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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,601 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

First of all may I take this opportunity to wish all readers a very happy Easter – here’s hoping the Easter bunny has bestowed his bounty upon you. Regarding this puzzle, I felt it was well below the mid-point of the difficulty scale, and didn’t quite have the oomph of last week’s excellent offering, though it was reasonably entertaining while it lasted. 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 11a, “To explain dodgy clue I’ll require day (9)”. The wordplay involves an anagram of CLUE I being followed by DATE (ie ‘day’), but the point of interest here is the extra “‘ll require”, which is there solely to improve the surface reading and fulfils no active function in the wordplay (it constitutes a ‘null juxtaposition indicator’), raising the question of whether the clue could have been written as the shorter ‘To explain dodgy clue I require day’.

The grammatical error in clues which is most often highlighted by editors is almost certainly the one seen in “I’m introduced to crazy spinster (4)” for MAID, the issue being that the wordplay would need to read “I is introduced…” in order to be sound (it’s the letter I that is being introduced). Here we have a very similar situation, but unusually it  occurs in the juxtaposition element – in order for the wordplay to be sound in my shortened version of the clue, it would have to read “To explain dodgy clue I requires a day”, which don’t sound quite right. The usual workaround is to draw on the future tense, so the MAID clue becomes “I’ll be introduced to crazy spinster” and the clue here becomes the one published.

12a Dip on this prom becomes increasingly crazy (4)
Only three weeks ago Azed provoked comment by his use of ‘prom’ to indicate a four-letter word which is I think a legitimate synonym for ‘promenade’ but perhaps not for the contracted version thereof (the end having probably been blown away in a gale). He uses the same definition for the word today, the result of putting the letters DIP in front of it (‘Dip on this’) being a word meaning ‘increasingly crazy’.

13a He has Moroccan tree planted within capital (6)
A nicely constructed clue, the letters HE (from the clue) having a four-letter word for the sandarac tree inserted (‘planted within’), and the definition being not at the beginning, as one might assume from the surface reading, but at the end.

17a Busily engaged? O, I dig on frantically at edges of fossilized mollusc (11)
A (2,2) phrase meaning ‘busily engaged’ has an anagram (‘frantically’) of O I DIG ON surrounding it (‘at the edges’). Adjectives of a technical nature are among the most difficult types of solution for setters to deal with, disguising the break between the wordplay and the definition being particularly tricky. Azed is a master of the art, as he demonstrates here. 

19a Murray and suchlike, one following in G. Player’s footsteps (4)
Generally speaking, the golfing world has not been kind to crossword setters when it comes to the names of the top players. Bryson DeChambeau offers distinctly limited possibilities, and the latest addition to the Augusta pantheon, Scottie Scheffler, is hardly (as Ned Flanders might observe) a shoo-in for cluein’. Hence we must be truly grateful to South Africa for producing a successor to Gary Player whose three-letter surname appears as part of 1,009 words in Chambers and when preceded by his first initial gives us the solution here. ‘Murray’ is a former spelling of ‘moray’.

22a Latin book, including one that’s not new in classical library (4)
The usual abbreviations for ‘Latin’ and ‘book’ are placed either side of (‘including’) the letters ONE (from the clue) without the standard abbreviation for ‘new’ (“that’s [ie that has] not new”), the result being the surname of James, the founder in 1911 of the library which features Greek and Latin classics produced in a format where the original text is presented on the left hand page and a translation is provided on the facing page. The books were originally issued by Heinemann in the UK but the current publisher is the Harvard University Press. In 1917, Virginia Woolf wrote:

“The **** Library, with its Greek or Latin on one side of the page and its English on the other, came as a gift of freedom. The existence of the amateur was recognised by the publication of this Library, and to a great extent made respectable. The difficulty of Greek is not sufficiently dwelt upon, chiefly perhaps because the sirens who lure us to these perilous waters are generally scholars [who] have forgotten what those difficulties are. But for the ordinary amateur they are very real and very great; and we shall do well to recognise the fact and to make up our minds that we shall never be independent of our ****.”

25a Ungenerous, that is without charge returned, recovers without lies (9)
A two-letter abbreviation for ‘that is’ contains a four-letter word for a charge (the sort that you might receive in a restaurant) that has been reversed (‘returned’) and is followed by a seven-letter word meaning ‘recovers’ from which the sequence LIES has been removed (‘without lies’). However, that first ‘without’ is a potential problem – whilst ‘without’ when used as an adverb can mean ‘on the outside’, so ‘x having y without’ is fine for ‘y contains x’, the ‘outside’ meaning of the preposition is given by Chambers as archaic. I don’t consider that ‘He is without his tent’ could mean that he is on the outside of it, and thus I don’t consider the preposition acceptable as a containment indicator. Neither do I think that a comma can be inferred between ‘without’ and ‘charge’, although that is probably more likely to have been Azed’s intention.

28a Come in, clasp working? (7, 2 words)
‘Come in’ here is used in the sense of ‘to become fashionable’, and the (5,2) phrase could be indicated by the last two words taken either separately or together.

29a Girl after a bit of excitement reverse saying no, losing head (6)
I think that the word ‘reverse’ was intended to read ‘reversed’ – both are valid when it comes to the wordplay, but ‘reverse’ doesn’t seem right in the surface reading. As written, the wordplay demands that after the first letter (‘a bit of’) ‘excitement’ the solver should reverse (the imperative form of the verb) a word meaning ‘saying no’ from which the first letter has been removed (‘losing head’).

31a Men will be involved with routine in this with nothing changing? (9)
A composite anagram &lit, where the letters of MEN and ROUTINE when rearranged (‘involved’) can form the solution (‘this’) plus O (‘nothing’) when likewise reordered (‘changing’). The whole clue stands as a slightly loose definition of the solution, but that sort of mild inexactitude is considered acceptable in &lit clues (indeed, such clues where the definition is of the standard which would be expected in a normal definition+wordplay clue are few and far between, and typically rather dull).

1d Going after notoriety (rumoured) German abused chit in local court once (11)
Azed seems to have become rather keen recently on the partial homophone, a device that I don’t much like at the best of times and, when (as in this clue) it produces a non-word as part of the wordplay, that I find unwelcome. Here we have a four-letter group which in the solution is pronounced similarly to a four-letter word for notoriety (ie, ‘notoriety (rumoured)’), following (‘going after’) which are the usual three-letter abbreviation for ‘German’ and an anagram (‘abused’) of CHIT.

5d Fancy assistant No. 1 being demoted to No. 4 (4)
Not an entirely original treatment of the solution, but the No. 1 / No. 4 thing is an innovation. The first letter (‘No. 1’) of a four-letter word for an assistant is moved down to fourth position (‘demoted to No. 4’).

6d Sign most of fruit is in credit with sun rising (11)
A seven-letter word for a type of fruit with its last letter removed (‘most of’) is put inside the standard two-letter abbreviation for ‘credit’, this being followed by a reversal (‘rising’) of the word SUN (from the clue).

7d Projectile launcher finally left, not having succeeded (6)
A concatenation of a (2,4) phrase meaning ‘finally’ and the usual one-letter abbreviation for ‘left’ is deprived of (‘not having’) the standard abbreviation for ‘succeeded’.

15d Couplets? Here’s very short one penned in Norfolk town (8)
A four-letter informal term for a very small person, taken from the stage name of the 4’6″ music hall comedian and dancer Harry Relph, is contained by (‘penned in’) the four-letter name of a Norfolk town that is a regular visitor to crosswords.

18d Orcadian landowner producing decorative slab in gold (7)
The two-letter heraldic tincture indicated by ‘gold’ will be familiar to all solvers, but the decorative slab or tile contained within it may well not be. It comes from the French language, and is also the surname of the actress Béatrice, perhaps best known for her starring role in Jean-Jacques Beineix’s 37°2 le matin (better known in the UK as Betty Blue).

20d Tea cake famously-short-lived: icer carelessly has left one in middle (6)
The reference here is to the oft-quoted humorous definition of the solution given by Chambers, ‘a cake, long in shape but short in duration’.

21d Element in couplet central to poet, singly paired (6)
A four-letter (gaseous, inert) chemical element is put inside the pair of letters in the middle of (‘central to’) the word ‘poet’, producing a (3-3) term more often seen as 3-2-3 or 1-2-1.

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,600 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I thought this was an enjoyable puzzle which hovered around the middle of the difficulty scale. Some very nice clues, none of the repetition (as far as I could see) that had raised its head in several recent puzzles, and not a lot for me to quibble about. Overall one of Azed’s best in recent times.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clues 32a, “English ploughed furrows, cold inside? Rifts according to the Scots (6)” and 30d, “After end of monsoon as of old harrow watercourses (5)”. Each of these clues uses a trademark Azed device – in the first we might assume that ‘Rifts according to the Scots’ is pointing us towards a Scottish word for ‘rifts’, and in the second that ‘as of old harrow’ indicates an old word for ‘harrow’, but of course we would be wrong. In the former clue, we are looking for a familiar word defined by the Scots word ‘rifts’, and in the latter for another common word equivalent to the archaic interjection ‘harrow!’. I rather like this application of a classification to the definition rather than the word defined, although I know that it is not to everybody’s taste – I used something similar myself in a puzzle and the editor was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic…

1a See subordinate with time for a break learning to earn a crust (11)
A nice one to get us started, being an anagram of SUBORDINATE with the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ replacing the letter A (‘time for a’) and featuring a literal definition of the solution. You may  wonder why Azed has added that ‘See’ at the beginning of the clue, but if you try out the wordplay after removing it all will become clear.

11a Strong drink artist tipped over more than half of historical document (8)
The usual two-letter abbreviation taken to represent an artist is reversed (‘tipped over’) and followed by six of the ten letters which make up the name of a famous historical document. After the unfortunate spillage referred to here it probably needed to go in the wash. From the Wham! Annual 1968 – Q: Where was the M**** C**** signed? A: At the bottom. 

21a I’m surprised to be keeping near drunk as aid to retaining balance (7)
Here we have a two-letter interjection meaning “I’m surprised” containing (‘to be keeping’) a two-letter word meaning ‘near’ and a three-letter word for ‘drunk’.

25a Old couple not active in the household (5)
The sort of household which might be à trois has the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘active’ removed (‘not active’) in order to produce an archaic word meaning ‘[to] couple’.

31a She’s sometimes lazy, coming from the country, opening tin (5)
A three-letter abbreviation for a particular country is inserted into the chemical symbol for tin, the result being a name which when preceded by ‘lazy’ is a term for a device most often seen these days (in my limited experience, anyway) on the large round tables in some Chinese restaurants. A form of dumb-waiter, some claim that the name derives from its invention by Thomas Jefferson in response to the complaints of his daughter (whose name you can guess) that she always got served last and therefore left the table hungry; others give the credit to Thomas Edison, who also had a daughter with the relevant appellation. It seems more likely that the name was simply chosen as a marketing ploy in order to give it general appeal, as reflected in an advertisement in a 1917 edition of Vanity Fair for a ‘Revolving Server or Lazy *****.  

33a Set of bells, including start of octave, rings well (6)
The ‘start of octave’ which is included in the four-letter word for a set of bells tuned to each other is not the letter O but rather the syllable representing the first note of the scale (now usually replaced by ‘doh’). The definition is neatly disguised, and although you might argue that ‘rings well’ ought to indicate a verb rather than a noun, Azed has always been of the opinion “barks and is man’s best friend” is a valid definition of ‘dog’, so here you just need to infer an ‘it’ before the ‘rings [a] well’.

34a Fungicidal compound, litre distributed? I’ll have none inserted (7)
Here we have an anagram (‘distributed’) of LITRE into which is inserted the name of our setter (‘I’) when reduced to two letters and the usual single-character representation of ‘nothing’ or ‘zero’. The grammar of the wordplay strikes me as a bit of a stretch, but I’m not complaining.

35a Mixed dish to bring on, going round – cut edging off (4)
A (4,3) phrase meaning ‘to bring on’ has the letters CUT removed from the outside (‘cut edging off’) and is reversed (‘going round’). The result is the name given in Spanish-speaking countries to an earthen jar or pot used for cooking, but it is also applied to a dish of meat and vegetables cooked in such a pot.

4d Being full, here’s dish lad’s left for particular one (5)
One of the few clues in this puzzle that I wasn’t too keen on involves a five-letter word for a dish of vegetables or herbs in which the letters LAD have been replaced by a three-letter diminutive of a particular man’s name (‘particular one’, ie the name of a particular lad)…

7d Scribbled blog in base? Base indeed (7)
…and this is the other one I wasn’t too enthusiastic about, simply because I don’t think that ‘base’ is sufficient to indicate the E which follows an anagram (‘scribbled’) of BLOG IN, even though I’ve seen it used in this way many times before. Yes, e is the base of Napierian logarithms, but any number seems to me equally valid as a ‘base’; I’d be happy with ‘log base’ as that certainly narrows down the likely options. I wouldn’t have any problem with ‘transcendental’ for e, as the only other transcendental that springs to mind is pi.

8d English Queen about reign formerly: ‘My colours will not fade‘ (9)
I thought initially that Anne might be the English Queen required here, but it turned out that she was simply a compound of a three-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ and a one-letter abbreviation (as used by E Windsor rather than M Carlsen) for ‘Queen’, and needed to be set about a Spenserian spelling of the word ‘reign’.

9d What may be part of radical combination, ideal for singer? (7)
A (3,4) description of something with which any singer would like to be blessed, and the name of a chemical compound which is the result of a couple of methyl radicals combining with a carbonyl group, or something along those lines. Yes, I do have a chemistry degree, but (a) it was a long time ago, and (b) I wasn’t very good at it.

15d Underwear of a kind, wedding kit for the groom? (9, 2 words)
A charade of a five-letter term for a wedding and a four-letter word for something the groom would almost certainly wear on his wedding day produces a name used largely in the US for a one-piece undergarment extending to the ankles, more commonly known in the UK as ‘combs’.

22d Shift: did Abraham return this after time away? (4)
It seems entirely reasonable that at some point during his 175 year span Abraham would have taken a break from his travels and returned to the place of his birth. I’m slightly surprised that Azed didn’t italicize the word ‘this’ in the clue, since it certainly needs to be stressed when reading the wordplay.

24d Rising stink left one in a kerfuffle (6)
A four-letter word for a stink (and the name of a famous bear) is reversed (‘rising’) ahead of the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ and a single-letter word for ‘one’.  The (4-2) solution derives from a French exclamation (spelt with a U rather that a second O) accompanying a quick or sudden movement, which has come in English (with the spelling here) to mean commotion or ballyhoo.

26d Verses composed by young females incorporating literal extremes (6)
The wordplay here has a four-letter word for ‘young females’ containing (‘incorporating’) the first and last letters of the alphabet (‘literal extremes’).

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,599 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Despite there being mention of misprints in the footnotes (a hangover from the 50^th anniversary puzzle), this is a plain crossword of somewhere around average difficulty. I didn’t think it was one of Azed’s very best, but it contained some nicely deceptive clues along with a couple about which I was less enthusiastic.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 6d, “Nashgab, smart, one supplanting English (6)”. The wordplay here involves the letter A (‘one’) replacing (‘supplanting’) E (‘English’) in a six-letter word meaning ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’, but the point of interest is the definition. Chambers shows the solution as being a Scottish word, which would normally require the definition to be qualified accordingly (“Jock’s chatter”, “Prattle in Edinburgh” etc), but Azed here has used a ploy which I suspect is more often seen in his puzzles than any others, the use of one term with a specific classification in Chambers to indicate a solution with the same classification, ‘nashgab’ being similarly shown as ‘Scot‘. In the same way, ‘jagged’, say, could be used for ‘crocked’, both being American words for ‘drunk’.

3a Quickly insert something to repair tap after start of seepage (10)
A five-letter word for something that would be used to make a repair and a four-letter word for a tap follow the first letter (‘start’) of ‘seepage’, the result being a verb meaning ‘to insert (words etc) hastily into a narrative’, more familiar to most of us, I suspect, as the noun from which it derives, describing a fowl dish. Incidentally, there is plenty of scope to define a word like this in a way which is grammatically unsound (eg ‘Hastily add words to’), but needless to say Azed has avoided the trap.

11a My child, a girl (not Di)coming after a boy (7)
This clue is of a type I find deeply unsatisfactory and which has been outlawed in recent times by a number of crossword editors, involving the use of ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ (here we get both!) to indicate a random given name – there are just way too many of them. A five-letter girl’s name from which the letters DI have been removed (‘not Di’) follows a four-letter boy’s name. British move buffs will be reminded of Sheridan/Bates, while those more disposed towards popular music may be thinking along the lines of Washington/Price.

15a Evil, devious foreigner mostly getting to conceal shameful deeds (8, 3 words)
A tricky wordplay, where an anagram (‘devious’) of EVIL is followed by a five-letter word for a foreigner (such as Sting in NY) from which the last letter has been removed (‘mostly’).

18a Bother keeps besetting head (6)
A three-letter word meaning ‘keeps’ or ‘possesses’ is here containing (‘besetting’) a crossword favourite meaning a headland or an Ethiopian prince. Interestingly, the OED, while showing the word to be derived from the Arabic for a head or chief, does not give the former meaning – I wonder where Chambers got it from?

28a One answer to air pollution making mark, involving collaborative group? (8, 2 words)
A four-letter word for a mark or blemish containing (‘involving’) a four-letter word for a group working together produces a (5,3) type of vehicle about which Wikipedia says “The search for renewable energy sources has led to an occasional resurgence of interest in [the technology which such a vehicle employs]”.

30a Flock of ducks, mute? Not one duck (4)
A five-letter musical term meaning ‘muted’ or ‘damped’ loses one of its ‘ducks’ (the usual single-letter sort) to produce a term for a flight or flock of mallards.

1d Aged catch, with head displaying aloof manner (10)
A charade of a two-letter word meaning ‘aged’ (as in ‘a boy aged fourteen’) , a four-letter word meaning ‘to catch and bring out of water’, and another (see 18a) word for a head or headland much beloved of crossword setters. ‘Displaying’ is simply there to link the wordplay to the definition, but it could be seen as suggesting that the answer is an adjective rather than a noun, which strikes me as bordering on the unfair.

7d Suffer with relative whom locals regard as a fool (7)
A four-letter word for ‘suffer’, in the way that one might suffer from a particular medical condition, is followed by an abbreviation of ‘relative’. I would have preferred to see “, one whom locals regard as a fool” as the definition.

9d 50% of state leaving for spiritual leader (5)
The letters that remain when five have been lost (‘50%…leaving’) from the ten-letter name of a US state form an abbreviation of that name given by Chambers, so they could have been indicated in the clue by ‘State’ on its own, although this leads to difficulties in combining wordplay and definition – ‘State title of religious ruler’, perhaps.

17d He’s left among group having to hurry over leaflet (8)
The wordplay here has the letters HE (from the clue) placed (‘left’) inside (‘among’) a three-letter word for a group, with a three-letter word meaning ‘to hurry’ on top (‘having…over’).

19d Grease applied to help old siren (7)
Although Chambers shows the four-letter word used here for ‘grease’ as Shakespearean in its noun form, it gives no classification to the verb form – I think this is an error, but if that’s what Chambers says then as far as barred crosswords go it’s correct. Anyway, this word (which also describes, rather more commonly, a sewn join) is followed by a much more familiar word meaning ‘to help[‘, the result being a Shakespearean word for a mythical creature of the aquatic kind.

23d Former kick, if delivered by Old Nick coming up on one’s rear end (6)
A seven-letter word for the Devil (‘Old Nick’) has the letters IF removed (‘if delivered’) before being reversed and put on top of the last letter of ‘one’ (“one’s rear end”). The ‘Former’ is there to indicate that the spelling seen here is an obsolete one.

24d Trader, one invited in by late-lamented funny man? (6)
A one-letter word for ‘one’ is contained (‘invited in’) by the surname of a funny man who sadly died in January of this year. A brilliant comedy performer, he was even more outstanding as a writer, his partnership with John Junkin in particular producing some memorable scripts. A true great of radio comedy in the second half of the 20^th century, here’s one of his (many) jokes:

You know about the guy who shot a golden eagle. He was in court in front of a magistrate. The magistrate said: “This is a dreadful thing”.
He said: “I never intended to. I was shooting pheasants and it flew into my line of fire.”
The magistrate said, “Okay. Out of interest, what did you do with it?”
He said: “I ate it.”
The magistrate said: “Good god, what did it taste like?”
He replied: “Rather like swan.”

25d Ecclesiastic gown moved gradually and rustled (5)
I rather hoped that the wordplay here would involve the letters AND being removed from a word meaning ‘moved gradually’ to produce the gown. In the event it turned out to be a triple-definition clue, but the surface reading is still very satisfactory.

26d Dry up after ten? Try a sherry (5)
The wordplay requires a poetic word meaning ‘dry’ to be reversed (‘up’) following the usual single-letter representation of ‘ten’. The drink may not be weak, but the definition is: the word ‘Try’ is redundant, while the indefinite article is worse than that – the solution is not a type of sherry, it is sherry, being the name of the city whence the drink originated. The clue raises the question of whether Roman numerals can be used as ordinals as well as cardinals – I don’t see why they shouldn’t, so ‘Dry up after tenth sherry’ would have been a possibility here.

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,598 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

I thought this was quite tricky for a plain Azed – there were fewer ‘gimmes’ than usual (arguably none) and a very generous dollop of obscurities, both in wordplays and solutions. I didn’t think that it was one of Azed’s best puzzles, with a certain lack of sparkle evident. 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at (among others) clue 29d, “Sailor heading east – what’s net weight of vessel? (4)”. The solution here is made up of a three-letter crossword staple for ‘sailor’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘east’, so what is the ‘heading’ doing there? Well, a juxtaposition indicator is what it is, but what it’s doing is absolutely nothing – ‘sailor east’ would produce exactly the same result. A number of juxtaposition indicators are listed in the clinical data section of this site, and they fall into two broad categories: the ones like ‘heading’ here, which serve no purpose except to improve the surface reading, and those like ‘under’ (24d) and ‘found at bottom of’ (26d), which reverse the natural sequence of wordplay elements. The former type are essentially superfluous text, which makes their role in the wordplay similar to that played by ‘link’ words between the wordplay and the definition, of which there are several in this puzzle ranging from ‘for’ (14a) and ‘in’ (15a) to ‘showing’ (5d) and ‘causing’ (16a/22d). I view ‘no effect’ juxtaposition indicators and link words very similarly – they should be avoided wherever possible, but on occasion they are necessary in order to produce a sensible surface reading. Out of 36 clues in this puzzle, 10 contain linking words or phrases, which seems to me rather a lot.

2a It’s endlessly fine imbibing spirit, then beer and type of pop (11, 3 words)
A five-letter word often linked with ‘fine’ missing its last letter (‘endlessly’) and containing (‘imbibing’) a three-letter alcoholic spirit is followed by the name of a brewery which was famous for its Pale Ale (and towards the end of the 19th century was the largest in the world), producing a (4,3,4) name for a type of pop in the musical rather than carbonated sense.

10a One with bit of cloth (plaid?), new in, ideal for non-seamstress? (6)
The Roman numeral representing the number one is followed by a four-letter Scottish (hence the ‘plaid?’) word for a piece of cloth, into which the normal abbreviation for ‘new’ has been inserted. The solution is an adjective, hyphenated (4-2).

15a Insect, one devouring case in furniture wood (7)
A three-letter term applied loosely to many types of insect together with a single-letter word for ‘one’ containing (‘devouring’) a three-letter word for a case, specifically the sort in which wine is stored. 

16a Mites causing opening of rind in purple fruit (5)
The wordplay involves the first letter (‘opening’) of ‘rind’ being put into the name of a South American palm (and of the blackish-purple berry which it bears) – the word (which can also be spelt with a double-ss rather than the c-cedilla here) appears to be a relative newcomer to dictionaries, receiving a draft OED entry in 2007.

17a Language replacing English in range of knowledge – for space travellers? (7)
This is a clue of the sort that Ximenes termed an ‘offshoot &lit’, where the whole clue stands as an indication of the solution, but only part of it serves as the wordplay. A five-letter term for a language (often poorly regarded) or the jargon of a particular group of people displaces the usual abbreviation for ‘English’ from a three-letter word for ‘range of knowledge’, part of the title of a radio comedy that starred the late, great Kenneth Horne. The last three words are there purely to enhance the definition, which would otherwise be very loose given that the language is fictitious and hasn’t yet made it into Chambers, although it does feature in the OED.

30a Race almost over? Bore (4)
The five-letter name of a famous race for three year olds (horses, not humans) has its last letter removed (‘almost’) before being reversed (‘over’) to produce the past tense of a word meaning to bear or bring forth.

32a It is roughly about summer’s end?
In contrast to 17a, this is a true &lit, where an anagram (‘roughly’) of IT IS contains (‘about’) the last letter of ‘summer’, the whole clue serving as both wordplay and definition. I see why Azed has put a question mark at the end (it is a rare &lit where the definition is so precise that one is not required), but I think I would then have been inclined to go with ‘Is it’ rather than ‘It is’, producing a more natural surface reading.

34a Hawkers’ spiel? Resist being misled about touching and so on (11, 2 words)
An anagram (‘misled’) of RESIST containing (‘about’) a two-letter bit of commercial jargon for ‘touching’ or ‘concerning’ (probably seen more often in crosswords these days than in correspondence) and a three-letter abbreviation for a term (much repeated by Yul Brynner during his period as an Asian head of state) meaning ‘and so on’. Note that the position of the apostrophe in the definition suggests multiple sales pitches , the (6,5) solution itself being a plural.

1d Bed sheet, what Mac’s in when heated? (7)
A three-letter word for a bed (also seen at 14a when indicated by ‘snooze’) is followed by a four-letter word for a sheet, specifically of paper, the whole being a Scottish (“Mac’s”) word for a state of excitement or irritation.

4d Member of OT people, once more getting somewhat beset? (7)
The wordplay here has an obsolete form (‘once’) of the word ‘more’ containing (‘getting…beset’) a two-word (1,3) phrase meaning ‘somewhat’.

5d Small swelling showing date in ancient dome (6)
If you solved this clue as I did, then you quickly identified that the single-character abbreviation for ‘date’ would need to be put inside an old (‘ancient’) word for a dome, and you then worked back from the familiar solution to identify that the ‘dome’ here is the top of the head, and the word for it is a ‘Spenser special’, the appearances of which seem to be limited to one outing in The Faerie Queene.

6d Laundryman in Berlin that is given foreign sash (5)
It’s not often that the German abbreviation for ‘that is’ (or ‘das heisst’) turns up in puzzles, but it does here, being followed by a three-letter word for a Japanese sash (and a form of witchcraft).

7d Follower of self-styled prophet one third of young ignored (4)
A six-letter word for ‘young’ in the offspring sense loses its last two letters (‘one third…ignored’) to produce the term applied to a follower of Bab, the name assumed by Mirza Ali Mohammed ibn Radhik, the founder of a sect originating in Persia, ‘whose doctrine and practice include Islamic, Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian elements’.

8d Capital making one a bargain invested in health resort? (6)
That Roman numeral for ‘one’ pops up again, followed by a two-letter (archaic) informal word for a bargain or deal, the pair being contained by (‘invested in’) a three-letter (old) informal term usually associated with a hospital for convalescents but also (according to Chambers) describing a ‘health farm, health resort or health station’ (I’m not even sure what the last of these is).

9d Area shifted in reception room gaining Jock’s reproof (5)
A five-letter reception room has the standard single-character abbreviation for ‘area’ moved internally (‘shifted’, from position 2 to position 4) resulting in a Scots word (“Jock’s” this time) for a snub or reproof.

19d ‘Fidgety Phil’ to scold, shuffling e.g. right and left (7)
The wordplay here involves a three-letter word meaning ‘to scold’ (perhaps the result of a failure to ‘keep your hair on’)  followed by an anagram (‘shuffling’) of EG plus the usual one-letter abbreviations for ‘right’ and ‘left’. The reference in the definition is to Heinrich Hoffmann’s Die Geschichte vom Zappel-Philipp (‘The Story of Fidgety Philip’) in his 1845 book Der Struwwelpeter (‘Shock-headed Peter’).

20d Mostly kind where Wellington is showing inclination (7)
A six-letter word for ‘kind’ (or ‘delicate’) without its last letter (‘Mostly’) is followed by the two-letter abbreviation for the name of the (or at least a) country ‘where Wellington is’ (the city not the Womble).

22d What’s pinched (by reiver?) causing his week in prison (6)
Both the solution and the three-letter word for a week which is enclosed by a three-letter word for a prison, especially one in a castle which is entered from above, are Scottish. The ‘by reiver?’ and subsequent ‘his’ indicate this, but I was a bit dubious about it given that the Border Reivers, as well as caring little about the  nationality of their victims, came from both sides of the border. However, further research makes it clear that the ‘reiver’ spelling owes its presence in dictionaries to Walter Scott, and you can’t get much more Caledonian than that.

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,597 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

An entertaining puzzle that seemed to me to sit very close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There were a couple of wordplays which I felt stretched things a bit, but as always with Azed once you’d got to the answer you knew for sure it was right.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 2d, “Rest freeing one from genuine pain (7)”. The wordplay involves a one-letter word for ‘one’ leaving a four-letter word for ‘genuine’ followed by a four-letter word for ‘pain’, the solution being a word for ‘rest’ taken directly from the French language. The point of interest here is the word ‘freeing’ – it is surely a participle rather than a gerund, but who or what is doing the ‘freeing’? Azed quite often uses this sort of construction, but I’m not very comfortable with it, since the only named subject for the participle is the definition. If this is intended, the clue could equally well have been written as ‘Rest frees one from genuine pain’, which seems unconvincing. Alternatively, the solver could be expected to infer an additional word or words, but what would they be? Perhaps ‘Rest [involves you] freeing one from genuine pain’. As far as possible alternatives go, I can see that ‘Genuine pain lessened by a rest’ suggests that the A is lost from the second word rather than the first, so personally I would prefer something along the lines of ‘Rest: one’s freed from physical pain’.

1a Mistake imbibing selection of wine, barely drinkable (8)
A four-letter informal term for a mistake when containing (‘imbibing’) a four-letter word for a framework on which bottles of wine might be arrayed produces an adjective which is typically used to describe salty water. The ‘mistake’ is the sort frequently made by one JCT Jennings, and just occasionally made by others to his own detriment:

“Dear Mr Tomlinson,” the letter said. “I shall be obliged if you will send me your catalogue of flowering shrubs as I have unfortunately mislaid the list which you sent me last month. Yours faithfully, Angela Birkinshaw (Miss).”

Jennings groaned. In a daze he passed it to Darbishire who read it and scratched his head in puzzled wonder. “Why does she call you ‘Mr Tomlinson’? Have you changed your name by deed poll or something?” “No, that’s not me – that’s somebody else,” Jennings explained. “I see what’s happened though. She’s written two letters and got the envelopes mixed up; I’ve got this Tomlinson person’s letter and he’s got mine.” “What a ghastly bish,” said Darbishire as the facts became clear.  “And whatever must this Mr Tomlinson be thinking?” Jennings snorted. “Huh! It’s what I’m thinking that matters. Never mind about Mr Tomlinson – he’s all right! At least he jolly well ought to be; dash it all, Darbi, he’s got my postal order.” The deduction was correct. At the very moment that Jennings was bemoaning his fate, Mr A Tomlinson, Nurseryman and Seedsman, was standing in his suburban shop, pondering over a letter which had arrived by the morning post.

“Dear John,” it began “I am sending you a postal order, which I expect will come in useful at the tuck-shop.”

12a African plant: fish and individual creatures desist when sun’s out (9)
A charade of a small, edible two-letter fish (or a three-toed sloth), the three-letter plural of a four-letter word for a structurally unified individual creature, and a five-letter word meaning ‘desist’ from which the usual abbreviation for ‘sun’ has been removed (“when sun’s out”). Since the solution is a genus of trees, I would have thought that ‘plants’ was considerably more appropriate than ‘plant’ in the definition.

13a Crêpe in France, Breton one containing local milk, not Italian (6)
Here we have the IVR code for France followed by the Breton (ie French) word for ‘one’ containing the French (‘local’) word for milk from which the usual two-letter abbreviation of ‘Italian’ has been removed (‘not Italian’). Please see Steve’s comment below regarding the use of ‘Breton’ to indicate a translation into French. The solution is shown by Chambers as archaic, but Azed has chosen not to indicate this. 

14a Monsoon deity? I’ll go for river where my worshippers are (5)
The wordplay in this clue is too laboured for my liking. It involves the letter I being replaced by the usual abbreviation for ‘river’ (“I’ll go for river”) in the name of a country where many of the deity’s worshippers could be found. It only works if the ‘where my worshippers are’ is pre-processed into ‘in Xxxxx’, at which point the substitution instruction makes sense.

17a Such terribly regressive tax takes the most downhill route (8)
An anagram (‘terribly’) of SUCH is followed by a reversal (‘regressive’) of an obsolete four-letter word for a tax, usually spelt with an initial C rather than the S seen here.

21a Regiment, half of it about good to form fresh coalition (7)
The four-letter abbreviation for the name of an engineering regiment (I know what their flag looks like because my neighbour – a former member – sometimes flies it from his flagpole) is followed by the first two letters of the same abbreviation (‘half of ‘it’) containing (‘about’) the usual abbreviation of ‘good’.

26a Extract from plant, a plant from the east, that gives name to common food (5)
Not the best clue in this puzzle, a ‘reverse hidden’ (‘Extract from…from the east’) which provides the name of an area where a particular kind of long-grained rice was originally grown. ‘This gave’ would be far better than ‘that gives’ when it comes to the definition, but wouldn’t work in the surface reading.

29a Senior canon Louis maybe backed to attend prince (5)
Having chosen a Louis from the seventeen or so available (nineteen if you accept a couple of dubious claims), his three-letter title in his home country should be reversed (‘backed’) and put after the standard two-letter abbreviation for ‘prince’.

32a Danger: knife’s front end going as far as it can (4)
The first letter of a four-letter word for a Malay dagger with a wavy blade should be moved as far as it can go (without impinging on the space available for 33a), thus producing a word for ‘danger’.

1d Intellectual dropping in for punch (4)
A six-letter term for an intellectual, typically applied to a research scientist, is missing (‘dropping’) the letters IN.

6d Fine things see off professorships (5)
Another removal wordplay, this time the letter of the alphabet known as ‘see’ is taken away from (‘off’) a six-letter word for ‘professorships’.

11d Degree subject – it’s swatted round college (11)
A neat &lit clue, a two-letter abbreviation for a particular type of degree is followed by a five-letter word for a subject plus an anagram (‘swatted’) of ITS containing (‘around’) the usual abbreviation for ‘college’.

17d Violinist keeps quiet, one involved in medley earlier? (8)
A seven-letter derogatory term for a fiddler contains the abbreviation for ‘quiet’ or ‘softly’ in musical notation; ‘medley’ is an obsolete term for a fight.

18d Tortoise, this, delicacy with a slice of entrecôte (8)
The three-letter Latin word for ‘this’, an archaic term for a delicacy, and the first (or middle, or last, pick your preferred ‘slice’) letter from ‘entrecote’ combine to produce a West Indian freshwater tortoise.

20d Holidays coming up? No good getting stuck into that gospel (7)
A five-letter term for holidays, usually applied specifically to absence from work, is reversed (‘coming up’) before having the usual abbreviation for ‘no good’ inserted’ (‘stuck into’ it).

24d Persian sharif losing hearts, banged up (5)
On checking ‘bang up’ in Chambers I found that a US meaning of ‘to knock about’ is given, so it’s certainly a valid anagram indicator if you’re across the pond. The wordplay here involves an anagram (‘banged up’) of SHARIF without (‘losing’) the usual abbreviation for ‘hearts’.

25d French mister artist framed in middle of bath? Lifeless one! (5)
A whiff of Corday in this one. The single letter representing the French word for ‘mister’ is followed by two letters which we have all seen many times indicated by ‘artist’ (though whether it’s any better than ‘jolly’ for RM remains to be seen) contained (‘framed’) in the central letters (‘middle’) of ‘bath’. 

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,596 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

After last week’s celebration special, we have a plain puzzle with a 13×11 grid. I thought this was quite a tricky one, with a fair sprinkling of obscurities, several less familiar meanings of familiar words, and some wordplays that explored the boundaries of acceptability.

Setters’ Corner: I see on the andlit.org.uk site the sad news that Dr Eddie Young, a long-time Azed clue-writing competitor, has died. He contributed many excellent clues,  as can be seen from  the Archive, and won the Azed cup on eleven occasions, but surely his finest moment was with this effort which took first place in comp 1775 (June 2006):

A hard tussle with Dr E. Young plainly winning? (13)

RIP

1a Early land plants I cut in slash, type grown wild (13)
It’s not difficult to identify that the answer is going to be I plus a three-letter word for ‘cut’ inside an anagram (‘grown wild’) of SLASH TYPE; it’s harder to work out what that answer is. It can be revealed below by anyone struggling to get a foothold.

10a Little Poll issuing shriek in Austrian region? It’s all over (5)
A thee-letter interjection indicating fright which will be familiar to all readers of Beano (and similar comics) is contained by one spelling of a well-known Austrian region, the whole lot then being reversed “It’s all over”). ‘Poll’ is ‘a familiar equivalent of the name Mary, used as the conventional proper name of any parrot’.

14a Leading lady? Father clutches fresh recording, blowing kiss? (8)
A four-letter word for ‘father’ taken directly from another language contains (‘clutches’) a five-letter word for a ‘new recording’ without (‘blowing’) the usual single character representing a kiss. Strictly speaking, I don’t think that it is a new recording, rather a new combination of existing recordings, but I’m not sure that I could better define the term in two words or less.

16a Endless revelry at rear of bottega in Madrid slum? (6)
A four-letter word for ‘revelry’ missing its last letter (‘endless’) goes after (‘at back of’) a rather more mundane word for a bodega, but I don’t think the definition here is accurate. In Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, the term is applied to a ward or quarter of a city, or sometimes to rural settlements, but carries no suggestion of poverty; in the US, however, it is applied to a Spanish-speaking district in a city or town, especially a poor neighbourhood. Although the US has many places with names which duplicate those in other countries, Madrid is not I think one of them.

17a Harvesters become unwell, yellow inside, on being laid off (9)
A six-letter word meaning ‘become unwell’ has inside it a five-letter word for ‘yellow’ from which the letters ON have been removed (‘on being laid off’).

19a One exhausted, given time off, shivering (5)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ is followed by a five-letter word for ‘exhausted’ from which the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ has been deleted (‘given time off’). The solution is an adjective derived from a three-letter name given to the trembling poplar, itself now archaic and superseded by the form seen here.

22a Soaks by the sound of it in acme of distress (5)
I’m not sure this clue is exactly fair, and I would be interested to know how many solvers identified the solution from the wordplay rather than having to reverse engineer it. There’s no problem recognising that the answer is going to be a homophone of a word meaning ‘soaks’, but moving forward from there, particularly considering the fact that the pronunciation of the solution has it rhyming with ‘please’ rather than ‘plies’, is difficult if you are not familiar with either of the words involved.

24a Ace cellist, head giving way to pinnacle in studio (9)
The wordplay here is not phrased in a helpful way – a seven-letter word for a studio (of the sort associated with artists) has its first letter replaced by a three-letter word for a pinnacle or hill (‘head giving way to pinnacle’), the solution being the nine-letter surname of an outstanding French cellist.

29a Knocker’s noise? Oil hinges next to it briefly (6)
The five-letter name of a fragrant essential oil is reversed (‘hinges’ – not a reversal indicator I’ve seen before, but perfectly valid based on the ‘to turn as on a hinge’ definition in Chambers) and followed by the usual shortened form of ‘it’ (‘it briefly’).

30a Chateaux yielding success with English grape (not half) (8)
A charade of a three-letter word for ‘success’, the standard single-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ and the eight-letter name of a type of grape (and of the white wine produced from it) missing its last four letters (‘not half’).

1d Piece of armour once: man has incomplete set on top (7)
A three-letter word for the sort of man that might be ‘hep’ has a five-letter word meaning ‘[to] set’ – without its last letter (‘incomplete’) – on top of it.

3d It breaks up fat, lifting vitality in lean (6)
A three-letter word for vitality or vital juice is reversed (‘lifting’) inside a three-letter word which you might not immediately associate with the meaning ‘[to] lean’.

6d Steamed dish from Mexico – Mediterranean island switches its parts (5)
I’m pleased to see that Azed has taken note of John Atkinson’s comment on the same dish (albeit with an alternative spelling) in AZ 2,592, wherein he questioned the use of ‘spicy’ in the Chambers definition. I will leave it to John to confirm that the ones which he has sampled did indeed appear to have been steamed. The wordplay, involves the first three letters of the name of a Mediterranean island (and George Cross winner) being exchanged with the last two.

9d Barracoutas removed from tin up in Orcadian cabin (4)
Not my favourite clue in this puzzle. We are required to remove the chemical symbol for tin from a six-letter South African word for barracoutas (although the clue suggests that it should be the other way round) prior to reversing it (‘up’), the solution being a word for a hut or shed seen in the Northern Isles and the Barred Crossword.

12d Letter, by hand, accompanied by Her Majesty’s initials? (9)
The wordplay here is a charade of a three-letter Latin word for ‘by’ or ‘through’, a four-letter slang term for a hand, and the Royal Cipher of Queen Elizabeth II.

18d Renault may be got out of this (7)
I imagine something similar has been probably been done before, but this simple anagram of RENAULT provides a nice &lit.

20d Crowning (if indefinable) quality discernible in Napoleon, as usual? (6)
The two-letter word for an indefinable crowning quality is contained by the surname of Napoleon – no, not the French military and political leader, but the much more famous (for those of us of a certain age, anyway) Man from U.N.C.L.E. (a perfect role for Robert Vaughn), who – along with his doughty sidekick Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum) – had us glued to our sets in the 1960s and talking about him at school the day after transmission. Governments across the globe who were ideologically opposed to each other had joined forces to form the United Network Command for Law Enforcement in an attempt to neutralise the threat posed by THRUSH, an organisation which aimed to conquer the world; it fell to Napoleon and Ilya to lead this fight, and very entertainingly they did it as I recall. Incidentally, it seems that when Ian Fleming was asked to contribute to the show’s concepts he came up with the characters Napoleon S and April Dancer, the latter not appearing in the original series but being played in the spin-off  The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. by Stefanie Powers, teamed with Mark Slate (Noel Harrison).

21d Russian travel may be covered uncomfortably in Uralian ones (6)
A composite anagram &lit, but hardly Azed’s finest. The letters of RUSSIAN TRAVEL can be rearranged (‘may be covered uncomfortably’, the last of these words accurately describing how this indication sits with me) to form URALIAN plus the solution (‘ones’).

23d ‘The Mercenary Horseman‘? Choirs often have a go at me (6)
A double definition, the reference in the second being to John of that ilk, an English composer, largely of choral music.

28d Plump hands going up (4)
The plural of a word used facetiously for a hand or handwriting is reversed (‘going up’) to produce a verb which is used these days as ‘[to] barter’, but once also meant ‘to cast or sit down forcibly’, hence to plump oneself (down), although this usage is now confined to dialect.

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,595 ‘Looking Back’

Difficulty rating: (6.5 / 10)

The focus this week, I think, should be on celebrating Azed’s extraordinary achievement in having reached his golden jubilee, about which I will say a little more below. As for this puzzle, it will not linger long in my memory, and I hope I will not offend anyone by saying that it looked as though it has been thrown together in a bit of a hurry. The construction is pretty basic – take any ordinary puzzle, change some letters in the completed grid, and write clues wherein the definition leads to the old answer and the wordplay to the new one. But let’s be fair here – Azed has earned the right many times over to have a bit of an easy ride on his 50^th ‘birthday’. Solving the puzzle wasn’t trivial, and I can’t say that I found it particularly enjoyable, but I was gratified to find that the message appeared without any glitches.

Underneath the notes on individual clues I have added a checklist of the letters (there could be none, one, or two) which have been displaced from the defined solution in each clue, followed (for those who may still be struggling) by the positions in the entries where the substitutions are made. Note that there is an error in the clue for 24a – the last three words should be ‘knocking off drink’ rather than ‘knocking of drink’.

PS When Azed refers to the misprints which deliver the message he is clearly referring to the letters in the grid which are indicated by the wordplay but not the definition. The message should become clear if you put a circle or similar in pencil round these letters in the completed grid.

Setters’ Corner: Having done the Mephisto every Sunday for more years than I care to remember, I started tackling Azed puzzles around 14 years ago. I was immediately charmed by their wit and ingenuity, at a level I had only previously seen achieved by John Graham (Araucaria) and Mike Laws, and even then with less regularity. From that point on, I was hooked; when I started doing a weekly blog of the puzzles two or three years later it only served to further increase my appreciation of their excellence.

For some time I had wanted to have a go at setting crosswords myself, but didn’t possess the confidence to submit a puzzle to a crossword editor, knowing it would probably get torn apart; the Azed clue writing comps, however, gave me the opportunity to submit single clues and then see how more experienced setters had tackled the same words. I realised pretty quickly that my initial lack of positive results was due in part to problems with soundness, a requirement which Azed regularly highlighted in his result slips, and consequently I started looking at clues very differently from how I had when I was just solving puzzles. Having overcome this issue, I met with some modest success which encouraged me to set and submit complete puzzles, so I have Azed to thank not only for a wonderful weekly cruciverbal treat of a remarkably high standard but also for getting my setting career started. Thank you! And I can tell you that I was greatly chuffed a couple of years ago when John Green informed me that one of the entries for a Listener puzzle of mine had come from the great man himself.

12a NY bum, male knife wasted, head cut off (6)
A two-letter word for a male is followed by an anagram (‘wasted’) of KNIFE without its first letter (‘head cut off’). The ‘NY’ indicates that the word to be misprinted in the grid is of US origin, and the ‘bum’ is the BTM rather than a hobo.

16a Garden shrub, single one, ordinary, found round fringes of Italy (8)
A five-letter word for a person who prefers to act on their own and the usual abbreviation for ‘ordinary’ are placed round the first and last letters (‘fringes’) of ‘Italy’.

22a Roundabout abroad is booming – about time (6)
A five-letter word meaning ‘is booming’ (thinking lion rather than business), containing (‘about’) the usual abbreviation for ‘time’; ‘abroad’ in this instance refers to North America.

24a Pin disposed of in knocking off drink (4)
A seven-letter word for ‘knocking off’ (in the stealing sense) has the consecutive letters PIN removed (‘disposed of’).

25a One of bases for mast with cap on shaped with copper lining (8)
The standard one-letter representation of ‘with’ is followed by an anagram (‘shaped’) of CAP ON which has the chemical symbol for copper inside (‘lining’). The ‘mast’ here is the sort that might be found on the forest floor.

28a Wild goat I’m surprised to see in bitter herb dish (7)
A two-letter interjection denoting surprise is contained by a five-letter term for a dish of bitter herbs eaten during the Jewish Passover.

30a JM’s appalled at having to hug girls regularly (5)
‘JM’ is John Milton, the word defined being his spelling of an adjective normally seen with an ‘H’ included. The wordplay has AT (from the clue) containing (‘to hug’) three letters taken at regular intervals from ‘girls’.

31a Scottish snob mostly irritated about the States (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘irritated’ has its last letter removed (‘mostly’) before being placed around a three-letter abbreviation for the United States. ‘Snob’ is an Azed favourite, being an old informal term for a shoemaker’s apprentice or cobbler.

34a Ointment made with egg on inside, all over (6)
A three-letter abbreviation for a Latin word meaning ‘made’ or ‘did’ has a three-letter word for ‘egg on’ or ‘incite to fight’ inside, the whole lot being reversed (‘all over’).

2d Venetian painter replacing bit of pain with mark having quivery effect (7)
The seven-letter surname of a Venetian artist (with forenames Giovanni Battista) from the eighteenth century has the first letter (‘bit’) of ‘pain’ replaced by the usual single-character abbreviation for ‘mark’.

3d Kidney secretion on hand (5)
The wordplay here is a charade of the standard bit of commercial jargon for ‘on’ and a three-letter informal term for a hand or arm which has fishy connotations.

5d Typical of old hound to move swiftly catching sheep (6)
A three-letter word meaning ‘to move swiftly’ containing (‘catching’) a three-letter word for a sheep, the word defined being a Shakespearean term used to describe a dog having a pendulous upper lip of a particular quality.

8d A copper initially is often right in arguing from cause to effect (7, 2 words)
The letter A (from the clue) is followed by a two-letter abbreviation for a police officer of relatively modest rank (‘copper’) and the first letters (‘initially’) of ‘is often right in’. The defined solution is divided (1,6).

18d Make a mistake dividing bears, looking up pedigrees (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘to make a mistake’ is put inside (‘dividing’) a four-letter word for ‘bears’ (in the sense of ‘weighs’ or ‘presses’) and the result is reversed (‘looking up’).

20d Wild ass, male, one admitting sloth (7)
The word for a male already seen at 12a is followed by the letters ONE (from the clue) containing (‘admitting’) a two-letter word for a sloth which will be familiar to regular solvers.

21d Uncle Sam going into origin, rising like a bird (7)
A three-letter abbreviation for a country (which has already put in an appearance at 31a) embodied by Uncle Sam is contained by a four-letter word for an origin (and the surname of the England test cricket captain, at least for the moment). The defined word is a heraldic term with which I was unfamiliar.

(definitions are underlined)

Checklist of displaced letters

Across:

1: the letter S has been displaced from the defined solution; in 6: the letter E; 11: R; 12: I; 13: I; 15: D; 16: C and A; 17: no change; 19: G; 22: Y; 24: no change; 25: A and R; 28: K; 30: A; 31: T; 32: E; 33: U; 34: E

Down:

1:  the letters S and E have been displaced from the defined solution; in 2: the letter R; 3: N; 4: T; 5: D; 6: no change; 7: T and T; 8: R; 9: R; 10: M and E; 14: V and I; 18: P; 20: M; 21: N; 23: C; 26: no change; 27: L; 29: O

Checklist of positions

Across:

1: the letter replaced is in position 1 / in 6: position 6 / 11: 2 / 12: 3 / 13: 3 / 15: 4 / 16: 5 and 8 / 19: 1 / 22: 6 / 25: 1 and 4 / 28: 4 / 30: 3 / 31: 4 / 32; 8 / 33: 1 / 34: 6

Down:

1: the letters replaced are in positions 1 and 12 / in 2: position 2 / 3: 3 / 4: 5 / 5: 6 / 7: 4 and 9 / 8: 3 / 9: 2 / 10: 1 and 12 / 14: 1 and 6 / 18: 5 / 20: 3 / 21: 6 / 23: 1 / 27: 3 / 29: 3

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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,594 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I found this an entertaining puzzle which seemed to sit somewhere around the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There were enough straightforward clues to enable the solver to get a toehold, but not so many as to soften the challenge too much.

Setters’ Corner: I’m not going to single out a clue this week, rather to look ahead to Azed’s Golden Jubilee next Sunday. There is an excellent article published on the Guardian website today celebrating this extraordinary achievement which I recommend to all aficionados. I have only been solving Azed’s puzzles for around fourteen of those fifty years, and blogging them for less than that, but from the outset I was hooked. There is nothing to match Azed’s clueing in terms of imagination and wit combined with scrupulous fairness and accuracy of construction, which is why for the last few years Azed has been the only crossword that I have tackled. Enough said. Anyone who would like to have a go at the very first Azed puzzle from March 1972 can find it here in online and PDF forms, together with the solution. 

I must also thank that cruciverbal stripling, Richard Heald (incidentally the best Azed competition clue writer of this century by a country mile), for quoting in the above article my favourite Azed clue, “My letters could make lad sad” for LASS. Azed may well have written clues that were more technically accomplished, but surely few that better demonstrate what sets him head and shoulders above other compilers.

11a Learnt as of old to forgive one being released (4)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘forgive’ has the letters ONE omitted (‘released’) to produce the Spenserian (‘as of old’) past tense of a verb meaning ‘study’ or ‘learn’.

14a/15a Bouffant style it could be made up of…(4) / …To surpass another hairdo (4)
There is no interworking between these two clues other than the fact that both solutions relate to a styling of hair. In the first clue, the solution is an anagram (‘could be made’) of UP OF, while the second consists of two definitions, the first involving an uncommon (in my experience, anyway) meaning of a verb more often used in the sense of ‘to strike violently’.

19a Sniffer dog making hit, including drug (4)
A three-letter word for ‘[to] hit’ containing (‘including’) the usual single-letter drug of choice for crossword setters produces an alternative spelling of the name of a sort of hound more associated with Victorian detectives than the Met’s drug squad.

22a Tries Eiger possibly: e.g. this is unfolded? (6)
A composite anagram &lit, where the letters of TRIES EIGER can be rearranged (‘possibly’) to form EG plus the solution (‘this’) as IS. The whole clue stands as an indication of the solution, again represented by ‘this’ in the clue.

26a Quiz: what do some locos run on? (5)
A double definition, where the first one leads to a familiar word, although the ‘quiz’ meaning probably doesn’t immediately -or ever – spring to one’s mind, while the second indicates a hyphenated (1-4) solution.

28a What makes Scots team…sing about this strip? (4)
When the letters SING are placed around (‘about’) this Scots word meaning ‘[to] strip’, the result is the name of…well, certainly a Scottish city, although the football club has an ‘Albion’ on the end of it. But they are often known just by the one word here, so we’ll let it pass.

29a Pet: that’s fed nothing for tea (4)
If the four-letter (canine) pet which constitutes the solution (ie ‘that’) is ‘fed’ (contains) the usual single-letter representation of ‘nothing’ then it can produce the name of a type of scented black tea. Surely the most famous representative of the breed was Tricki Woo, the pampered and rather overweight charge of Mrs Pumphrey in the James Herriot books, famous for on occasion going ‘crackerdog’ (running around wildly) and ‘flopbot’ (which can happen to anyone). And, of course, for the lavish gifts (often edible in nature) that he used to send to ‘Uncle Herriot’ out of gratitude for his excellent veterinary care.

31a Delight where penitents were found, Ali being knocked out (4)
The seven-letter name of a large porch at the west end of some churches where penitents waited to be admitted into the main body of the church (ie ‘where penitents were found’) has the letters ALI removed from inside it (‘knocked out’) in order to produce a familiar word for ‘delight’.

5d Tree cut short in trail raised to form part of ship’s structure (8)
A five-letter scientific term for a tree with its last letter taken off (‘cut short’) is put into a reversal (‘raised’) of a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] trail’ or draw slowly.

8d Jock’s gaga, climbing tree after party (6)
A four-letter tree native to the southern US (which is also the name of a South American monkey) is reversed (‘climbing’) after the two-letter word for the sort of party that crossword setters seem particularly fond of. The “Jock’s” is there to indicate that the solution is shown by Chambers as being Scottish.

9d Colonial administrators endorse changes and arrive with number introduced (12)
Here we have an anagram (‘changes’) of ENDORSE into which a four-letter word for ‘arrive’ and the usual single-character abbreviation for ‘number’ have been introduced. I am not entirely convinced that the wordplay is grammatically sound: the present indicative ‘changes’ jars with the ‘and arrive with number introduced’, the ‘and’ being the problematic element. I would have been happier with “Colonial administrators endorse changes, arrive with number introduced”.

10d Grammatical addition yielding first of idioms in fashion (10)
The well-disguised wordplay in this clue involves a six-letter word for ‘yielding’ being followed by the first letter of ‘idioms’ contained within a three-letter word for ‘fashion’.

12d Remain loyal? More so, rarely without merit (10)
Here we have a wordplay with ‘Azed’ written all over it, leading to a two-word phrase which might describe what those who were perhaps not very loyal to start with but are now more so might be likely to do. It’s actually quite a hard phrase to indicate, and I think Azed has made a pretty good attempt. The solution is on rare occasions (it is shown by Chambers as ‘rare’) used to described those without merit but never (by orthographers at least) to describe those who have been deprived of pudding.

21d Cutting off fuel limits one (7)
A six-letter Scottish and northern English term for fuel, derived from the Old Norse word for ‘fire’, contains (‘limits’) the Roman numeral for one. Or the single letter representing the nominative singular of the first personal pronoun – Ximenes apparently didn’t like ‘one’ being used for I, but it seems to me that there are two perfectly good justifications without resorting to the similarity between the letter and the Arabic numeral (which I suspect was the one he took exception to).

25d SA line dividing passage once (6)
The usual single-character abbreviation for ‘line’ is inserted into (‘splitting’) an obsolete five-letter term for a passage or a walk behind battlements. The definition has SA being used not in the sense of South Africa or Salvation Army, but the sort of thing that in reference to Clara Bow was called ‘It’. Sadly it was not Clara but a character in Elinor Glyn’s novel ‘It’ that Dorothy Parker was referring to when she wrote in a review “And she had It. It, hell; she had Those”.

27d I kept in contact, say, requiring little effort vocally (5)
The letter I (from the clue) is contained by (‘kept in’) a four-letter word that is often seen preceded by ‘contact’, the result being a word which I once included in a puzzle without having looked up the definition in Chambers. Not a good move.

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,593 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I thought this puzzle was considerably trickier than last week’s, and considerably more entertaining. I’ve placed it in the middle of the difficulty spectrum, but the relative lack of freebies perhaps even took it a shade past the mid-point. There were some amusing clues in there, with several of Azed’s trademarks on show,

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 6d, “Tail of Moby-Dick and ray no good as source of whalebone? (5)”. The wordplay here involves a charade of the last letter of ‘Moby-Dick’, the letters RE, and the usual abbreviation for ‘no good’, the definition being ‘source of whalebone?’. The point of interest here is the use of ‘ray’ to indicate RE. I once submitted a clue in which ‘a’ indicated AN; I wasn’t too happy about it myself, and the editor didn’t like it at all, on the basis that they are simply two forms of the same word. I don’t think ray/re here is nearly as bad, but I still feel that using one form of a word to suggest an alternative form (eg road/road) is quite different from using a word to indicate an abbreviation (eg road/rd). I’m not suggesting that it is either unsound or unfair, but I do think it’s a bit weak.

1a Blokes in musical genre displaying military headgear (8)
A five-letter word for ‘blokes’ is contained by a three-letter musical genre which has its roots in the Caribbean but became popular in the UK during the 2 Tone revival that began in the  late 1970s. “I’ve just seen Suggs walking up the drive” – “Oh dear, that’s the first sign of Madness.” I’ll get my coat…

10a Broadening on each side, timber tree to work at (10)
A charade of a three-letter word meaning ‘on each side’ in the sense of ‘apiece’ (eg when the two sides contesting a football match have two goals apiece), a five-letter Moroccan timber tree, and a two-letter verb meaning ‘to work at’.

11a Death? Saint accepts short way (6)
The name of a saint who was canonized in 1920 and premiered at the Garrick Theatre in Manhattan three years later contains (‘accepts’) the two-letter abbreviation of a particular type of ‘way’. The sense in which the solution is used here is described by OED as ‘pietistic’ and is a reference to the river that one might look over and see a band of angels heading in one’s general direction.

14a Spiritual leader removing hat for mature lady (in US) (4)
A  seven-letter word for a spiritual leader that is usually associated with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has the letters HAT removed in order to produce a slang word, shown by Chambers as ‘chiefly US’, for a mature woman.

15a Abbey, English, displaying blend of metals (8, 2 words)
The name of a famous Monmouthshire abbey is joined by the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ to produce a (3,5) term for an alloy of lead with a smaller proportion of another metal that was used to coat sheet iron or steel in order to inhibit corrosion.

19a A devil back to front, appearing as heathen in poetry (5)
The last letter of a two-word (2,3) phrase for ‘a devil’ is moved to the beginning (‘back to front’), the result being a Miltonian (hence the ‘in poetry’) spelling of a word meaning heathen or pagan which appears in Paradise Lost.

22a Wine? One’s drunk about a mug (7)
Here we have a single-letter word for ‘one’ followed by a three-letter word meaning ‘drunk’ around a three-letter word for a drinking-mug. I don’t like ‘has’ (or apostrophe-s) being used as a juxtaposition indicator – I have no doubt that there are meanings of the verb ‘have’ in Chambers which could be used to justify it, but that applies to many other verbs. I think something like “Wine one sloshed around mug” would be just as good (modesty prevents me from saying ‘superior’!).

27a The inducement that includes love and opening to heaven for believer in karma? (8)
The letters THE (from the clue) and a three-letter word for an inducement or concession have the usual single-character representation of ‘love’ placed between them and are followed by the first letter (‘opening’) of ‘heaven’.

30a Pearl oyster has borne? Could be this stone, yes? (6)
Azed has been a bit naughty with this one. The composite anagram, where the letters of OYSTER HAS BORNE can be rearranged (‘could be’) to form the solution (‘this’) plus STONE YES, is fine. However, although there are two question marks in the clue, neither of them directly follows the word ‘Pearl’, surely the minimum required to make the ‘definition’ adequate, given that it isn’t even a definition by example, just part of a name. But I’m not bothered, firstly because I enjoyed it, and secondly since I think that 49 years and 11 months of yeoman service gives Azed the right to stretch things a little on occasion.

31a Burning green logs, nip one of them in pieces (6)
The anagram (‘in pieces’) here is of NIP and LOG (‘one of them’), and the solution is a word that I don’t recall coming across before in this particular sense. It relates to a process for purifying copper or tin containing their oxides as impurities, where freshly-cut trees were used to provide the reducing agent (wood gas from the sap) to convert the oxide to the metallic element. Natural gas or diesel are now generally employed for the purpose, but the name of the process has endured.

1d House in Warsaw Susan and James briefly vacated (4)
The standard diminutives (‘briefly’) of the names ‘Susan’ and ‘James’ have their middle letters removed (‘vacated’), the solution being a Polish term for a parliament, and since 1921 the name specifically of the lower house in Poland.

2d WC avoided by women, one in pub like a sewer? (7)
WC (from the clue) without (‘avoided by’) the usual abbreviation for ‘women’ is followed by a single letter word for ‘one’ inside a five-letter term for a pub. The adjective relates to one of those things that the Romans kindly gave us, having already given themselves a ‘Maxima’ one in the 6th century BC.

4d See me going up in plane, one responsible for silverware (8)
The word ME is reversed (‘going up’) inside a six-letter term for a plane – not the sort that leaves the ground, but the sort that might be covered in the former and has its roots in the latter. It is unfortunate that the word ‘plane’ and the solution are rather similar.

5d Unpleasant ooze from Pret à Manager fare, ignoring recipe (6)
A seven-letter informal term for the sort of things that you might get from Pret (perhaps with bacon, lettuce and tomato but without the unpleasant ooze) missing the usual abbreviation for ‘recipe’ (which has already featured at 33a).

8d Naked figure, head out of position, in Italian tourist town (5)
A word for ‘[a] naked figure’, or perhaps more accurately ‘a naked person’ (or a picture thereof), has its first letter (‘head’) relocated (‘out of position’) in order to produce the name of the Italian town, known to me only because the name of their soccer team is that of the town followed by the letters ‘se’.

9d Some spies put out to dry, as victims of hostility (8)
A five-letter term for spies of the type exemplified by Bill Haydon in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is followed by a three-letter verb meaning ‘[to] put out to dry’. In the definition, ‘as’ is used in the sense of ‘like’.

23d Jock’s crested tuft, very soft within (6)
The “Jock’s” in the clue is used to indicate the Scottishness of both the definition (‘crested’) and the element of the wordplay (a Scots word for ‘tuft’) which has the usual abbreviation for ‘pianissimo’ (ie ‘very soft’) within it. I’m not convinced that “Jock’s crested tuft” can reasonably be interpreted as “Jock’s crested, Jock’s tuft”, but we’ll let that pass.

26d Vehicle, we hear, for one-time star of silver screen (5)
A homophone (that old favourite ‘we hear’) for a sort of large motor vehicle (I wonder if Azed considered using ‘Articulated vehicle’ instead of ‘Vehicle, we hear’), being the stage surname of Hungarian actor László Löwenstein. I cannot see it without thinking of Al Stewart’s classic song Year of the Cat, which for many years I believed contained the line “You go strolling through the crowd like Big Dolores”. I blame a poor quality cassette recording and Al’s unusual diction. Anyway, it was actually this fellow he was singing about.

(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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,592 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

After last week’s Carte Blanche, this time around we have a full complement of bars, numbers and enumerations. A generous helping of anagrams and hidden/initial letter clues seemed to balance out a few trickier ones, so overall I felt the difficulty was a shade below average.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 2d, “Foreign pick-up in novel for store’s delivery guy (8)”. The wordplay is covered below, but the point of interest here is the definition, “store’s delivery guy”. The solution is classified by Chambers as ‘N Am’, but there is no ‘US’ or similar to be seen in the definition – is that an issue? No, because it is considered perfectly acceptable to suggest localization simply through the choice of defining words. Although ‘store’ and ‘delivery guy’ may have made their way across the pond, they still smack sufficiently of North America to imply that the solution likewise hails from that continent. Azed has done something similar in 10a, this time in the wordplay, where he has used the old-fashioned word ‘viand’ to indicate a term shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’.

10a Enzyme regrettably consumed in viand (8)
A four-letter interjection meaning something along the lines of ‘regrettably’ (and described by Chambers as ‘now rather archaic or mock-heroic’) is contained by (‘consumed in’) a genuinely archaic four-letter word for a viand (normally seen in the plural, though not here).

12a Coarse thread I used to join parts of fish with hands in Scotland (5)
The letter I is used to join the two halves of a Scots word meaning ‘to fish with the hands’ or ‘to guddle’. I wasn’t sure what exactly the thread was being used for in the surface reading, but following a visit many years ago to Threave Castle, where a small pond was teeming with tadpoles of quite freakish dimensions, the idea of finding in that country a fish blessed with hands seems far from implausible.

13a Ape in perfect condition, with dull coating (5)
A two-letter word meaning ‘in perfect condition’, as all systems might be, has a three-letter word (often spelt with four letters, particularly where paint is concerned) meaning ‘dull’ outside (‘coating’),

18a Solitary flower framed by mullion (11)
A five-letter flower (an example of which would be the Michaelmas daisy) is contained (‘framed’) by a six-letter word for a mullion.

24a Girl suggesting divine beauty, mostly in the saddle? (6)
A seven-letter adverb which could feature in the description of someone on horseback has its last letter removed (‘mostly’), leaving a girl’s name of Scandinavian origin to which Chambers ascribes the meaning ‘divinely beautiful’.

26a Navigation system one introduced cut short (6)
It’s that ‘missing comma’ again! Here its presence is required between ‘introduced and ‘cut’ in order to properly (in my opinion) indicate that a five-letter word for ‘cut short’ (as hair might be) is to have a single-letter word for ‘one’ inserted (‘introduced’).

27a Scholar scribbled bit of Homer out in cloistered studies (6)
An anagram (‘scribbled’) of SCHOLAR with the first letter (‘bit’) of ‘Homer’ removed (‘out’). The solution is the plural of a common word, but I was not familiar with the particular meaning used here, “a small enclosure or ‘study’ in a cloister”.

29a House I got back – it’s a long story (5)
The ‘house’ that must be prefixed to the letter I (from the clue) and reversed (‘got back’) is the lower house of the legislature of the Republic of Ireland. The original story runs to 24 books and ten years, and the name has come to be applied to a tale of many woes or a long story.

1d In local speech ‘truly’ say is replacing US for ‘howdy-do’ (4)
I’m not entirely convinced by the accuracy of the wordplay here (‘in’ would certainly be preferable to ‘for’, but would produce a meaningless surface reading), the solver being expected to take a four-letter word for a ‘howdy-do’ (a troublesome state of affairs) and then replace the letters US with a two-letter representation of ‘say’. 

2d Foreign pick-up in novel for store’s delivery guy (8)
The ‘foreign’ pick-up is a three-letter one of the antipodean variety, frequently to be found parked in crossword grids, and the sort of novel wherein it is contained could be à clef or policier. Or Abramovich.

3d Ramp maybe, one with leg on each side (5)
Nothing too tricky about the wordplay, the ‘leg’ which goes either side of the Roman numeral for one being the sort that designates the side of a cricket field on which the batsman’s legs are when taking guard. The ramp here, however, is ramp² in Chambers and has nothing to do with sleeping policemen.

4d Grand girl in novel accompanying knight, an old fellow (6)
A charade of the usual abbreviation for ‘grand’, the four-letter title of a novel featuring the eponymous Ms Woodhouse, and a single-letter abbreviation for knight. The ‘old’ in the definition reflects the fact that Chambers give the solution as ‘archaic’.

6d Spicy dish cheers man (6)
The usual two-letter interjection that crossword setters frequently indicate by ‘cheers’ plus a four-letter word for a man. As John A points out below, the dish in question is not necessarily spicy, although Azed’s definition is in line with the Chambers entry, presumably written by someone who (like me) had never eaten one (or who had cause to remember a particularly spicy one).

8d Pils – that’s about it for those nicking what’s not theirs! (5)
A clever clue, and one that when broken in half would be seen to have Azed written right though it. If you put the letters PILS around the solution (‘about it’), you get a word for people who nick stuff that isn’t theirs.

9d Suitable for regular traffic? Hard to believe in grassland, we hear (8)
First the missing comma, now the partial homophone! A four-letter word meaning ‘hard to believe’ (as a story might be) is contained by a group of four letters that would be pronounced the same as a poetic word for a meadow (‘grassland, we hear’). Those four letters do at least constitute a word (which is something for which to be grateful, I suppose), but it has nothing to do with grassland.

17d Reckless conspirator, name associated with mutiny, fired up inside (8)
The five-letter name of a minesweeper featured in a 1950s book, play and film, the last of these memorably featuring Humphrey Bogart as Lieutenant Commander Queeq, has a three-letter word for ‘fired’ (or ‘illuminated’) reversed (‘up’) inside. The original conspirator gave his name to two conspiracies in the first century BC, although his involvement in the first one, and indeed its very existence, have been questioned by modern historians. He was no stranger to suggestions of improper behaviour – he was accused of murdering his wife and daughter so that he could marry the wealthy Aurelia Orestilla, and in 73BC was brought to trial on a charge of adultery with a vestal virgin, a capital offence (‘capital’ as in ‘punishable by death’ rather than ‘excellent’).  He was acquitted. Tried for extortion in 65BC, he was again acquitted, although one commentator wrote that “he left the court as poor as some of his judges had been before the trial.” The next year he stood accused of murdering his former brother-in-law and carrying his severed head through the streets of Rome, before getting the victim’s name retrospectively added to the proscription in order to legitimize it. Once more he was acquitted. The conspiracy to overthrow the Roman republic in 63BC that bears his name (and that he really did lead) signalled the end of his run of luck, the slaughter of his entire army (already depleted through desertions) obviating the need for a trial.

28d Letter from Tel Aviv date shown in unsealed enclosure? (4)
The usual single letter for ‘date’ is contained by a three-letter abbreviation for something that was once commonly enclosed when a response by post was expected to your written request or enquiry but is a relative rarity in these days of predominantly electronic communication. I wonder if millennials would be familiar with it? I don’t suppose that any read this blog, so I’m probably not going to find out. Anyway, the solution is the eighteenth letter of the Hebrew (hence ‘Tel Aviv’) alphabet, as well as being the name by which singer, songwriter and actress Helen Folasade Adu CBE is better known.

(definitions are underlined)