The Monthly Digest

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,582 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

The generous dollops of deviousness to be found in this puzzle raised it, I thought, to the middle of the difficulty spectrum despite there being no individual clues that stood out as being particularly tough. There were a couple of neat &lits (29a and 5d), together with one somewhat less appealing example of the genre at 29d.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 25d, “Holes excavated for where the dead will rest (5)”. A simple anagram of HOLES, but the point of interest here is the anagram indicator, ‘excavated’. What constitutes a valid anagram indicator – and what does not – is a subjective matter, but this one seems to me to be a real stretch; the only definition given by Chambers or OED which suggests disturbance to the thing excavated is ‘to get out by digging’, as of something being mined. I don’t think this is sufficient justification – I wouldn’t use ‘dug out’ or ‘mined’ to indicate an anagram, and I don’t see that ‘excavated’ has any greater claims to validity. Incidentally, I don’t have a problem with ‘cleverly’ at 14a – custom and practice dictates that an adverb on its own can act as an anagram indicator (with something like ‘arranged’ to be assumed by the solver), so the ‘dexterously’ meaning is enough.

13a Unified creatures close to being included among hybrids (5)
A two-letter word meaning (inter alia) ‘close to’ is contained by (‘included in’) one of the several alternative spellings for those crossword regulars, “a kind of hybrid domestic cattle found in parts of the Himalayas, said to be a cross between the male yak and the common horned cow.”

15a Bit of burley in tobacco box, sort of hickory (8)
The first letter (‘bit’) of ‘burley’ inside a four-letter word for a type of tobacco (in fine tangled shreds, hence the name) and a three-letter word for the sort of box that Indiana Jones was looking for.

16a Tractor cutting pillar diagonally (5)
An eleven-letter tradename for a type of tractor or earthmover designed to operate in soft ground has the letters PILLAR removed (‘cutting pillar’) to produce a (dialect, though not indicated as being so in the clue) word meaning ‘diagonally’.

19a Catch walrus? It makes one very sad (9)
As soon as I saw ‘walrus’, I thought MORSE, and with the definition seeming to suggest something along the lines of ‘remorse’, I had the last five letters mentally pencilled in. I was wrong, of course – the walrus here is not the ostreophagous sort, rather an ostentatious display of facial hair such as that affected by Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodore Roosevelt…and walruses.

27a Each with mutton getting to leave nothing on plate (5, 2 words)
The two-letter abbreviation of ‘each’ is followed by a three-letter word for a ram – since Chambers gives ‘mutton’ as a ‘jocular’ term for a sheep, this seems acceptable.

34a Blue dye that’s appropriate, as it’s said, for such bags (4)
Azed uses homophones sparingly, although not quite as sparingly as I. Here the soundalike (“as it’s said”) is for ‘saxe’ (‘blue dye’), with the clue referring to the sort of bag in which a squid might secrete its ink. The mention of cephalopod ink always takes me back to Mr ‘Billy’ Buttle’s Latin classes: if a pupil’s fountain pen stopped working, an initial plaintive exclamation of “Sir, my pen’s run out” would inevitably be met with “Well, run after it then”, while “Can I fill my pen, sir?” would receive the counter “I don’t know, but you may try.” A student who managed to navigate around these traps would be invited to fill up from Mr Buttle’s bottle of ‘soot and cuttlefish blood’ in return for a small contribution to charity.

1d I’ll leave ladies, maybe leading a Neapolitan folk dance (8)
A clue with Azed written all over it: a four-letter slang word for a lavatory (‘ladies, maybe’) from which the I has been removed (“I’ll leave”), followed by the letter A and a four-letter word that could be applied to the sort of Neapolitan that I used to ask Santa for (in the plural) at Christmas. I was devastated when Terry’s Neapolitans were discontinued at the time of the closure of their York factory in 2005, although the recent discovery of Storck Merci mini chocolate bars has gone some way towards repairing the damage.

3d Chestnut’s second in race by missing hedge (6)
A charade of the second letter of ‘chestnut’ (“chestnut’s second”), the letters IN (from the clue), and the five-letter name commonly applied to England’s foremost flat race, from which the letters BY have been removed (‘by missing’).

5d What’s guy whacked hard with end of baton? (7)
This &lit (all-in-one) clue involves a two-letter word for a ‘guy’, an anagram (‘whacked’) of HARD, and the last letter (‘end’) of ‘baton’, the result being a percussion instrument played either with the bare hand or with a turned piece of wood.

6d Prop over-stretching in twice getting dropped (5)
A nine-letter word describing the sort of  overstretching that muscles or ligaments might be subjected to (the p-word not the t-word) has two instances of the letters IN removed (‘in twice getting dropped’); the prop is the sort that might be found in a mine. It appears that “spraining one’s ankle” was at one time a euphemism for being seduced and becoming pregnant, which must have been a boon for 18th century sitcom writers.

12d One just before stroke given a bone (4)
The ‘one just before stroke’ is a cunning way of describing a particular occupant of a rowing boat, one who is here ‘given’ (followed by) the letter A to produce the name of a bone found in the human body.

17d Canons, Catholic, preceding liturgy with soaring tune (8)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘Catholic’, a four-letter word describing a liturgy, and a three-letter word for a tune which has been reversed (‘soaring’) combine to produce a word for ‘canons’ in the sense of ‘standards’.

20d Almost everything filling floor or window display (7)
A three-letter word for ‘everything’ with the last letter missing (‘almost’) is placed inside (‘filling’) a five-letter word for a storey of a building taken directly from the French.

21d Endless outrage coming up about ‘dry’ functions (7)
A five-letter word for ‘outrage’ (sometimes associated with ‘awe’ in order to describe a military strategy) has its last letter removed (‘endless’) and is reversed (‘coming up’) around a word for ‘dry’ usually applied to wines. The ‘functions’ (or an abbreviation thereof) that result are the sort that were to be found in my copy of Frank Castle’s Logarithmic and Other Tables for Schools, not in the well-thumbed early pages of the book, rather in the rarely-visited sections towards the end (I don’t remember ever looking up a hyperbolic cosecant, but perhaps I’ve just put the occasion from my mind).

22d Dam in Germany gives this menacing rumble (6)
Yep, Azed had me going here – I hope I wasn’t the only one! Since my European geography isn’t up to much, I was confidently expecting that the solution was the name of an embankment somewhere in the Ruhr Valley. But it’s not that kind of dam at all…

23d Commander writing about moving up artillery cannons (6)
A two-letter abbreviation for Commanding Officer (‘Commander’) and a two-letter abbreviation frequently found in Azed puzzles for ‘writing’ (specifically done by hand) are placed around (‘about’) another two-letter abbreviation, this time for the (Royal) Artillery, which has been reversed (‘moving up’). The ‘cannons’ are of the type played in cue sports – I was introduced to the term a number of years ago by the excellent Jim Wych in his commentaries on 9-ball pool.

26d Coke imbibed in alcoholic tipple yielding kick? (5)
The single-letter abbreviation for cocaine (‘coke’) is contained by (‘imbibed in’) a four-letter word for an alcoholic tipple that comes in two principal colourways, producing an obsolete term (indicated only by the question mark) for a kick.

29d Choice hunks of pork? One bit of each thereof (4)
The first letters (‘one bit of each’) of the first four words of the clue, with the ‘one bit of each thereof’ in the surface reading intended to show that the solution is a single ‘choice hunk of pork’, but it didn’t work for me.

(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 2,581 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

This was a puzzle which I felt would have been an ideal introduction for a solver new to Azed. Nothing too difficult, but a number of clever and entertaining clues.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 20d, “US decorative headgear, odd ones seen among the intimates (6)”. The wordplay is straightforward, the alternate letters of ‘the intimates’ giving us TENIAE. Referring to Chambers, we see that TENIA is given as a US spelling of TAENIA, the plural of which is TAENIAE or TAENIAS; several meanings are given for the word. This raises two questions of the sort which quite often arise individually though not so often together: (i) can the variant spelling apply to all senses of the word?, and (ii) can either plural form apply to any sense of the word. Assuming that the primary reference for the puzzle is Chambers (or is unstated), then the answer to both is an unequivocal ‘yes’. If the variant spellings and alternative plural forms are shown against the headword (as here), then from a crossword setting and solving perspective all combinations are valid. The situation is quite different if Chambers ascribes the variant to a specific meaning (eg POTT as an alternative to POT for a size of paper).

11a Scottish education, extensive but not good (4)
A five-letter word meaning ‘extensive’ without the usual abbreviation for ‘good’ (‘but not good’) produces a Scots form of a word for ‘learning’ (and, at a stretch, ‘education’).

12a Old dandy displaying refinement left one out (4)
A six-letter word for ‘refinement’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘left’ and the Roman numeral for ‘one’ omitted (‘left one out’), the result being an obsolete term for a dandy or swell. Both Chambers and OED list it under the same headword as a slang term for a halfpenny’, but OED adds ‘perhaps a different word’. It certainly predates the familiar adjective which has the same spelling.

13a King with charioteer almost starts to upgrade machine in resin (8, 2 words)
The abbreviation for ‘king’ familiar to Magnus Carlsen is followed by the six-letter Latin name of a constellation (known also by its English form ‘the Charioteer’) missing its last letter (‘almost’), with the initial letters of (‘starts to’) ‘upgrade machine’ bringing up the rear. The solution is divided (5,3).

28a Guru, one from W. India, accepting some outdated currency (6)
A four-letter word for a person from a former Portuguese territory on the west coast of India containing (‘accepting’) the abbreviation for a former unit of currency replaced by the euro produces a (3-3) word for someone who could potentially err and forgive at the same time. As indicated in the puzzle, the term is not in Chambers, and whilst I think ‘guru’ is slightly loose it’s not an easy word to define succinctly.

30a Forces in Turin trounced by some French (8)
The compound verb which forms the definition is nicely disguised here. The wordplay involves an anagram (‘trounced’) of TURIN being followed by a French word meaning ‘some’.

32a Partly alcoholic drink with dash of enzian in vat (4)
A three-letter word for a particular partly-alcoholic drink includes the first letter of ‘enzian’ (‘with dash of enzian in’), but you’d be wise to solve 19d before entering the solution to this one, because the central letters could be in either order. As it happens, ‘I before E except after C’ isn’t going to help.

34a Learner with gee-gee (steed) trained round course maybe in the saddle for bairn? (4)
An anagram of L (‘learner’) GG (‘gee-gee’) STEED is placed around a four-letter word which could be indicated by ‘course’ (or a road for travelling on horseback); the ‘bairn’ is there to indicate the Scottishness of the solution.

2d Crikey, having to shake off limey coming up – it’s boring for Scot (4)
A nine-letter (Cockney) interjection of surprise (‘Crikey’) has the letters LIMEY removed (‘having to shake off limey’) before being reversed (‘coming up’) to produce a noun representing something that a Scot might use to do a bit of boring. I did wonder whether the wordplay as written in fact indicates the correct steps, but I think it’s valid.

4d Oriental liquor – what’s that? Water’s coming up with it (6)
A charade of a four-letter word for an oriental liquor and a two-letter interjection which could be interpreted as “what’s that?”, the result being an eastern water wheel.

5d Evening primrose in a cemetery maybe? Last two clipped (6)
A three-word (2,1,5) phrase describing where something (perhaps those evening primroses) might be in a cemetery has the last two letters removed (‘last two clipped’).

8d Dividing wall right in the middle over river (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘right’ goes inside an informal term for ‘the middle’ (ie the extent of Doctor Foster’s immersion on his final visit to Gloucester) followed by a three-letter word for a river or watercourse, often seen in barred puzzles in its standard spelling without the last letter, this variant usually being reserved for a drainage canal in fen country.

18d How to prepare fish reared about peak, prancing about (8)
A two-word (3,2) phrase which might form a (rather curt) instruction to the kitchen maid apropos a fish being readied for the kettle is reversed (‘reared’) around (‘about’) a three-letter word for a peak (or a sharp-pointed piece of wire).

19d Bottom fisher was mostly on the up in shifting trend (7)
WAS without its last letter (‘mostly’) is reversed (‘on the up’) inside an anagram (‘shifting’) of TREND to produce a hyphenated (4-3) term for something used to fish the bottom of a body of water. A more familiar word for the same item, differing only in its central letter, was the title of a 1950s American cop show memorably parodied by Stan Freberg in St George and the Dragonet, a great favourite of mine from my parents’ record collection.

23d Dinner for academicians out on a limb? (6)
The question mark at the end of this clue should be seen as applying both to the wordplay, a (2,4) representation of ‘dinner for [Royal] academicians?’, and to the definition.

27d What thibles do for porridge? (4)
A double definition clue with &lit overtones, ‘porridge’ in the second definition being used in the Norman Stanley Fletcher sense. I am more familiar with spurtles (very useful when making marmalade) than thibles, but it seems that the two implements are much of a muchness.

29d In Cannes this goes up and down – voilà! (4)
A two-letter French word for ‘this’ appears both reversed (‘goes up’) and in normal form (‘[goes] down’), producing a Latin interjection equivalent to the French word at the end of the clue.

(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 2,580 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1 / 5)

A 13×11 grid, and a puzzle that contained plenty of entertaining clues but certainly didn’t have the needle on the difficulty meter ‘bouncing in the red’. In truth, only a couple of the clues saw it flutter from its starting position.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 35a, “Minimum from relative in what you inherit, making you sneer? (5)”. The clue is parsed below, but the element of the wordplay which I want to look at is the ‘minimum from relative’, indicating the letter R. It is not uncommon in puzzles to see indicators such as ‘[a] piece of’, ‘a little’ or ‘[a] bit of’ being used to instruct solvers to take the first letter of the word that follows. Although in the past I have included such indicators in my own puzzles, I have never felt entirely comfortable with them, and I have found in recent times that they are quite likely to be rejected by crossword editors. The point is this: why should ‘a bit of trouble’ indicated T any more than R, O, U, B, L or E? I have to agree when it comes to ‘piece’ or ‘bit’; I feel that ‘hint’ or ‘suggestion’ are better, as they perhaps imply a first taste. ‘Minimum of’ strikes me as preferable to ‘piece’ or ‘bit’, but not by much.

13a Lake? Dip a rod in its fringes (6)
The letter A and a three-letter word for ‘rod’ (in the sense used by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band in Big Shot: ‘I shuddered. Normally I pack a rod; in pyjamas, I carry nothing but scars from Normandy beach.’) are contained by the first and last letters of ‘lake’ (‘its fringes’).

15a TV recorder in truth requiring outlay of capital? (4)
An eight-letter word for ‘truth’ has a four-letter word for the sort of place that might be the capital of a country removed to produce an acronym which was applied to Britain’s first video recorder.  It was invented by the BBC and unveiled by Richard Dimbleby during a live edition of Panorama on 14 April 1958. After he had described the purpose of the technology, its effectiveness was demonstrated with a playback of the first few minutes of the programme, seemingly rewinding time (gasp!). It had taken six years to develop, and the recordings were made on half-inch tape running as fast as 200 inches per second. Sadly, its moment of triumph was just that, as the delivery later that year of a machine from American manufacturer Ampex – which was demonstrably superior – consigned it to history.

17a Olympian? First-class, followed by another such? (6)
A single-letter representing ‘first-class’ and a four-letter word for ‘followed by’, after which the first-class letter arrives again (‘another such’). The Olympian is not so much an athlete, more a member of the resident pantheon.

21a Sort of insect, female going for husband like a rotter! (9)
I can’t remember seeing this word in a puzzle before, and how neatly Azed has clued it here: a (6,3) insect has its F replaced by an H (‘female going for husband’), summoning up images best reserved for post-watershed nature programmes.

26a One from among notables worsted – such as Brutus? (7)
A single letter representing ‘one’ is removed from (‘one from among’) NOTABLES prior to its letters being rearranged (‘worsted’). The reference is to Mark Antony’s description of Brutus, whom he considered to have acted for the greater good when plotting to assassinate Caesar, whilst the other conspirators were in his opinion motivated by self-interest. Candidates should compare and contrast:

              Caesar adsum iam forte
              ‘Passus sum’ sed Antony

               and

              Caesar adsum iam forte
              Brutus aderat
              Caesar sic on omnibus
              Brutus sic inat

34a I cut cooked meat in e.g. service (8)
A type of meat with the letter I removed (‘I cut’) is placed inside the letters EG. The meat was originally that of any animal killed in the chase or by hunting and used as food, but now invariably relates to the flesh of one specific type of animal; whether the ‘cooked’ is necessary I’m not sure, but I see why Azed has included it, and it can’t be wrong.

35a Minimum from relative in what you inherit, making you sneer? (5)
The first letter of ‘relative’ (‘minimum of relative’) is contained by a four-letter word for a sequence of nucleotides constituting hereditary material (‘what you inherit’), producing a Spenserian term which can be defined by ‘grin’, itself an obsolete meaning of the verb ‘sneer’.

36a Pistol could have done for this yesterday, a dog running wild (13, 3 words)
An anagram (‘running wild’) of YESTERDAY A DOG. The pistol really could only have replaced the last element of the (5,6,2) solution without confusing (or scaring) the hell out of the competitors. Christmas must be getting close, because my thoughts have started to turn to cracker mottos, and those old chestnuts ‘How do you start a pudding race?’ and ‘How do you start a teddy bear race?’…

6d Versatile cooking ingredient, what lumberjack suggests to audience (4)
The homophone (‘what…suggests to audience’) here is of ‘sawyer’ (‘lumberjack’). The OED suggests that the two words are pronounced somewhat differently, but I’m not going to quibble about it.

7d First in perspicacity? Nonsense! (5)
The first letter of ‘perspicacity’ is followed by a word for ‘nonsense!’ (which I’m rather fond of as an alternative to ‘curses!’), the whole clue standing as a (slightly weak, it has to be said) definition of the solution.

14d ARA dismissed by old king? That’s disgusting (4)
A seven-letter word for a king in ancient Egypt has the letters ARA removed to produce an “exclamation expressing contemptuous rejection or making light of anything.”

16d Obnoxious fellow protecting a scheme for red-light district (8)
A three-letter ‘obnoxious fellow’ is placed around (‘protecting’) A plus a four-letter word for a scheme’ I don’t remember previously coming across the solution used in this sense, the OED and I being familiar with it only in relation to the world of EastEnders, Corrie and the like. I was confident that the Chambers Slang Dictionary would enlighten me, and I was not disappointed; apparently from the late 1800s into the 1900s ‘soap’ or ‘bit or soap’ was used to refer to women of loose morals or poules de luxe.

27d British composer failing to finish piece no longer current (5)
The wordplay here involves the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘British’ being followed by the five-letter surname of a classical composer (who also happens to be British) missing its last letter (‘failing to finish’). The solution is a currency unit introduced by Belgium in 1926, equivalent to 5 Belgian francs and tied to sterling at a rate of 35 belgas to one pound. I don’t believe that there were any belga ‘pieces’ as such issued, but some coins and notes did carry both denominations, including five franc coins which bore the legend ‘een belga’. Since they had continued to count their cash in Belgian francs, the masses scarcely noticed when the belga was officially retired on 8th January 1946.

31d Deploying weather eye could make one this (tee-hee!) (4)
A composite anagram &lit to finish with, and a perfect example for anyone new to the genre. The wordplay tells us that rearranging the letters of (‘deploying’) WEATHER EYE could produce (‘make one’) the solution (‘this‘) together with TEEHEE; the whole clue stands as the indication of the answer, suggesting that a person keeping a weather eye open could be considered this. The ‘tee-hee’ is superfluous in the latter interpretation, but doesn’t affect the validity of the clue.

(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 2,579 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

After the challenge of last week’s ‘Letters Latent’, something considerably more straightforward. A pleasant solve, though perhaps not one of Azed’s very best. I usually reckon to comment on around sixteen clues, and sometimes mark more than that number when solving the puzzle, but here I found that I was well short of that number. Nothing too controversial, although elements of the wordplays in 16a and 3d are questionable (at best), and the qualification applied to the definition in 4d is wrong.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 17a, “Meshed tissues one placed in the box (5)”. The point of interest here is the use of the definite article in the phrase ‘the box’. A general principle relating to clues which adhere to what are usually termed ‘Ximenean’ standards is that every element of the clue should contribute to its cryptic reading, and in particular that there should be no superfluous words which are misleading to the solver. Does this mean that every clue must be pared down to its shortest possible form? No, it is accepted that words which are not strictly necessary to the cryptic interpretation can be included, such as ‘followed by’ in 11a here, the prefixing of a verb in the infinitive with ‘to’ (‘to live’ = BE), or the addition of the indefinite article to a countable noun (‘a boy’ = LAD), as long as the clue still ‘says what it means’. However, a word like ‘the’ cannot simply be tossed into a clue, and we therefore know that when Azed says ‘the box’, he doesn’t mean ‘box’ or ‘a box’, he is talking specifically about the box, ie the television.

16a Crystalline rock: record it in supplement (8)
A three-letter word (and a crossword setters’ favourite) meaning ‘record’ plus the letters IT are put inside a three-letter word meaning ‘supplement’. Well, it certainly means ‘supplement’ when followed by ‘out’, but although on its own it used to mean ‘to extend’ or ‘to lengthen’ I’m not sure that these days it means anything; I’ve always studiously avoided the word in my own puzzles because I don’t know how to define it.

19a Dirty farm vehicle loaded with half a ton? (5)
A four-letter farm vehicle is ‘loaded’ with a Roman numeral which represents ‘half a ton’ in a cricketing or speedometer reading sense. The question mark is entirely appropriate!

20a Bit of foreign cash making metallic sound where Athenians once gathered (8)
A bit of pre-processing is required here: just as ‘having retired’ must on occasion be interpreted as ‘in bed’ (ie inside a word meaning ‘bed’), here ‘where Athenians once gathered’ must be turned into ‘in xxxx’, where xxxx refers to the public ambulatory (the Painted Porch) in Athens where Zeno gave his lectures. It is a four-letter word for a ‘clear high-pitched short bell-like sound’ which must be placed inside, thus producing a Bulgarian unit of currency.

25a Where to find dinghies at? It’s this lough I’d plied (4)
A composite anagram, where the letters of DINGHIES AT form an anagram (‘plied’) of ITS + the solution (‘this lough’) ID. The answer is the name of a lough, and a big one at that.

27a Collection for the vicar? Mostly change with a tatty bit of material thrown in (8)
A five-letter word meaning ‘[to] change’ has its last letter removed (‘mostly’) and is placed around A plus a three-letter word for a tatty bit of material.

33a Took a gander at something fishy by the sound of it (4)
A homophone for that fish which is seen considerably more often in crosswords than in Sainsbury’s, this time in its three-letter rather than two-letter guise.

1d Partner captured in stone, brittle (5)
A three-letter word for a partner (perhaps more commonly these days a chum) is ‘captured’ in the usual abbreviation for ‘stone’.

3d Tenant farmer always upset in deluge (6)
A two-letter word for ‘always’ is reversed (‘upset’) inside a four-letter word which is a less common spelling of a three-letter word frequently seen in crosswords, usually indicated by ‘soak’. I don’t think that ‘deluge’ can be justified – it clearly indicates inundation, while the term in the wordplay definitely does not.

4d Forbear going stress-free as soon as old (4)
A ten-letter word for a (female) forbear has the letters STRESS removed (‘going stress-free’) to produce a northern form of a much more familiar word; the ‘old’ is I think an error, as neither Chambers nor OED suggest that the term is archaic or obsolete. It should read something like ‘as soon as in the North’.

8d To fix hedging, melodious piece of horticultural decoration (9)
A four-letter word for a ‘melodious piece’ with the letters TO and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] fix’ surrounding (‘hedging’) it. The word ‘of’ is part of the definition – this type of adjective (for which there may be a technical term, but I don’t know what it is) can be very tricky to define without making the clue horribly ‘clunky’, but Azed usually finds an elegant way around the problem.

9d Intrusive rock: catch fish hiding in a little bit (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] fish’ is found hiding inside a four-letter word for a little bit (or a little arachnid). The ‘catch’ here must be linked to the ‘hiding’ (ie ‘catch NET hiding’) rather than the ‘fish’, because ‘catch fish’ cannot indicate NET, which is a transitive verb and would have to be indicated by ‘catch’ alone or ‘catch (fish)’.

14d Pen pals for Jeanne, maybe, senior Guide filling her summers (10)
‘Jeanne’ is here to indicate both Frenchness and femininity, with her pen pals thus assumed to be foreign and female. The wordplay involves a six-letter word for a senior Guide being contained by (‘filling’) a four-letter word for ‘summers’ where Jeanne comes from.

28d All-conquering emotion uplifted travellers (4)
A four-letter word for travelling people is reversed (‘uplifted’) to produce something that in the words of Virgil ‘vincit omnia’, this phrase also being the title of a work by Caravaggio which shows his studio assistant, Cecco Boneri, posing naked as Cupid on a heap of stuff symbolizing ‘all’ (music, literature etc, though significantly no sign of a crossword). The painting, commissioned by Vincenzo Giustiniani, led to controversy when Caravaggio’s rival Giovanni Baglione, commissioned by Vincenzo’s brother Benedetto, produced a response (usually known as Sacred Love and Profane Love), in one version of which the devil is shown having Caravaggio’s face. The feud rumbled on – Caravaggio was briefly imprisoned after being found guilty of libelling Baglione by way of some rude poems, while Baglione arguably had the last laugh – he produced the first biography of Caravaggio, following the latter’s early death, which I understand praises the early works but is scathing about the man himself and his later paintings.

29d Curse, equivalent of ‘damn’ to start with (minced) (4)
An anagram (‘minced’) of the first letters (‘to start with’) of ‘Curse equivalent of damn’, the answer being a restrained (‘minced’) oath.

(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 2,578 ‘Letters Latent’

Difficulty rating: (6.5 / 10)

No issues with the availability of the puzzle, no power cuts to stop me typing the notes, and a ‘special’ to entertain us. Quite a tricky one too – the clues were a little bit easier than in a standard plain puzzle, but the extra difficulty associated with the missing letters meant that this was still a stiff challenge. More than once I worked out what the entry had to be before I was able to establish the unmutilated solution. Note that there is an enumeration error at 27d, where the length of the answer before the deletion of letters is 7 rather than 6.

I have included notes on several clues, following which there is a list of the places in each answer from which letters have been removed.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 31d, “This marine deity, sad, hides under sea (6>5)”. The clue is explained below, but the question is whether a composite anagram of this form is valid in a puzzle where the ‘solution’ and the grid entry are different. With some gimmicks, the wordplay does not in fact produce the solution – this would be true, for instance, of a puzzle where the wordplay leads to an extra letter which does not belong to the grid entry; in such instances, the setter must be very careful to avoid any construction which implies that the solution and the result of the wordplay are equivalent (eg ‘wordplay’ is ‘definition’), because they are clearly not. I think this clue is unsound – the element ‘this marine deity’ can only refer to the unmutilated six-letter solution. In order to be acceptable, the definition and the term representing the grid entry (‘this’)  must be separated such that the former stands as the definition of the (six-letter) answer and the latter (comprising only five letters) is part of the composite anagram, eg “Marine deity: sad, this hides under sea”. There’s no reason why a compound anagram can’t be used in a puzzle of this type, but not in the form that’s seen here.

1a Thinly sliced beef (say) in one Scots diner’s starter (10>7)
A four-letter word describing a class of food to which beef belongs is surrounded by a two-letter Scots word for ‘one’ and the first letter (‘starter’) of ‘diner’.

11a German squaddie nurses wound leaving front (11>9)
A six-letter word for a squaddie contains (‘nurses’) a four-letter word meaning ‘wound’ (verb or noun) from which the first letter has been removed (‘leaving front’). The solution is the inhabitant of a particular German city.

13a Button, round, was bright round front of vest (6>5)
The first ’round’ here indicates a single letter which is round in shape; this is followed by a three-letter word meaning ‘was bright’ (or ‘illuminated’) containing (the second ’round’) the first letter (‘front’) of ‘vest’.

20a Arch for instance circled by watches endlessly (8>7)
A two-letter abbreviation meaning ‘for instance’ is surrounded (‘circled’) by a six-letter word meaning ‘watches’ (or ‘catches sight of’) missing its last letter (‘endlessly’).

23a Disorganized rep having time to wander in theatre pit (8>7)
An anagram (‘disorganized’) of REP containing (‘having…in’) the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ plus a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] wander’. The solution is more familiar these days in the context of formal gardens.

26a Ogle lustfully before getting in gentle stroke (7, 2 words>6)
A three-letter word for ‘before’ much used by setters is contained by (‘getting in’) a three-letter word for a gentle stroke (and the name of a famous postman).

32a One processing with symbolic burden changed bases in European league (11>8)
An anagram (‘changed’) of BASES in the three-letter abbreviation for the Council of Europe (‘European league’); the ‘processing’ in the definition is used in the sense of ‘going in procession’.

33a Love of Rome? What Italian enterprises will welcome (6>5)
The grid entry is hidden in the clue, but the answer is not in Chambers – it is the Italian (‘of Rome’) word for ‘nothing’ (‘love’). I’m fine with the future tense being used in a wordplay where manipulation is required, but I think that ‘will welcome’ to indicate that the entry is already contained within the preceding text is stretching things. 

36a A bit of a yen to enter part of Canada without being posted (6>5)
A SEN is one hundredth of a yen, and it ‘enters’ the two-letter abbreviation for a part of Canada. There’s no doubt what Azed is getting at with the definition, though I’m not sure that it stands up to close scrutiny – ‘without being posted’ and ‘not posted’ don’t come to the same thing.

1d Senior administrator always on song (7>5)
A charade consisting of a two-letter word meaning ‘always’ followed by a three-letter word for a song, described by Chambers as ‘originally a poem intended to be sung’. It took me a while to work out what the unmutilated solution was.

2d Old smear Parliamentarian applied to previous king (9>7)
A two-letter abbreviation for a Parliamentarian plus (‘applied to’) a four-letter word meaning ‘previous’ and the abbreviation for ‘king’ relating to the throne rather than the chessboard. The solution is given by Chambers as obsolete, hence the ‘old’ qualifying the definition.

8d Working a lace dress (6>5)
A two-letter word representing ‘working’ is followed by a three-letter word for a lace (in the shoe sense), but I can’t square the first element with ‘working’ on its own. I wonder if the clue was intended to be ‘Working on lace dress’, which seems to me far more satisfactory.

9d Alluvial plain with misplacement of last conifers (6>5)
A five-letter Scots word for an alluvial riverside plane has its last letter moved up to second position (‘with misplacement of last’); thankfully the conifers in the definition are familiar.

12d Keats not upset over writing, the opposite of chaos (6>4)
KEATS has a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] upset’ removed (‘not upset’) and is followed by a two-letter abbreviation for ‘writing’ often used by Azed. The solution is more commonly spelt with an initial C.

25d Major Cambridge exam accepted clad in hooded jacket (7, 2 words>6)
If, like me, you didn’t know that a GREGO was a hooded jacket and therefore were uncertain what to place around the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘accepted’, you may have had to work back from the solution, a (5,2) term in its original form.

28d Ancient letter caught inside old-style printing-press (6>5)
A four-letter word for an ancient letter contains the standard abbreviation for ‘caught’ (‘caught inside’). I suspect that the solution is not the entire printing-press, rather an element of it.

29d Tall grass: duck found under small one (6>4)
A single letter representing ‘duck’  following (‘found under’) a three-letter word for a ‘small one’ (or a ‘wee dram’ as the Scots would say).

31d This marine deity, sad, hides under sea (6>5)
A composite anagram, where the letters of the grid entry (‘This marine deity’) plus SAD can be rearranged to form (‘hides’) UNDER SEA. The solution is given in Chambers under the headword for a type of sea-nymph, the daughter of this fellow.

(definitions are underlined)

Letters removed:

Across: From 1 the first, fifth and sixth letters must be removed prior to entry; 6 – letter 1; 11 – letters 1 and 6; 13 – letter 5; 14 – letter 2; 15 – letter 5; 16 – letter 2; 17 – letter 4; 20 – letter 7; 23 – letter 2; 26 – letter4; 30 – letter 2; 32 – letters 2, 9 and 11; 33 – letter 2; 34 – letters 2 and 6; 35 – letters 4 and 9; 36 – letter 1; 37 – letter 8.

Down: 1 -letters 1 and 4; 2 – letters 1 and 8; 3 – letters 1 and 8; 4 – letter 5; 5 – letter 6; 7 – letters 2 and 4; 8 – letter 5; 9 – letter 3; 10 – letter 4; 12 – letters 2 and 5; 18 – letter 8; 19 – letter 2; 21 – letter 5; 22 – letter 6; 24 – letter 2; 25 – letter 5; 27 – letters 2 and 3; 28 – letter 2; 29 – letters 3 and 6; 31 – letter 6.

The quotation comes from Robert Burns’ The Jolly Beggars (1799), and is alluded to by RL Stevenson in Chapter VII of Kidnapped.

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 2,577 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

Normal service from the Guardian’s website was resumed this week, which allowed me to address the puzzle whilst enjoying my Sunday breakfast. Having started to write these notes, however, a power cut stopped me in my tracks – thankfully, it lasted only until around 2pm rather than the 7pm that had been estimated. The puzzle itself was notable for several clues which trod the fine line between originality and unfairness, with a couple (I felt) perhaps falling into the latter category.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 19a, “Is it squidged in pats round either edge of river? (7)”. The wordplay involves an anagram (‘squidged’) of IN PATS containing (’round’) R (‘either side of river’), producing SPRAINT. If this were a normal definition + wordplay clue we would be left with just ‘Is it’ as the definition, to which the answer is clearly “No, it isn’t”. So this is an &lit (or ‘all-in-one’) clue, where the entire clue when interpreted cryptically constitutes the wordplay and when taken literally represents the definition. I have commented before that the term ‘definition’ when used in relation to a clue does not necessarily mean a definition that can be found verbatim in a dictionary – very few of the ‘definitions’ in a typical barred puzzle (including this one) will appear in Chambers, and hence I prefer the term ‘indication’, or (particularly in this instance) the hybrid ‘defication’. But when it comes to &lit clues the amount of latitude allowed to setters is increased still further, in recognition of the difficulty associated with producing such clues – making both readings of the clue sound can be a tricky business. What one often (very often, in fact) finds is that there are superfluous words in the non-cryptic reading which are essential to the wordplay; certainly the word ‘either’ here would not be acceptable in a ‘normal’ definition. These bonus words do not invalidate an &lit clue; what the setter must focus on is the grammatical soundness of both readings, in particular ensuring that there is a part of the non-cryptic reading which makes it clear what the solver is looking for – this often involves the use of pronouns such as ‘what’, ‘they’ or (as in this clue) ‘it’.

 I’m not clear why Azed chose ’round either edge of river’ here rather than simply ’round river’. The best &lits contain not a single spare word, one of the very finest examples being Colin Dexter’s Azed competition clue for MAGIC LANTERN, “Item gran arranged family slides in”. 

10a Godless hiding gun in disguised terrine (10)
A three-letter word meaning ‘to increase the speed of (a car engine)’, roughly equivalent to the slang ‘gun’, inside an anagram (‘disguised’) of TERRINE.

11a Ally constant in axis, say (5)
The usual (and to my mind the only acceptable) single letter representing ‘constant’ is contained by a four-letter word for which ‘axis’ is an indication by example (there are many others, a couple of hundred without venturing beyond the human sort). The definition is an obscure one, particularly since its usual spelling is ‘alley’ rather than ‘ally’.

12a Speak incomprehensibly, horse refusing jump? (6)
I am familiar with the word meaning ‘speak incomprehensibly because it appeared regularly in the children’s  comics I used to read (often in the last frame of a strip drawn by the legendary Ken Reid, as I recall), but when I checked in Chambers it was clear that an alternative (less common) spelling was required in order to satisfy the second element of this double-definition clue, the term for the obstinate horse invariably being spelt with a ‘J’ at the start. I don’t know much about horses, but it seems that although one of this type might well show no interest in jumping its defining trait would be the habit of stopping unexpectedly and refusing to go forward.

24a What’s next to do? Think about filling in that CV (6)
Here the solver needs to answer the question “What’s next to do [in the tonic sol-fa]” and then to reverse (‘about’) a four-letter word meaning ‘think’ inside it (‘in that’).

27a Wood? River circles small one (5)
I’m not keen on this one – the four-letter name of a river in northeastern England contains (‘circles’) the abbreviation (‘small’) for…yes, ‘river’. I think that if ‘one’ is referring to another noun here, it can only be ‘wood’.

29a Neutering precludes this cross-breed – nothing smelly (7)
A charade of a two-letter word (often seen in barred puzzles) for a type of hybrid domestic cattle found in the Himalayas, the usual single-letter representation of ‘nothing’, and a four-letter word meaning ‘smelly’, as  something that’s been shot for the pot and hung up for a while might be.

33a Part of golf club selected club lost latitude (5)
An error here – a five-letter word meaning ‘selected’ loses a letter and is then followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘latitude’, but ‘club’ is not valid for C; the abbreviation C for ‘clubs’ relates to the suit in a pack of playing cards, in which context ‘club’ has no relevance (even the ace is the ace of clubs).

34a Tangle in one end of leash at full stretch (7)
I didn’t like the ‘one’ in 27a, but I can just about accept it here. Just about. The solver has to pre-process the clue, replacing ‘one’ with the only noun to which it can possibly refer, ie ‘tangle’, producing ‘Tangle in tangle end of leash at full stretch’, at which point things become much clearer.

1d This fortune-teller calls art? Is crystal ball possibly (5)
A composite anagram, where the letters of the solution (‘this fortune-teller’) plus CALLS ART can be rearranged (‘possibly’) to produce IS CRYSTAL BALL. I’ve two problems with this clue – firstly the amount of extra material in the anagram (eight letters for a five-letter solution) and secondly the fact that the solution has two alternative spellings, either of which could fit the bill.

2d Family of lice like this to catch in gym are on the rise (10)
A two-letter word for ‘like this’ and a three-letter word for ‘to catch’ (as in “Do that again and you’ll catch it”) are contained by one of the two standard two-letter abbreviations suggested by ‘gym’, the whole lot being followed by a reversal (‘on the rise’) of ARE.

3d Faithful about family king abandoned, marking direct descent (6)
A four-letter archaic/poetic word for ‘faithful’ or ‘loyal’ containing (‘about’) a word for ‘family’ missing the abbreviation for ‘king’ in a chess context.

4d Covenant reached by doctor, character closing surgery (6)
Here ‘reached by’ is the first of two very questionable link phrases in this puzzle. The wordplay is a five-letter word for ‘[to] doctor’ plus the last letter of (‘character closing’) surgery. At a pinch I could have accepted something like ‘received from’.

6d Imagine once e.g. breaking hand in two places (5)
A three-letter slang word for a hand or arm (as might be presented for shaking by an anthropomorphic fish) has the letters EG inserted (‘breaking’) separately (‘in two places’).

9d Furrowed part of the US bordering another (7)
After a couple of clues that used the word ‘one’ in unusual ways, the wordplay here would have benefited from it being included at the end, thus making it clear that a five-letter ‘part of the US’ is containing (‘bordering’) the two-letter abbreviation of just such a part (‘another [one]’).

13d Cable maybe chaps fitted in east when missing – here’s proof (10)
The forename of the leader of the Liberal Democrats between 2017 and 2019 (‘Cable maybe’) plus the usual three-letter word for ‘chaps’ are contained by (‘fitted in’) EAST without a two-letter word meaning ‘when’ (‘when missing’).

17d Australian shrubs cover one fresh pulled up (7)
A three-letter cover (for the head), a single-letter word for ‘one’, and a three-letter word for ‘raw’ (or ‘green’) are all reversed (‘pulled up’).

22d First sign of racism in school creating turmoil as before (7)
The first letter of ‘racism’ is put inside the name of a public school in Buckinghamshire. The ‘as before’ is unnecessary – Chambers (rightly or wrongly) does not show the solution as being obsolete or archaic.

23d Unploughed field due to knowledge number’s left in places (7)
An eight-letter word for knowledge has the usual one-letter abbreviation for ‘number’ repeatedly departing. The solution is hyphenated, (3-3).

25d Plant bodies Aegean island’s reared (7)
The name of a Greek island in the eastern Aegean sea is reversed (‘[has] reared’).

26d Wildcat grabbing swan’s tail in savage struggle (7)
The wordplay involves the last letter of ‘swan’ (“swan’s tail”) being put inside a four-letter word for a struggle (I’m not sure it’s necessarily particularly savage, but that probably depends on your view of Rugby Union as a whole). However, as this clue stands, it must surely be the wildcat that is doing the grabbing both in the surface and the wordplay.

(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 2,576 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Well, after a delay caused apparently by the PDF file being ‘mislaid’ by the Guardian, the puzzle finally arrived online on Monday morning, I felt it was a little easier than its two immediate predecessors, but there were a couple of tricky wordplays that, together with a generous helping of hyphenated solutions, I felt ensured that it did not fall below an average difficulty rating.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to briefly discuss the enumerations in clues, specifically relating to entries consisting of multiple words and hyphenated expressions (of which there are several in this puzzle). In a blocked puzzle, an entry such as ‘LET GO’ would be shown as (3,2), while in a barred puzzle it would be (5, 2 words); in a blocked puzzle LOVE-IN would be (4-2), but in most barred puzzles, including Azed, it would be shown as (6). The barred puzzle enumerations are less helpful, but of course this is balanced by the number of checked letters in the solution – in a blocked puzzle, often only half the letters in an entry are checked, while in a barred puzzle no more than a third can be unchecked (there is an anomaly, in that some barred puzzles allow eight-letter entries with three ‘unches’, but Azed always limits the unches in an eight-letter word to two). Apostrophes in solutions create something of a knotty problem in enumerations, however, which will be discussed the next time Azed includes one in a puzzle.

1a Fixed metal case yielding choice wine, lot disposed of by compact group (12)
A charade of a four-letter word for ‘choice’ (and the nickname of PG Wodehouse), a six-letter (red) wine with the letters LOT removed (‘lot disposed of’) and a five-letter word for a compact group, producing a (7-5) hyphenated solution.

11a In the manner of noisy pet showing reverse of appeal running round yard (5)
A reversal (‘reverse’) of a four-letter word for an appeal containing (‘running round’) the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘yard’.

16a Music club, a real find, very remote (5)
A nine-letter word for a ‘real find’, with the consecutive letters VERY removed (‘very remote’).

20a Many in 16 will, and tick 15! (4)
The wordplay here is a charade of a two-letter informal abbreviation of a six-letter word meaning a very short time (ie ‘tick’) and a two-letter interjection with a very similar meaning to the solution of 15a. The ‘definition’ refers to the solution of 16a, although I think the organizers of such events might be a little taken aback if ‘many’ of the attendees started to do this.

23a Like Mariana’s whereabouts, month before arrangement of date (6)
The reference in the definition is to the grange where Mariana was to be found in Measure for Measure, in the poem Mariana by Tennyson, or (my personal preference) in the superb 1851 painting by John Everett Millais.

26a As before discharge useless female performer, tramp inside? (8)
A seven-letter word for a female performer or reciter has the letters USE removed (‘useless’, a whimsical deployment of the word) and a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] tramp’ inserted (‘tramp inside’). The ‘as before’ indicates that the solution is obsolete (it may have been coined by Milton, as Chambers suggests, but it was in use as recently as the nineteenth century).

28a Like a semiconductor, installation for 20p (in full)? (5)
What I suppose you might call a ‘semi-indirect hidden’, where Azed has helpfully included the ‘(in full)’ to indicate that the hiding place is an expanded version of ’20p’.

30a Some foreign money backing third team? (5)
A (4,1) expression which might (hence the question mark) designate a third team (or perhaps the third set of tracks on a double LP) is reversed (‘backing’) to produce a Ghanaian monetary unit.

34a Wild zeal? Report without it included, making one cross (7)
An anagram (‘wild’) of ZEAL with a five-letter word for ‘report’ or ‘rumour’ from which the letters IT have been removed (‘without it’) inside (‘included’).

3d Philosophical work, thoroughly serious one I ingested (8)
A two-letter word meaning ‘thoroughly’ and a three-letter word for ‘serious’ (or ‘sorrowful’) with a two-letter word for ‘one’ plus the letter ‘I’ inserted between them (‘ingested’).

4d See me zip up for US fight (5)
A two-letter alternative spelling of the note anglicized as ‘me’ is followed by a reversal (‘up’) of a three-letter slang term for ‘nothing’ (ie ‘zip’), the whole being a (3-2) hyphenated US expression.

7d Musicians together recognized as steel, endlessly toothful (7)
A four-letter word for ‘musicians together’ and a three-letter word for ‘recognized’ combine to produce a (4-3) piece of workshop equipment which might slightly fancifully (but entertainingly) be described by the last three words of the clue.

13d Mantle once removed with maiden, celebrates about it (9)
Here the ‘once’ does not indicate that the solution is archaic, rather the particular use of ‘mantle’ in the definition. The wordplay involves a three-letter word for ‘with’ (typically seen in place names or facetious job titles) together with the usual abbreviation for ‘maiden’ around which a five-letter word for ‘celebrates’ is placed (‘celebrates about it’).

22d Finely woven, to reach as of old round tailored shin (7)
Here we have a three-letter obsolete form of the verb ‘fetch’ (‘to reach as of old’) containing (’round’) an anagram (‘tailored’) of SHIN.

29d The sound of noisy birds making one curse? (4)
A homophone (‘the sound’) of a four-letter word for some noisy (black-and-white) birds, more often seen in a seven-letter form, and what Chambers delicately calls a ‘term of imprecation’.

31d Helpless ass scratched loaf (4)
As in a recent puzzle, Azed asks the solver (using ‘scratched’) to remove a word (here ASS) from the fringes of another (a seven-letter synonym for ‘helpless’) to produce the solution, without giving any indication that the ASS is to divided prior to deletion or using an expression (eg ‘stripped off’) which suggests this. The ‘loaf’ in the definition is a verb.

(definitions are underlined)

Apparently the Guardian has ‘mislaid’ the PDF of Azed 2,576.

We can only hope that it will arrive on Monday.

Update: The puzzle is available via the link that Blake gives below, and the notes can be found here.

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 2,575 Plain

Difficulty rating: (4 / 5)

To follow last week’s tough plain puzzle, this week we have…a tough plain puzzle. There were several clues here for obscure words where the wordplay also included an obscurity, and a couple of minor errors, but also some nice clues to enjoy.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 6d, “Foundling home giving many hours with pal for Twist (12)”. The parsing of the clue is discussed below, but the point of interest is the capitalization of the word ‘Twist’, suggesting the surname of Oliver, when the wordplay demands the uncapitalized form ‘twist’. Whilst ideally a word which requires a capital letter for the surface reading but not for the wordplay would be placed at the beginning of a sentence, often making for a very pleasing deception, the unnecessary capitalization of a word elsewhere in a clue is usually considered acceptable, and the solver must allow for this possibility. However, the deceptive removal of a capital (eg ‘nice’ in the clue when the French city ‘Nice’ is meant, for instance in ‘nice day’ to indicate ‘jour’) is not allowed. The usual explanation of this apparent inconsistency is that while the noun ‘twist’ could on occasion be seen with an initial capital, eg at the beginning of a sentence or in a book title, the name of the French city could never, ever be seen as ‘nice’.

6a Intense longing a former athlete held in pulsating chest (9)
The letter A and the three-letter surname of a very famous British athlete are contained by (‘held in’) an anagram (‘pulsating’) of CHEST. The solution was the clue word for AZ comp 495, and you can see what the leading competitors came up with here.

10a I vary resistance, i.e. record ohm cut in a way (8)
Anyone who recalls the equipment they used in the physics lab at school might jump to the wrong conclusion here – the first four letters of the solution are the same as those of the more familiar word, but this one is an anagram (‘in a way’) of RECORD and OHM, the letter with the last letter removed (‘cut’). The ‘i.e.’ linking the definition and wordplay is there simply to enhance the surface reading.

13a Old poet, inferior, first of poetry written out in exercise book (5)
A six-letter term for a book providing an introduction to a subject (forever associated in my mind with Latin) has the first letter of ‘poetry’ deleted (‘written out’) to produce an archaic word for an inferior poet.

14a Queen once, suffering her fate? That’s fishy (8)
The Queen here is the fifth of Henry VIII’s wives, a former maidservant of Anne of Cleves, and her first name suffers the same fate as she herself did.

19a Fields by waterway where (one might assume) gondoliers are found (4)
Since Gilbert and Sullivan wrote an opera called The Gondoliers, it is reasonable to assume that gondoliers would be found IN G&S. I wonder if anyone took the IN GS to refer to the outside letters of the word ‘gondoliers’ – it seems to me, though, that what is IN GS there is ‘ondolier’ as the G and S simply can’t contain themselves (if you see what I mean).

22a Pa quitting field of play, once beaten (4)
This is a very tricky one, firstly because ‘padang’ is not a word in common use (not in the circles that I move in, anyway), and secondly because the solution is the archaic past tense of ‘ding’ rather than the past participle, so whilst it once meant ‘beat’ it has never meant ‘beaten’.

29a Fish among rocks, proceeding left to right? (8)
A three-letter fish (often seen in crosswords in its two-letter form) when contained by (‘among’) a word meaning ‘rocks’ (in the sense of ‘oscillates’) produces an entry which could mean ‘proceeding left to right’ but could equally well mean ‘proceeding right to left’, hence the question mark.

31a Geordie, first to last defenceless (5)
To work this one out you need to know that ‘Geordie’ was a term for a coal-pitman (by transference, I believe, from George Stephenson’s safety lamp, itself known as a ‘Geordie’); the first letter of the relevant five-letter word is moved to the end (‘first to last’), producing a botanical term meaning ‘unarmed’ or ‘destitute of prickles or spikes’.

32a Trees yielding sticky stuff India disgorged (5)
The sticky stuff is honey (a three-letter word for it), and ‘disgorged’ is used in the sense of ’emptied’ (the first time I can recall seeing this, but it seems just about ok) to indicate the first and last letters of ‘India’.

33a Journey regularly round length on Asian river, more than once? (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘to journey regularly’ (most often seen these days in a transitive sense applied to “one’s trade”)  contains the usual abbreviation for length and the four-letter name of a river which usually seems to be allotted to Europe but apparently (we only did Africa and South America before I gave up geography at school so I’ve no idea about it) ‘flows through Russia and Kazakhstan in the continental border between Europe and Asia.’

34a One of twelve in US showing ermine off among leaders (9)
An anagram (‘off’) of ERMINE is to be placed inside a three-letter shortened form of a word for ‘leaders’ (or ‘those at the front’). The solution is a US term for a juror, derived from the type of writ under which one would be summoned.

2d Aniseed liquor turned up in tea, an Indian ‘fiddle’ (7)
If you don’t know that RAKI is an aniseed-flavoured Mediterranean spirit, you’ll have struggled to cold solve this one. The liquor is reversed (‘turned up’) in the usual three-letter word for ‘tea’.

3d Millions involved in endless festival, a lifesaver (7)
And this one requires you to be familiar with BELTANE, the name of an ancient Celtic anniversary celebration (of the beginning of summer) held on May-day, in connection with which great bonfires were kindled on the hills. It loses its last letter (‘endless’) and has the usual abbreviation for ‘millions’ inserted, producing an Australian word for the lifesaver who swims out with a line attached to their belt.

5d Concerning fish at sea caught by strong rope, it’s within regulation (12)
A two-letter word for ‘concerning’ and a five-letter word for ‘to fish’ (more accurately ‘to entice’ or ‘to lure as with moving bait’) are contained (‘caught’) by a word for a strong rope or chain. I can’t understand why Azed has included the words ‘at sea’, which are not only superfluous but misleading – ‘fish at sea’ would work for ‘trawl’ but not the word required here.

6d Foundling home giving many hours with pal for Twist (12)
In the wordplay, ‘for Twist’ needs to be read not as something to do with Oliver but as ‘for twist’, indicating an anagram of MANY HOURS together with PAL. The solution is hyphenated, (6-6).

7d Woman in historical costume? Glance in Shakespeare (5)
Not the first time that Azed has used ‘woman’ to indicate W, which is not supported by Chambers. If you mentally modify ‘Woman’ to ‘Women’, the clue is fine, the abbreviation being contained by a four-letter archaic term for ‘costume’ or ‘clothing’, these days invariably seen as a six-letter word with ‘AT’ at the start.

11d Being badly dressed in foreign country for closing dates of short visits (11, 2 words)
An anagram (‘badly’) of DRESSED in the French word for ‘country’ (‘in foreign country’) produces a wonderful expression that I don’t recall ever coming across before. According to Trollope in Young Love, a three day stay would be made up of ‘the rest day, the dressed day, and the [singular form of the solution]’.

18d This Quebecois, non-specified, property-owner is entitled to this (4)
A normal charade clue, but with &lit undertones. A two-letter word that would be used in Quebec for ‘this’ is followed by a two-letter abbreviation for ‘not specified’.

20d Little old boat, one lacking in nothing, housing a radio transmitter (7)
The word ONE without (‘lacking in’) the usual single-letter representation of ‘nothing’ is containing (‘housing’) a four-letter word for a radio transmitter, more often associated with the area covered by one, particularly in a mobile phone context.

30d Part of hammer extracting centre from nut? (4)
A five-letter nut has its middle letter removed (‘extracting centre’).

(definitions are underlined)