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 2,741 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

This puzzle struck me as being close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There were quite a few obscure answers, but (as usual with Azed) the wordplays for these led straight to the solution, and there were a fair number of ‘gimmes’ thrown in. It seemed to me that Azed had been in good form and enjoyed writing the clues; I had a couple of minor quibbles, but nothing that seriously affected the entertainment provided by the puzzle.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 14a, “Scots pickled cheesecake maybe I have stuffed (7)”. The wordplay here has a four-letter term which might be applied to a cheesecake (at least if it were one with a pastry base – a quiche might be a better example) containing I’VE (‘I have’), and the solution is a Scots word for ‘fuddled’ or drunk, ie ‘Scots pickled’. The point of interest here is the way in which the insertion of IVE is specified. Indicators in the past active tense are not considered acceptable in clues, so ‘French I have bored’ would not work as a wordplay for FIVER; it requires a verb form which suggests that the result of the ‘boring’ can still be seen, so ‘French I have bores’, ‘French I have has bored’ or ‘French bored by I have’ would be fine (‘French I have will bore’ is also permissible, though one could reasonably ask why). Here it looks at first blush as though the stuffing happened at some point in the (possibly distant) past, and that the clue should read ‘…I have has stuffed’ rather than ‘…I have stuffed’, but a look at the meanings for the transitive verb ‘stuff’ in Chambers reveals ‘to thrust in’. Thus the ‘stuffed’ can be a past participle, and the clue can be read as ‘cheesecake maybe [with] IVE [thrust in]’. I would have liked to see a comma between ‘maybe’ and ‘I’, but clearly I’m not going to get one.

Across

10a An addict that is given preference to wife? It’s no joke (9, 2 words)
A (1,4) phrase equating to ‘an addict’ is followed by a pair of two-letter abbreviations from Latin, the first for ‘that is’ and the second for ‘wife’. The answer is a (2,7) expression taken directly from a more modern European language.

12a Applies poultice to chaps in soft liquid (7)
The usual three-letter word for ‘chaps’ is contained by a cunningly-disguised anagram (‘liquid’) of SOFT. The answer is a transitive-only verb, which is why Azed has been careful to include that ‘to’ in the definition.

15a One often portrayed in kirk, special one often sainted? (5)
Azed often takes the chance to flag words which are geographically qualified in Chambers by including something similarly qualified in the definition. Plenty of opportunities are offered by Scots words such as ‘wee’, ‘bairn’, or – as here – ‘kirk’. The wordplay has the usual abbreviation for ‘special’ being followed by a word which forms part of a ‘trivial’ and rather dated expletive, a favourite of PG Wodehouse:

“Oh, my sainted ????!” he moaned, clutching at the banisters. “Now I am in the soup!”

The use of the word ‘sainted’ in the wordplay is slightly unfortunate in the light of the answer.

19a Piece of church music, end bit, hard, soon coming round (8)
A three-letter ‘end bit’ (eg of a snooker cue) and the usual abbreviation for ‘hard’ are contained by an ‘archaic or literary’ word meaning ‘soon’ (ie ‘soon coming round’). In contrast to 14a, the comma here preceding ‘soon’ nicely indicates the pause required in the cryptic reading.

24a What angler fixes to hook, making contact from behind line (5)
A four-letter word for a particular sort of ‘contact’ (which could be hard or soft) is reversed (‘from behind’) ahead of the usual abbreviation for ‘line’.

28a What’s this, involving a bit of rapacity? (7)
The first of two clues in this puzzle where the wordplay directly references the solution. Here a possible (1,4) answer to the question, “What’s this?”, where ‘this’ is the grid entry, contains (‘involving’) the letter A (from the clue) and the first letter (‘bit’) of ‘rapacity’. The whole clue serves as an indication of the solution – note that in &lit clues the setter is granted rather more leeway than in conventional [wordplay + definition] constructions.

32a Styles e.g. fence round pricey motor? (5)
Good to see that Azed is totes down with the kids, since putting an archaic word for a hedge (or a non-archaic one for dried grass) around the two-letter abbreviation for a particular marque of car takes us in just One Direction…

Down

1d See band turning to round of applause in this informal do (4)
The second of the two solution-referencing clues, this one requires us to break the answer (????) into parts, so the word BAND with ? ?? ? turns into a word for a round of applause. A device which will not be unfamiliar to hardened Azedistas, but surely that ‘in’ in the wordplay needs to be ‘with’ or ‘having’?

6d Indian manager, one from Chennai, say, first off, receiving upper class (5)
A five-letter word for a member of a people from Sri Lanka and south-east India (the name of the state containing Chennai is relevant) loses its first letter (‘first off’) and is put around (‘receiving’) the single letter originally used in 1954 by Alan Ross to designate upper-class pronunciation, writing style and vocabulary, popularized by Nancy Mitford in her essay The English Aristocracy, published later the same year. The assertion was that certain elements of your vocabulary would reveal whether you were upper class or middle class (perhaps with pretensions). Mealspeak was a dead giveaway – “U-speakers eat luncheon in the middle of the day and dinner in the evening. Non-U-speakers (also U-children and U-dogs) have their dinner in the middle of the day. Greens
is non-U for U vegetables. Sweet is non-U for U pudding.”

8d One making inferences, unusually inferior, about karzy (12)
A five-letter word meaning ‘unusually’ is followed by a four-letter word for ‘inferior’ containing (‘about’) a bit of military slang for a communal lavatory, a shortened form of a seven-letter word of Latin origin.

9d Five years denied strong drink, one shares quality with 28 (4)
A seven-letter term for a period of five years is deprived of a three-letter ‘strong drink’ (not gin, the other one) to produce a word that does indeed share a quality with the answer to 28a. I’m not sure, though, that ‘one shares quality with 28’ quite works in the cryptic reading; something like ‘I share quality with 28’ would be preferable (although such ‘first person’ definitions seem to be falling out of favour with editors).

13d Surgical transplant, with the author’s own hand, we hear? (9)
A single-word homophone (‘we hear’) of unusual length, the answer sounding like a word that means ‘signed by the writer’.

15d Green and tasty, possibly with a bit of grey in? (4)
A three-letter word meaning ‘possibly’ or ‘for example’ has the first letter (‘a bit’) of ‘grey’ inserted.

16d Keep what’s appropriate to part of coiffure (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘appropriate to’ is followed by a term for a plait, braid, or lock of hair, which I think could reasonably be described as ‘part of coiffure’.

20d Good car model in centres of activity (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘good’ is followed by a model of Ford car slightly less pricey than the one in 32a, which is why my parents were able to afford one in 1964.

25d Picnic party without cake outside? There’s meat (4)
An eight-letter word for an informal party (not necessarily involving shellfish) has the containing letters CAKE removed (‘without cake outside’) in order to produce the answer.

27d Magic herb making one relax, life mostly passing (4)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘to relax (in severity)’ or ‘to appease’ has the first three letters (‘mostly’) of ‘life’ omitted.

(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 2,740 Christmas Playfair

Difficulty rating: (4 / 10)

My first thought was, “A Playfair, oh goody”…well, actually, “DM LBCCPK”. After I’d solved the first two italicized clues, I thought, “Oh double dear – this is looking disturbingly familiar.” And so it proved: a code word that we have seen before, hinted in the same way, which meant that the ‘endgame’ simply entailed writing out the square and encoding the last four answers. I still remember my entry from ten years ago (a VHC), so I don’t think I’ll be having another go this time round unless I have a flash of inspiration. I suspect that not too many solvers will need (or want) to break the code in the old-fashioned way, but I have appended a few notes on solving Playfair puzzles (including a link to an excellent ‘cracker’) at the end of this post for those that do. If you are working out the code word from the hints, you should identify the common feature of the answers to the italicized clues and then establish how that combination might be indicated cryptically, remembering that you are looking for a long word (possibly hyphenated) in which no letter appears more than once. You can then try encoding one of the ‘special’ answers to check that it fits with the checked letters in the grid. Always remember when encoding the two corners of a rectangle that the letter in the same row as the first letter comes first, something I regularly forget.

The puzzle itself was a bit of a mixture – a lot of pretty straightforward clues and just a couple of tricky ones. Combined with the big hint to the code word, I felt that this was one of the least taxing specials that I could remember, and, if I’m honest, perhaps just a slightly soggy cracker.

That lack of snap notwithstanding, may I take this opportunity to thank readers for their most welcome comments and messages throughout the year, and to wish you all a very happy Christmas indeed.

Clue Writers’ Corner: Writing a clue for a word which has been the subject of a previous competition presents something of a conundrum. Do you look at the list of published clues, so that you can avoid ideas that have been used before, or do you simply start afresh? With some words, it’s not so much of a problem, because there are so  many possible treatments, but with one like this there is every likelihood that you will come close to reproducing an earlier clue. However, there are two possibilities which did not exist when the word came up before.  One alternative is to make reference in your clue to the repetition itself; this is perhaps an option for those who have already clued the word. But more importantly, when this word appeared before it was not in a Christmas puzzle, so any clue that is festively themed will inevitably have novelty on its side. I would suggest not referring to the previous slip and just writing your clue as you would for any other competition, but with the fact that it is explicitly described as a Christmas puzzle very firmly in mind.

A similar repetition issue occurred with COLD TURKEY (except they were both Christmas puzzles – 1,180 in 1994 and 2,064 in 2011), and in the slip for the latter (a Playfair), Azed wrote:

It left me with the difficult decision as to how I should treat the competition as a whole, especially in relation to the fiercely contested annual honours list. After much thought and advice from a number of experienced competitors, I decided to let it stand as normal and assume that most of those who remembered or had a record of the earlier competition 17 years ago would have consciously attempted to come up with a different clue. I myself did not consult that earlier slip and still have not looked at it. A comparison would now be interesting but I won’t make it for a while yet.

Across

1a Dad enters platform (not I) for tasty crisp (7)
A two-letter word for ‘dad’ is contained by (‘enters’) a six-letter ‘platform’ from which the letter I has been omitted (‘not I’).

10a Old matter? It’s usually numbered (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘old’ is followed by the sort of matter that’s yellowish and yucky.

17a Admission made by nurse with pedigree (6)
A two-letter abbreviation for a nursing qualification no longer recognised in the UK (I think Nursing Assistant may be a near-equivalent, but I stand to be corrected on that) is followed by the sort of pedigree that might be represented in a diagram, perhaps framed and displayed on the wall.

27a Thesp in Paris seen making comeback in live broadcast (6)
There’s rather less punctuation than I would have liked in this clue, where the French word (‘in Paris’) for ‘seen’ is reversed (‘making a comeback’) within an anagram (‘broadcast’) of LIVE.

34a Time to tear and puff, like a deer walking? (8)
The usual abbreviation for ‘time’ is followed by a three-letter word for ‘[to] tear’ and a four-letter word for ‘puff’, the result being a heraldic term, typically referring to stags or bucks.

35a TV opening, not the first in retrospect (4)
A five-letter word for an opening or first appearance is deprived of its first letter (‘not the first’) before being reversed (‘in retrospect’).

37a A section in daubs presenting tricky questions (7)
The letter A (from the clue) and the usual abbreviation for ‘section’ are contained by a word meaning ‘daubs’ or ‘plasters’; this word may not be familiar, but the answer certainly will.

Down

2d Quibble over cat getting caught out in tiny apertures (6)
A three-letter word answering to ‘quibble’ (see Chambers) is followed by an anagram (‘getting caught out’) of CAT.

4d Small portion, about nothing, causing distress once? (5)
The small portion which contains (‘about’) the usual single-letter representation of ‘nothing’ is more often seen as a verb, compounded with ‘out’, and meaning to distribute in modest helpings.

7d Acidic compound as a rule kept in mug (7)
The letter A and the usual abbreviation for ‘rule’ are contained by (‘kept in’) a five-letter mug, intended to hold beer and often featuring a hinged lid.

8d Vintage tot of whisky in favour (5)
A slightly strange double definition clue, the two meanings being listed consecutively under the same entry in Chambers. In Three Men in a Boat, J writes that:

Having thus settled the sleeping arrangements to the satisfaction of all four of us, the only thing left to discuss was what we should take with us; and this we had begun to argue, when Harris said he’d had enough oratory for one night, and proposed that we should go out and have a ?????, saying that he had found a place, round by the square, where you could really get a drop of Irish worth drinking.

18d Bust according to audience was radiant (5)
The slightly odd-looking past tense here is a homophone (‘according to audience’) of a four-letter ‘bust’ in the drugs sense.

19d Waiter in robes displaying basket of goodies? (7)
Another double definition where you (like me) may well identify the word from the second definition but need to confirm the first one in Chambers.

22d I pulled out of concert midway? It’s to do with innards maybe (6)
My favourite clue in the puzzle, the letter I is removed (‘pulled out’) from the middle of a word for a concert.

24d Develop, university replacing one volume, educated to an advanced level (6)
A word for ‘develop’ has the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘university’ replacing one instance of its counterpart for ‘volume’.

26d Monastery reuse abandoned table (5)
A ten-letter word for a particular monastery has the consecutive letters REUSE deleted (‘abandoned’), the result being a table that display information in a helpful way.

(definitions are underlined)

I know that some people really enjoy Playfair puzzles, but they leave me cold,  so when no clues are provided to the code word (unlike today) I have no qualms about using a code cracker such as Quinapalus to identify it. The only real option for cracking a Playfair puzzle the traditional way is to solve the non-Playfair clues to get all of the checked letters in the Playfair solutions (or at the very least the pairs of letters which are both checked in the grid, but don’t forget that you can draw conclusions even from an incomplete quartet), work out the non-encoded answers to the Playfair clues, and then create quartets by relating the checked letter pairs from the encoded answers to the corresponding pairs in the non-coded solutions (eg solution = SOLVED, part completed light in grid = R?TPAG, hence LV encodes to TP and ED encodes to AG, while SO encodes to R?).

There are a number of ways to move forward from there, but I tend to look at the pairs of letters that (assuming the quartet represents a rectangle) are going to be in the same row (in my example L and T, V and P, E and A, D and G, S and R) and those that will be in the same column (in my example, L and P, V and T, E and G, D and A, O and R) and then link with other pairs (so if I find that L and P are in the same column and P and S are in the same column, I know that L, P and S are all in one column). And if I find that a group of letters (L, P and S, say) appear to be in both the same row and the same column? Then we are looking at a line and not a rectangle, so wherever any two of those letters appear as a pair on either side of an encoding, all four letters in that encoding are in the same row or column – so if L, P and S appear to be in the same row and the same column, and LP->IK, then L, P, I, K and S are all in the same row/column and I is (cyclically) to the right of or below L, K to the right of or below P. Oh yes, and Z is probably in the bottom right hand corner!

To which I will add a couple of points:

1. If a letter appears on both sides of an encoding, ie DR encodes to RI, that means that the letters (here D, R and I) appear consecutively in a specific sequence (cyclically) in the same line (could be either a row or a column) – for AB->BC the sequence is ABC (so in the example, DRI), for AB->CA the sequence is BAC.

2. If you can find all the letters in cyclic sequence within a column, eg SBLYU, remember that the letters which don’t appear in the code word are listed alphabetically at the end of the square, so it is likely that at least two, and potentially three, of the letters in the column will be part of this ‘remainder’; therefore they will occur in alphabetical sequence at the end of the column. And not only is Z likely to be in the bottom right-hand corner, but some of its near neighbours at the end of the alphabet will also be on the bottom row.

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 2,739 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

This puzzle, which was probably somewhere close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum, had a few issues ranging from the minor (eg the misspelling of ‘bloodsucker’ in 13a) to the major problem with 28d. There were some nicely deceptive definitions, along with a couple of slightly iffy ones.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 32a, “Scottish millstream on the market? This’ll be included (8, 3 words, apostrophe)”. The wordplay involves a (1,3,4) phrase equating to ‘an offering of a Scottish millstream to potential buyers’ (although I would have preferred this to be suggested by something where the the subject was not the noun being used adjectivally, eg ‘A Scottish millstream auction?”), and the answer is (5,3) with a possessive apostrophe-s at the end of the first part. The real item of interest, though, is the enumeration. This was raised by a correspondent, who writes “I suggest that the ‘3 words’ should be ‘2 words’.”

I have always avoided answers including apostrophes in my own puzzles, simply because I don’t know whether to indicate them. In the slip for AZ 1,806, Azed wrote:

“I am less certain about the best way of indicating words and phrases that include apostrophes [than about hyphenated words], and my uncertainty may have led to some inconsistency. Is, for example, J’ADOUBE one word or two, KWOK’S DISEASE two words or three? Significantly, the old edition of Chambers Words, which excluded phrasal compounds, included J’ADOUBE among the 7-letter words. If I clue it, should I mark it ‘(7)’, ‘(7, apostrophe)’ or ‘(7, 2 words)’? I am inclined to go for the second of these options.”

The example of J’ADOUBE is a good one – clearly two words have been run together here to produce the contraction, so there could be an argument for any of Azed’s three suggested options. KWOK’S DISEASE is a different matter – there have only ever been two words here, as the apostrophe simply marks the omission of a letter or letters from a single word (almost certainly the ‘e’ from the old genitive suffix ‘-es’). There seems no doubt that this, and the answer to 32a in today’s puzzle, should be shown as ‘2 words’, as my correspondent suggests, not ‘3 words’; the answer FO’C’SLE would undoubtedly be shown as ‘6’ rather than ‘6, 3 words’. Incidentally, Chambers describes the apostrophe-s as a ‘sentence element’ – I’m not exactly sure what one of those is, but it’s not the same as a word. A  better example than KWOK’s DISEASE would have been THAT’S THAT – “that’s” is a contraction formed from two words, but I suspect that most solvers would see the expression as consisting of just two words rather than three, given that there is only one space separating the components.

Whether the apostrophe should be mentioned in the enumeration is a different matter, with Azed (despite his observations above) erring on the side of generosity to the solver. My personal view is that if the setter isn’t going to mention hyphens or diacritical marks (as in 24a), there seems little reason to make an exception for apostrophes. 

Across

1a Modernization rendering one strangely agog about international decoration (13)
An anagram (‘strangely’) of AGOG contains (‘about’) the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘international’ and an eight-letter term for decoration.

11a Old serviceman, in essence reverse of free but filled with energy (8)
A four-letter word for ‘essence’ is followed by a reversal of a three-letter verb, frequently indicated by ‘free’ in cryptic clues, containing (‘filled with’) the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’.

16a Forewings become reversed on Asiatic bird (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘become’ is reversed ahead of a four-letter spelling for an Asiatic bird famed  as the Mike Yarwood/Rory Bremner/Alastair McGowan (select according to your age) of the avian world.

17a Peter keeping folio in cover? (4)
The single-letter abbreviation for ‘folio’ is kept in (ie contained by) a three-letter abbreviation for ‘stamped addressed envelope’. I think it’s reasonable to describe the latter as a ‘cover’, ie “an envelope, esp one with a stamp and postmark, as in first-day cover“, 

19a He’s freed from road accidents, insensitive (5)
The consecutive letters HE are removed (‘freed’) from a seven-letter word for ‘road accidents’.

22a Spot, in short, is endless contamination (5)
The single-letter shortened form (‘in short’) of ‘is’ combines with a word for contamination from which the last letter has been omitted (‘endless’) in order to produce the answer.

23a Reputation once made in battle (4)
A double-definition clue which struck me as somewhat unsatisfactory. The Spenserian (‘once’) reputation is fine, but ‘made in’ seems a rather cumbersome way of saying ‘and’, while ‘battle’ should surely be something more along the lines of ‘battleground’, since we are looking for the the site of a particular 1915 battle. I suppose you could argue that ‘battle’ alone would be acceptable for something like ‘Waterloo’, given that the name is pretty much synonymous with the engagement, but I don’t think it would work for ‘Britain’.

24a Waiters chatter about recipe to scan (7)
Here we have a three-letter word for ‘chatter’ containing (‘about’) both the standard abbreviation for ‘recipe’ and a three-letter word (shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’ but very much current when it comes to crosswords) meaning ‘to scan’.

31a Flow of mud? How surprising when it splits both sides (5)
A three-letter interjection expressing ‘exultation, pleasure, surprise or contempt’ (probably best not used in emails, then) is put inside (‘when it splits’) the single-letter abbreviations for the two sides.

Down

2d Walter’s wench regarding cheesy pastry (7)
Walter Scott’s five-letter word for a wench (Fair Maid of Perth: “The ????? knows her trade”), which shares its spelling with a verb meaning ‘to scoop out’, is followed by that ubiquitous bit of commercial jargon meaning ‘regarding’ or ‘with reference to’.

3d Advertisement boosted big mouthful (4)
Without a checker, there’s no way of knowing whether the advertisement should be reversed (‘boosted’) to produce the big mouthful or vice versa. It is in fact the piece of favourable publicity that undergoes manipulation.

12d A bit of Scotch, giving one good boost (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘good’ is followed by a four-letter ‘boost’. The answer is shown by Chambers as being not just Scottish but also obsolete (the spelling here is not given at all by the OED); initially I was dubious about whether ‘bit’ was valid, but this example (courtesy of Sir Walter, albeit using the more common spelling) suggests that it is fine: “Where is Edith? Gone to her room‥.and laid down in her bed for a ?????”

18d Such as Brown Bess, girl tucking into strong drinks (7)
A three-letter dialect form of ‘girl’ is contained by (‘tucking into’, not a favourite of mine in the active form, except when it comes to food) the four-letter plural of a particular ‘strong drink’. Brown Bess (formerly ‘brown musket’) was the name given to the flint-lock musket used by the British Army, apparently due to the colour of its walnut stock (note: it’s always good to have a walnut stock at this time of year).

21d Trooper former monarch despatched, making money abroad (5)
Shades of 11a here, where a seven-letter ‘trooper’ has the two-letter cipher of the previous British monarch deleted (‘despatched’) to produce some old Italian coins.

27d College harem, wherewith story ends? (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘college’ is followed by a three-letter word for a room in a harem; it seems that it can also be applied to the occupants of the room, so ‘harem’ alone is adequate.

28d Alternate bits of sphere on heraldic fur (4)
A perfectly sound wordplay, which involves taking alternate letters from (‘bits of’) SPHERE ON, leads to PEEN. A perfectly sound definition leads to PEAN, a heraldic fur “represented as Sable powdered with ‘spots’ of Or”. Which is the intended answer? I’d go for PEEN, on the basis that Azed thought it was an alternative spelling of PEAN (which it is, but only in relation to the end of a hammer).

29d Siamese twins in three pairs? (4)
The answer comprises two pairs of conjoined letters (ie ‘twins’) from ‘three pairs’.

(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 2,738 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

This one was quite tricky in places, earning it a difficulty rating just a little above the halfway mark. Those of us who aren’t overkeen on repetitions will have noted two appearances each of the ‘tea word’, a word for ‘like this’ (indicated thus in both instances), and the abbreviation for ‘energy’, as well as different past tenses of the same verb featuring in a couple of wordplays. I believe that one of the clues is ambiguous (5d – see below), although I’m in little doubt about the intended answer.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 18a, “Heroin included in drug folded in surplice (5)”. Here the single letter representing heroin is contained by (‘included in’) a reversal (‘folded’) of a four-letter word for a drug (or, indeed, ‘to drug’).  I recently had an exchange of thoughts with a crossword editor regarding reversal indicators, perhaps the most contentious of all the elements to be found in cryptic crosswords. There are not very many which clearly indicate that the letters of a word must be placed in reverse order (whether horizontally or vertically), and I suspect that is why setters have cast their nets into somewhat murkier waters over the years. There are some reversal indicators to be seen in  published puzzles which I find unacceptable, and many others (a lot of them included in the list on this site) that strike me as questionable. I am inclined to cut setters (including myself!) some slack because of the paucity of options available, but ‘folded’ seems to me unjustifiable. When something is folded it might be ‘doubled over’, but that patently isn’t the same thing as it being reversed. I’m comfortable with the first question that setters ask themselves being “Will the indicator I’m proposing to use be understood by solvers?”, but I think that needs to be followed by “And could it conceivably suggest that the entire sequence of letters is reversed?”

Across

1a Tidy vehicle like this flipped tiny crustacean (8)
The answer is produced by the reversal (‘flipped’) of a three-element charade, made up of a two-letter verb meaning (inter alia) ‘tidy’, a four-letter vehicle, and a two-letter word meaning ‘like this’.

12a See e.g. Mexican measure his jacket (loose) – no use (4)
This one is far from easy. A seven-letter word for a loose jacket is deprived of the consecutive letters USE (‘no use’) to produce a variant spelling of a Spanish/Portuguese linear measure used in Spanish America and also known as a Spanish yard. The jacket is shown by Chambers as ‘Southern US’, although it’s a French word and I can’t find any corroborating evidence regarding its association with the America – perhaps a reader in that part of the world can advise. I also wonder whether Donald Trump has been told that Mexico is part of the US.

13a Female with energy curbing e.g. Louis, star player? (7)
The combination of a three-letter word for a female of various species and the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘energy’ contains a three-letter French word exemplified by eighteen or so specific individuals named Louis, although ‘Louis’ on its own seems slightly inadequate.

20a Player at table, upset about one of his opponents? (4)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] upset’ (as in “What’s upsetting you?”) contains the single-letter designation applied to one of the four players at the bridge table. The opponent on their right provides the answer.

23a Hammer cold locking spring for ice vehicle (11)
A six-letter type of hammer (not to be used on your nuts at Christmas) is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘cold’ and a term for ‘a locking spring or other safety contrivance in a firearm’, or anything small and fine. The answer is hyphenated, 6-5. 

28a United no longer making huge sum, admitting little energy (5)
An old (‘no longer’) word for ‘united’ is the result of a four-letter word for the sort of huge sum that someone might make through a successful business being put around the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’, last seen in 13a. That huge sum reminds me of a piece of graffiti recorded by Nigel Rees in one of his books, where someone had embellished the road sign on the outskirts of Llantrisant with the addition of ‘…the hole with the ???? in it’. I’m sure it’s a very nice place really.

29a Topers? One of them retires with rash (8)
A reversal (‘retires’) of a three-letter word for a toper (‘one of them’) is followed by a five-letter plural which very much suggests a rash.

32a Therapist taking in foreign wood wind player (6)
A two-letter abbreviation for a particular sort of therapist contains (‘taking in’) a foreign word for ‘[a] wood’. If a cryptic clue includes a foreign word that isn’t in Chambers, the odds are extremely short on it being a French one, a knowledge of schoolboy/schoolgirl French being assumed of solvers.

33a Meteorologist experienced open country (6)
A three-letter word meaning ‘experienced’ or ‘suffered’ and a three-letter word for ‘open country’ (more often spelt with an ‘a’ as the last letter) combine to produce the surname of the eighteenth-century lawyer and amateur meteorologist known for his pioneering work in the field of atmospheric circulation. He gave his name to the Met Office’s centre for climate research and prediction, founded in 1990 and currently known as the ?????? Centre for Climate Science and Services. In 1973, a crater on Mars was named after him.

35a Bass denied, drunk becomes spooky (4)
A five-letter word  loosely meaning ‘drunk’ (specifically due to excessive consumption of a particular beverage) is deprived of the usual abbreviation for ‘bass’ (‘bass denied’).

Down

2d Colourful blanket skymen folded up on centre of bed (6)
A peek at ‘skyman’ in Chambers will confirm the five-letter word which needs to be reversed (‘folded up’) above the middle letter (‘centre’) of ‘bed’.

3d Rotating tea wagon less than half unloaded, containing its cargo? (7)
A seven-letter word for the type of ‘tea wagon’ that formerly made steady progress (its approach heralded by much rattling and clinking) at mid-morning and mid-afternoon around many an office, often under the direction of ‘ladies of a certain age’, loses slightly less than half of its letters (‘less than half unloaded’) before being put around (‘containing’) a three-letter word for the sort of thing that would be found in its urn.

5d Tucked up – that’s me with book replacing No. 2 (4)
I feel sure that the intended answer here is ABED, ie ‘ABED – that’s AZED with B replacing the second letter’. But an alternative interpretation would be ‘ABED – that’s me [AZED] with B replacing the second letter’. The use of ‘me’ is the problem, as it can stand for the answer in a clue like this; something like ‘your setter’ would leave no room for doubt.

6d What sounds like a mandolin resounded round after tea (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘resounded’ and the single letter indicated by ’round’ follow the word for ‘tea’ previously served up in 3d.

8d Like a turtle recorded round a herd swimming on edge of lake (12)
A six-letter word meaning ‘recorded’  contains (’round’) an anagram (‘swimming’) of A HERD plus the last letter (‘edge’) of ‘lake’.

10d Cuts once? They may accompany snicks (5)
This clue is barely cryptic, the solution being an obsolete (‘once’) word for ‘cuts’ which can be found following ‘snicks and’ in an expression wherein the ‘snicks’ means ‘thrusts’ and the answer here means…’cuts’.

24d Unproductive, not lit up, no longer together (6)
A nine-letter word meaning ‘unproductive’ has the consecutive letters TIL (ie ‘lit up’) omitted.

30d Tasty sauce like this tops vessel? Not quite (4)
A two-letter word meaning ‘like this’ is followed by (‘tops’) a three-letter vessel (of the kind that might contain hunny) without its last letter (‘not quite’).

31d One monkey pinching bit of kernel for another (4)
A three-letter monkey is taking hold of (‘pinching’) the first letter (‘bit of’) ‘kernel’ in order to produce a four-letter monkey (ie ‘another’).

(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 2,737 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

I felt that the high proportion of unfamiliar answers, when combined with the paucity of ‘gimmes’, put this one slightly above the halfway mark of difficulty, certainly for those solving it without the assistance of electronic aids. There were some nice clues in there, with several inventive, and at times playful, definitions.

Clue Writers’ Corner: There are certain conventions in the world of the cryptic crossword which appear, on inspection, to be somewhat arbitrary. One of these is the acceptance that a verb in its uninflected state (eg ‘eat’) can be indicated by another verb preceded by ‘to’, such as the infinitive ‘to consume’. The justification for this seems far from obvious, indeed a verb with an infinitive marker would seem more suited to indicating a gerundive, eg ‘to consume’ for EATING, since ‘To consume éclairs is a pleasure’ and ‘Eating éclairs is a pleasure’ come to pretty much the same thing (ie no éclairs). But the rule is the rule, and jolly handy for clue writers it is. We can get around problems with singular subjects and plural verbs, eg ‘Stokes to remove support’ for STAKE, and when the answer (or word to be indicated in wordplay) is a verb, and we have a synonym which can also be another part of speech, such as a noun, the marker ‘to’ can take on a different role in the surface reading – as in ‘Son rushed to house’ for STORE.

Across

1a Bairn’s worn out its bunny perhaps (6)
A child’s bunny could, I suppose, be described thus, but the individual whom I most associate with the ‘word’ is the consistently unfortunate Elmer J Fudd, not least because his catchphrase is “Shhh! Be vewy vewy quiet. I’m hunting ??????s”.

6a Church portico from source of gypsum – see inside (6)
The usual single letter abbreviation of the Latin word for ‘see’ is put inside the name of a city; a particularly useful substance which takes its name from that city was originally produced by heating gypsum from a large deposit found there.

11a Such as The Scotsman locally? Chairman has page within set aside (5)
A nine-letter term for someone who is chosen to control meetings of a society etc has a four-letter word for a page (of paper) removed from within. The presence of ‘The Scotsman’ in the definition serves not only as an example of the answer but also an indication that it is a Scots spelling that we are looking for. The choice of the last word in the clue seems less than ideal.

18a Call-girl with guy? One’ll be responsible for split (8)
A three-letter poule de luxe is followed by a word meaning ‘[to] guy’ or ‘make fun of’.

24a Garment of fibrous ‘grass’? It’s never taken off (4)
It took me a little while to spot that this was a double-definition clue, but it made me smile when I ‘got’ it. I’m not sure whether the second definition would be adequate in a single-definition clue, since there are more things that haven’t ever taken off than have, but it’s fine as a corroborating indication. For some reason I think I’d have put “One’s” rather than “It’s” at the start of the second sentence, perhaps because it seems less specific.

29a Extract from The Gondoliers? Shepherd’s pipes flanked by drumbeat (8)
A four-letter word for shepherd’s pipes (from the source of the straw out of which they were made) is contained (‘flanked’) by the sort of sound that I would associate with Big Ben rather a drum.

32a This rake, with gen, sorts out gardening (6)
A composite anagram, where the letters of the answer (‘this rake’) and GEN can be rearranged (‘sorts out’) to form GARDENING. Is the answer quite the same thing as ‘rake’? I leave that to the reader to decide.

33a Succeeded in ballet leap on one’s posterior, or butt (6)
The usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘succeeded’ is contained by a four-letter ballet leap and the last letter (‘posterior’) of ‘one’. The answer is shown by Chambers as being specifically a coinage of Laurence Sterne, which I feel ought to be indicated in some way (although I can see that it would have been detrimental to the surface reading). In Tristram Shandy, Sterne wrote:

The Mortgager and Mortgagee differ the one from the other, not more in length of purse, than the ????er and ????ee do, in that of memory.

Down

3d It may be deployed (by Scot) for boring, cutting in (4)
This is an &lit clue, in the sense that the whole thing stands as a definition of the answer, although the qualifying ‘(by Scot)’ plays no part in the wordplay, which involves an anagram (‘deployed’) of BORING from which the consecutive letters IN have been removed (‘cutting in’). Since Azed felt the need to indicate the Scottishness of this word, I’m surprised that he didn’t flag the Sterneness of 33a.

5d On the doorstep I’m leaving under control (6, 2 words)
A (2,6) Latin phase meaning ‘on the doorstep’ or ‘on the threshold’ has the consecutive letters IM deleted (“I’m leaving”) in order to produce the (2,4) solution.

7d Acknowledgement once, one on left-hand page to use as before (6)
A 1+2+3 charade of a word meaning ‘one’, an abbreviation for the left-hand page of an open book, and an obsolete word for ‘use’, with which it shares all but the central letter.

9d Fruit sections volunteers tucked into apace (6)
Since the Territorial Army is now known as the Army Reserve, most editors insist that if the term ‘volunteers’ is being used to indicate TA it must be qualified to indicate that today’s volunteers do not go under that name, so ‘volunteers formerly’ or suchlike; the direct indication ‘Territorial Army’ for TA is fine, just as ‘National Union of Teachers’ is fine for NUT, because the abbreviations live on even if the body which they represent does not. Here the TA is ‘tucked into’ a musical term taken directly from the French for ‘fast’.

14d E.g. pun going wrong in bar, showing inconsistency (10)
An anagram (‘going wrong’) of EG PUN is contained by a five-letter (chiefly Scottish, according to Chambers) word for a prop or bar; the answer is a familiar word, but the definition takes advantage of a less familiar sense.

21d Sheltering abroad in S. Italian region avoiding outsiders (6, 3 words,apostrophe)
The eight-letter name of the region that forms the ‘toe’ of Italy is deprived of its outer letters (‘avoiding outsiders’), the result being a (1,1,4) French phrase.

23d Jock’s special spade Paddy let out (6)
I’m not sure that there are any first names which can match the number of possible diminutives offered by ‘Elizabeth’, but here it is another form of the name ‘Patrick’ which must be followed by an anagram (‘out’) of LET.

28d Instruction to act? It’s worth little or nothing (4)
The instruction to act comprises a pair of two-letter words, and usually demands at least one exclamation mark.

(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 2,736 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

I think I may have overrated the difficulty of last week’s puzzle, but I feel fairly confident about placing this one just below the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There were a few tricky clues, but three ‘hiddens’ and some other straightforward wordplays served to balance them out. This puzzle seemed to have received a bit more ‘polishing’ than some other ones of late, with no duplications of indicators, abbreviations etc that I spotted – and they’re only really an issue when they stand out.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clues 5d and 6d, “The old dress up in religion following gods (5)” and “Transport worker trained animal to follow rule (7)”. The first of these has a three-letter religion following a plural of the Latin word for a god, while the second – which immediately put me in mind of this story – has an anagram following the usual abbreviation for ‘rule’. The point that I wanted to raise, though, was the appearance of ‘following’ and ‘to follow’ in two consecutive clues, in both instances to indicate postposition. Coincidentally, in the draft of a recent puzzle I found that I had used ‘after’ in two consecutive clues. Such a thing is not an error in any shape or form, and it’s rather different from repeating (say) an anagram indicator, but I do feel that it detracts a little from the artistic impression, particularly when it occurs in consecutive clues. I changed one ‘after’ to something else, and I would have modified one of these clues, perhaps by getting the animal to ‘uphold’ the rule.

I will mention in passing that I do have a Word macro which checks for duplicated words in a set of clues. It saves me some work, as I used always to do a manual trawl for repetitions.  If anyone is interested in using it, let me know and I will make it available for download on the site.

Across

12a Misanthrope in play? Phrase he arranged maybe (5)
A composite anagram, where the letters of MISANTHROPE when reordered (‘in play’) come to the same thing as a rearrangement (‘arranged’) of PHRASE plus the solution (‘he‘). Since the earliest known production of the play in question was based on Thomas Shadwell’s adaptation entitled The History of ????? ?? ??????, The Man-hater, the definition is entirely apt. I don’t think that the clue can be viewed as a true &lit, not least because the subject of the main clause (such as it is) in the second sentence is ‘Phrase’.

16a ‘There’s power in strong drink’ – Shakespeare’s frank (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘power’ is put into a word for ‘strong drink’ which crops up from time to time in cryptics and is an abbreviated form of a 17th century perversion of the Dutch for ‘High Mightinesses’, the title of the States-General. It was originally used contemptuously to mean ‘high and mighty’ and subsequently, of drink, to mean ‘strong’ or ‘heady’. Looking up frank² in Chambers will clarify the definition. 

23a Love holding end of rudder making differences of latitude at sea (8)
A seven-letter word which equates to ‘love’ in the Wimbledon sense containing (‘holding’) the last letter (‘end’) of ‘rudder’ produces a term which would surely be better indicated by a singular than a plural.

28a Roller in river resulting in delay (5)
The ‘Roller’ which finds itself in a Scottish river is not a wave but a famous car marque abbreviated to two letters.

29a Low buzz spouted endlessly? (6)
A three-letter word for a ‘buzz’ is followed by a four-letter word meaning ‘spouted’ as Moby Dick might have done, deprived of its last letter (‘endlessly’).

33a Reaches within money charged for seppuku? (8, 3 words)
A five-letter word for reaches of water, or, more commonly, veins containing metallic ore, is contained by (‘within’) a familiar word for ‘money charged’, the result being a (4,2,2) term for something of which ‘seppuku’ is a rather grisly definition by example.

34a Sort of ‘windy’? Being empty, given food, bird twice tucked in (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘given food’ loses its middle letter (’empty’) before having two instances of the same female bird put inside (‘tucked in’). The solution is hyphenated, 4-4.

Down

1d Waste food? Tick off chickens, hard to chew, we hear (12)
An anagram (‘off’) of TICK is followed by a four-letter word for ‘chickens’ and a homophone (‘we hear’) for ‘hard to chew’, the solution being 7-5. I’m not keen on partial homophones like this, although the four letters involved do at least constitute a real word.

2d Loose robe, with nothing on top? It’s ornamental in Japan (7)
A loose robe very much associated with Japan has the usual single-character representation of ‘nothing’ placed on top.

4d Culmination? With this one comes to earth (4)
Azed periodically comes up with clues where the answer needs to be ‘plugged into’ the wordplay, typically replacing a demonstrative pronoun (here, ‘this’) and with one or more spaces inserted. Here the answer must be split into a pair of two-letter words, so ‘with ?? ?? [the word] ONE comes to [the usual abbreviation for] earth’.

10d The Bard’s delicately framed offer he’s accompanied by deft twirling (12)
A six-letter word meaning ‘offer’ combines with the letters HE (from the clue) and an anagram (‘twirling’) of DEFT to produce the (6-6) answer, which is a hapax legomenon from the Bard. Lear tells his daughter:

No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse.
Thy ??????-?????? nature shall not give
Thee o’er to harshness.

I imagine that she understood him, but I’m not sure anyone else can be certain about exactly what he meant.

17d Tragic incident in office, safe at first (8)
A three-letter word for a facility euphemistically referred to as an ‘office’, or ‘the usual offices’, is preceded by a five-letter word for a safe (ie ‘safe at first’), probably more commonly seen suffixed with ‘-man’ to describe a safe-blower.

22d Understanding medical field doubled energy (7)
At the sight of ‘hospital department’ or ‘medical field’, the seasoned cryptic solver will immediately think of three initials; in this instance, those letters must be repeated (‘doubled’) before the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’ is tagged on the end.

25d What may feature at openings of Latin residences? (5)
A low-end &lit, where the answer comes from the first two letters of the penultimate word in the clue and the first three letters of the last word.

26d Calf’s first to last in range (5)
A word meaning ‘relating to the calf of the leg’ (ie “calf’s”) has its first letter moved to the end.

(definitions are underlined)