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 2,591 ‘Carte Blanche’

Difficulty rating: (5 / 10)

This puzzle is, in the words of Adam Ant, ‘nothing to be scared of’ (I was never sure whether it was ‘ridicule’ or ‘Liverpool’ that he was actually talking about, but having recently watched The Responder I think it must have been the former). But it’s significantly tougher than a standard plain puzzle because that’s what it is,  but without bars, numbering or enumerations! And based on feedback here and on the help forums, I think that the increase in difficulty is more pronounced for non-setters than for setters – hence I’ve moved the dial on the ‘toughometer’ up a bit. There are a couple of things to note when solving it. Firstly, the 180-degree rotational symmetry (seen in all Azed puzzles) means that the lengths of the across solutions in clue order are symmetrical, ie if the solution to the first across clue is four letters, the answer to the last across clue will also be four letters, and so on. Secondly, the unching in the puzzle is in line with Azed’s normal standards, so four and five letter entries will have exactly one unchecked letter while six, seven and eight letters entries will have either one or two unchecked letters. This means, for instance, that a four letter entry on the top row must have exactly three down solutions hanging off it, whilst a five letter entry in the same position would have exactly four.

The only way to deal with a Carte Blanche like this is to blind-solve several clues, ideally among the first six across and ten down clues (or thereabouts), and then to start slotting the solutions together. Remember that as soon as you solve an across clue, you can put a length against its symmetrical partner, so solving the last few across clues offers extra benefit. Once you have a foothold, things become a great deal simpler. After the usual notes on some of the trickier or more interesting clues, I have included a checklist of the answer lengths. Following that I have provided (as hidden spoilers) the layout of the first row and the solutions to the first two across clues for the benefit of anyone who is really struggling to get started.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at the clue “Delicate sponge cake – it receives new adornment on wedding day (2 words)”. The interesting feature of this clue is that the solution includes an apostrophe, which raises the question of whether this should be indicated in the enumeration of the clue, eg (2 words, apostrophe). It is a point on which there is no general agreement, and I must admit that for this reason I try in my own puzzles to avoid solutions which contain apostrophes (I can’t recall ever including one), but I am of the view that there is no need to indicate them. It seems to me that the worst thing for the solver is to be unsure as to whether a possible solution matches the enumeration – better, surely, to have a standard for all barred puzzles that solutions consisting of multiple words with spaces between them are indicated as ‘(n words)’ and everything else – hyphens, apostrophes, diacritical marks – is ignored.

Across

Rod, worthless, catching exhausted fish for supper?
A three-letter synonym for ‘rod’ is followed by a four-letter biblical word for ‘worthless’ (no stranger to Azed puzzles) containing a three-letter word for ‘exhausted’ in the sense of ‘finished’ or ‘used up’. If you are puzzled by the ‘for supper’ in the definition, Azed has included it to indicate that the fish in question is described by Chambers as ‘edible’, unlike another denizen of the deep with a similar spelling.

Waitress serving drink, a chatterer
A three-letter word for a (small) drink and a three-letter word for a chattering bird combine to produce the name given to a waitress working in a Lyons’ tea shop. Up until 1924, a waitress working in one of J. Lyons’ tea shops was known as a ‘Gladys’. When the management decided that a general image update was required, they launched a competition among their staff to come up with a new name. Suggestions such as ‘Sybil-at-your-service’, ‘Miss Nimble’, ‘Miss Natty’, ‘Busy Bertha’, ’Speedwell and ‘Dextrous Dora’ were mysteriously overlooked in favour of the solution here, although it was spelt with five letters rather than six (I don’t know where the alternative spelling in Chambers comes from). The ban on bobbed hair was lifted, and a new uniform was introduced, featuring a starched cap with a big, red ‘L’ embroidered in the centre, a black Alpaca dress with a double row of pearl buttons sewn with red cotton and white detachable cuffs and collar, finished off with a white square apron. They made their bow on New Year’s Day in 1925, and by 1939 there were 7,600 of them;  the name quickly became associated with waitresses in general. Changes after the war meant that the days of were numbered, with the tea shops targeting a rather different audience and moving over to cafeteria service. Towards the end of the century, Lyons invited former waitresses to write to the company with their memories of working in their iconic restaurants, and these letters are held in the London Metropolitan Archives.

Drunk falls over in place of bishop, bristling?
A reversal (‘falls over’) of the usual crossword term for a drunk inside the three-letter word describing the ‘place of [a] bishop’.

‘Peaceful’ girl, not drinking, with fan round what encloses tennis court?
A five-letter girl’s name derived from the Greek word for ‘peace’ and the standard two-letter abbreviation meaning ‘not drinking’ are enclosed by (‘with…round’) a four-letter word for a fan, or the vane of a fan.

Take your medicine, one short in sherry glass
A six-letter word for a sherry glass has a single-letter word for one removed (‘one short’) to produce a (3,2) expression meaning ‘to suffer a punishment’.

Season for Horace? His first is holding the writer back
The first letter of ‘Horace’ (‘His first’) is followed by the letters IS (from the clue) containing a two-letter word for ‘the writer’ reversed (‘back’), the solution being the Latin name for a season which features as a headword in Chambers by dint of also appearing in the works of Shakespeare.

After start of election party man delivered speech with more detail
Following the first letter of ‘election’ we have a three-letter abbreviation for a particular political party and a six-letter word for ‘delivered [a] speech’. The ‘man’ seems superfluous as far as the wordplay is concerned.

Down

Burns I get treated: this saline solution and guts maybe
A composite anagram of the most friendly kind. The letters of BURNS I GET when rearranged (‘treated’) can produce (‘maybe’) the solution (‘this saline solution’, no pun intended) and GUTS.

Ring mount including bit of erbium? It only looks like gold
A single-character representing a ring is followed by a four-letter word for [a] mount (in the equestrian sense) containing (‘including’) the first letter (‘bit’) of ‘erbium’.

Art having the ability to show consent in what’s felt?
I’ve obviously done too many crosswords, because when I see ‘Art’ at the beginning of a clue I immediately assume that the solution is going to end in ‘-est’ (‘Art master’ = ‘teachest’), and on this occasion I was right. The archaic phrasing of the definition mirrors the archaic nature of the solution, while the wordplay involves a three-letter word for ‘consent’ (or an affirmative answer) being put inside a three-letter synonym for ‘[to] felt’, ie to become tangled. At first I thought that ‘Art having the ability to’ was the definition, which seems to fit the solution, but that won’t work – the first element from the wordplay is not a verb, so must be simply ‘consent’, while if ‘show’ alone were there to link the definition and the wordplay it would have to be ‘shows’. The linking words must therefore be ‘to show’, and the definition is as indicated by the underlining above. This doesn’t entirely convince, but I suppose that any auxiliary verb can be used with an implied infinitive – “Can you see the sea? I can”.

Painter, silly, accepting closure of atelier
A four-letter word for a ‘silly’ (the sort who might also have a hairless head)  containing (‘accepting’)  the last letter(‘closure’) of ‘atelier’ gives us the surname of a French landscape painter of the nineteenth century, whose works generally majored on mood and atmosphere, often at the expense of topographical detail. That information comes from the web since, although in general I’m reluctant to reveal my ignorance, I have to admit that I had never heard of him.

Riders regularly cover these warm trousers?
The wordplay leads to a (3,5) phrase suggesting the type of trousers which would almost certainly be warm and would definitely not be short. The definition is of the oblique sort, the ‘these’ being particularly relevant to horse races, where they would usually be covered in less than 15 seconds.

Period of a festival as in Rome and since
I was prompted by Much Puzzled’s comment (below) to look more closely at this clue, which I had solved and rather rapidly moved on. The wordplay consists of a two-letter Latin word meaning ‘as’, seen in English only in phrases such as ‘xx supra’ and ‘xx infra’, together with a two-letter word meaning ‘since’ or ‘because’, which itself appears earlier in the clue. The solution is classified by Chambers as ‘obsolete’, so has Azed simply chosen not to indicate this or is this what Ximenes termed an ‘offshoot &lit’, where the whole clue serves as the definition while part of it functions as the wordplay? But the solution is not a Latin word, rather a reduced form of the plural ‘utaves’, a variant of ‘octaves’. Originally it was the name given to the eighth day after a festival, but subsequently in a transferred sense it came to mean the period of a festival itself. This word originates from the Middle Ages while the latter usage dates from the Elizabethan period, so ‘as in Rome’ cannot be part of the definition.

Part of hammer getting under pitfall of e.g. basalt
One spelling of the  four-letter word for the thin or sharp end of a hammer-head opposite the face is preceded by (‘under’) a four-letter word for a pitfall.

Sang like a pigeon, holding note
A six-letter word (sometimes hyphenated 2-4) which could describe the feet of a pigeon contains the usual single-character abbreviation for ‘note’.

I’m swallowed by bot that’s done for?
An &lit which Azed has made as straightforward as possible, IM (from the clue) being ‘swallowed’ by an anagram (“that’s done for”) of BOT. The second (and last) of the definitions in Chambers is the relevant one.

Judge, as before, Spielberg’s achievement in cinema
The two-letter name of a Spielberg film is contained by a three-letter term exemplified by cinema. The ‘as before’ indicates that the solution is obsolete.

(definitions are underlined)

Answer lengths

Across: The clue beginning with ‘Mountain’ (4); A crowd’s (4); Rod (10); Waitress (6); Foreign (5); Member (7); Composer (5); Drunk (6); Peaceful (4,7); Delicate (5,6); See (6); Take (3,2); Dotty (7); Season (5); Study (6); After (10); Bit (4); Early (4).

Down: Charges (4,8); Pomade (4,3), Ribbon (7); Burns (5); Ring (6); Art (6); Painter (5); Riders (8); Period (4); Bacteria (12); Part (8); Sang (7); Welshman (7); Box (6); River (6); I’m (5); Judge (5); Concerning (4).

First row

Please expand the items below to reveal the layout of the first row and the solutions to the first two across clues.

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 2,590 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

A very nice Azed, I thought. Although I made smooth progress through it, I felt there were sufficiently few ‘gimmes’ to warrant a difficulty rating close to average – but as always the views of other solvers are very much welcomed.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 14a, “Expounder of law, penning books in shower? (6)”. The wordplay here is straightforward enough, the solution involving an abbreviation for ‘books’ being contained by a four-letter word for a type of precipitation, with the question mark indicating that ‘shower’ is an indication by example, being only one possible manifestation of the thing. The point of interest here is the definition: the solution is clearly given by Chambers as ‘archaic’, but Azed does not indicate this in any way. It is generally accepted that words shown in Chambers as ‘obsolete’, together with those attributed to a particular author (eg Shakespeare, Browning), will be unfamiliar to a modern audience and should have an appropriate qualification included in their definition. There are plenty of ways that this can be done, and it rarely creates a major problem for the setter to include this extra information without compromising the surface reading. Anything that suggests non-currency will do nicely: ‘old’, ‘neglected’, ‘no longer’ and ‘discarded’ are just a few possibilities for obsolete words, to which examples like ‘Elizabethan’, “Edmund’s” and ‘to Walter’ can be added where a specific source is mentioned. What about words marked as ‘archaic’?  I think this is a difficult area – words like ‘prithee’ and ‘furbelow’ would be familiar to many solvers, but these are exceptions. Most of the words, or individual meanings of words, which are shown as ‘archaic’ are obscure. Then again, there are obscure words in Chambers that have no classification. My own view is that words shown as ‘archaic’ should be flagged, and the Magpie magazine’s clue writing guide takes the same line. I think the omission of a suitable qualifier in this clue is an error, and it should have been something along the lines of ‘Expounder of law once penning books in shower?’.

12a Letter’s rare flourish, part in code transferred to the end (6)
A six-letter word for a code has a part of it (the second, third and fourth letters) moved to the end.

16a Receiving a tonk at the MCG (8)
The usual three-letter word indicated by ‘a’ (in the sense of ‘for each’) is followed by a slang word roughly equivalent in meaning to the Australian informal term ‘tonk’ (‘MCG’ being the Melbourne Cricket Ground).

19a Former injury, a small lump, after rolling over in the sand (8)
A reversal (‘after rolling over’) of an obsolete (‘former’) four-letter word (often used by setters of barred puzzles, almost invariably backwards) for ‘injury’ and a four-letter word for a small lump. The caesura between the wordplay and the definition is very neatly disguised, one hallmark of a good clue.

24a Poorly, with rough breathing? Fell perhaps (4)
My Greek O level has often proved a boon in the cruciverbal world, although I probably remember rather too much of Xenophon’s Anabasis than is good for me. A ‘rough breathing’ on the first letter of an ancient Greek word indicated that an ‘h’ sound should be added to it, so here a three-letter word meaning ‘poorly’ receives an H at the start. 

26a Head for film seasons in Cannes, for holidays (5)
The first letter (‘head’) of ‘film’ precedes the plural of a French word (‘in Cannes’) for a particular season of the year. Apparently the 2021 edition was held in this season, although I’ve watched enough episodes of Call My Agent! to know that it usually takes place au printemps.

30a Tropical plant fringing river always potential threat to swimmers (6)
The wordplay here involves a three-letter word for a tropical plant, the source of Madagascar arrowroot, containing (‘fringing’) the usual abbreviation for ‘River’ and a two-letter word for ‘always’. The spelling of the ‘potential threat to swimmers’ is not the one most commonly seen in English.

31a Caravan owner? One’s stuck behind it, interrupting progress (6)
A two-letter word meaning ‘[to] progress’ is interrupted by (contains) a two-letter word for ‘one’ following (‘stuck behind’) the letters IT (from the clue). I can’t help feeling that ‘Owner of caravan?’ would have improved the overall surface reading slightly, but on reflection it’s a marginal call.

33a Conifer providing everything to fill camp stove? (4)
This is a six-letter word for a type of camp stove with its outer letters removed, what is left being ‘everything to fill camp stove’. Well, that’s what Azed says; personally, I think it’s a bit of a stretch – would one say that IN is ‘everything to fill sink’?

1d Gymnosperm captured in one cadency after another (5)
I’ve used this sort of construction myself in the past, and I must admit to rather liking it as a variation on the usual sort of ‘hidden’ where the answer is in plain sight. Here the solver has to repeat the word ‘cadency’ (‘one cadency after another’) in order to produce the hiding place.

2d Open sandwich with skill held by fork (7)
A three-letter word often indicated by ‘skill’ is contained (‘held’) by a four-letter word for…well, not so much a fork, more a prong of a fork. I did briefly wonder whether ‘held by fork’ could be seen as indicating IN TINE, but even with a bit of latitude it could surely only be ON TINE. However, Chambers gives one meaning of ‘fork as ‘a branch or prong’; and while OED suggests that this applies only to the plural, ‘forks’ being the prongs of a fork, it does give the verb ‘tine’ as ‘to scratch or work with tines’. Both dictionaries therefore lend Azed their support. It seems a long time since I’ve included anything from 1066 And All That, so here’s a favourite piece that seems to further substantiate the fork/prong equivalence:

“Henry VII was a miser and very good at statecraft; he invented some extremely clever policies such as the one called Morton’s Fork. This was an enormous prong with which his minister Morton visited the rich citizens (or burghlers as they were called). If the citizen said he was poor, Morton drove his fork in a certain distance and promised not to take it out until the citizen paid a large sum of money to the King. As soon as this was forthcoming Morton dismissed him, at the same time shouting “Fork out” so that Henry would know the statecraft had been successful. If the burghler said he was quite rich Morton did the same thing: it was thus a very clever policy and always succeeded except when Morton put the Fork in too far.”

3d Aussie tease, one swallowed by sheila (6)
A one-letter word for ‘one’ is ‘swallowed’ by a slang term equivalent to ‘sheila’ in Australia. The solution is a word that I have often heard on cricket commentaries but cannot recall ever having seen in print and which I wasn’t sure how to spell.

5d Food expert accompanying old woman, an aid when shopping (10, 2 words)
Nothing too tricky here, the two words of the solution being clued by the two elements of the wordplay, but I wonder how many millenials are familiar with Robert McMahon, the chef, restaurateur and cookery writer who usually went by his middle name. Although born in New York, he found fame in the UK, where he lived between 1953 and 1984 and from 1994 to his death in 2006. 

8d Giggle when opening fly in underwear (9)
A neat clue which has a six-letter word meaning ‘giggle’ (similar to the one that was Marathon in the UK until 1990) being inserted into (‘opening’) a three-letter word for a wingless fly that infests sheep.

13d Violet maybe eats chops in meat wagon (10)
An anagram (‘chops’, in the sense of ‘cracks’) of EATS inside a six-letter word for the sort of vehicle known (particularly in the US) as a ‘meat wagon’.

23d Radio navigation system getting one traced at sea (6)
None of the editions of Chambers in my library gives the solution here, so Azed must have had to go back a fair way to find it. The name is a contraction of ‘Decca Track’, and it was a long-range enhancement to the Decca radio position-fixing system first commissioned in 1957 and designed to cover specific air route segments, in particular long trans-ocean crossings over the Atlantic Ocean. Only one chain of transmitters for the system was ever installed, linking the Newfoundland Decca chain with the Scottish chain, and the system was rendered obsolete in the 1960s by the industry’s adoption of inertial navigation.

29d This writer’s locked in pound as badly behaved juvenile (4)
A simple wordplay to finish things off, a two-letter representation of “this writer’s” being contained by a two-letter abbreviation for ‘pound’, but whenever the solution here is used in the current sense I am immediately reminded of Richmal Crompton’s wonderful creation, William Brown:

“William was feeling specially aggrieved. This afternoon he had been condemned to accompany his mother to a meeting at the Vicarage. It was the housemaid’s afternoon off, and the cook said that she wouldn’t be left in the house again with that young limb, not if they went down on their bended knees to her, she wouldn’t. She’d pack up and go, she would, sooner. She was a good cook, so Mrs. Brown promised faithfully that the young limb should not be left with her, which meant that the young limb must accompany Mrs Brown to the meeting of the Women’s Guild at the Vicarage.”

(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 2,589 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

I thought this puzzle sat a little below the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There were considerably fewer contentious points than last week, but at the same time I felt that the joie de vivre that infuses Azed’s very best puzzles was somewhat lacking.

Nothing to do with Azed, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to mention the marvellous story of the robotic vacuum cleaner that escaped from a Travelodge in Cambridge last Thursday, having failed to stop at the lip on the hotel’s front door. After staff used social media to alert the public to the situation, they received many reassuring messages regarding the absconder, with people saying that it was unlikely to come to harm as it had no natural predators. However, one dissenting voice suggested that it was very much at risk, since ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. I wish I’d said that. The fugitive was recaptured on Friday, having been found by a (human) cleaner under a hedge near the front drive. It was apparently unharmed, if a little dirty, and following a dusting down has been reunited with its family.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 6d, “What sounds like thug, unruly youth with a quiff? (6)”. As regular readers will know, I have no grate affection for clues that involve homophones, but I’m quite prepared to accept them when Chambers indicates that the pronunciation of the words involved is the same. In recent times I have become rather alarmed by the rise of the ‘partial homophone’, where the wordplay suggests a word which sounds like part of the solution, the remainder being indicated by other wordplay elements, eg “Strong chain, we hear, broken” for ROBUST. In this example (which was painful for me to write), the homophone leads to a non-word, RO, and the positioning of the ‘we hear’ makes it clear that the BUST is entirely separate. In Azed’s clue, the homophone for ‘tough’ leads to a non-word, TUF, but could the wordplay involve only a homophone, ie ‘tough ted’ = TUFTED? Not in my view – the pronunciations are different, and if Azed had meant the clue to be read that way he would surely have indicated ‘tough ted’ by a phrase, eg ‘callous unruly youth’. Conclusion: I don’t much like this clue.

4a Zero stake for Jock in grave, borrower’s bond (8)
The usual single-character representation of ‘zero’ and a four-letter Scots (‘for Jock’) word for a stake or stub are contained by a three-letter word for [a] grave, the solution being hyphenated (4-4).

11a Printing plate? Choose what’s right for printers (7)
A five-letter word meaning ‘choose’ is followed by a two-letter abbreviation of the term used in printing for the right-hand page of an open book.

15a Having lost new exhaust, was over the limit (4)
The old ‘missing comma’ returns (well, you know what I mean) – the wordplay here is really ‘Having lost new, exhaust’, where a five-letter word meaning ‘[to] exhaust’ has had the usual abbreviation for ‘new’ removed.

17a Shakespearean company, as is fitting, seen in flickering strobe (6)
Chambers gives the solution (an anagram of STROBE) as ‘suitable company’, and when combined with its Shakespearean provenance this has produced a challenge for Azed. Something like ‘Suitable Shakespearean company’ wouldn’t be valid, so Azed has decided to use a postpositive adjectival expression to get round the problem. I did briefly wonder whether ‘flickering strobe’ carried a whiff of tautology, but I concluded that the strobe might be malfunctioning and therefore flickering randomly rather than flashing regularly.

21a Crown appearing in bowlers? They’ll end in headlines maybe (9)
A two-letter abbreviation for ‘crown’ appears inside a seven-letter term for a particular class of cricketing bowlers, the result being a word applied to sensational headlines; I don’t think the ‘maybe’ is strictly necessary.

27a PC goes off, having written off expenses briefly (4)
An eight-letter word for ‘goes off’ has an informal contraction (‘briefly’) of ‘expenses’ removed (‘written off’), two letters going from the start and two from the end. The PC in question appeared in Enid Blyton’s Noddy books, and quickly became synonymous with the police force generally. Despite being kindly disposed towards Noddy, he has locked him up on at least one occasion and at other times has threatened him with imprisonment. He demands the attention of miscreants by blowing his whistle and shouting ‘Halt in the name of ***!’ before pursuing them on his trusty bicycle as a prelude to feeling their collars and putting them in jail. The character was apparently based on PC Christopher Raymond (‘Ray’) Rone, who was at one time the beat bobby for the village of Studland in Dorset. Blyton used to stay regularly with her husband at the old golf club there, where Ray, an avuncular character and archetypal village policeman, would come to visit her on his bicycle. It seems that he rarely mentioned Blyton to his family, although many years later he let slip that he “didn’t think she liked children very much”.

1d Taipan e.g., from east in occupation on body of water (8, 2 words)
A nice definition by example that has been integrated deceptively into the clue, the wordplay involving the usual abbreviation for ‘east’ inside a three-letter word for an occupation being followed by a four-letter term for a body of water. The solution divides (3,5) and is Australian rhyming slang for the sort of thing you don’t want to find in your dunny.

6d What sounds like thug, unruly youth with a quiff? (6)
A three-letter (non-word) homophone for ‘thug’ is followed by a word for an unruly youth which makes frequent appearances in crosswords.

7d Finest trimmed bonnet made to order (7)
A four-letter word for ‘finest’ missing the last letter (‘trimmed’) is followed by a term for the projecting rim on the front of a bonnet, or a bonnet with such a feature.

9d Former paddock, area enveloped in bushy creeper (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘area’ is contained (‘enveloped’) by an old word for a bush, especially of ivy (and also the name of a fox about whom a tale was written). The defining word in the clue (not the solution) is given by Chambers as ‘archaic and Scot’, hence the qualification ‘former’, but should be familiar to aficionados of the Sunday Post’s Oor Wullie cartoon strip, either in the spelling seen here or with a U replacing the A.

18d Raised perched hawks – male ones (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘perched’ is reversed (‘raised’) and followed by a word meaning ‘hawks’ in a vending sense; the ‘ones’ in the definition refers back to the ‘hawks’, but in a completely different sense.

22d Lave flow from volcano’s centre almost at an end – shelter (6)
A charade of the central letter of ‘volcano’, a three-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘at an end’ missing its last letter (‘almost’), and a word meaning ‘shelter’.

26d Demonstrative term from character, first to last (5)
A five-letter word for distinctive character or moral significance has its initial letter moved to the end (‘first to last’).

27d Teacher offering improvement when it’s lacking (4)
A six-letter word for improvement or benefit is deprived of the consecutive letters IT (“when it’s lacking”).

28d Parched by a desert? Thus beset possibly (4)
A composite anagram to finish, where the words BY A DESERT can be produced by a rearrangement (‘possibly’) of the letters of the solution (‘thus’) plus BESET.

(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 2,588 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I’d put this puzzle right in the middle of the difficulty spectrum – no particularly difficult clues, but not too many easy ones either. More than one clue for an obscure solution also involved an obscurity in the wordplay, and several wordplays required careful untangling. A couple of definitions struck me as questionable, and I have turned the spotlight on them below.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 2d, “Like a crystal Archibald’s sculpted – not bad (6)”. A subtractive anagram, where the solution is obtained by rearranging the letters of ARCHIBALD without BAD (I remember enough from my Chemistry degree to know that not all crystals are chiral, but we’ll let that pass). The point of interest here is that the letters BAD are not consecutive in ARCHIBALD – is that a problem? Not in my view – both the raw anagram material (ARCHIBALD) and the element to be removed (BAD) are in plain view in the clue, and any solver who really didn’t want to remove non-consecutive letters could rearrange ARCHIBALD to produce CHIRALBAD (“Archibald’s sculpted”) and then remove the BAD (‘not bad). If the last part of the clue had read “not unskilful”, requiring a synonym of ‘unskilful’, ie BAD, to be removed, I think that would be a bridge too far. In this latter situation, the letters removed must be consecutive in the raw material, as in say “Piece of furniture Archibald assembled – not simple” for CHAIR ((ARCHIBALD – BALD)*).

13a When imbibing I desist from vintage Scotch perhaps (7)
The wordplay involves a two-letter word meaning ‘when’ containing (‘imbibing’) I (from the clue) and an obsolete (‘vintage’) word meaning ‘to desist from’ (Chambers shows it as Spenserian, but it pre-dated him by several hundred years). The spelling here of the solution (a Scots word for ‘perhaps’) is that favoured by Burns, but there are several alternatives, including the rather charming ‘yibbles’.

15a Old woman in truth abandoning husband (4)
A ‘formal or archaic’ (according to Chambers) interjection meaning ‘in truth’ (although I suspect that the ‘formal’ aspect applies only to the noun and not the interjection) missing (‘abandoning’) the usual abbreviation for ‘husband’. I would have preferred to see ‘Old crone’ rather than ‘Old woman’ as the definition – the word, which means ‘old woman’ or ‘crone’,  is itself obsolete, and therefore ‘Old’ on its own is somewhat overworked.

16a Garrison commander a month after defeat (8)
The name of the twelfth month in the ecclesiastical year of the Jewish calendar follows a four-letter verb meaning ‘to defeat’ in a pretty final sort of way.

19a Part of chair back was in place at fringes of town library? (5)
A three-letter word meaning ‘was in place’ is put around (‘at fringes of’) the two-letter abbreviation for ‘public library’. In line with the views I expressed last week regarding indirect indications of abbreviations, I’m not entirely happy with ‘town library?’ here.

23a Treasury chap I found in heart of in-tray, looking back (5)
A three-letter word for ‘I’ is contained by the central letters (‘heart’) of IN-TRAY, the whole lot being reversed (‘looking back’). The solution is the last name of the British physician, natural scientist and lexicographer known to all crossword solvers for his magnum opus, first published in 1852, which has been regularly expanded and reprinted and which appeared in an abridged form as his Treasury of Words.

25a Eggs arranged and put in grades as before (8)
An anagram (‘arranged’) of AND is put inside an obsolete (‘as before’) word for ‘degrees’ or ‘ranks’; the ‘Eggs’ in the definition refers to bombs, although I’m not sure they are quite the same sort as the ones that constitute the solution.

29a Passionate person once displaying energy in pursuit of fabulous bird (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘energy’ appears here following (‘in pursuit of’) a “fabulous bird (by Europeans commonly called the phœnix), one of the symbols of the imperial dignity in China.” Someone who was in the grip of irritation or anger would be described as being ‘in a ****’, and the word was consequently used as a noun, describing someone apt to get into such a state.

32a Drive former president out of party? (4)
The middle name of the 32nd President of the United States has the usual crossword term for a party (in the usual Boris Johnson sense) removed from its fringes (‘out of party’).

3d Island fast revealing hostility to poet (9)
A five-letter island (a recipient of the George Cross) and a four-letter word often deceptively indicated in clues by ‘fast’ combine to produce a word for ill-will or malevolence used by (among others) Edmund Spenser (‘hostility to poet’).

6d Scots miserly – about right? Love it (6)
Going ‘about right’ (ie around the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘right’) are a three-letter word for ‘love’ (in the Novak Djokovic sense) and the letters IT (from the clue). I can find no evidence to suggest that the definition here is correct – Chambers shows this word (rather than the similar word ending in E) as meaning ‘stunted’ or ‘pinched with cold’, it’s not in OED, and I can’t find any support in the Scots dictionaries available online.

Additional note: the comment from Ray Jennings (below) prompted me to look at the entries for NIRL in both the electronic and paper versions of Chambers. I use the electronic version when solving, and in there the subheads for ‘nirled/nirlit’ and ‘nirly/nirlie’ are clearly separate; in the paper editions a tiny full stop is the only thing that divides them I can quite see why Azed thought that the meanings given for ‘nirly/nirlie’ were also applicable to ‘nirled/nirlit’.

7d Highlander set about opening of area (4)
A three-letter verb meaning ‘[to] set’ containing (‘about’) the first letter (‘opening’) of ‘area’, but the definition here is very much by example – such a person could (according to Chambers) come from Ireland or the Isle of Man, so there needs to be a ‘maybe’ or similar in there.

8d How drought affects region, always restricting clear lake (6)
A horrible word to define, formed by a two-letter word for ‘always’ containing (‘restricting’) a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] clear’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘lake’; I think it is only ever used to describe a manner of speaking, as in this example from Hardy’s The Dynasts:

Were I as coarse a wife
As I am limned in English caricature—
[Those cruel effigies they draw of me!]—
You could not speak more aridly.

9d What raja may accompany, always full of energy? Reverse of that (4)
That word for ‘always’ that appeared in the previous clue pops up again, this time containing (‘full of’) a two-letter word for ‘energy’ or ‘pep’, the whole lot being reversed (‘Reverse of that’) to produce the name applied to various systems of physical and/or mental discipline, of which ‘raja’ is one form.

18d Last bit of lunch left for pet (3)
The final letter (‘Last bit of’) ‘lunch’ is followed by…well, somehow we have to get ON from ‘left’ or ‘left for’, but I can’t see it myself. Chambers gives ‘with respect to’ as a meaning of both ‘for’ and ‘on’, but even if we accept this rather tenuous synonymity the issue of that ‘left’ remains. Could H be ‘[the] last bit of lunch left’? I don’t think so – the solver would have to infer “…when the first four letters have been deleted”, which is asking too much. All suggestions will be welcomed.

21d Fall on bottom, end of cord coming away (6)
A three-letter word for ‘bottom’ (such as a river has), followed by a four-letter word for ‘cord’ with the last letter removed (‘end…coming away’). The grammar of the second part of the wordplay is questionable – I would prefer the cord to be the subject, as in say “cord lacking end’ – but the definition of the solution is impeccable, ‘fall’ on its own being inadequate.

27d Old but scent-free, growing white (4)
A nine-letter word meaning ‘growing white’ has the letters SCENT removed (‘scent-free’), to produce an archaic (hence the ‘Old’) conjunction. The solution is a contracted form of the phrase ‘All though it be that’, invariably seen nowadays spelt with six letters but in the past sometimes further abridged by the removal of the pronoun. However, I don’t think that ‘but’ is accurate – I realize that ‘although’ is uncomfortably closely related to the solution, but it would surely be better.

(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 2,587 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

There were some entertaining clues in this puzzle which struck me as being a little below the mid-point of the difficulty spectrum.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 19a, “Ambassador maybe providing enclosure for sandarach in African capital (6)”. The clue is parsed below, but the point of interest here is the way in which Azed has indicated the letters HE, ie with “Ambassador maybe”. It is not uncommon to see ‘ambassador’ on its own in puzzles indicating HE, but I have a problem with this – HE is, according to Chambers, an abbreviation for ‘His Excellency’. I don’t doubt that the person so addressed could be an ambassador, but ‘ambassador’ and ‘HE’ are neither synonymous nor interchangeable. The same issue applies to ‘way’ being used for ST (or RD), and ‘novice’ for L. St is an abbreviation specifically of ‘Street’, and L of ‘learner (driver)’. One would not say “I was walking along the St” or “I was held up behind an L”. Abbreviations like VC or LP are very different – these have a life of their own in today’s language (“He won the VC”, “She has a large LP collection”), so I’m entirely comfortable with ‘decoration’ being used to indicate VC and ‘record’ to indicate ‘LP’. Here Azed has done the decent thing and added a ‘maybe’, thus making it a little clearer that the link between the indication and the abbreviation indicated thereby is somewhat loose in nature.

1a Soup recipe ingested by artist (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘recipe’ is ‘ingested’ by the surname of the artist famous for the triptych commonly known as The Garden of Earthy Delights, and for designing the majority of the power tools in my collection. My first encounter with the soup in question came many years ago at a place called George’s Armenian Restaurant, somewhere near Manchester; it was also the scene of my first dalliance with Turkish coffee.

6a Everything within that kiss stirred divine femininity (6)
An anagram (‘stirred’) of THAT KISS apart from the initial T and the closing S, ie ‘everything within’.

16a Announced month left once given judgement (8)
A charade of a three-letter abbreviation for one month of the year, the usual abbreviation for ‘left’, and the past tense of the obsolete verb ‘aread’, meaning ‘to adjudge’.

19a Ambassador maybe providing enclosure for sandarach in African capital (6)
The two-letter abbreviation of the title of honour given to an ambassador containing (‘providing enclosure for’) a four-letter word for the sandarach tree.

20a Cocktail of Pepsi and Lilt? This is primarily ‘lite’ possibly (6)
I applaud Azed’s commitment to come up with new treatments of words that he has clued many times before, although this one didn’t do a lot for me. It’s a composite anagram &lit, where a rearrangement (‘cocktail’) of PEPSI and LILT could produce (‘possibly’) the solution (‘this’) IS L (the first letter of ‘lite’, ie “primarily ‘lite’”). The whole clue stands as the definition of the solution. For the benefit of solvers outside the UK (and Ireland, Gibraltar and the Seychelles), Lilt is a carbonated soft drink flavoured with grapefruit (not orange as I originally wrote) and pineapple, sold by the Coca-Cola company – to those like myself who find that advertising jingles once absorbed can never be exuded, it will forever be associated with a ‘totally tropical taste’.

23a Child dropped subject more ready to learn (5)
Another example of the ‘missing comma’ that was discussed a couple of weeks ago. The wordplay here equates to “Child dropped, subject”, so a seven-letter word for a subject (or a main division of a book) has the standard two-letter abbreviation for ‘child’ removed from it. ‘Ready to learn’ is not the most obvious meaning of the adjective from which the solution is derived, but it is given by Chambers, and Robinson Crusoe, when relating his experience of teaching Friday to speak English, describes him as being “the aptest scholar there ever was”.

26a Literary bits and pieces smart chap penned in column (8)
The name which is preceded by ‘smart’ and given to someone who thinks they’re pretty clever (‘smart chap’) is contained by (‘penned in’) a four-letter word for “a square pilaster at either side of a doorway or the corner of a flank wall”. It seems almost certain that the inspiration for the nineteenth century term for a smart*rse was Alec Hoag, a celebrated New York City thief of the 1840s who, along with wife Melinda and accomplice French Jack, specialized in the ‘panel game’; this involved the use of a secret panel in order to rob ‘clients’ that Melinda had brought back to her room. At first Hoag bribed the police to turn a blind eye, but then, realizing that their victims would not report the thefts, he decided to stop paying; this was not a good move, as he quickly found himself arrested and put in prison. Supposedly one of the arresting officers called him ‘Smart Alec(k)’ on account of him being too smart for his own good, after which other officers started to apply the term to other prisoners who thought they were cleverer than the police. Within twenty years the expression appears to have been in common use in the US, and by the 1930s it had reached the UK and Australia.

30a Coffee dish, edges split (5)
A seven-letter word for a dish with the first and last letters removed (‘edges split’)  produces a popular type of coffee. I think that I would have favoured ‘edges splitting’, but the clue is probably ok as it stands.

34a Hero’s father – matter involves dodgy ‘eel! (6)
A neat one this – an anagram (‘dodgy’) of EEL inside a three-letter word for the sort of matter that’s formed by suppuration results in the name of the father of Achilles. Although early stories make no mention of Achilles’ near-invulnerability (in fact in the Iliad, Homer describes him being wounded in the elbow), later stories have him being dipped in the Styx by his mother, Thetis. in an attempt to make him immortal. Unfortunately she was holding him by his left heel – a careless error, one can’t help feeling. The title of the Led Zeppelin track Achilles Last Stand is a reference to Robert Plant’s severe ankle injury sustained in a 1975 car accident, as a result of which he was unable to walk for a year. Much of the Presence album was recorded with Plant in a wheelchair, and the working title of the track was The Wheelchair Song.

1d Chancy investment wild eclat tucked up – owlish maybe? (12)
A four-letter contraction of a word for a chancy investment together with an anagram (‘wild’) of ECLAT are put into BED (‘tucked up’) to produce an adjective which would typically apply to individuals described as ‘owlish’.

2d A pistol cocked? Rule of order (6)
A reversal (‘cocked’) of A (from the clue) and the five-letter name for a type of semi-automatic pistol. Originally produced in 1898 as the Parabellum Automatic Pistol, it was adopted by the Swiss Military in 1901 and the German army in 1908, being produced in several forms up until 1948. The name ‘Parabellum’ derives from the Latin adage “Si vis pacem para bellum”, roughly translated as “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

3d Runner? Plenty turned up in advance (6)
This parses as a four-letter word for ‘plenty’ reversed (‘turned up’) plus a two-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘in advance’.

4d Cheesy stuff given a whirl within? It’s revolting (4)
The four-letter ‘cheesy stuff’ has its second and third letters swapped around (‘given a whirl within’) to produce something altogether less appetizing.

5d Old time tart, head dropping somewhat (5)
Another name for a poule de luxe with the first letter moving down two places (‘head dropping somewhat’). The solution is an obsolete spelling of a familiar word for a time or occasion, hence the ‘old’.

7d Toxic latex, not for a tip of rubber (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘not for’ (ie against), the letter A (from the clue), and the first letter (or possibly the last) of ‘rubber’. Conventionally, ‘tip’ is used to indicate the first letter of a word while ‘end’ indicates the last, but it seems to me that they are interchangeable – ‘the tip of my snooker clue’ is the bit furthest away from me, while ‘my end of the office’ is the bit closest.

9d Shipworm mostly found under matting in shreds (8)
A six-letter word for a shipworm has its last letter removed (‘mostly’) and follows a three-letter term for a type of Indian hempen matting (another word with the same spelling describes tawdry or shabby articles).

15d Coach circumventing what may be Indian gazelle (8)
A five-letter shortened form of a nine-letter word for the sort of coach that used to take people on outings, containing (‘circumventing’) the name of a type of fluid that could be prefixed by ‘Indian’ (or by ‘invisible’). ‘Indian’ describes the gazelle, but this word cannot be part of the definition as it would then be performing double duty in the clue, which is not allowed.

25d University shows this ivy’s disfigured…Trinity? (6)
A second composite anagram, this time not an &lit. UNIVERSITY is (‘shows’) an anagram of (‘disfigured’) the solution (‘this’) and IVYS; ‘Trinity’ is 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 2,586 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

A largely straightforward puzzle that sat somewhere below the mid-point of the difficulty scale, I felt.

May I take this opportunity to wish all readers a very happy New Year, and good solving in 2022.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clues 23d, “Put fresh front on shift, turned-up iron plugged in (6)”, and 25d, “Change address for number in former province (6)”. These clues are parsed below, but the discussion here centres on the solutions and their definitions, ‘Put fresh front on’ and ‘Change address for’. Chambers shows both the verbs as ‘vt’ (verb transitive) only, therefore in a sentence they must always take an object. A mistake that inexperienced setters (and sometimes not-so-inexperienced ones) make is to define a transitive verb using a verb or verb expression which is intransitive. So, for example, to define DESALINATE as ‘remove salt’ would be an error – ‘desalinate’ is a transitive-only verb and therefore the definition would have to be ‘remove salt from’; if in doubt, try the old setter’s substitution trick, replacing the solution with the intended definition in a sentence, eg ‘It is possible to desalinate seawater’. In the two clues from this puzzle, the prepositions are essential – something like ‘Replace front’ or ‘Change address’ would not be valid.

10a Man admits love with mum – one’s predictions are distinctly ‘earthy’ (7)
A four-letter ‘man’ (of good birth or refined manners) takes in (‘admits’) the usual single-character representation of love and a two-letter word for ‘mum’ (or ‘mother’) frequently seen in crosswords. According to the British Museum’s web site, the technique employed by such a person was “a popular form of divination (seeking knowledge through supernatural means) practised across the Islamic world. In Arabic, it is known as ‘ilm al-raml’, literally ‘the science of the sand.’ In this ancient practice, the position of randomly thrown grains of sand answered specific questions put to the geomancer by the client. Enquiries often concerned matters of daily life, such as the health of a child, infidelity of a spouse or success of a business dealing.”

12a Dog (origin unspecified) needing shampoo, rear half first (4)
A four-letter word for ‘shampoo’ (in truth ‘shampoo’ here is dangerously close to an definition by example) has its second pair of letters moved in front of its first pair (‘rear half first’) to produce the name of a dog belonging to a breed developed in Tibet and normally referred to as a (5,4), but here Azed has taken a bit of a liberty by dropping the name of the breed’s city of origin and indicating same with ‘(origin unspecified)’.

13a You may find gardener is transplanting red one? (7)
This clue and 9d are companion pieces. Both are composite anagrams, but this one is a ‘comp anag &lit’, where the whole clue stands both as the wordplay and as the definition of the solution. The letters of GARDENER IS can be obtained by rearrangement of (indicated by ‘is transplanting’) RED plus the solution (indicated in the wordplay by ‘one’). In ‘&lit’ clues, it is accepted that the definition can be on the loose side – I think it’s pretty clear here that we are looking for the name of a plant. Regarding its hue, whilst there is a variety called ‘Red Pixie’, as correspondent Azedophile points out below, this is a named cultivar of the species when spelt with a ‘y’ not, as here, with an ‘e’. However, further web research has revealed the following:

“The savanna surrounding the Waterberg Mountains is characterized by African beachwood (Faurea saligna), common hookthorn (Acacia caffra), red seringa (Burkea africana), Terminalia sericea, and Peltophorum africanum.”

Based on this, it would seem that the plant receiving the attention of Azed’s gardener could indeed be a ‘red one’. Whether ‘transplanting’ is a valid anagram indicator, however, is a moot point.

24a Sign of cold weather in part of mid-April? One’ll need a second coat (6)
A four-letter ‘sign of cold weather’ is contained by two of the three letters in the middle of ‘April’ – ‘part of mid-April’ seems a strange way of indicating these letters, but I can’t see anything unfair about it. I was slightly dubious about the definition, but since Chambers gives the solution as ‘a preparatory first coat of paint, etc’ it is absolutely fine.,

28a SA creature, not heading for the Cape? (5)
A rather cumbersome wordplay tells us to remove the letters FOR (‘not…for’) from the start of (‘heading’) a word for a cape.

32a Hand washer applied to edge of face for shave (7)
Here the second name of the man who according to St Matthew “washed his hands before the multitude, saying ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood. The responsibility is yours.’” is put after (‘applied to’) the last letter (‘edge’) of ‘face’.

35a Prince maybe with bird, English, on deck relaxing, not plunging (12)
A three-letter name given by Shakespeare to the young Henry of Monmouth (later Henry V) is followed by a four-letter word for a type of slender sea-bird, the usual abbreviation for English, and an anagram (‘relaxing’) of DECK. The solution is hyphenated, (6-6), and describes a garment with a neckline which is far from plunging.

4d Old coat mostly turned up with nothing below collar (6)
A six-letter word for a peasant’s overcoat (shown by Chambers as ‘hist‘, hence the ‘old’) has its last letter removed (‘mostly’) before being reversed (‘turned up’) and put above the single letter used to represent ‘nothing’ (‘with nothing below’). The second letter of the solution could also have been an E, both the coat and the collar having alternative spellings which would be consistent with this, but since the letter in question is checked by the unambiguous 10a there is no problem.

7d Old poet, good on love, cause of global upheaval but not the first (4)
The name of a disease which has indeed caused, and continues to cause, global upheaval, has its first letter removed (‘but not the first’) to produce the English designation of the Roman poet who wrote the elegiac poems Ars Amatoria (‘The Art of Love’) and Remedia Amoris (‘The Cure for Love’). 

9d Gardenin’ has disinterred this local onion, red (5)
As in 13a a compound anagram is involved, but this time it is not an ‘&lit’. Here the letters of GARDENIN can be rearranged (‘disinterred’, in the sense of ‘brought out of obscurity’) to produce the solution (‘this local onion’) and RED. Why, you might ask, is this not an &lit, since the whole clue could stand as a definition of the solution. Yes, but the words ‘local onion’ play no part in the cryptic reading of the clue, so although the definition does not appear (as is usual but not mandatory) at the beginning or end of the clue this is still a definition + wordplay clue.

The composite anagram, where extra material is added to the solution in order to ‘balance the equation’ with the anagram fodder in the clue, is not a new thing (it has been around since the 1940s), but it is only seen in barred cryptics and makes relatively few appearances outside Azed puzzles and Azed competitions. There are many examples of ‘comp anag &lit’ clues to be found in the Azed Slip Archive, the classic example being Colin Dexter’s (albeit now somewhat dated) clue for WELL-TO-DO in comp 727, “It’s this Littlewoods could make you” (ITS WELLTODO = LITTLEWOODS). The non-&lit form of the composite anagram is generally viewed as the poor relation of its &lit sibling and as such is seen less much often in prize-winning competition clues; here is D Arthur’s VHC entry for comp 1611 (LEISLER, a type of bat): “This bat and pad if together confuse a slip fielder” (LEISLER + PAD IF = A SLIP FIELDER).

16d The heavens, timeless void about one (8)
A charade of a five-letter word for ‘void’ without the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ (‘timeless’), a two-letter bit of commercial jargon for ‘about’ much beloved of crossword setters, and a two-letter word for ‘one’. The solution looks like an adjective but is also a noun.

23d Put fresh front on shift, turned-up iron plugged in (6)
A four-letter word for ‘[to] shift’, in the moving quickly sense, with a reversal (‘turned-up’) of the chemical symbol for iron inserted (‘plugged in’).

25d Change address for number in former province (6)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘number’ is placed inside an obsolete spelling of a familiar word which means ‘province’ (as in a field of study). Incidentally, I note that the term ‘wheelhouse’, used with a similar meaning, appears to have crossed the pond and be gaining a foothold in the UK. Personally, I’m not keen.

31d Settled in a form of worship – any absent? (4)
The letter A (from the clue) plus a six-letter word for a form of responsive prayer in public worship (or a long and boring list) from which the letters ANY have been removed (‘any absent’).

(definitions are underlined)

Azed 2,586 

Due to staff holidays there was a delay in the publication of the notes for this puzzle, but they are now available through the home page.

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 2,585 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

I hope that you all had an enjoyable Christmas Day and that Santa brought you everything that you had asked for.

Our gift from Azed today is a plain puzzle which contains a lot of anagrams (twelve) but climbed a little closer to the middle of the difficulty range courtesy of a couple of tricky wordplays.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 14a, “Succinct drama is replaced by page (5)”. Here we are expected to replace the letters IS in a word meaning ‘drama’, but is Azed adhering to Afrit’s precept “I need not mean what I say, but I must say what I mean”? Personally, I don’t think so. If I wrote about “A collection of paintings one replaced with another”, you would be confident that the entire collection of paintings had been replaced. Only if a comma were present, so the statement read “A collection of paintings, one replaced with another”, would you understand that a single painting had been replaced. If the words were spoken, there would be a pause between ‘paintings’ and ‘one’ should the second meaning be intended. Can we infer that pause? Azed thinks so – “around start of communion say” in 24d is another example – but there is a growing school of thought (to which I subscribe) that says that clues like these don’t say what they mean.

1a Person imbibed decorated cup he had, seated on high table? (9)
A three-letter abbreviation for ‘person’ is contained (‘imbibed’) by an anagram (‘decorated’) of CUP plus a three-letter contraction of ‘he had’. The solution is shown by Chambers as hyphenated (2-7), and as far as I can discern it is what Mr Worthington, my Greek master many years ago, would have described as a hapax legomenon, appearing only in Keats’ description of a nightingale in Book 1 of Endymion. The definition here is therefore a bit of a stretch, but hey, it’s Christmas…

12a Favourite about finished, reverse of ideal change of fortune (9)
A three-letter word for a favourite containing (‘about’) a four-letter word for ‘finished’ (or ‘fully developed’), followed by a reversal (‘reverse’) of a two-character abbreviation meaning ‘first-rate’ (‘ideal’), originally written in the Lloyd’s Register of Shipping against the names of vessels which were in tip-top condition.

14a Succinct drama is replaced by page (5)
A six-letter word for a drama (the Commercial Union used to insist that they wouldn’t make the latter out of the former), with the letters IS replaced by the usual abbreviation for ‘page’.

17a When you see wife avoiding cooked bean, don’t eat it! (7)
The letters WHEN without the standard single-letter abbreviation for ‘wife’ (‘you see wife avoiding’) plus an anagram (‘cooked’) of BEAN, the solution being a plant of the nightshade family which fulfils no culinary role in well-regulated households.

19a Former trust: a relationship is lacking in it (4)
Another deletion clue, this time the letters IN IT are ‘lacking’ from an eight-letter word for a relationship.

32a Having crust that’s dry, one assumes? (5)
The solution, when read as (1,2,2), leads cryptically to the word DRY.

2d Power race, e.g. Fastnet? (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘power’ is followed by a verb meaning ‘[to] race’. I once included in a LIstener submission a clue  which used ‘Vera?’ to indicate ALOE; this was (quite rightly) rejected on the basis that ‘vera’ is not a type of aloe, any more than ‘tartare’ is a sort of steak, so this was not a definition by example in the way that ‘setter?’ would be for DOG. Likewise, I’m unconvinced that ‘Fastnet’ on its own, even with the help of ‘e.g’ and ‘?’ can indicate Fastnet Lighthouse. I would say that I’d have preferred something like “Power race one’s seen at Fastnet”, but Fastnet isn’t a place either, it’s the name of a rock.

9d Girl pocketing key that’s this and this! (7)
I’m not sure that anyone other than Azed would have dared to produce this clue. A four-letter word for girl (of the sort that might be a-milking when delivered en masse at this time of year) contains a six-letter word for a key (of the Florida sort) with the letters AND  *******, where ******* is the solution (ie “key that’s this and”). The second ‘this’ describes a possible state of the key (of the door unlocking sort) prior to being pocketed, and is the definition (albeit a somewhat loose one).

18d Notice I’ll be brought in to direct with more consistency (8)
A two-letter informal term for a notice and the letter I are contained by (‘brought in to’) a five-letter verb meaning ‘[to] direct’. 

20d What’ll aid streamlining following publication? (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘following’ plus a six-letter word for ‘publication’ produce a term for external fittings attached to a vehicle to reduce aerodynamic drag.

24d It smoulders in thurible, around start of communion say (6)
A five-letter word meaning ‘[to] say’ is placed around the first letter (‘start’) of ‘communion’.

26d Party thrown, dukedom’s ruined immediately (5, 2 words)
An anagram (‘ruined’) of DUKEDOM from which the usual two-letter word for a party has been removed (‘thrown’). The solution is a (2,3) Anglo-Indian expression.

27d What harvester grips and studies lifted round acreage (5)
The standard abbreviation for ‘acreage’ has a four-letter word for ‘studies’ reversed outside (‘lifted round’) it, producing one of many alternative spellings for a term applied to the handle or shaft of a scythe.

28d Like an anvil, more than half banged up (5)
The answer comprises five-ninths (‘more than half’) of a (2,7) phrase that the police would probably use, at least when communicating with the public, in preference to ‘banged up’.

29d Some Finns are found in South America having run away (5)
A Christmas feast of abbreviations to finish off the puzzle. The usual abbreviation for ‘are’ is contained by (‘found in’) abbreviations for ‘South’ and ‘America’, the latter having had the abbreviation for ‘run’ removed (‘away’).

(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 2,584 ‘Christmas Cut & Paste’

Difficulty rating: (4.5 / 10)

A new type of special to deal with this Christmas. At first glance I thought it was going to be quite tough, but Azed has given us a couple of early Christmas gifts across the top and bottom of the puzzle. The wordplay for 1a determines exactly how it must be entered in the grid; although the same does not apply to 36a, working out 1d (or at least the four-letter groups that start and end its entry) will narrow the possibilities down to two and the ‘hidden’ at 27d will confirm how 36 must be entered. The clues are largely straightforward and the proportion of unfamiliar words is relatively low, so just having the entry at 1a in place gets you off to a great start.

A cleverly-constructed puzzle for the final competition of the year. I wish all readers a splendid Christmas and a happy, healthy 2022 with plenty of good solving to entertain them.

Setters’ Corner: When setting a themed puzzle, and in particular when asking solvers to enter a word which must be deduced simply from a number of checked letters, it is vital that there should be no ambiguity. I think the correct entry for 20a here would have been pretty clear anyway, but Azed has sensibly taken the extra step of indicating that it is a verb form, thus ruling out the only conceivable alternative (a noun ending in R). There are few things worse as a solver than getting to the end of a puzzle and not being sure whether you’ve actually completed it correctly, and it is the setter’s job to ensure that this does not happen.

Notes on some of the clues follow, and below them is a checklist of where the breaks in the entries appear.

1a Seasonal postal item: cosmetic colouring mostly damaged shirt (about 600) (13, 2 words)
The wordplay (and hence the entry) can be reverse engineered from the ‘seasonal postal item’: a seven-letter ‘cosmetic colouring’ without its last letter (‘mostly’) and an anagram (‘damaged’) of SHIRT, containing between them (‘about’) the Roman numerals representing 600. Getting this one into the grid fixes the first letters of the first ten down entries, a huge leap forward.

13a Splosh, reverse of fitting, cut short within (7)
A three-letter adjective meaning ‘fitting’ is reversed around a five-letter word for ‘short’ (or ‘succinct’) from which the last letter has been removed (‘cut’).

17a Assault rifle – I rage following pain (8)
The letter I and a four-letter word meaning ‘to rage’ or ‘to move or act with violence’ are preceded by a three-letter word for ‘pain’ or ‘sickness’ taken directly from French. 

31a Pike to disentangle? Special net required (6)
A three-letter dialect word for a pike (of the swimming around eating other fish sort) is followed by a three-letter word, common in barred puzzles, meaning ‘to disentangle’ or ‘to tidy up’.

34a Member of staff, one opposed to inaction having retired (7)
A two-letter word meaning ‘one’ is followed by a reversal (‘having retired’) of the usual single-letter representation of ‘opposed to’ plus a four-letter word for ‘inaction’.

35a I’ll be replaced by soprano in psalm voice in certain parts (6)
A six-letter name given to Psalm 95, on account of its first word when rendered in Latin, has the I replaced by the standard abbreviation for ‘soprano’. The ‘in certain parts’ reflects the fact that the solution is given by Chambers as ‘now dialect’.

36a This time accepting church mass it tried being converted (13)
Azed’s second little gift to solvers, an anagram (‘being converted’) of MASS IT TRIED containing (‘accepting’) a two-letter abbreviation for ‘church’.

1d Wrongly calculate partner’s gambling stake – it’s raised (11)
A four-letter word for a partner is followed by an uncommon word for a gambling stake and a reversal (‘raised’) of ITS.

3d Thinks force must be limited to opportune time locally (5)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘force’ together with a four-letter dialect word meaning ‘opportune time’ or ‘good fortune’ which has several alternative spellings and pops up regularly in Azed crosswords.

5d Sacred plant representation depicted in artistic diploma (5)
A three-letter word for a representation, such as the magical document which showed every detail of Hogwarts school down to the last ghost, inside a two-letter abbreviation for ‘Diploma of Art’ 

7d There’s a dash of alcohol in this tea (4)
The first letter (‘a dash’) of ‘alcohol’ is placed inside a three-letter Latin pronoun meaning ‘this’.

8d Ingredient in veggie cookery, concentrated, without a name (6)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘concentrated’ or ‘extreme in degree’ has one of its Ns removed (‘without a name’). The solution is a food made from gluten, although the normal spelling these days appears to have an A as the fifth letter rather than (as here, and as in Chambers) an E. 

9d As I changed inside that will do as an alternative (5)
An anagram (‘changed’) of AS I inside a two-letter word for ‘that will do’ (as an expression of approval).

22d Our set was working with special retort (6)
A charade of a two-letter term for ‘our set’ (ie you, I and perhaps some others), a three-letter word for ‘was working’, and the standard single-letter abbreviation for ‘special’.

23d Tasty slice of delicatessen consumed in Italian city (4)
The first letter (‘slice’) of ‘delicatessen’ is contained by (‘consumed in’) an Italian city that one might be inclined to visit. Why Azed has chosen ‘slice of’ rather than ‘slice from’ I’m not at all sure.

30d Scots bury beloved, end given priority (4)
A four-letter word for ‘beloved’ has the last letter moved to the beginning (‘end given priority’). The solution is a variant spelling of a Scottish word, but this form is given by Chambers as an alternative only for the noun, with the verb ‘yird’ given neither alternative spellings nor any indication of localization. However, based on the OED entries for the noun and verb forms of ‘earth’, supported by confirmation from a correspondent that his Scots dictionary has the solution here as meaning ‘to bury’, I am inclined to suspect that both the alternative spellings and the Scots attribution should in fact be applied to the headword in Chambers rather than specifically to the noun.

(definitions are underlined)

Breaks in Entries

Across:

In 1a the last 7 letters of the defined solution are followed by the first 6; 12: [4,2]; 13: [4,3]; 14: [4,2]; 15: [2,4]; 16: [3,1]; 17: [6,2]; 19: [1,3]; 24: [1,3]; 26: [7,1]; 29: [2,2]; 31: [2,4]; 33: [4,2]; 34: [3,4]; 35: [3,3]; 36: [10,3]

Down:

1: [4,7]; 2: [3,1]; 3:[1,4]; 4: [5,2]; 5: [3,2]; 6: [2,4]; 7: [3,1]; 8: [4,2]; 9: [4,1]; 10: [4,7]; 11: [2,3]; 18: [6,1]; 21: [5,1]; 22: [3,3]; 23: [3,2]; 25: [2,3]; 27: [3,2]; 28: [1,4]; 30: [2,2]; 32: [3,1]

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 2,583 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

As we prepare ourselves for next Sunday’s Christmas Special, we are faced with a plain puzzle that includes eleven anagrams or partial anagrams. These, together with the absence of any particularly tough clues, seemed to place it somewhere below average difficulty.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 3d, “Bird shedding top (i.e. with no hint of chagrin) in Edinburgh joint” (5). This involves CHOUGH (the bird) losing its first letter (‘shedding top’) to produce a word for a joint that, whilst not exclusively seen north of the border, was a favourite of Sir Walter and is therefore undoubtedly Scott-ish. The point of interest in this clue is the bit in parentheses, ‘i.e. with no hint of chagrin’. The ‘hint’ of chagrin is the first letter of the word, so Azed is telling us that it is the letter C which must be removed from CHOUGH. This is true, but we already know which letter has got to go, so this clarification is unnecessary and would be rejected by most crossword editors, the emphasis these days being placed on conciseness, with extra stuff like this being seen as unnecessarily confusing to the solver.  Either ‘Bird shedding top in Edinburgh joint’ or ‘Bird needing minimum of clothing in Edinburgh joint’ would be fine. The bracketed enhancements to 7a and 31a also fall into the same category and could equally have been omitted without any adverse impact on the clues.

2a X and what follows Y – a swindle (4)
The antepenultimate letter of the Greek alphabet, the capital form of which is X, plus the letter of the Roman alphabet which follows Y. The solution will be familiar to readers of the Jennings books written by Anthony Buckeridge, or at least to readers of the versions which have not been ‘brought up to date’ by replacing Buckeridge’s largely invented (and therefore timeless) slang with modern (and therefore rapidly obsolete) equivalents.

It was now four days since Mrs. Cherry had left, and for the fourth day in succession the menu for tea had consisted of corned beef and half-baked potatoes.

“Oh, no! Not again!” groaned Atkinson as the boys went into the dining hall for the evening meal.

“Mouldy chizz, mouldy potatoes,” moaned Bromwich. “If this goes on much longer I shall soon start looking like a baked potato.”

“Nothing new about that. You’ve reminded me of one for years,” said Temple. He picked up the jacketed potato from his plate, squeezed it and shook his head sadly. “Bullet-proof!” was his verdict.

Incidentally, I do permit myself a smile when I see discussion of the correct pronunciation of the Greek letters used to distinguish the variant forms of COVID-19. Since very few recordings survive of ancient Greeks reciting their alphabet, frankly your guess is as good as mine. I went through several years at school in the comfortable certainty that the Romans pronounced the O in ‘amo’ like the O in ‘go’ and the GN in ‘magnus’ like the GN in ‘signal’, only for a new Latin master to arrive fresh from Cambridge pronouncing the O in ‘amo’ like the ‘ore’ in ‘sore’ and the GN in ‘magnus’ like the ‘ny’ in ‘canyon’. A very good reason to go to Oxford, IMHO.

7a Old copper collection (of pans say) – it’s well worth having (5)
A two-letter word for an ‘old copper [coin]’ and a three-letter word for a collection (which could be of pans, but could also consist of many other things such as spoons or spanners) combine to produce something that by definition is worth having.

12a Keeper dismissing No. 3 for a duck – Aussie’s hard projectile (6)
The ‘keeper’ here would be found not behind the stumps but on, say, a football pitch; their third letter is discarded (‘dismissing No. 3’) in favour of (‘for’) the character representing a duck in the cricketing sense.

13a Cicero? He comes to prominence after Caesar’s end (6)
Following the last letter of ‘Caesar’ (“after Caesar’s end”) we have HE (from the clue) and a three-letter word for a prominence. The term that results could certainly be applied to Cicero.

15a French artist recalled (no date), one of seven historically (4)
The five-letter surname of a French artist famed for his paintings of ballerinas is reversed (‘recalled’) and has the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘date’ removed (‘no date’) to produce an epithet that could be applied to any one of Solon of Athens, Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mitylene, Bias of Priene in Caria, Chilon of Sparta, Cleobulus tyrant of Lindus in Rhodes, and Periander tyrant of Corinth – take your pick!

27a Show passion getting in variety of seed potato (7)
A three-letter word for passion (in the sense of anger) contained by (‘getting in’) an anagram (‘variety’) of SEED produces the name of a potato originally developed in the Netherland in 1962. With red skin and waxy, pale yellow flesh, they are good for mashing, roasting and baking. Though not all at once.

30a Health food with alcoholic additive died away (4)
An eight-letter word meaning ‘with [an] alcoholic additive’ (a specific one) has the letters DIED removed (‘died away’).

31a Record once achieved by two girls (nothing between them) (8)
Two four-letter female forenames (try saying that after a few alcoholic additives), the second a diminutive form of ‘Elizabeth’, combine to produce the solution, the obsoleteness of which is indicated by ‘once’. The ‘nothing between them’ simply indicates that one name directly follows the other, but although it perhaps enhances the surface reading I think it should have been left out.

4d Italy’s pre-eminent spot for pasta (4)
The ‘pre-eminent’ here is used to indicate that the IVR code for Italy has a three-letter word for [a] spot above it – above, superior, pre-eminent…well, yes, I see where Azed is coming from but it seems a bit of a stretch.

5d Shield protecting centre of pectorals in S. European sport (6)
A five-letter word for a light shield carried by Greek peltasts is placed around (‘protecting’) the middle letter (‘centre’) of ‘pectorals’, the result being a sport of Basque origin.

8d What’s specially threaded puts sailors on course? (8)
The wordplay here leads to a (4,4) phrase, the first word of which can mean (among many other things) ‘puts on a course’ and the second describes a ship’s company. As correspondent Tim points out below, there is nothing special about the thread of the item in question, rather it is marked out from its brethren by its head. I’m afraid that Azed’s definition gets no support from Chambers or OED either, so it’s a nailed-on error that could have done with fixing…

10d Base of heraldic border moved to top for old peer (4)
A four-letter heraldic term for a border close to the edge of a shield has its last letter (‘base’) moved to the top, producing an obsolete form of a familiar word for a British nobleman.

19d Eastern mine without alteration leads to catastrophe (8)
A charade of the usual abbreviation for ‘Eastern’, a three-letter word for a mine (in particular a coalmine), and a (2,2) expression meaning ‘without alteration’.

24d Very small score with No. 2 changing direction completely? (6)
The compass direction represented by the second letter (‘No. 2’ ) of a word for [a] score is replaced by the corresponding abbreviation for the opposite direction (‘changing direction completely’).

26d Abrupt snob cutting in (5)
Understanding the wordplay here requires the solver to know that ‘snob’ is an old informal term for a cobbler, a seven-letter word for which (being also the name of their patron saint) is deprived of the letters IN (‘cutting in’). The ‘shoemaker’ meaning of ‘snob’ seemingly predates its other senses; it appears that its usage was extended to include tradespeople generally and developed thence to describe someone from the ordinary classes before it came to describe a person who “meanly or vulgarly admires and seeks to imitate, or associate with, those of superior rank or wealth.”

28d Waterway fully feeding West Bank city? (4)
‘Fully feeding West Bank city’ is Azed’s way of saying that the solution forms the name of a West Bank city apart from the first and last letters. I would have preferred something along the lines of ‘West Bank city cutting skirts waterway’.

(definitions are underlined)