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 2,639 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A plain puzzle with a 13×11 grid which I would place pretty close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. A good variety of clues, and a word at 12d which those of us whose chemistry studies were confined to the previous millennium may have struggled with.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 7d, “Took part in boat race in sound course (4)”. When writing homophone and reversal clues, setters need to be careful that they are not ambiguous – “Animal caught naked” could lead to either BEAR or BARE. The solution is generally to place the homophone (or reversal) indicator at one end of the clue, so that it can only apply to the adjacent word(s), eg “Naked animal caught” can only be a clue for BARE. Here the homophone indicator, ‘in sound’, is in the middle, but since one of the words delivered by the clue is five letters long and the answer is only four letters there is no ambiguity.

Across

1a See a punch I swung, angry – my arm-ends are balled (13, 2 words)
The (8,5) solution comprises the letter of the alphabet named ‘see’, an anagram (‘swung’) of A PUNCH I, and a five-letter word meaning ‘angry’.

10a Re gland, see two adjacent parts transposed in a pig’s (8)
The letter A plus a seven-letter word for “pig’s” (or ‘of pigs’) has two adjacent letters swapped over (‘adjacent parts transposed’) to produce a word meaning ‘(of a gland) whose product is formed by the breakdown of part of its active cells’. The definition here may not be strictly accurate, but it’s good enough for me, particularly given that the word itself is something of a pig.

14a Aromatic rhizome left on dipping in dippy (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘left’ and an archaic two-letter form of ‘on’ are ‘dipping’ into a word which more commonly these days is used to mean ‘in senile dotage’, but can also have a more general sense of ‘dotty’.

15a Peanuts, singularly wretched pay (6, 2 words)
An anagram (‘wretched’) of the singular form of ‘peanuts’ produces a (4,2) phrasal verb which is found in Chambers under the entry for its first element.

17a Restore revenue in Polish city (7)
A charade of a four-letter word used when retracting a correction to printed text and a three-letter slang term for ‘money’ (‘revenue’ seems a little bit of a stretch) gives us the name applied to a particular Polish city up until 4 October 1945, so strictly speaking the definition should be something like ‘old Polish city’.

23a Salmon in small boat, heated, trimmed in the same way (4)
Three-letter words meaning ‘a small boat’ and ‘heated’ have the same closing letter removed (‘trimmed in the same way’).

29a Losing heart she goes after bloodless turns, passing (6)
The word ‘she’ without its central letter (‘losing heart’) goes after a reversal (‘turns’) of a word meaning ‘bloodless’, producing a noun which is more familiar as a verb. The grammar of the wordplay, specifically ‘goes after…turns’, is slightly questionable – ‘turning’ would be more satisfactory, but the surface reading would then make no sense at all.

31a Crowning vegetable to cut back (4)
A six-letter vegetable has the letters TO removed (‘to cut’) before being reversed (‘back’).

Down

1d American plant seen in two states briefly (6)
The two (American) states to be abbreviated are those where the Mamas & the Papas were dreaming and the lights went out for the Bee Gees. Incidentally, it seems that the relevant line from the song by the latter group was meant to suggest that everyone had gone to a ‘happening’ city in the state where the former outfit were based.

3d German dish, accompaniment for soup, not available? (5)
A seven-letter word for something that might be added to your soup has a two-letter word meaning ‘available’ (as soup might be in a café) removed (‘not available’).

4d What’ll sell takeaway (no starter) for dropout? (6)
OK, I admit that I looked up ‘hinese’, but that was a momentary aberration. The place that will provide a takeaway, and which loses its first letter (‘no starter’), is as quintessentially English as Joyce Grenfell and tiddlywinks.

12d Newcomer joining table turned up in vain taking in a point (9)
The wordplay here has a reversal (‘turned up’) of a (2,2) phrase meaning ‘in vain’ containing (‘taking in’) the letter A (from the clue) and a four-letter word for a headland or ‘point’. The table which the solution recently joined is the periodic table, its admission being formally ratified on 28 November 2016.

22d Water rising in channel sounded warning? (6)
The water that’s ‘rising’ (ie reversed) is the sort that might be passed rather than drunk (unless you’re Bear Grylls), and the channel is the sort that would belong to a river.

26d Couple finally changing places in sign of approval embrace (5)
I can’t help feeling that ‘sign of approval’ here should be ‘signs of approval’ or ‘signals approval’, but anyway the last two letters of the resulting word must be exchanged (‘couple finally changing places’) in order to produce the solution.

(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 2,638 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A pleasant solve, the difficulty seeming to me just a tad below average. The ‘possibly unfamiliar trade name’ is found at 19d, although it will not be unfamiliar to anyone who shares (or even exhibits a  fraction of) my enthusiasm for a particular type of food.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 7a, “Eric, maybe, not employed in Lidl emporium (4)”. Azed quite frequently, as here, bolts a second definition onto a normal clue. This clue would work perfectly well without the first two words, but he has chosen to add a reference to a member of the Monty Python team and the co-creator of The Rutles. Modern crossword editors are apt to reject this type of thing, as much as anything because of the space constraints increasingly constraining printed puzzles, so although such a clue adds a bit of variety and gives the solver additional direction towards the solution I would in general advise steering clear when setting for newspapers, although clues with an extra definition – or an extra wordplay – are absolutely fine when it comes to Azed competition entries..

Across

1a Drinks knocked back, including round, in early youth (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘drinks [by licking up]’ is reversed (‘knocked back’) around (‘including’) a four-letter word for a round [thing]. The ‘early’ is there to qualify the definition ‘youth’, since the solution is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’.

11a Peasants skin a chicken, to be stuffed with sage finally (9)
A four-letter word meaning ‘skin’ (or ‘to cut down’) is followed by A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for a chicken, into which the last letter (‘finally’) of ‘sage’ has been ‘stuffed’.

12a Transfer a lot in computer’s memory for arts degree (4)
The solution here is both an abbreviation for a particular type of arts degree and a word which Chambers defines as “to transfer a large array of bits between different locations in a computer’s memory.” I spent many years working in IT without ever coming across this word, but that is probably no great surprise as it turns out to be the name of a bitmap graphics terminal developed at Bell Labs in 1982. At that time I was working on PDP-11  telex systems and knew little of graphics devices. Hands up all those who remember telexes. Well, you must at least remember fax machines. No? You’re having me on. Anyway, the name of this particular device was derived from the second syllable of the term for the bit-block transfer operation that was fundamental to the terminal’s graphics capability. I have seen it suggested that the verb dates back to the 1970s, so it may already have been in use when the device was named.

14a Contract closed after shock (7)
A two-letter word meaning ‘closed’ (as a door might be) follows a word for ‘to shock’ or ‘to horrify’.

15a This opens in composition…as in opera maybe? (4)
A composite anagram &lit, where the solution (‘this’) plus OPENS when rearranged (‘in composition’) can potentially produce (‘maybe’) AS IN OPERA. The whole clue represents the definition.

16a French tradespeople aroused ire opening large works (8)
An anagram (‘aroused’) of IRE is inserted into (‘opening’) a five-letters word for large works, particularly of the written or filmed sort.

26a Manure to touch up a bit of horticulture (4)
The three-letter word for ‘touch’ required here (the ‘up’ has been added purely to improve the surface reading) has six entries in Chambers, the most common probably being ‘pretentious odds and ends of little real value, eg in an antique shop’. The ‘bit’ of horticulture is simply the first letter of the word.

32a Occupants of reptile house, close together, shut up inside (9)
A five-letter verb meaning ‘to close together’, most commonly seen these days as a related seven-letter adjective and applied to ranks, has a four-letter word meaning ‘shut up’ or ‘enclosed’ inside.

Down

1d Music heralded our queen’s arrival – see special Arab coat (4)
A spot of general knowledge is needed here, the reference in the definition being to a brief but lively passage for oboes and strings from Handel’s 1749 oratorio Solomon that featured in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony at the point where James Bond (Daniel Craig) went to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The wordplay has the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘special’ being followed by the term for an outer garment made from a Syrian cloth of the same name.

4d Weakling, poorly raised, in endless poverty (6)
A three-letter word for ‘poorly’ is reversed (‘raised’) inside a four-letter word for poverty from which the last letter has been omitted (‘endless’).

5d It’s avoided in some diets, stuff with (unequal) parts switched (6)
A six-letter word meaning ‘[to] stuff’ has its last four letters exchanged with its first two, ie ‘with (unequal) parts switched’.

9d The French embracing love in Rome getting end away – they softened (8)
There’s a continental flavour to this clue, where a three-letter French word for ‘the’ is put around (’embracing’) the Italian (‘in Rome’) word for ‘nothing’ or ‘nothingness’ with its last letter removed (‘getting end away’). The past tense is used in the definition because the answer is shown by Chambers as not only ‘medical’ but also ‘archaic’.

18d Curved roof timbers, we her, forming a cross (4)
A homophone for a relatively uncommon six-letter word for curved timbers which, when deployed in pairs, support the roof of a particular type of house that should on no account be confused with the sort having an A as their third letter rather than a U.

19d Tea-time treat? It has middle of chocolate (double) coating on (4)
The wordplay here tells us that the solution (‘It’) involves two instances (‘double’) of the central character in (‘middle of’) the word ‘chocolate’ surrounding (‘coating’) that two-letter piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘on’ or ‘concerning’ familiar to all cruciverbalists.

24d Scottish institutes, after time belonging to that lot (6)
The five-letter word that follows the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ (‘after time’) is not an unfamiliar Scottish word that has the meaning of ‘institutes’ but rather a familiar word that is indicated by a meaning of ‘institutes’ known only to the Scots – this is a trick that Azed comes up with every so often, but I know from experience that crossword editors don’t like it (though I can’t see why, as it seems perfectly legitimate).

29d What may occupy base? Not much turns up (4)
A reversal (‘turns up’) of a (1,3) phrase meaning ‘not much’ or ‘very little’. It is left to the reader to take a view on the legitimacy of the definition.

(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 2,637 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

First of all, let me wish all readers a very happy and healthy New Year, with plenty of good puzzles to enjoy.

This puzzle seemed to me to sit somewhere close to the middle of the spectrum, although I could probably be persuaded that it was marginally below average difficulty. It seemed to lack a little of the verve of some recent Azeds, but it was an enjoyable solve nonetheless.

Clue Writers’ Corner: This week sees a return to normal competition, the requirement being to provide a clue to the solution at 1d. Because this is a down entry, positioning devices such as ‘rising’, ‘above’ etc can be used, while those specific to across clues (eg ‘from the east’) cannot. Since the competition word is a noun, given by the OED as “One who is skilled in matters of eating”, it may of course be defined in clues by a noun or noun phrase (as in the asterisked definition), but other options are available. The word relates to a person, so pronouns such as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘I’, ‘one’ and even ‘who’ are valid, for example ‘I know about food’ or “Who could help you with eating” – there are examples of this kind of definition in (among others) 12a, 21a and 30a here. Azed is also happy to allow clauses with an implied subject to be used – as he observed in the slip for comp 354,

“I’ve said before that an adjective is an inaccurate (because unfairly misleading) way of indicating a noun (and vice versa of course). I do accept however that a verb (in the appropriate person) can indicate a noun. ‘Barks and is man’s best friend’ defines DOG far more clearly than, say, ‘Furry and domesticated’.”

 So something along the lines of “Knows a lot about food” would be ok here.

Although I generally advise against ‘obvious’ anagrams for short answers, with words of this length there are clearly gong to be a lot of possibilities, including those that involve a letter or two being added or subtracted, and I would therefore expect to see a lot of anagrams featuring among the published entries. For the most recent competition requiring a normal clue for a twelve-letter competition word, BOTTLE-WASHER in 2,534, only three of the successful entries did not include an anagram of some sort. With such words, the non-anagram possibilities are often in fact more obvious than the ones which involve anagrams (eg the use of the first and the last five letters of this week’s competition word).

One other tip when writing &lit clues for words of this sort: the last letter selection indicator ‘term’ can prove extremely useful, as in this clue for AXMAN – “Term for Hendrix, penned by American, avoided by Clapton?” [(hendri)X in AM(eric)AN]. It can also be used to add a missing letter to anagram fodder whilst at the same time introducing the definition.

Across

12a One’s clumsy in company, breaking end off fine china (4)
The name of a Stoke-on-Trent pottery founded in 1770 and now part of the Portmeirion group loses its last letter (‘breaking end off’) to produce a slang term for someone who is socially inept. As the Tatler informed us in 1989,

 Like all closed societies Eton has developed its own language. If you are a ‘goggy’, ‘zoid’, ‘????’, ‘gunk’, or ‘Wendy’, you are a social misfit.

13a Late addition after stodge: nasty stomach ache (6)
The ‘stodge’ which is here followed by the two-letter abbreviation for something added to piece of writing is not a noun but a verb, meaning ‘to stuff with food’.

14a Upper class requiring gossip about inherited estate (5)
The complexity in this clue relates to the phrasing of the wordplay, which reads as though it might have been generated by a Sinclair Scientific calculator. The letter used by Alan Ross to represent ‘upper class’ requires a four-letter word for gossip to be [put] about [it].

15a Protective covering for old horse, one pulling light carriage (7)
A double-definition clue, with the ‘horse’ from the first definition (given by Chambers as ‘hist’, hence the ‘old’) being picked up by the ‘one’ in the second definition, which on the basis of the four-letter word for a  light carriage from which it is derived you might have expected to be a pony.

20a Tons included in half of tote, not wholly (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘tons’ is included in the first five letters (‘half’) of a ten-letter word for a system of pool betting invented in 1867 by the Catalan entrepreneur (and co-founder of the Moulin Rouge) Joseph Oller, which these days is probably most closely associated with the state-controlled French gaming operator responsible for all betting on horse races in that country.

22a Lyle’s partner showing his bit in putt at eighteen (4)
Even by Azed’s standards, this is a bit of an odd one – two definitions and a ‘hidden’ wordplay, but the second definition requires ‘his’ to refer to a Scottish person, ‘his bit’ then indicating a Scots word for a small portion. Is it reasonable to expect the solver to understand ‘Lyle’ for that purpose (though not for the benefit of the first definition) to be Scots golfer Sandy Lyle? Perhaps, but surely ‘his’ relates not to Lyle but to “Lyle’s partner”. Is it then reasonable to assume their Scottishness by association? Nah.

30a Exhausted fellow in rush: what’ll cab in Wellington charge? (6)
A three-letter word for an exhausted individual (who might well be limp) is contained by a three-letter ‘archaic or poetic’ word meaning ‘to hasten’.

Down

2d Head of SA clan maybe publishing firm answer (4)
The three initials of a publishing body first granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586 are followed by the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘answer’. The ‘maybe’ indicates that the resulting person might be the head of a South African clan – but might not be.

5d Cowboy’s charge? First for him, leading cavalier (7)
The ‘First for him’ indicates the initial letter of ‘Cowboy’, to be followed by a six-letter word for a knight, taken directly from the German language and shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’.

8d Consort of Queen Empress, maybe, champion of old (4)
The idea here is that the consort of a queen empress could be a king emperor, and those two words must be abbreviated to a single letter and three letters respectively. The clue could equally well have read ‘King Emperor, champion of old’.

10d Has forgotten king in layout with fellows in club (12)
The usual abbreviation for a king of the monarchical variety is contained by a four-letter term for ‘the layout of cards’, a word more familiar when followed by ‘en scène’, and the whole lot is followed by a seven-letter word for ‘fellows in [a] club’ (or ladies, but I see why Azed opted for the fellows here).

16d Heretic, a sailor imprisoned in punishment once (8)
The letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter “setters’ favourite” for ‘sailor’ are contained (‘imprisoned’) by an obsolete word for ‘punishment’ often indicated in puzzles by ‘long’.

24d Fond of sledging at the Gabba? Offhand after half-century (5
Those relatively unfamiliar with the vocabulary of cricket may not know that ‘sledging’ is the term applied to the making of remarks, light-hearted or otherwise, usually delivered to the batsman by a close fielder shortly before the bowler delivers the ball, and designed to put him off his stroke; the term is of Australian origin and derives from the phrase ‘as subtle as a sledge-hammer’, which it usually is. Here’s one of the wittier examples, addressed by Australia’s Merv Hughes to England’s Robin Smith:

“If you turn the bat over you’ll get the instructions mate.”

There are two recommended techniques for dealing with sledging – one is to ignore it, and the other is to give as good as you get, as in this dialogue between Australia’s Mark Waugh and England’s James Ormond:

Waugh: “What are you doing out here? There’s no way you’re good enough to play for England.”
Ormond: “Maybe not, but at least I’m the best player in my own family” [Mark’s brother being former Australian captain Steve Waugh]

25d Like Caesar, wretchedly tinged with gore, losing reign, undone? (5)
“Infamy, infamy” and all that…here we have a subtractive anagram, the solution being a rearrangement (‘wretchedly’) of the letters  in TINGED and GORE after losing the letters of REIGN in any order that the setter wants (‘undone’).

27d Outsize bust? It must be held in for gym! (4)
The ‘bust’ in this clue is a frolic or spree, particularly the sort which involves the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

29d Lute string – note position when it’s plucked (4)
A two-letter anglicized name of a note in sol-fa notation (the one what Julie Andrews calls herself) is followed by a four-letter word for a position or location from which the letters IT have been removed. 

(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 2,636 ‘Christmas Cards’

Difficulty rating: (4.5 / 10)

As a Christmas ‘special’ this was quite a straightforward solve, both the normal clues and the wordplay in the gimmicked clues being very friendly for the most part. I must confess that I initially counted only 16 ‘card’ clues, and had to check through to identify the other two (both of which work to a degree without the ‘card’, but work better with it). Following the notes on individual clues I have listed the ‘card’ clues; I’ll be happy to indicated where the letters C-A-R-D have been removed in the mutilation process on request.

Note that the entries associated with several of the ‘card’ clues are ambiguous (1d being an example) so be careful when entering the solutions when the wordplay doesn’t uniquely indicate the sequence of letters and the unmutilated answer contains multiple instances of C, A, R or D in the right order (eg  CARICATURED).

One of the ‘card’ words/phrases not in Chambers was unfamiliar to me, while the other is formed from a common word; I’m quite surprised that Chambers doesn’t give the non-thematic two-word phrase, which I doubt anyone will even feel the need to look up.

May I take this opportunity to wish all readers a very happy festive season and to thank them for the comments which they have made through the year. The next Azed will not appear until 1st January (it will be another competition puzzle), so to ensure some cruciverbal activity next weekend I have printed off this week’s Enigmatic Variations puzzle (a scan of which a Telegraph reader has kindly made available to download) ready to be tackled then – it looks as though it will present a good challenge, and the setter’s alias suggests that it may have a seasonal flavour. Hints for the puzzle can be found on Big Dave’s site. Update: it didn’t, in fact, have a seasonal theme, and whist it presented a challenge it wasn’t one that I enjoyed…solving a puzzle like that is a reminder of just how good Azed’s clues are.

Clue Writers’ Corner: I would encourage solvers to have a go at this competition. You need to select any word or phrase of 12 or fewer letters (so not CHRISTMAS CARD) matching the pattern *C*A*R*D*, so ACARIDIAN would be an option, as would BENCHMARKED. There are several hundred possibilities – it’s ok to use one of the words that Azed included in the puzzle, but with so many options I’d be inclined to steer clear of them, and I’d suggest choosing a word that has enough letters to leave you several that will be indicated by the wordplay (CARDY, for instance, isn’t going to offer much scope). When writing clues of this type, be careful about using words to link the wordplay and the definition, particularly those that imply equivalence – “Match is put in box (4)” for CARTONED appears good, with ‘Match’ leading to TONE and ‘put in box’ giving CARTONED, but in effect the clue is saying TONE IS CARTONED, which it isn’t. I don’t expect Azed will disqualify such clues, but they are likely to be marked down. “Match put in box” would be absolutely fine. In Azed’s 18 card-carrying clues, 16 have no linking words and the other two use ‘for’ to join wordplay to definition. If you look at the successful entries in previous Christmas competitions, you will see that Azed tends to favour those with a seasonal theme, and you will also note that veteran competitors usually supply clues that deliver on that score. Certain of Azed’s CARD clues are ambiguous (eg 1d, 16d) in terms of the grid entry, so as long as the letters CARD appear in the right order in your word, and the wordplay indicates a valid sequence of letters remaining after C-A-R-D has been removed, there will be no problem, so ‘Hired three cooks’ is valid for CHARTERED even though the entry could be HTERE or HRTEE.

Across

5a Rapport that is following one, reverse of large quantity (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘that is’ follows both a single-letter word meaning ‘one’ and a reversal of a word for a large quantity, normally seen in the plural form referring to paper, or things that might be listed at length on paper.

15a What’s fed to cage-birds some observe (6)
I rather like this one, the wordplay consisting of two three-letter words, the first meaning ‘some’ and the other ‘observe’.

20a Taboos including rule for types of litter (5)
‘Taboos’ here can be either a noun or a verb, leading to a four-letter word which ‘includes’ the usual abbreviation for ‘rule’. The word thus produced might appear to come close to satisfying the definition, but it isn’t the answer.

24a Survive cargo: it’s popular with NZ players (4)
This clue is a triple-definition of sorts – each of the first two words leads directly to the grid entry, while the remainder indicate the answer (not to be found in Chambers). The enumeration should be (4, 2 words).

26a Old silver piece: Italian adventurer has one inscribed (5)
The ‘Italian adventurer’ is the family name of the Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled along the Silk Road in the thirteenth century. It has a single-letter word for ‘one’ put inside (‘inscribed’).

28a Fable maybe, quite bloody around its denouement (8)
Words for ‘quite’ and ‘bloody’ are placed around the last letter of ‘Fable’ (‘its denouement’).

30a Horse ran off: cause? (3)
A six-letter word for a small, inferior type of horse bred and used chiefly in Ireland and Scotland has the consecutive letters RAN removed (‘ran off’).

33a They perform at extremes, mark and dash around repeatedly (6, 2 words)
The standard abbreviation (before the days of the euro) for Deutschmark is surrounded by two instances (‘repeatedly’) of a two-letter printing term applied to a short dash (being the name of a letter having the same width).

35a Back away from nettle, receiving first sign of sting? (6)
Here we have a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] nettle’ containing the name of the first letter (‘first sign of’) ‘sting’.

40a Fitted with wheels exorbitantly, not ply (4)
A seven-letter word for ‘exorbitantly’ has the string PLY removed (‘not ply’); the answer is not in Chambers, or in any other dictionary that I consulted, but there are certainly examples of its use on the web and it seems perfectly sensible.

Down

4d Eyes Scotch with a dash of Evian ready on the side? (4)
The plural of a Scots form of ‘eye’ is followed by the first letter (‘a dash of’) ‘Evian’, and the answer is a nautical term.

6d I dropped Margaret shortly, professed happy (5)
One of the many diminutive (‘shortly’) forms of the name Margaret (though not the most obvious), this one contains two instances of the letter I – it is the second of these which must be removed (‘I dropped’). The answer is derived from a 19th century neologism meaning ‘to consider (someone or something) as blessed’.

11d Navy caught at sea? Against Scots mostly (5)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘navy’ is contained by a (1,3) phrase such that it could be cryptically seen as having been ‘caught at sea’ (or in a river).

23d Closure of passage in continent limiting endless journey, long (7)
The name of a continent is containing (‘limiting’) a four-letter word for a journey from which the last letter has been omitted (‘endless’); the ‘long’ is there simply to qualify the journey, there being a somewhat similar word which describes a journey of indeterminate length.

32d Insurgent succeeded in mounting ambition (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘succeeded’ is contained by a reversal (‘mounting’) of a word for an ambition.

34d Iberian duck in home of goose (not California) (4)
The six-letter ‘home’ of a particular kind of goose (and frankly I rather wish that they had stayed there) has an abbreviation for ‘California’ removed, the result satisfying a mildly cryptic definition.

35d Wretch? I should think so, having forsaken her (3)
A nice one to finish with. A six-letter word meaning ‘I should think so’ is deprived of (‘having forsaken’) the letters HER.

(definitions are underlined)

The clues which must have the letters C-A-R-D removed from their answers prior to entry are:

Across: 1, 5, 13, 15, 17, 20*, 24, 39, 40

Down: 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 16, 18*, 27, 32

*These are the two clues which I initially thought were normal

My thanks to Tim H for providing the scan of the puzzle which enabled me to produce these notes. The puzzle is now available on the Guardian web site so I have removed the link to the scan.

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 2,635 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

My enjoyment of the puzzle was not helped by its delayed appearance on the Guardian web site which denied me the pleasure of tackling it over breakfast – I held off until 10am, at which point the lure of the Toastie proved too great to resist. I’m jolly glad I didn’t wait, or I would have missed lunch and tea as well. My sincere thanks to the correspondent who sent me a scanned copy of the puzzle, which struck me as being a little below average difficulty, with plenty of misdirection but nothing too tricky.

Across
1a Builds on mouthful, formerly crumbled crust (12)
A three-part wordplay consisting of a three-letter word meaning ‘a mouthful’ (or ‘to drink’), a four-letter word for ‘formerly’, and an anagram (‘crumbled’) of crust, this last part being perhaps the starting point from which one will work backwards.

12a Source of fashion, No. 1 in spectacular bust (8)
The name of the place that precedes ‘fashion’ in a nautical expression which often also includes the word ‘shipshape’ is followed by the first letter (‘No. 1’) in ‘spectacular’, producing a mildly naughty(cal) bit of rhyming slang.

14a Dull old copper coin, penny (4)
A three-letter word for an obsolete Indian copper coin and the current abbreviation for a penny combine to produce a word that might be applied to a squib (or indeed a squid, if it had recently left the ocean), although here it is actually a verb.

22a It enables instant replay as opposed to a long time (4)
The wordplay involves the usual single-letter abbreviation representing ‘opposed to’ being followed by a word meaning ‘a long time’, but in truth ‘enabled’ might have been more appropriate than ‘enables’ as the only incarnation of the solution likely to be found in a modern TV studio is Brenda Blethyn.

25a German-English senior teacher, lacking of muscle (9)
The intention here is that two single-letter elements are followed by a nine-letter word for a senior teacher from which the letters OF have been removed (‘lacking of’), but D is the IVR code for Germany rather than being an abbreviation for German.

29a Bard’s energy misplaced in prod formerly (4)
A word which describes a bard, any bard, has the usual abbreviation for energy relocated within it to produce a word meaning ‘to thrust, especially with the foot’.

30a Rank and file’s heart going in complete reverse (4)
The middle letters of the word ‘file’ (“file’s heart”) are put inside a verb meaning ‘to complete’ and the whole lot is reversed. I’m not comfortable with ‘reverse’ here, as I think that for the wordplay to be grammatically sound it needs to be ‘reverses’.

33a Fashionistas creating eruptions, in tears? The opposite (12)
‘The opposite’ here means that rather than a word for ‘eruptions’ being placed inside a word for ‘tears’, it is the tears (in the ‘rips’ sense, a familiar five-letter word) which are contained by the eruptions (in the pustular sense, a word that I don’t remember coming across before).

Down
1d We had vehicle lifting old cow (6)
A contracted form of ‘we had’ and the word for a type of public service vehicle are reversed (‘lifting’), the result being an obsolete variant of a word meaning ‘to cow’.

4d Theologian’s disciple having bothy during stay in Scotland (4)
The bothy is a three-letter word archaic or poetic word for a small dwelling , while the ‘stay’ is a Scottish legal term. Azed treads on one of my cruciverbal corns here by using ‘during’ as a containment indicator – I don’t think that the Chambers definition ‘in the course of’ is sufficient, as it is used exclusively in a temporal sense, but since even the Listener editors accept it I may be in a minority of one.

6d Ten trees, on this, having to blend in, rising (12)
This is the sort of clue you’ll probably only see in an Azed puzzle (or perhaps an Azed competition clue) these days. The solution comes from a reversal (‘rising’) of a word meaning ‘to blend’ being put inside an anagram of TEN TREES, with the anagram indicator being…’on’ plus the solution itself. I seem to recall that when the competition clue word was OUT OF ORDER there were some clues which were constructed on similar lines (possibly including my own)

7d Abnormal droop? Beginning thereof observed in foot (7)
The first letter of ‘droop’ (ie ‘beginning thereof’) is contained by a word for a foot of two syllables (aka a trochee), and I have to say that Azed has been quite restrained in his definition of the answer.

18d Confusion involving drizzle for member of colony (7)
A three-letter word for confusion that is popular with setters (and with me, but only if it has pastry on top) contains a Scots term for fine misty rain, producing a dialect word for a specimen that is pretty certain to be part of a colony.

20d This pulse, i.e. as irregular…is a bother perhaps (5)
A composite anagram, where the letters of the solution (‘this pulse’) plus IE AS can be rearranged (‘irregular…perhaps’) to form IS A BOTHER.

21d What’s healthy, interrupting work, not OK? It’s after school (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘healthy’ inside (‘interrupting’) the word ‘work’ from which the letters OK have been omitted (‘not OK’), and a nice cryptic definition.

28d Baudelaire’s heading for section of his work? (4)
I can’t recall seeing a French double definition clue in an English crossword before, but that is effectively what this is. The second definition (the sort of thing that Baudelaire wrote) is in Chambers, while the first is the word that Baudelaire would presumably have used to mean ‘heading for’ or ‘towards’.

(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 2,634 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

I got the feeling that Azed had enjoyed setting this puzzle, which I thought was close to average difficulty, perhaps just a smidgeon above.

Prompted by a couple of comments from correspondents, I have put together a set of tips for writing Azed competition clues (linked from the home page and also the Clinical Data section) – I hope that they may prove useful to those relatively new to the comps, but this is very much a ‘work in progress’ and I would welcome comments on them in order that they can be expanded and improved (not to mention corrected!) over time. 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 1d, “Right hand used in Pompeian artwork (not left) – unidentified material (6)”. Azed has included the word ‘Pompeian’ in the wordplay, thus enhancing the indication of MURAL (the city of Pompeii being famous for its frescoes), a word for which ‘artwork’ alone would be a little vague. The definition, ‘unidentified material’ might also be considered slightly nebulous, but since Chambers says that the material in question was introduced by the Roman general Pompey, and ‘Pompeian’ can also mean ‘pertaining to Pompey’, the adjective could also legitimately be seen as applying to the material. Is this what Azed intended? I suspect it may well have been.

Across
11a Sandy’s stated condition for hairstyle (5)
A three-letter Scots (“Sandy’s”) word meaning ‘stated’ (a shortened form of a five-letter archaic, but more familiar, term) is joined by a word for a condition or supposition.

14a A king swathes heart of château in ‘lumpy’ coating (5)
The ‘king’ here is not an abbreviation but the Latin title given to the reigning king of England. The lumpy coating will be well known to anyone who’s ever tried to remove it.

16a Carol and Jackie, maybe, offspring (7)
This particular ‘Jackie’ is an artist of the martial kind, known for his slapstick fighting style. Also an operatically trained vocalist, he has sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred. I must confess that I’ve never seen one of his films, but I’ve known about him for a long while since he’s namechecked in the song Kung Fu by Ash, which I learn from Wikipedia was used in the advertising and during the bloopers at the end of the American release of his film Rumble in the Bronx.

18a Spiritual leader, one caught in heated criticism, making comeback (5)
The Roman numeral representing one is ‘caught’ in a reversal (‘making comeback’) of a figurative term for criticism derived from the initial elements of the German word for an anti-aircraft gun.

20a What was dizzying? Appalling cost – well I never (7)
An anagram (‘appalling’) of COST is followed by a (1,2) phrase meaning ‘well I never’, the result being an obsolete term for a sense of dizziness accompanied by dimness of vision.

27a Old horse with pedigree? See harness frame (7)
A three-letter archaic word for ‘an easy-paced horse’ plus a four-letter word for ‘pedigree’ as illustrated in a branching diagram, the solution being a frame of wood or metal giving shape and rigidity to a particular piece of tack.

30a Chemical combination – page includes it for support (5)
When the solution is put inside PAGE (ie when ‘page includes it’) the result is a word meaning ‘support’ or ‘sponsorship’.

32a Give animation to wild ones, duly free of curbs? (6)
An anagram (‘wild’) of ONES and the word ‘duly’ from which the first and last letters have been removed (‘free of curbs’) combine to produce a transitive verb, which is why Azed has been careful to include ‘to’ in the definition.

Down
2d There’s a smell endlessly round mobile lat or…this? (8)
Not exactly an &lit clue, but close to one. A four-letter interjection meaning “There’s a [nasty] smell”, from which the last letter has been omitted (‘endlessly’), contains (‘around’) an anagram (‘mobile’) of LAT OR.

6d By the sound of it you are in pub to prepare for tea (probably not!) (5)
The first of a pair of mildly outrageous clues. Nothing wrong with the wordplay, which has the two letters whose names sound like ‘you are’ being put inside a word for a pub. The definition, however, most definitely requires that parenthesized ‘probably not!’, because I for one would not like to sample the resulting beverage.

7d Azedders battling for preferment? It’s an old conspiracy (7)
And here we have a wordplay which could really only work in an Azed puzzle, leading as it does to a (4,3) phrase which might describe those who send in their clues for his appraisal.

9d Working at clothiers? Ah, toil with such snips maybe (5)
This is a composite anagram, where the letters of AT CLOTHIERS can be rearranged (‘working’) to form AH TOIL plus the solution (‘such snips’). You may say that these sort of ‘snips’ have nothing to do with clothiers, but because this isn’t an &lit clue that’s not a problem – the ‘snips’ in the clue is a conventional one-word definition of the answer.

17d Rusty flex around was annoying (8)
A four-letter word for a flex goes around another four-letter word meaning ‘was annoying’, the past tense of a colloquialism that originated in the US, meaning to annoy, worry or rile.

21d Crop in conveyance moved slowly (7)
A charade of a four-letter word for a crop entirely unconnected with harvesting plus a three-letter past participle of a verb which can mean ‘conducted’ and therefore (just about) ‘in conveyance’, and a surface reading which calls to mind a familiar autumn sight on the single-track roads hereabouts in rural Lincs.

26d Peak like this may be seen in Old Man (5)
A two-letter word meaning ‘like this’ is contained by the Latin word (hence ‘old’) for a man.

28d What’s left in loose earth raised in a fine stream once (5)
The solver has to address the question posed by the wordplay, the answer being the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘left’ inside a reversal (‘raised’) of a word for loose earth of the sort that horses or cars might race on in America. The solution is the Spenserian past tense of an archaic word meaning ‘to flow in a slender stream’.

Few drops, more cleare then Nectar, forth distild,
That like pure Orient perles adowne it ?????,
And her faire eyes sweet smyling in delight,
Moystened their fierie beames, with which she thrild
Fraile harts, yet quenched not; like starry light
Which sparckling on the silent waues, does seeme more bright.

(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 2,633 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

The puzzle only just arrived on the Guardian web site in time for my breakfast, and I thought that while there weren’t any particularly tough clues when taken as a whole it was of above average difficulty. 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 26d, “Writer of poetry: listening releases bits of it near the end”. The cryptic aspect of the clue is discussed below, but the point I want to make here concerns the surface reading: Azed has come up with a wordplay which produces the surname of a poet, but the ‘it’ means that satisfactorily integrating a definition such as ‘poet’ is pretty much impossible (“Poet: listening releases bits of it near the end” makes no sense). In such situations, one needs to look at a definition which ‘hands over’ to the following clause a thing (that could be referred to with the pronoun ‘it’) rather than a person (which would require ‘him’ or ‘her’). Hence the ‘writer of poetry’, which solves the problem neatly.

Across
1a Scottish expert bagging fortune, making complete turn (7)
A four-letter adjective with a meaning of ‘expert’ north of the border, and a more widespread meaning of ‘second-hand’, containing (‘bagging’) a word for fortune, usually seen these days prefixed by mis- or suffixed by -less, results in a (1-6) hyphenated solution.

14a Fruit lad oddly planted in desert? It’s disappeared (6)
An anagram (‘oddly’) of LAD is placed (‘planted’) in a word for ‘desert’ from which the consecutive letters IT have been removed (“It’s disappeared”).

15a Approve belly? That depends(7)
A charade of a four-letter verb (more often encountered as an interjection) and an informal term for a belly, and a definition which is on the loose side – ‘That’ refers to the answer, while the word ‘depends’ needs to be interpreted as ‘hangs down’, a sense which Chambers gives as ‘rare’, although OED says that it is ‘now chiefly in literary use’.

17a Arrangement of psalms? Rev tries ’em out around Church (12)
It’s probably easier to work out the (7,5) result of an anagram (‘out’) of REV TRIES EM being put around the abbreviation for a church of a specific denomination than it is to find the solution in Chambers. As Azed says, it appears at the entry for its second element, but even there it is hidden under the entry for the alternative form whereof the first word is ‘common’.

21a Preparing eggs without fish in grate for locals (4)
A ten-letter word for a particular way of preparing eggs has the name of a  fish of the cod family much prized by crossword setters removed (‘without fish’) to produce a dialect (‘for locals’) word meaning ‘[to] scratch’. Azed has been a bit naughty here, as he is suggesting that the verb meaning ‘to prepare eggs’ is intransitive when it is not. Starting the clue with “Preparing (eggs)…” wouldn’t work, but I think “Way of preparing eggs without fish in grate for locals” would be fine.

22a Spicy sauce served with children for cruel deity (6)
Here the four-letter term for a Mexican sauce containing chilli and chocolate (and for a small furry animal – the term, that is, not the sauce) is followed  by (‘served with’) the usual abbreviation for ‘children’, the solution being the name of a Semitic god to whom children were sacrificed.

28a A large quantity poured out in small copper flask (7)
I could argue that this was an indirect anagram, since the fodder to be ‘poured out’ consists of FLASK plus the chemical symbol for copper. But I won’t. Azed appears to have included ‘small’ in order to indicate that the representation of ‘copper’ is a short one, but since it isn’t an abbreviation I’m not sure about this. I think that something like “Copper flask rattled a lot” would be clearer.

31a Twit taking in Latin, a gentle youth  (6)
The ‘twit’ here is twit² in Chambers, meaning ‘to upbraid’, and the answer is inextricably linked in  my mind with Byron’s Harold.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.

32a USN battalion inquires about former president shortly (7)
A four-letter word meaning ‘inquires’ around (‘about’) a diminutive form of the first name of the sixteenth president of the United States, the battalion in question being of the construction type (hence the name by which its members are known).

34a Swelling? Doctor with ring cut half of it (7)
A seven-letter word for a particular sort of medical doctor has the letter of the alphabet shaped like a ring removed (‘ring cut’) and is followed by half of the word ‘it’. The ‘swelling’ relates specifically to rising or swelling in waves, as the sea might do.

Down
2d Mother, trim with ending of exercise (5)
Like the twit in 31a, the mother here is mother² in the big red book. A synonym for ‘trim’ is followed by the last letter (‘ending’) of the word ‘exercise’.

3d The old linger, brooding over losing ring (4)
An eight-letter word meaning ‘brooding over’ (an unfamiliar – to me, anyway – transitive form, the intransitive version meaning ‘remaining suspended in the air’ being  more common) loses a ring, but unlike that cut by the doctor in 31a this is the letters RING.

5d Naughtily pair recreate fun involving two pairs (12, 2 words)
The solution here is (6,6), and I think that the ‘fun’ in the definition is probably a bit of a stretch. The answer refers to a group comprising two pairs, as in this extract from Rolf Boldrewood’s A Colonial Reformer:

A ?????? ?????? composed of George, his mother, sister, and Mr. John.

9d Table loaded with extremes of largess, without a single weak part (7)
I thought at first we might be looking at the first and last letters (‘extremes’) of ‘largess’ being combined with an anagram (‘loaded’) of TABLE, but then realized that they were in fact to be inserted into a five-letter word for a table, particularly of the sort used in rituals.

11d Half’s rough team member, a Rugby thug? (8)
The capital R in ‘Rugby’ rather gives the game away here (but it would have been unfair on solvers not to include it). An anagram (‘rough’) of HALFS is followed by a word for a team member, and the thug was particularly hard on Tom and Scud. Despite being expelled for drunkenness, with a little help from George MacDonald Fraser he subsequently rose through the ranks of the British Army and received a knighthood, although his collection of unappealing character traits remained untrammelled. His success probably owed much to his three professed natural talents of horsemanship, aptitude for foreign languages, and fornication. Though not all at the same time.

20d Fine ladies taking off Dutch decking (7)
A nine-letter word for ‘fine ladies’ has the two-letter abbreviation for ‘Dutch’ removed, producing a word for the parallel planks of a pontoon bridge, always seen in this plural form. Incidentally, the chap who lays them is known as a ????? man.

26d Writer of poetry: listening releases bits of it near the end (5)
A seven-letter word for ‘listening’ has the letters I and T separately removed ‘near the end’, producing the surname of a major English poet of the twentieth century. The degree he received from Oxford may have been third class, but his mind was a couple of classes higher. His best-known poem is probably the one now usually known as “Stop all the clocks”, the reading of which in Four Weddings and a Funeral brought its author to the attention of a new audience. He was a very quotable author, among his best lines perhaps being “A professor is someone who talks in someone else’s sleep.” and “Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.”

27d It’s craggy in the Cairngorms, but climbing follows short section (4)
A word meaning ‘but’ is reversed (‘climbing’) after (‘following’) the usual abbreviation for ‘section’, and the solution is a Scots word for ‘steep’.

29d Soft down fluttered, as listeners perceive? (4)
A homophone clue finishes things off this week, the answer sounding like (‘as listeners perceive’) a word meaning ‘fluttered’.

(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 2,632 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

A 13×11 grid, and a puzzle that I thought was quite tricky in places, with very few ‘gimmes’.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 3d, “French maybe having to accept rule, gutted? (5)”. “French maybe” leads us to the first name of a well-known comedienne; this is a device not infrequently used in puzzles, and one that I am fond of myself. However, there are a few points to be made. Firstly, if the puzzle is likely to be tackled by solvers around the globe, the person should be known outside the UK, so “Trump maybe” for JUDD would be questionable. Secondly, there should always be an indication that the definition is by example, since not all Dawns are French – “French” alone would be inadequate, although “French?” at the end of the clue would be fine. Finally, the name provided must be capitalized in the clue – with ‘French’ this is not a problem, but if one were using, say, “Musk maybe” to indicate ELON then “Male musk perhaps in fruit” for MELON would be unsound (the capital letter at the start of ‘Musk’ cannot arbitrarily be discarded). ‘Musk’ must come at the start of a sentence, eg ‘Musk, perhaps, accompanying male fruit”.

Across

1a Being worse off, I’d returned wretched vehicle, cross, old (13)
A five element wordplay, with a 2-3-3-1-4 composition.

11a Father leading service with unction, by which one may be guided from aloft (8)
A charade of a two-letter familiar word for ‘father’, the abbreviated name of one of the three UK military services, and a common word for ‘unction’.

15a Local barge clad in tin dispersed roughly (6)
A trap for the unwary here – there are three possible answers which fit with the definition and the checked letters, but only one of them has a dialect word for ‘any of various small boats or barges, usually flat-bottomed’ sandwiched inside the ‘tin’, so it is an O which must go in the unchecked cell.

16a Eleven characters in a row? That’s quite a stinker! (4)
The eleven characters start at the beginning of the alphabet, while the ‘stinker’ is a skunk which regularly appears in barred puzzles but hasn’t been seen (or scented) in an Azed for a while.

18a One called backward, with minimum marks? (6)
An &lit, where the Roman numeral for ‘one’ is followed by a four-letter word meaning ‘called’ which has been reversed (‘backwards’) and the character representing the lowest number of marks that one could receive in an examination or contest.

25a Type of cement wears out, high explosive shifted (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘high explosive’ must be removed (‘shifted’) from a word with the sense of ‘wears out’ (or ‘harasses’), more familiar as its homograph meaning ‘criticizes as worthless’ or ‘vandalizes’.

30a Showy plant from Italy king avoided put in danger (4)
The IVR code for ‘Italy’ is followed by a verb meaning ‘[to] put in danger’ from which the chess abbreviation for ‘king’ has been removed (‘king avoided’). There should really be a comma between ‘avoided’ and ‘put’.

36a Awkward places he has to negotiate round? (13)
Another &lit, and quite a neat one. An anagram (‘awkward’) of PLACES HE has a word meaning ‘to negotiate’ put outside (‘around’).

Down
1d Terms for heavy conditions at Murrayfield? (4)
A double-definition clue which, like me, you will probably get from the first definition (the present indicative of a verb). The solution is also a Scots word for mud.

4d What dalit’s denied, as opposed to water buffalo! (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘opposed to’ or ‘versus’ is followed by the term for an Indian water buffalo, and the result describes the social classes from which a dalit (or untouchable) would be excluded.

6d In practice I scored run (6)
Not a difficult clue, but the presence of ‘scored’ qualifying the definition (see Chambers) makes it a little trickier; the wordplay simply has I (from the clue) being put inside a five-letter word for ‘[a] practice’ or an occupation.

7d Drop of medicine, thick milky stuff (5)
Another double definition, with the entrée  this time likely to be the second part, which will probably be more familiar when suffixed by ‘-percha’.

8d With little energy, one woozy drunk, here, registering copper’s time? (10)
The usual abbreviation for ‘energy’ is followed by an anagram (‘woozy’) of ONE, a three-letter adjective meaning ‘drunk’, and a three-letter Latin word meaning ‘here’, usually seen as the first word of a phrase. The “copper’s time” refers to a period when, according to Chambers’ ‘copper was already in use’.

10d A little child swallowing most of what’s mistaken for xerophyte (10)
The wordplay here has three-letter words for ‘a little’ and ‘child’ containing (‘swallowing’) a five-letter word for a mistake from which the last letter has been removed (“most of what’s mistaken”).

22d Chum holding girl up, not authentic (6)
A word for a chum containing (‘holding’) a reversal (‘up’) of a dialect form of ‘girl’; the definition will be clear to those using Chambers, possibly less so to others.

24d Follows on, as in courts (4)
A two-letter abbreviation equating to ‘as’ is contained by a word nowadays used to mean ‘prosecutes’ but which has an archaic sense of ‘courts’.

26d Little Alice? I am still after answer (5)
The wordplay here, a (1,3) phrase meaning ‘I am still’ following the usual one-letter abbreviation for ‘answer’, should get you to the solution easily enough, although a visit to the ‘Some first names’ section of Chambers may be needed to confirm that it is indeed an anglicized form of the Gaelic diminutive of ‘Alice’.

(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 2,631 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

After last week’s Playfair shenanigans we’ve got a standard plain puzzle this week, and one which I thought was very close to average difficulty. Several nicely constructed clues, and very little with which I could take issue.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 25d, “Backs measure up, with attractive charm (5)”. The whole clue is covered in the notes below, but what I wanted to pick out here was the use of ‘attractive charm’ to indicate SA. On several occasions I have seen people on the crossword forums grousing about the use of what they consider outdated terms such as this one, or ‘daily’ to indicate CHAR, or ‘posh’ for U. Whilst I have no sympathy with their rationale – these words and expressions are still very much a part of our language – it is fair to say that a number of these devices also fall squarely into the box marked ‘hackneyed’, and for that reason I try to avoid them in my clues wherever possible.  The currency of the terms is of little or no relevance in my view – yes, I’ve seen ‘daily’ for CHAR more than enough times, but the same applies to ‘bit of a kip’ for AT and ‘jolly’ for RM. I don’t have an issue with setters using words and phrases from the past (surely that’s part of the fun of crosswords), or indeed the occasional SA or IT, but I do like to see originality (combined, I need hardly say, with soundness) outweighing banality, which is one reason why I like Azed’s puzzles so much.

Across
1a Field grass, luxurious, mum plucked in pampas, grown wild (8)
What is contained in the anagram (‘grown wild’) of PAMPAS is a four-letter word meaning ‘luxuriant’ from which a two-letter interjection meaning ‘hush’ (ie ‘mum’) has been removed (‘plucked’).

12a Ivy hugged by priest, shame abandoned (5)
The ‘ivy’ which is contained (‘hugged’) by the usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘priest’ is the Japanese name for Aralia cordata or spikenard, a perennial producing new shoots each spring which are blanched and eaten as a vegetable. The ‘abandoned’ indicates that the solution is shown by Chambers as ‘obsolete’.

14a Slack ropes left hand cast off (6)
The anagram indicator here is ‘off’, while the fodder is the standard abbreviation for ‘left hand’ plus CAST.

15a Short time getting into network? This’ll facilitate that (6)
A two-letter word for a (very) short time ‘gets into’ a four-letter word for a network (eg of blood vessels or nerves), and the definition is perhaps a little loose but not, I think, unreasonable.

16a Sacred object I wrapped in robe (6)
The robe or gown in which the letter I must be wrapped is more commonly spelt with -eau on the end.

18a Jacques maybe in service struggling for non-melodic parts (11)
The ‘Jacques’ here will I’m sure be familiar to more mature solvers, but not necessarily to those of tender years. His films featuring the wonderful comic creation Monsieur Hulot were hugely popular both in his native France and internationally, and Rowan Atkinson has acknowledged that the existence of Mr Bean owes more than a little to his having watched Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday at the age of 17. In this clue his surname is contained by an anagram (‘struggling’) of SERVICE.

24a Celebrated statute completed, according to hearsay (6)
I’m not a great fan of homophones, and I wasn’t much taken by this one, although reading ‘statute’ as ‘statue’ didn’t help. The solution sounds like two words meaning ‘statute’ and ‘completed’.

26a Sucker switching ends in little stream (6)
The word for a sucker or sapling which must have its first and last letters exchanged is more familiar as the name given to a device for turning a rudder or the surname of a Manchester man famed for his dancing girls.

27a Slight Italian gents doffing cap (6)
As correspondent Jim points out in his comment below, the clue as it stands doesn’t work. It should read “Slight Italian gent’s doffing cap”.

Down
2d Feldspar lay around, mostly uninteresting one (8)
The wordplay here is of slightly devious construction, a four-letter word meaning ‘uninteresting’ without its last letter (‘mostly’) and a single-letter word for ‘one’ having another word for a lay or song outside (ie ‘around’).

6d My siesta gives this, of minimum significance (6)
My reason for having a siesta is that it gives ?? ????.

7d Old Etonians, say, following trend turned up with a topper on (6)
A two-letter word meaning ‘following [the latest] trend’ is reversed (‘turned up’) and has the letter A and a three-letter word for a top hat (aka a chimney-pot hat) put above it.

9d Late exploit at extremes, enough said (possibly) (8)
Surrounded by a four-letter word for an exploit (ie ‘[with] exploit at [the] extremes’) is a Shakespearean interjection of uncertain meaning and uncertain spelling. In King Lear, Edgar says “Dolphin my Boy, Boy, ****”. Since Edgar is at that time in the role of crazy, half-naked beggar ‘PoorTom’, his rantings are in any event largely unintelligible.

11d Graceful Linda, six, in new guise (11)
The ‘six’ here refers directly to the solution at 6d.

20d What may be flourished in a moiety of leavetakings? (6)
An &lit, the wordplay indicating that an anagram of the solution can be found (‘what may be flourished’) in one half (‘moiety’) of the word ‘leavetakings’.

21d Posset shows this, one appearing in nasty mixture after end of bottle (6)
This one can be viewed as either a conventional clue or what Ximenes termed an ‘offshoot &lit’, where the whole clue provides the definition but only part of it serves as the wordplay, here the section which I have not underlined. The wordplay has the Roman numeral for ‘one’ appearing inside a word for a nasty mixture, the whole lot following the last letter (‘end’) of ‘bottle’.

22d Ray, dead, stripped of hood, led away (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘dead’ is followed by an eight-letter word meaning ‘stripped of hood’ (as a monk might be) from which the letters LED have been removed (‘led away’). The answer is hyphenated, 3-3, and rather like the term ‘Bombay duck’ suggests a different type of critter entirely.

25d Backs measure up, with attractive charm (4)
A nicely-disguised break between definition and wordplay, the latter involving  a measure (5½ yards) being reversed (‘up’) and combined with a two-letter abbreviation for ‘attractive charm’.

(definitions are underlined)