoming in 1898, he now has residences (as many of the rich and famous do) in England and the US, but Dippy manages to be in both at the same time. He lives in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, but when not on tour around the UK he also calls the Natural History Museum in London home.

18a Plant, short, one of many that’s died out in railway centre (5)
The wordplay here indicates that the solution (‘that’) has [one instance of] the usual abbreviation for ‘died’ being taken out of the name of an Oxfordshire town known for its railway heritage and its power stations (one demolished, one going strong).

20a Greek lecture place: converting this turns venue into nearby temple’s dedicatee (4)
Converting this (ie the solution, read as 1,2,1) in the name of the city where the Pœcile is to be found will produce the name of the goddess to whom the nearby Parthenon is dedicated.

25a Pilot, ambitious one, hit going off course (5)
A triple definition clue, with the first one almost certainly being the easiest.

31a Time differences with one biblical book following another briefly? (6)
A four-letter shortened form of the name of one book of the New Testament follows an abbreviation, not for a specific book, rather for a type of book which represents 21 of the 27 that make up that volume.

32a Love getting stuck into a Pimm’s, stirred, having no head for Buck’s fizz (6)
The idea here is that the usual single-letter representation of ‘love’ is put inside (‘stuck into’) an anagram (‘stirred’) of A PIMM’S from which the letter P has been removed (‘having no head’). But this would only work (just about) if the A came at the start of the solution – the order of the indicators here cannot mean that the ‘head’ of “Pimm’s” must be removed – if anything, it is the ‘A’ which would have to go. I first recall hearing the word used in this (‘chiefly US’) sense in one of my favourite Simpson’s episodes, series 1 episode 9, known both as ‘Life on the Fast Lane’ and ‘Jacques to be Wild’, which won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program in 1990. It’s the one where Homer gives Marge a bowling ball as ‘her’ birthday present.

33a Some wool for spinning, half of it wrapped in scrap of cloth (5)
Half of the word ‘wool’ (ie ‘it’) is contained by (‘wrapped in’) a familiar three-letter word for a scrap of cloth.

34a Endearment for old woman takin’ time off work (5)
The six-letter present participle of a northern English word meaning ‘to take a holiday from work’ has its closing ‘g’ removed (analagously to “takin’”, with which it shares all but one letter).

Down

2d Spider, not special, i.e. spinning? (7)
An &lit, where an anagram (‘spinning’) of SPIDER deprived of its S (‘not special’) and IE gives a word for which the whole clue stands as a definition.

5d Canal boat friend shortened to fit locks (6)
A very neat clue, where a three-letter word meaning ‘to fit’ or ‘to hang’ contains (‘locks’, ie ‘holds closely’) a four-letter friend missing their last letter (‘shortened’).

7d Raincoat required in blustery air growing steadily? (7, 2 words)
The four-letter name for a Japanese raincoat of ‘hemp etc’ (whatever ‘etc’ is) which crops up every so often in barred puzzles is contained by an anagram (‘blustery’) of AIR, the result being a (1,6) phrase taken directly from the Latin.

12d Mongols maybe covering arid shifting sand in rattletraps (11)
A four-letter term for Mongoloid people of China, Thailand, Myanmar is followed by (‘covering’) a three-letter word meaning ‘arid’ and an anagram (‘shifting’) of SAND.

19d Coarse fibre from part of Spain, end shifted quite a lot (7)
The adjective describing something that comes from the autonomous community of Spain which includes Barcelona has its final letter (‘end’) shifted ‘quite a lot’ – four places upwards, to be exact.

21d Old relations trapped by mounting offence ‒ it’s insurmountable (7)
A term for uncles which is obsolete except in the world of the barred puzzle is contained (‘trapped’) inside a reversal of a word often indicated in crosswords by ‘offence’ or ‘error’, the result being an old word of which a relatively modern meaning (North American in origin) is ‘an unconquerable rival or enemy’.

23d Loyal knight, only a third chaste, in the soup (6)
There were two knights who share the name which is here followed by one-third of the word ‘chaste’, but the particularly good egg was ???? the Younger. Portrayed as one of the Round Table’s finest, his real glory comes on the Grail Quest, where he proves himself worthy enough to witness the Grail’s mysteries alongside Galahad and Percival. He features in a number of episodes, all of which, I’m pleased to say, bear witness to his good character.

28d Naval commander making spurt catching vessel’s tail (5)
A four-letter word meaning ‘to gush’ or ‘to belch’ contains the last letter (‘tail’) of ‘vessel’. The naval slang referenced in the definition seems to date (at least in written form) from the early part of the twentieth century, as in this quote from William Lang’s A Sea-lawyer’s Log (1919):

If you gets noisy and boisterous-like you sees the ????? in the morning.

(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 2,650 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A puzzle that was late arriving on the Guardian web site (no surprise there) and struck me as being around the middle of the difficulty spectrum.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 27a, “Error made by backward learners (6)”. Nothing too difficult about this clue, but it serves to illustrate how Azed has avoided a potential trap for setters. Had the clue been written as ‘Learners recalled error’, it would have been impossible for the solver to know whether it is the learners or the error that must be reversed to produce the solution; this is an issue when (i) the element to be reversed is a single word, and (ii) the reversal indicator is placed directly between that element and the definition. It is not usually difficult to get round the problem: the reversal indicator can be moved to one end of the clue, eg ‘Error learners recalled’, or a link between wordplay and definition can be introduced, such that the reversal indicator abuts only one element, eg ‘ Learners recalled making error’.

Across

1a American rotter appearing in pulpit, delivering surprise attack (9)
Be careful when entering the solution here – two answers  satisfy the definition and fit with the crossers, but only one can be justified by the wordplay, which has a two-letter abbreviation for ‘American’ and a three-letter cad contained by a word for ‘an early Christian raised reading-desk or pulpit’ (and the name of a character repeatedly played by Sylvester Stallone shorn of its first letter – not OCKY).

11a Gangster swindled, twice out of depth, creating a fuss(5)
A four-letter slang word for a gangster and a three-letter word for ‘swindled’ or ‘deceived’ (as in “you’ve been ???”) each lose the usual abbreviation for ‘depth’, the result being another slang term, hyphenated 3-2. This expression, albeit with an extra ‘h’, is a regular in the Jennings books of Anthony Buckeridge, and a pound to a penny that it applies to a situation created by Jennings, usually with a little help from Darbishire:

“And we really ought to be wearing space helmets too, sir, only there was a bit of a ???-??? the last time we did that,” Jennings added.

“If you ask me, Jen, you’ve gone and landed yourself feet first in the most lobsterous ???-??? since the Wars of the Roses.”

13a Pet I ask nervously about a game, skipping do (6)
An anagram (‘nervously’) of I ASK contains (‘about’) a four-letter board game from which the letters DO have been removed (‘skipping do’).

14a The majority of seabirds in air, flying ‒ they can decimate shoals (6)
The first 60% (‘the majority’) of a word for a group of ubiquitous seabirds (we get plenty of them here and we’re a long way from the coast. How do they know when the farmer’s about to plough the field at the back of our house – are they on Twitter?) is contained by an anagram (‘flying’) of AIR.

15a Orcadian bird: it’s seen returning in local common (6)
The letters ITS are reversed (“it’s seen returning”) inside one spelling of a dialect (‘local’) term for an area of common land; the alternative spelling is also a word for something worn around the neck.

18a Coaches supplying narcotic (6)
A double definition clue which like me you will probably get from the ‘coaches’, a shortened form of the name for the motor vehicles in which factory workers of the early twentieth century would be transported to the seaside for the annual ‘works outing’.

21a Source of news items to expedite, no longer postponed, one assumes? (11, 2 words)
A five-letter word meaning ‘to expedite’ or ‘to hurry on’ is followed by a (3,3) phrase which whimsically might be assumed to represent the opposite of a (2,3) expression meaning ‘postponed’, and would therefore suggest that something described thus was ‘no longer postponed’.

29a Newton’s captivated by thaumaturge, German scientist (6)
The standard abbreviation for the newton (note how Azed has put the word at the start of the clue to avoid any issues with capitalization) is contained (‘captivated’) by a word for a thaumaturge which was used (together with the definite article) by John Fowles as the title of his second novel.

30a Feature of desk, this? Not his, with clumsy DIY (4)
The word THIS has the letters HIS removed (‘not his’) and is followed by an anagram (‘clumsy’) of DIY.

36a Appetizer from a tin slovenly clergyman left unfinished (9)
A neat clue, where an anagram (‘slovenly’) of A TIN precedes a six-letter term for a clergyman (or a shepherd) from which the last letter has been omitted (‘left unfinished’).

Down

3d Trunks that have lasted a success? Gush about that (6)
A two-letter informal term for a success (as in ‘he made a ?? of it’) is contained by a four-letter verb meaning ‘belch’ or ‘gush’, the result being a solution which you might expect to be hyphenated, 3-3, but is given by Chambers as a single word.

4d Indication of disagreement, secret, Home Secretary regularly suppressed (4)
A (4-4) term meaning ‘secret’ has the two letters of the abbreviation for ‘Home Secretary’ deleted from positions 1 and 3 and then from positions 5 and 7 (‘regularly suppressed’).

7d Like the newly born with being ignored bawl when pa’s around (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘[to] bawl’ has the usual abbreviation for ‘with’ removed and is contained by a three-letter informal word for ‘father’ (“when pa’s around”).

16d A cold curse involving bling gets familiar? (9)
The wordplay here has the letter A (from the clue), the usual abbreviation for ‘cold’, and a four-letter slang variant of ‘curse’ containing (‘involving’) a bit of Cockney rhyming slang for jewellery, usually of the purloined type (‘bling’).

22d I had got in revenue, looking delighted (6)
The contracted form of ‘I had’ is put inside a word for revenue which is more often associated with periodic payment for the use of someone else’s property. Just occasionally my Latin O Level comes in handy, and this was one of those times.

23d Browning? That dallying with EB may have stirred nun’s bate! (6)
A composite anagram, where the letters of the solution (‘that’) and EB can be rearranged to form (‘may have stirred’) NUNS BATE. In the surface reading, EB is of course Elizabeth Barrett, born Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett. You might think that she would have been known as Betty Barrett Barrett for short, but her family nickname was apparently the rather more succinct ‘Ba’.

24d Between sound opposites of two cross off sound engineer’s contribution? (6)
A rather ungainly clue which involves the standard musical abbreviations for ‘loud’ and ‘soft’ (‘sound opposites’) framing a (1,4) French expression meaning ‘of two’ from which the letter representing a cross (of the saltire form) has been lost (‘cross off’). The solution is hyphenated 4-2.

26d Part of old armour that is originally Roman in short (6)
The standard English abbreviation for the Latin words meaning ‘that is’ (‘that is originally Roman’) is contained by a four-letter word meaning ‘short’.

(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 2,649 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

There were very few ‘gimmes’ in this puzzle, and several wordplays which took a bit of teasing out, resulting in the needle on the Difficultometer® getting comfortably past the halfway mark. I might even have rated the difficulty half a notch higher, but on reviewing the clues there didn’t seem to be anything in there that was really tough.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 27a, “One just beginning to tuck into tart, one often pressed (8)”. The wordplay here is straightforward, a four-letter word for a beginner or novice being ‘tucked into’ a word for a flat, open tart. What I want to look at here is the definition, ‘one often pressed’. When writing clues, especially for nouns, one should always be on the lookout for definitions which are a little out of the ordinary. In times gone by, the ‘cryptic definition’ clue which did not feature a wordplay was a relatively common feature of crosswords, but such clues do not meet the Ximenean requirement of there being (at least) two ways to arrive at the answer and are now only found in the blocked back-pagers. What I generally refer to as an ‘oblique’ definition is a different matter – this is simply an interesting definition within a normal ‘definition plus wordplay’ clue. Here Azed has taken the dictionary definition, ‘an old-fashioned iron for pressing clothes’,  and made the ‘pressed’ look like an adjective when in fact it is a past tense, reflecting the ‘old-fashioned’ aspect, while the definition actually needs to be read as ‘one often pressed [things]’. Not only can definitions like this legitimately misdirect the solver, they can add a great deal to the entertainment value of a crossword.

Across

1a Funny but arch pop star outselling other discs? (12)
An anagram (‘Funny’) of BUT ARCH is followed by the pseudonym of Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, bus conductor, tax officer and teacher turned pop star. The solution is hyphenated 5-7.

15a Earl left half of spread? Not half! (6, 2 words)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘Earl’ is followed by a five-letter term for the left-hand page of an open book.

17a Maori’s prohibition beginning to unravel after peg (4
The first letter (‘beginning’) of ‘unravel’ follows a word for the sort of peg that might be used to vent a cask of 20d. There is another word which would fit with the crossers but it doesn’t satisfy the wordplay and isn’t consistent with the Maori bit.

23a Task doubled in a long time is building up (8)
A reversal (‘doubled’) of a four-letter northern dialect word for a day’s work or a task is contained by an informal word which Chambers defines as ‘a long time, however short’.

29a Exquisite sound of horn we observed in Scotland (6)
A short blast on a horn is followed by a two-letter Scots form of ‘we’; the ‘observed’ can be ignored.

31a Name sister in love? The opposite (4)
The opposite of a sister in love is love in a sister, so the usual single-letter representation of ‘love’ as Andy Murray knows it is put inside the sort of sister who might live with a childless mother and lots of other sisters.

32a Old musket one of the Gordons fired? (7)
Here we have an anagram (‘fired’) of A GORDON, ie ‘one of the Gordons’.

34a Mosses I see exchanging position in harmony (5)
The single letters represented by ‘I’ and ‘see’ swap positions in a word which Chambers confirms can mean ‘melody or harmony’.

Down

1d Fine fellow nursing limp? He should probably stretch (11)
A charade of a five-letter word meaning ‘fine’, which might be used to describe a marksman, and a mildly whimsical term for a fellow nursing a limp (or for a rope used to hold and lead an animal). Here we have one of those ‘oblique’ definitions, which can also on occasion be used to good effect when tackling a word which is otherwise tricky to define succinctly and/or deceptively – Chambers gives ‘stretch’ as ‘to hang by the neck’ only in a transitive sense, but OED confirms the intransitive form.

2d Sport club, not amateur (7)
The name of a club which opened in 1869, is known for its croquet and tennis lawns, botanical gardens and stately Georgian Clubhouse, and is regarded as the birthplace of polo (the game, not the mint), has a three-letter word meaning ‘amateur’ (as in Tony Hancock’s brief flirtation with amateur radio) removed to produce the name of a sport with Irish roots (completely unconnected with wellie wanging, even if they might appear superficially similar).

4d Bituminous stuff limb in tractor hoisted (6)
A three-letter term for a specific limb is contained by a reversal (‘hoisted’) of the shortened name of a particular type of tractor (or other vehicle) that moves on a continuous track. Although tracked vehicles have evolved considerably during the intervening years, it seems possible that the first vehicle using a continuous track to be publicly demonstrated was the steam plough patented in 1832 by John Heathcoat, a farmer’s son who became MP for Tiverton. Heathcoat was an inventor who had earlier come up with (among other things) a machine which could produce a precise imitation of pillow lace, a fabric which he called ‘bobbin net’, later known as ‘bobbinet’. The equipment in the textile factory which he co-owned in Loughborough was wrecked in 1816 by former Luddites, supposedly in the pay of the Nottingham lace-makers – it seems that he had foreseen trouble, because he already had plans in place to move his business lock, stock and barrel to Tiverton, nearly 200 miles away. Many of his employees relocated with him, at least 100 families being known to have made the journey, and there is apparently still a row of cottages in Tiverton called ‘Loughborough’.

In 1837, representatives of the Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland assembled at Red Moss Bog in Bolton-le-Moors to watch the demonstration of Heathcoat’s steam plough. It was a huge machine, with 7ft sections of wood bolted to continuous iron bands driven by two 10ft diameter drums, 26ft apart. Although it weighed 30 tons, its ground pressure was less than a man’s weight. The society awarded Heathcoat £100 out of a possible £500 of its prize for creating a steam ploughing engine, and the party who witnessed the demonstration ‘expressed to Mr. Heathcoat the extreme pleasure they had received, and their earnest hope that he would extend the sphere of his exertions by applying the invention to the culture of stiff clay.’ There are suggestions that shortly afterwards the machine sank and almost disappeared in a swamp, but such reports are not contemporaneous – the rather more prosaic truth seems to be that issues with the technology and lack of funds simply resulted in the concept being abandoned by its inventor.

5d Dead duck upended among reeds, say, out of sight? (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘dead’ and a three-letter word for the score of a batsman dismissed for a ‘duck’ are reversed (‘upended’) within a a word which could describe a place where reeds grow – or garden flowers.

7d One of two months wherein to find amphibian with temperature mounting (5)
The wordplay here can get you to the answer in a couple of ways, the intended route probably being to put the four-letter amphibian (an alternative spelling of a three-letter word not infrequently seen in barred puzzles) after the usual abbreviation for ‘time’, the whole lot then being reversed (‘mounting’).

9d You may find estaminet’s upset at this bill item (4)
A composite anagram, where the letters of ESTAMINETS can be rearranged (‘upset’) to form AT plus the answer (‘this bill’) plus ITEM. Note that because this isn’t an &lit, the sort of ‘bill’ that is being referred to in the definition doesn’t need to relate in any way to that implied by the surface reading.

18d Nurse limits returning fuss, result of brain damage? (7)
The three-letter word (probably more commonly seen as a four-letter variant) for a nursemaid in colonial times contains (‘limits’) a reversal (‘returning’) of the sort of fuss that often also involves dance.

24d Magistrate, not standard, neglected character blemish? (6)
The word MAGISTRATE must have a four-letter word meaning ‘standard’ removed (‘not standard’) before the remaining letters are rearranged (‘neglected’).

28d Ne’er-do-well traditionally lost with Latin (5)
The past tense of an obsolete verb meaning ‘to lose’ (ie ‘traditionally lost’) is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘Latin’; the solution is itself derived from the same verb, and is more familiar to me with an S in the middle rather than an R.

30d Greek coin, old, to toss up (4)
The standard abbreviation for ‘old’ is followed by a reversal (‘up’) of a word meaning ‘to toss’. Many years ago I used to do the Autolycus puzzle in the Birmingham Post, which proved a splendid introduction to the darker reaches of Chambers, and this word appeared on a regular basis, usually being indicated by “Charon’s fee” – it is a very long time since I have seen it defined in that way.

(definitions are underlined)