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 2,722 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

There were perhaps not too many really difficult clues in this puzzle, but there weren’t many easy ones either, so overall my rating is right in the middle of the range. After last week’s faulty clue, this week we have something more akin to a misprint, the word ‘Gentlemen’ in 9d appearing where ‘Gentleman’ is required.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 33a “No expert, one following reverse of witchcraft (6)”. The wordplay here has a two-letter word for ‘one’ following a reversal of a four-letter adjective meaning ‘relating to a form of witchcraft of African origin, practised in the West Indies’. Adjectives of a relatively technical nature can be tricky to define in a way that is conducive to an interesting clue. An approach that setters often take is to use ‘of’, so ‘relating to witchcraft’ becomes ‘of witchcraft’, while ABOMASAL, for instance, would be ‘of stomach’. Sometimes the clue writer goes a step further, with ABOMASAL being “stomach’s” – because the possessive apostrophe-s could also be a contraction of ‘is’, this offers even more creative possibilities, although you do have to ask yourself whether the particular adjective can legitimately be indicated in this way. I think “stomach’s” for ABOMASAL is fine, though I would wonder about, say, “flat surface’s” for PLANAR.

My initial view was that the clue here doesn’t quite work, because the ‘of’ appears to be doing double duty in the wordplay – ‘of witchcraft’ is necessary to indicate the adjective, but while ‘reverse’ on its own could be an imperative, when preceded by ‘following’ it would seem to be a noun, which would also have pressing claims on the ‘of’ which cannot be ignored. RJHe has suggested that ‘reverse’ could be functioning as an adjective in the wordplay, something that I hadn’t considered. If one accepts the adjective ‘reverse’ as an indication that the group of letters to which it applies must be turned around, then the clue is sound.

Across

1a Hemichordata engage in work, and a tune’s being played (13)
A five-letter word meaning ‘engage in’ and the familiar two-letter abbreviation of the Latin word for ‘work’ are followed by an anagram (‘being played’) of A TUNES.

12a Tailless seabird in stormy air? Such as destroy fish (6)
A four-letter seabird of a generic kind has its last letter removed (‘tailless’) before being enclosed in an anagram (‘stormy’) of AIR.

15a Bull to urge along with front of lash (6)
A five-letter word for ‘to urge along’ is followed by the first letter (‘front’) of LASH. The answer is not an animal, although etymologically it relates to the output of just such a beast.

16a Sound as a machine ran with chug roughly (7)
I was in two minds about how much of this clue to underline. The last four words constitute the wordplay, an anagram (‘roughly’) of RAN and CHUG, but the first four on their own are inadequate as a definition. I think therefore that it must be treated as a ‘semi &lit’, albeit rather a weak one, since I’m not sure that putting the whole lot together produces a great improvement in the definition. If you were ever unlucky enough to hear a head crash – somewhat euphemistically known as a ‘head-disk interaction’ – occurring on a disk drive back in the 1980s, you will know what this word really means.

18a Decoration showing signs of decay I removed (4)
A five-letter word meaning – among many other things, including ‘departing’ – ‘showing signs of decay’ has the letter I omitted (‘I removed’). The answer is the pseudonym which Jonathan Crowther (aka Azed) used for the sixteen Listener puzzles which he set between 1965 and 1972, prior to taking up his role with The Observer.

21a When special food is preferred, cook replacing recipe with version of a dish (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘to cook’ (in a particular way) has the usual abbreviation for ‘recipe’ replaced by an anagram (‘version’) of A DISH. The answer is hyphenated, 4-3.

25a From Chesterfield, that’s back to front? (4, 2 words)
A word for the sort of thing which is exemplified by a Chesterfield (and nothing to do with crooked spires) has its last letter moved to the start.

32a Crown requiring support in carriage reversing (7)
The type of support regularly used by golfers is contained by a four-letter word for ‘carriage’ in the sense of ‘bearing’, and the whole lot is reversed.

34a Plunder from Scotland Welsh unloaded from barge (5)
A six-letter word for a sort of boat traditionally used for carrying cargo and passengers, particularly on the Thames and the Norfolk Broads, is deprived of the usual abbreviation for ‘Welsh’.

36a Dad, filled with energy, given notice about jingle, frivolous (13)
A six-letter word for ‘dad’ containing (‘filled with’) the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’ is followed by a four-letter word for ‘notice’ or ‘attention’, itself containing (‘about’) a two-letter informal term, here indicated by ‘jingle’ (perhaps a slight stretch) but often seen as ‘notice’ or ‘commercial’.

Down

3d Chemical component forming drug that has to go round (6)
The single-letter abbreviation for a drug with a very long name has a word of Scandinavian origin meaning ‘to go’  (an anagram of INERT, which could have led to an alternative treatment) outside (’round’).

10d Soaring pastorale choir held – this measures speed (5)
A reversal of a three-letter word for a musical pipe made from the stalk of a particular grass, hence a shepherd’s pipe, and hence pastoral song generally, contains the usual abbreviation for ‘choir’ (‘choir held’).

11d Holy book I had concealed, gift wrapped (9)
I’ve seen Azed use ‘concealed’ as an anagram indicator before, presumably based on the ‘disguised’ sense given by Chambers, but I’m not convinced by it. Here an anagram of I HAD has a word for a gift or an allowance contained within it (‘wrapped’). The answer is hyphenated, 3-6.

19d China crown to examine by hand (7)
If you see ‘China’ in a cryptic clue there’s a good chance that via the rhyming slang ‘china plate’ it will either lead to MATE or the three-letter word here. The ‘crown’ is the top of the head.

22d Old bucket to dig up with nothing in (6)
One of those clues where the answer and the principal element of the wordplay may both be unfamiliar. The word for ‘to dig up’ which contains the usual single-letter representation of ‘nothing’ could have been cryptically indicated by ‘halt English’.

23d Like Azed occasionally, what you may like to take a dip in (6)
A (3,3) expression for something that you might want to take a dip in if you were on the Côte d’Azur, say (but not an option in Skegness) leads to the adjective which describes a few Azed puzzles each year, always including the Christmas one.

24d Looked well in college? Most looked happy about that (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘college’ is contained by a word meaning ‘looked happy’ without its last letter (‘most’).

26d I’ll have left late party – rail required (5)
The letter I (from the clue) is to be omitted from a word for an evening party, possibly of the pretentious kind. As we would expect from Azed, when it comes to defining the answer the ‘rail’ has nothing to do with train travel.

28d Hard on the heels of many Americans turning up to default (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘hard’ follows (‘on the heels of’) a reversal (‘turning up’) of a North American informal term for a large number or amount.

30d Against missing recital? Sure thing (4)
A seven-letter word for a recital has  a word for ‘against’ removed (‘missing’).

(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 2,721 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

I started off at the gallop on this one, thinking that it was on course for a difficulty rating of no more than 1.5, but by the time the last letter was entered I had adjusted that upwards significantly. It’s tricky to assess the toughness of a puzzle like this with several long anagrams leading to unfamiliar words, since an anagram solver will make short work of them, but I felt that overall this puzzle reached at least the middle of the range. In the light of the faulty clue (which I didn’t originally notice) and the comments of other solvers, I have raised the mark above the mid-point.  I didn’t feel that it was one of Azed’s very best, but it was an enjoyable solve nonetheless, and featured two old favourites, ‘mouse’ at 15a and ‘pud’ at 4d.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 25a, “The plash of oars I love, easy on the ears (6)”, where an anagram of OARS I is followed by the single letter representing ‘love’ in sports such as tennis. An area where I think it’s fair to say there is an almost complete lack of agreement among setters is the use of redundant articles (a/an/the) in clues. It is generally accepted that the hiding place in a ‘hidden’ clue can contain no unnecessary words except articles, so ‘Fellow in a French apartment’ for CHAP is ok, but beyond that it’s as clear as a particularly opaque mud. There’s no problem with ‘Argue about a boy’ for REASON [RE A SON], because the ‘a’ in the clue carries across into the answer, but what about ‘A builder in stone, a mother, and a male child’ for MASON {MA SON]? Sometimes the varying syntax of the surface and cryptic readings means that an article has to be omitted, but on many occasions the inclusion of an article improves the surface reading without affecting the grammar of the wordplay. I think that the modern trend is towards brevity, and the exclusion of redundant indefinite articles – I favour this approach because it also improves accuracy. There is usually less of an issue with the definite article, because…well, it’s definite. ‘The end of summer’ seems absolutely fine for R, as it is indeed the last letter of summer. But what about the clue here, and that ‘The’ at the start? I don’t like it at all – it suggests that there is only one possibility for the result of the rearrangement, when in fact there are 120 of them.

Across

7a Poet’s company, sad excluded from romantic enterprising (4)
The consecutive letters SAD are removed (‘excluded’) from a seven-letter word for romantic enterprising.

10a Daughter to bring up, I face gloom as of old (10)
A 1+4+1+4 charade of an abbreviation, a word meaning ‘to bring up’, the letter I (from the clue), and a word that might seem slightly counterintuitive as a synonym for ‘face’, but as verbs they can both mean ‘to point towards’. The answer is one of four similar words given by Chambers as ‘all Spenser’, but he can legitimately claim responsibility for only three of them, the other being the standard qualitative noun derived from the adjective.

13a Fish obtained on ship’s bow (4)
A three-letter word for ‘obtained’ follows (‘on’) the first letter (‘bow’) of ‘ship’.

14a Expression from arbitrator and what he administers? (6)
The arbitrator is a three-letter informal term associated with sports such as football, while ‘what he administers’ is a word taken into the English language directly from Latin and meaning ‘law’.

15a Mouse producing squeak between King and Queen? (6)
An Azed favourite is ‘mouse’ in the sense of a black eye (although I tend to think of it more as the sort of swelling that appears around a boxer’s eye and which will have the trainer reaching for the ice-cold metal plate which they will apply to it during the intervals between rounds). The wordplay here has the chess-and-cards abbreviation for ‘king’ and the cipher of Queen Elizabeth being placed either side of the sort of squeak that in The Beano would have been emitted by Walter the Softy after discovering a mouse (of the rodent variety) that Dennis the Menace had placed in his desk, satchel etc.

17a Purse firm becomes cast if this (4)
When you see ‘if this’ at the end of an Azed clue for a four-letter entry, there’s a strong likelihood that the answer is going to be ‘xISy’, where one word becomes another ‘if x is y’. Sometimes both the ‘before’ and ‘after’ words are on view in the clue, but here you have to first find a suitable synonym for ‘firm’ (as a dye or a boat might be) that differs by one letter from CAST.

33a Recognizes what’s broadcast, start to finish (4)
The first two words of the wordplay in this clue need to be interpreted as something like “What’s another word for ‘broadcast’?” The first letter of that word then needs to be moved to the end (‘start to finish’).

34a To prepare e.g. fish in kitchen, see e.g. Sam as cutting back here and there (7)
A five-letter word for something of which Sam is an example, as is Vanya, has the letters of AS (from the clue) inserted (‘cutting’) separately (‘here and there’) and in reverse order (‘back’).

Down

1d Flank is replacing one for groin (5)
I had carelessly failed to check the meaning of FLISK in Chambers, and on this occasion – my thanks to the correspondents who have pointed out the issue – my faith in Azed was misplaced, because I would have found no confirmation that it had any connection with groins. Here in fact we have a clue unique in the history of this blog in that there is no definition to underline because…there is no definition in the clue. FLANK with IS replacing AN is FLISK, but the word that means ‘groin’ is not FLISK but LISK. It isn’t a clue for LISK either – that would have to be ‘Lank is replacing one for groin’, which makes no sense. One correspondent has suggested that groin³ in Chambers could just about equate to FLISK (with the aid of a following wind and rose-tinted spectacles), but the fact that LISK answers the ‘groin’ perfectly strongly suggests to me that it’s just a faulty clue.

I can entirely understand why Azed would have given up on a wordplay involving LISK – I certainly couldn’t work it into anything that was close to satisfactory. My best alternative clue so far is “Scots dance tango, avoiding kilts abandoned after foxtrot”. I never said it was good.

4d Vintage pud that could provide stuffing for beanfeast (5)
If I see a pud, I generally eat it, but when I see one in an Azed clue I immediately think ‘fist’. To be fair, I’m not sure I would be so keen on eating a pud that was described as ‘vintage’, here included because the answer is a Shakespearean word, the result of rearranging (implied by ‘could’) five consecutive letters within (‘stuffing for’) BEANFEAST. I had assumed that they were the letters right in the middle of the word, but as a correspondent has kindly pointed out, they aren’t – this strikes me as being a bit weak.

5d Carriage support has enough power to drag behind (8)
A charade of a three-letter word meaning ‘has enough power to’ and a five-letter word meaning ‘[to] drag behind’.

7d Head of cuisine, male preferred to female? (4)
An &lit of a pretty basic kind, where the first letter (‘head’) of ‘cuisine’ and a two-letter word for a male are placed above (‘preferred to’) the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘female’, and the whole clue provides a definition, or at least an indication, of the answer.

9d Examiners led astray about leaving out less PT (7)
An anagram (‘astray’) of LED contains (‘about’) a six-letter preposition meaning ‘leaving out’ from which the consecutive letters PT have been omitted (‘less PT’).

16d Typical of early bishop, mounting funeral with Gaelic John (8)
A five-letter word for ‘a Maori ceremony of mourning, a funeral’ which was unfamiliar to me but will, I’m sure, have caused occasional commenter Maggie no problems, is reversed (‘mounting’) and followed by a three-letter Gaelic form of ‘John’.

20d Loudspeaker to waver with being installed (7)
A six-letter word meaning ‘to waver’ has the usual abbreviation for with inserted (‘installed’). I do feel that the wordplay here requires a comma between ‘waver’ and ‘with’ in order for the setter to be  ‘saying what they mean’.

26d Registers in desks, top removed (5)
My first thought was that a six-letter word for ‘desks’ would be deprived of its first letter, but in fact it is an eight-letter word which must lose the consecutive letters TOP (‘top removed’).

27d This orange is inedible, round and green (5)
The answer is produced from the single letter indicated by ’round’ and a four-letter shade of green (Chambers doesn’t give it on its own with that meaning, but it seems perfectly fair). You might wonder why Azed hasn’t phrased the clue more along the lines of ‘Round green orange, inedible’, but I think that he was trying to indicate that the answer isn’t an orange, rather a word used to describe a particular type of orange, just as an Ogen isn’t a melon and Vera isn’t an aloe.

(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 2,720 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

This struck me as being a true mid-range Azed – a few easy clues, a few tricky ones, and several that were somewhere in between. Generally an entertaining solve.

Clue Writers’ Corner: Firstly, a reminder that while there is no fundamental reason to eschew the obvious when writing a clue for a puzzle, it is a different matter when writing a competition clue. If the competition word were BROOMED, every competitor is going to have spotted that this is ROOM in BED, and also that it is an anagram of BOREDOM. It is very unlikely that clues which take advantage of either of these facts will be destined for high honours, simply because they are so obvious. What will catch the judge’s eye is a novel treatment of the word – although, of course, it must must still be technically sound.

One area where competition cue writers have an advantage over puzzle setters is that of the topical clue, because they know that Azed will be reading and judging their clue within a couple of weeks of it being written. This opens up a range of almost certainly never-to-be-repeated possibilities relating to events which are big news today but will be forgotten within months, and a quick look at the archive will show that Azed often looks favourably on such clues – one reason being that they offer a treatment of the word to be clued that cannot have been used before. I need hardly say that certain news stories will be ‘off limits’ in this day and age, but politics and sport continue to represent fertile ground.

Across

10a Area of Spanish speakers, in life comprehending Arabic (6)
A four-letter word for ‘life’ or ‘vivacity’ contains (‘comprehending’) the usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘Arabic’.

19a Article as seen distributed in what you are reading (6)
The two letters of AS (from the clue) are separately inserted in a word which describes what you were almost certainly reading immediately before you reached this sentence.

21a It was found in old distillery, main branch, copy, type lost (6)
A four-letter word for a main branch is followed by a six-letter word for a copy from which the consecutive letters TYPE have been removed (‘type lost’). My knowledge of Shakespeare’s works is somewhat lopsided – I have a passing acquaintance with several of his works and minimal knowledge of some, but having ‘done’ the Scottish play at school large chunks of it remain lodged in my memory, taking up space which could more valuably be used for stuff like where I’ve left my phone and what time I’m due at the dentist. So today this fragment came immediately to mind:

That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A ??????k only.

25a Conchy turned spy, hollow (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘conscientious objector’ (‘conchy’) is followed by a reversal of a four-letter word for a particular type of spy, such as Bill Haydon or one of the principals in The Wind in the Willows (suspected of providing confidential information to the ferrets and stoats).

27a Not outside, dressed in old clothes – it’s wet (5)
A two-letter word for ‘not outside’ is contained by (‘dressed in’) a word of many meanings, the fourth one given by Chambers – shown as ‘obsolete’ , hence the ‘old’ – being the one required here

32a End of sentence given in lawsuit – did that mean ‘nuff said’? (5)
The last letter (‘end’) of ‘sentence’ is contained by a familiar four-letter word for a lawsuit. This could produce another familiar word, but the answer here is quite the opposite. It is a spelling that appears in the First Quarto of King Lear (1608) – this, and two other hapax legomena (‘sese’, also in Lear, and ‘sessa’ in The Taming of the Shrew), have been treated by later editors (somewhat arbitrarily) as being the same word and all rendered as ‘sessa’, an interjection which could mean…well, whatever you’d like it to.

Down

1d Complex course: boats negotiated intervening space, a number separated out (12, 2 words)
An anagram (‘negotiated’) of BOATS is followed by a word for ‘intervening space’ (or the play between parts of a machine), from which the letter A (from the clue) and the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘number’ have been separately omitted (‘a number separated out’). The answer is (8,4).

2d Nose inside cotton cloth endlessly smelling like Nanny? (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] nose’ is contained by a word for a plain white cotton cloth (unless you are reading this in the US, where the foregoing should be read as ‘a brightly-colored printed cotton cloth’) missing its last letter (‘endlessly’). The final word of the clue has been deceptively capitalized to enhance the surface reading.

4d Sunken wreckage filled with silver jack brought up (5)
I once included ‘absolutely nothing’ in the wordplay of a clue to indicate FA and got a bit of flak from a solver who was offended by it. I hope the same solver didn’t attempt this puzzle, or they may have found that the sense in which Azed uses the word  ‘jack’ is not to their taste – a three-letter word meaning ‘nothing’ (‘jack’) containing (‘filled with’) the chemical symbol for silver is reversed (‘brought up’) in order to produce the answer.

5d Stunner – get a load of that – something to get Serbs dancing (4)
A 2+2 charade, the ‘stunner’ being a term that comes from the boxing ring and the ‘get a load of that’ being an archaic interjection.

6d Sheltered child? Medic’d turned up old-fashioned remedy (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘sheltered’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘child’ are followed by the reversal (‘turned up’) of a two-letter abbreviation for a particular type of medic followed by apostrophe-D (the apostrophe, as is normal, being ignored in the answer).

7d Con man penning short letter for journalist (8)
I wonder if Azed failed to notice the ‘Aust inf’ against the headword in Chambers of which the answer here is a subhead – the clue should probably start ‘Aussie con man’ or similar. Anyway, a six-letter Australian informal term for a con man or spiv  contains (‘penning’) a two-letter abbreviation for the kind of letter to be found in the Bible.

8d Blush? Let off nasty mark (4)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘[to] blush’ (more familiar as a noun or an adjective) has the consecutive letters LET deleted (‘let off’).

18d Maybe FBI’s sent message in criminal dealings (8)
This is a neatly disguised anagram, where the “Maybe FBI’s” is there to indicate that the required spelling is an American one.

26d Bones creating endless racket in N. African pop (5)
A three-letter word for a racket is deprived of its last letter (‘endless’) and placed inside a term for ‘a modern, N African form of popular music, blending traditional Arabic and Spanish with Western dance rhythms’. It’s quite a recent coinage, of uncertain etymology, although it might derive from the dialect Arabic expression ‘ha er-ray’, literally ‘here is the view’ or “that’s the thinking”, which is frequently found in the songs. the lyrics whereof tend to deal with themes often considered taboo in Muslim society.

29d Treasurer cutting limits (British) for star group (4)
A six-letter word for a treasurer is stripped of its outer letters (‘cutting limits’), which just happen to constitute the usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘British’.

(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 2,719 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

This one seemed neither particularly hard nor particularly easy, so it gets a rating right in the middle of the range. It was a reasonably enjoyable solve, although the wording of some clues was a tad tortuous.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 30a, “Member of family, one Tantalus initially cursed terribly (all in it) (6)”. The parsing of the clue is discussed below, but the issue I want to raise here concerns timing. You might feel that this is important in comedy and internal combustion engines, but not in crossword clues, but I see it differently. Consider the clue “Market large spoons returned without notice” for SELL [(L(ad)LES)<]. There are two operations to be performed on LADLES. The indicator which is next to the operand takes precedence, so LADLES must be reversed, producing SELDAL. Now we need to remove the word for ‘notice’, AD. But it’s not there any more, and the timing in this clue is out. It must be rephrased as (say) “Large spoons without notice returned to market”.  Containment combined with reversal can also present a hazard. For instance, ‘x holding y up’ can meant that both x and y are reversed (x-holding-y up) or just y (x holding y-up), but it cannot mean that x is reversed while y is not – so ‘canine holding game up’ (DOG/RU) could indicate DUROG or GOURD but not GORUD. In Azed’s clue, ‘cursed terribly (all in it)’ appears to say that the letters of CURSED must be rearranged and then the first and last letters removed, which isn’t correct. When writing clues which involve two operations being carried out on the same element, make sure that the intended sequence of events is consistent with the cryptic reading.

Across

10a Infatuation to follow clubs, a longing (5)
A four-letter word for an infatuation (or a drug-fuelled party) follows the usual abbreviation for ‘clubs’.

13a See individual scratching on desktop supports (6)
A two-letter interjection meaning ‘see!’ combines with a six-letter word for an individual from which the consecutive letters ON have been omitted (‘scratching on’).

14a Gossip displaying disposition right for husband (6)
There’s something of a punctuation shortfall here, as a comma between ‘disposition’ and ‘right’ is really needed by the cryptic reading. A word for ‘disposition’ has the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘husband’ replaced by the one for ‘right’.

15a Favourite clue spoilt if once included in it is peevishness (9)
A three-letter word for ‘favourite’ is followed by an anagram (‘spoilt’) of CLUE into which an archaic form of ‘if’ (‘if once’) has been inserted (‘included in it’).

20a A container in Adelaide’s place displays this WI evergreen (6)
The letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for a container (eg for a plant) is put inside the abbreviation for the state of which Adelaide is the capital.

30a Member of family, one Tantalus initially cursed terribly (all in it) (6)
This self-referential, or ‘offshoot &lit’, clue seems a little strained to me. A single-letter word for ‘one’, the first letter (‘initially’) of ‘Tantalus’, and an anagram (‘terribly’) of CURSED without the first and last letters (‘all in it’) combine to produce the name of the grandson of Tantalus after whom the house which began with Tantalus is named. His very existence was something of a miracle, given that his father had, during an Olympian food shortage, been served by Tantalus to the gods as fils bourguignon. By the time anyone noticed, Demeter had eaten his shoulder (it could have been much worse), and he had to be rebuilt with the inclusion of a bit of ivory. Tantalus got the blame, and was condemned to forever hold decanters containing fortified wine and other alcoholic beverages. Our hero, demonstrating his commitment to uphold the family traditions, subsequently cooked the two sons of his brother Thyestes (except for their hands and feet) and served them up to him for dinner, the irony being that on this occasion it was Thyestes who got into trouble because ‘eating people is wrong’. Moral: don’t mess with the Greek gods.

32a Return of old style topping janitor making comeback (5)
A six-letter word for a janitor is deprived of its first letter (‘topping’) and then reversed (‘making comeback’). Note that, with reference to the discussion of timing in Setters’ Corner above, the janitor could also have been reversed before the first letter was removed, since the order of the words makes either interpretation valid.

33a Changing liras to …? This is likewise (5)
A composite anagram &lit from outside the Premier League (in truth, we can probably expect to see it in the first round of the FA Cup). The letters of LIRAS TO can be rearranged (‘changing’) to form the solution (‘this’) and IS, also changing (‘likewise’).

Down

5d Farewell to Barcelona conveys bit of rhythmic music introducing scene (12, 3 words)
A charade of a three-letter word meaning ‘conveys’, a four-letter ‘traditional rhythmic pattern in Indian music’, and a five-letter view or prospect results in the (5,2,5) answer.

8d There’s nothing in grand lady forsaking steamer for jet (6)
A nice clue, where the usual single-character representation of ‘nothing’ is contained by a seven-letter word for a grand lady missing (‘forsaking’) the two-letter abbreviation for steamship.

9d Money owed on going into gum trees? (7)
That ubiquitous piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’ (‘on’) is contained by two or more sandarac trees.

12d Lander in Sydney, name admitted by local informer? (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘name’ is contained by an Australian (‘local’, ie ‘in Sydney’) term for an informer. The ‘lander’ here is an informal word for a heavy blow, and it featured in TE Sanders’ winning clue for PADDY-WHACK (AZ 221), “Ire-lander”. I believe this is the only winning clue which was shorter than the answer itself, although I think that the shortest winner of all is H Freeman’s “B-r-ag?” for CROW (AZ 788). 

18d Geological period wherein you’ll find seabird, one inhabiting Pyrenean area (7)
A three-letter term for a geological period contains a four-letter seabird of the large and predatory kind. If, like me, you use an electronic version of Chambers then you shouldn’t have any problem locating the solution; in the printed edition (as Azed notes) it can be found under the very different entry for the French form of the word, which is also the name given to a close-fitting under-bodice (ooh la la!)

25d Strong drink? 9 and, in short, I’ll be sozzled! (6)
The fodder for the anagram (‘sozzled’) here comprises the word equivalent to the number ‘9’ and the short form of the name of our setter (‘in short, I‘, the ‘I’ being italicized in the clue). Is this an indirect anagram? Technically yes; morally, no.

26d Drove to Scotland for something to wear men’ll be out of (4)
A seven-letter word for ‘something to wear’ has the consecutive letters MEN removed (“men’ll be out of it”). I can’t help feeling that ‘to Scotland’ isn’t quite the same as ‘in Scotland’ or ‘to Scots’, but I’ll let it pass.

28d Sailor’s left … his unnamed starting point? (5)
I can’t understand why this clue doesn’t simply read “Sailor’s left his starting point?”, since that wordplay would seem to lead very nicely to the required (1,4) expression.

(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 2,718 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

This seemed to me one of the trickiest ‘plains’ of the year so far. There were several answers that I needed to check in Chambers (it would have been one more had the word at 32a not appeared in a puzzle I solved yesterday), and a number of wordplays which required careful unpicking. A pleasant solve, with some neat clues and plenty of the cleverly misleading definitions we expect to see from Azed.

Setters’ Corner: This week I want to consider definitions like ‘Glaswegian child’ for BAIRN. This is the sort of thing we see all the time in puzzles, and it is, I think, universally accepted. But if we saw ‘beagle’ on its own as a definition of DOG, we would say that it is a definition by example, since all beagles are dogs but not all dogs are beagles; the definition must therefore be ‘beagle, say’ or ‘beagle?’. But neither are all bairns Glaswegian – they could come from any part of Scotland or, indeed, northern England. So isn’t this also a definition by example? I think that it is actually a qualification by example, with the core definition being specific (‘child’ and ‘bairn’ being synonymous). While strictly speaking this probably ought to be flagged, solvers don’t expect it and clues would be the worse for such a rule being imposed. It is perhaps something of an anomaly, but in practice there is no difference in cryptics between ‘French friend’ and ‘Nice friend’ for AMI.

Across

1a Vigorously march with pride to end of avenue – and this? (13, 3 words)
An anagram (‘vigorously’) of MARCH and PRIDE TO is followed by the last letter (‘end’) of AVENUE, providing the (3,2,8) answer, normally taken to refer to one very famous structure, although (rather like the Yeats brothers) there is another in the same city, just a short march away.

11a Folly? I’ll have one to rear of grand house, not Anglo-Norman (5)
The letter I (from the clue) and a single-letter word meaning ‘one’ follow a five-letter term for the house and attached land belonging to a nobleman from which the standard abbreviation for ‘Anglo-Norman’ has been removed.

14a With power to gather in piles, albe crookedly, master pocketed (9)
An anagram (‘crookedly’) of ALBE contains a five-letter corruption of ‘master’ shown by Chambers as ‘especially Southern US’ (‘master pocketed’).

15a Poet’s botch, omitting rain from stanza (4)
An eight-letter word for a particular sort of stanza has the consecutive letters RAIN omitted. On looking the answer up in Chambers, you might think that Azed has made a mistake; it is not the Shakespearean sense of ‘an insignificant person’ that we want, rather the pimple. But further investigation shows that the  ‘boil, pimple, or sore’ meaning of ‘botch’ is shown as being Miltonian (“Botches and blaines must all his flesh emboss” – Paradise Lost), so the definition should not be interpreted as  “A poet’s word for a botch” but “A word for something a poet described as a botch”. Azed does this from time to time, although I know from experience that it doesn’t go down well with some crossword editors. Should the fact that the required sense is shown as ‘now dialect’ be indicated? Well, I think one could argue that back in 1667 it was very much part of the language, and Milton might have used the words interchangeably (“That’s a nasty botch/???? you’ve got there, Dryden old chap.”)

16a Time for vigil, avoiding e.g. poisonous stuff (5)
The time when a vigil is likely to begin is deprived of (‘avoiding’) the non-consecutive letters E and G.

20a Like a post, completely ordinary, fastened badly at the edges (9)
The usual abbreviation for ‘ordinary’ has an anagram (‘badly’) of FASTENED surrounding it (‘at the edges’). A neat definition.

26a Foreign bread requiring a long time following order without being warm (6)
A three-letter word for a main division of geological time  follows a ten-letter (yes indeed) word for an order or command from which a seven-letter word for ‘warmth of address’ (which could on occasions be extreme) has been removed.

27a Timber tree yielding oil, not quite enough for oil lamp (5)
A six-letter word for a type of lamp ‘admitting air to both the inside and outside of the flame’ loses its last letter (‘not quite enough’) to produce an oil-bearing Moroccan timber tree. If you don’t know either of the words, a brief trawl of Chambers may be required.

29a Force brake by the sound of it (4)
A term informally used to describe the upholders of law and order, and a homophone for brake², a word which some solvers may have come across when working on their entry for the latest Azed competition.

32a Top pipe requiring something to tune round lines? (5)
My knowledge of music theory borders on non-existence, so whether the three-letter word which contains the usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘lines’ is ‘something to tune’ I cannot say, but it is certainly something to put in a lock.

Down

2d Bit of publicity shifting No. 1 in pop revival (4)
A five-letter shortened form of a ten-letter word, usually applied to a video designed to publicize a pop song, loses its first letter (‘shifting No. 1’). Unlike music theory (vs), I like to think that I know a reasonable amount about pop music, but I had never come across the movement which forms the answer here. Apparently it was the subject of a ‘notorious’ 1995 Melody Maker front cover which proclaimed that a ‘future pop explosion’ had ‘executed’ Britpop. These new romantics redux were the likes of Orlando, Plastic Fantastic, Minty, Viva, Sexus, Hollywood and Dex Dexter. Did they meet with great success? Well, they didn’t manage a UK top 75 hit between the lot of them…

4d Led astray, I dispatched beam inwardly, once void of lights? (11)
An anagram (‘astray’) of LED contains (‘inwardly’) the letter I (from the clue), a four-letter word for ‘dispatched’, and a three-letter word for a beam. The definition is, if not cryptic, at least pleasingly oblique.

6d Tunic cut short from below, cause to change planes? (5)
A six-letter word for a (sleeveless) tunic is shorn of its last letter (‘cut short’) and reversed (‘from below’).

7d Parts of shaft getting switched? Opposite of ease resulting (5)
Like 27a, the two words involved here may both be unfamiliar. The word for the shaft of a cart or carriage (and what Violet Elizabeth Bott would have called the thing underneath a window) has its first two letters exchanged with its last three (‘parts…getting switched’). The result is a word coined by Ruskin to describe the reverse of wealth in the sense of well-being.

8d Mum tucked into rather large drink, just as our forebears did (11, 2 words)
A two-letter word for ‘mum’ is inserted between a four-letter word meaning ‘rather’ and a five-letter word for a large drink; the answer is (4,7).

10d Legatee of female with attractive quality, and gold (7)
A (3,2,2) charade involving words for ‘of female’, ‘attractive quality’, and ‘gold’.

18d Having run in eliminating round, almost finish? Buck up! (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘run’ is inserted into a term for ‘eliminating round’ which we will be hearing regularly from Paris in the near future, probably because it is a Briton who has been eliminated (I suspect we’ll also have to cope with a lot of people talking about ‘medalling’ and ‘podiuming’). The combination is followed by a three-letter word meaning ‘finish’ without its last letter (‘almost’).

24d Money needed when centre of routine is moved to the fore (5)
A word for a routine task (I think Azed may have misread the definition in Chambers) has its middle letter moved to the start.

28d Sort tax (4)
In this double definition clue, ‘sort’ is a word for something that you might do to a horse to make it more tractable – according to Chambers, at least, although neither the OED or Collins seem to know about it.

30d Bit of old salad? Her leaves showing incipient decay (4)
A Shakespearean word for a little something that might (perhaps) be found in a salad loses the consecutive letters HER (‘her leaves’).

(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 2,717 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Normal service is resumed with a plain puzzle that was generally fairly straightforward but was raised up a notch on the difficulty dipstick  by a couple of tricky parsings in the bottom half. Quite a few obscure words, but, as always with Azed, the accuracy of the wordplays could be relied on to guide you to the solutions.

Just a teensy bit of self-promotion: if anyone has a few minutes to fill, they might like to have a go at the latest quarterly prize puzzle on Big Dave’s site (there is a link to a downloadable PDF, so you don’t have to complete the puzzle online).

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 11a, “A backer turning round admitting what he’s responsible for? (7)”. The parsing of the clue is covered below, but the question I want to raise here is whether the fact that the ‘backer’ in the definition is not the sort that would be associated with placing wagers, in other words can “what he’s responsible for” reasonably be BET? I must confess that I rather like clues such as this where there is a connection between the definition and the wordplay, and I’m also in favour of any device that makes clues more interesting, as long as they remain fair. There are other occasions where the solver has to do a degree of preprocessing when solving a clue, for instance ‘friar briefly’ -> ‘brother briefly’ -> BRO (2,709) or ‘having retired’ -> ‘in BED’, and since it’s clear that the ‘he’ here refers to the backer, I see no reason why the solver shouldn’t be expected to preprocess this clue into “A backer turning round admitting what a backer’s responsible for”, at which point any problem goes away. 

Across

10a Tree with red juice, contents of vessel female drained? (5)
A six-letter word for the contents of a particular vessel (which happened to be in front of me as I solved this puzzle while tucking into my Toastie and marmalade) is deprived of the usual abbreviation for ‘female’ (‘female drained’).

11a A backer turning round admitting what he’s responsible for? (7)
A four-letter word for a ’round’ (of the daily sort) is reversed (‘turning’) around what a backer might be responsible for putting on a horse. I feel that the definition is a stretch – is someone who ‘incites by encouragement or aid’ a ‘backer’? Perhaps just about.

12a Extract – it’s taken from script (5)
The consecutive letters IT are removed (‘taken’) from a seven-letter word for ‘script’.

21a Help e.g. McCartney with book coming out? (6)
The McCartney here is the obvious one, and it’s the seven-letter term for what playing his Rickenbacker 4001S (between 1965 and 1989) made him that needs to have the usual abbreviation for ‘book’ removed. Macca is one of the relatively few famous rock/blues guitarists to have played left-handed, along with Jimi Hendrix (who used a regular guitar upside-down but with left-handed stringing), Tony Iommi, Kurt Cobain and Albert King; a number of other left-handed musicians, notably Eric Clapton and David Bowie, chose to play in the conventional way.

23a Sobriquet, one recalled in book (6)
A two-letter word for ‘one’ is reversed (‘recalled’) in a word for a (weighty, often scholarly) book.

29a Canter on gee in gore once (5)
The four-letter word indicated by ‘canter’ which follows (‘on’) the single letter having the name ‘gee’ is defined by example, although not flagged as such – it could equally well have been suggested by ‘gallop’ or ‘trot’, say.

30a A rule to note, not the last for Shiite (7)
The letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for ‘rule’ are followed by a verb meaning ‘to note’ (much more familiar as a noun for an individual article in a list or group) which has lost its last letter (‘not the last’).

31a What’s suggested by French squaddie, dutiful? (5)
The ‘French squaddie’ is a ????-????, where the same four letters are repeated before and after the hyphen, thus suggesting a whimsical plural form ????S.

34a Restraint that disables son, one assumes? (10, 2 words)
This seemed like a nice idea that didn’t quite come to fruition, perhaps because of the SON (which could equally have been NEL) appearing in the clue; I can’t immediately come up with anything better (“Ratio is more than this?”) though. The answer is (4,6).

Down

2d Army chief prince called up and unenlightened king dismissed (6)
The three-letter prince who is a frequent visitor to cryptics (sometimes in the guise of a ‘head’) is reversed (‘called up’) and followed by an adjective meaning ‘unenlightened’ (in both its original and modern senses) from which the chess player’s abbreviation for ‘king’ has been omitted (‘dismissed’).

4d Take disturbance gripping lives, rendering ladders less likely (9)
The usual single letter abbreviation representing ‘take’ and a six-letter word for the sort of disturbance that could be civil are put around (‘gripping’) a word meaning ‘lives’, the resulting answer being hyphenated, 3-6, and applicable to the sort of hosiery that Lady Madonna clearly didn’t possess.

6d I’m leaving exam having turned up larval secretion (4)
A six-letter informal term for an entrance exam or the first examination in a course (cf final/finals) without the consecutive letters IM (“I’m leaving”) is reversed (‘having turned up’), producing a word that even sounds sticky. I rather feel that the phrasing of the wordplay suggests that the reversal should precede the removal, but that won’t work.

7d Rick maybe I wrapped in meshes when erected (5)
The letter I (from the clue) is contained by (‘wrapped in’) a reversal (‘when erected’) of a word for ‘meshes’. I wonder how well the ‘Rick’ here is known outside the UK, but then again the puzzle is printed in a UK newspaper, and anyway Google can be relied on to fill any knowledge gaps in these circumstances. I suspect most Azed solvers will be familiar with him, but I wait to be corrected.

15d Number once introduced by piano shortly, or dulcimer (9)
The key to unravelling the wordplay here is to work out that the ‘number once’ is a four-letter word with an archaic meaning of ‘number’ (it apparently derives from an Old English word meaning ‘story’ or ‘number’, the former being its modern sense). This word is contained by the usual abbreviation for ‘piano’ and a four-letter word meaning ‘shortly’ or ‘immediately’. The whole thing might make one think of an item of underwear.

16d Lordly upper crust most take no notice of getting drawn in by (9)
The phrasing here is so convoluted that I initially thought a word was missing, but it means that a four-letter word for the upper part of the earth’s crust is what all but the last letter (‘most’) of a six-letter word meaning ‘take no notice of’ is contained (‘drawn in’) by. A point that has been discussed on this site before is the validity of ‘most’ on its own to mean ‘the large part of’ – it is only ever used to qualify a generic noun (eg ‘I eat most bread’) and is not the same as ‘most of’, which is applied to a specific thing (‘I ate most of the bread’), so I’m not keen.

20d Work rises filling fuel in old cargo vessels (7)
A four-letter word for ‘work’ is reversed (‘rises’) inside (‘filling’) a word for a particular type of fuel.

22d Chipmunk from southern states? One of the same kind, tailless (6)
Two abbreviations, representing Southern United States, are followed by a word for ‘one of the same kind’ (“I shall not look upon his ???? again”, as Hamlet said of his father), the last letter of which has been deleted (‘tailless’).

24d Regarding multiplier, low? Largely dim having to divide that (6)
You know your brain has reached the point of complete cryptic saturation when upon seeing the word ‘low’ in a clue, and regardless of context, you immediately think of the sound that a cow makes. Here that sound has a four-letter word for ‘dim’ or ‘uninteresting’ lacking its last letter (‘largely’) placed inside it (‘having to divide that’, ‘that’ being the word for ‘low’).

(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 2,716 ‘Spoonerisms’

Difficulty rating: (5.5 / 10)

‘Spoonerisms’ is one of my favourite variations, giving Azed full rein to exercise both his skills and his wit, though I know that it is not everyone’s cup of tea. This one produced several smiles along with the occasional “D’oh!”.

Most Azed solvers will have encountered a Spoonerisms puzzle before, since the most recent one was only last Christmas. The hardest things with these puzzles are (i) getting your head round how the two different clue types work, and (ii) dealing with the occasional oddity (see below). For the type ‘A’ clues, always remember to write in the answer (which will normally have no definition), not the spoonerized version. What I term a ‘type A’ clue (‘definition’ is a spoonerism of the answer) is one like this:

Sailor pub crawl to wind up in exchange deal (9) – BARTENDER [END in BARTER, ‘definition’ leads to ‘tar bender’ a spoonerism of the answer)

while a ‘type B’ (definition part of clue must be spoonerized) is like this:

Eat up messily what could be made of shoal (5) – TAUPE [anagram of EAT UP, un-spoonerized definition is ‘what could be shade of mole’)

Generally, the spoonerisms are consonantal and involve two words exchanging sounds, but occasionally they can be vocalic (eg 17a), involve just one word (eg 22d) or involve more than two words (eg 20d) – these exceptions can be hard to spot and therefore to solve. A little bit of creativity in pronunciation will be required every so often. And just sometimes the ‘subsidiary indication’ in a type A clue can simply be a definition of the answer (eg 23d).

The wordplays (subsidiary indications) always lead to the answer to be entered in the grid.

The way to approach the clues is to look at whether there is anything on view that can readily be spoonerized (and probably looks a little unusual) – so in “Jean’s to mock such as Dixie going topless”, we can be pretty sure that “Jean’s to mock” will translate to “Means to Jock” (ie a Scots word for ‘means’), and we have a type B. If we can’t find anything spoonerizable in the clue, then it’s going to be a type A. In general, the type B clues are easier to solve because once you identify the ‘real’ definition they can be treated as normal clues.

A few notes on individual clues follow, after which there is a list of clues showing clue types.

Clue Writers’ Corner: Competitions of this type invariably result in some clues being submitted which are of the wrong type and will therefore stand no chance of success. For Spoonerisms puzzles, Azed always requires a type B clue. Let’s assume that the word to be clued was DASHER. What is needed is a spoonerized definition of the answer, and a wordplay which leads to the answer. So our real definition could be ‘One scooting about’, the spoonerized version being ‘One booting a scout’, with the associated wordplay ‘has red curls’ (anagram of HAS RED). The full clue is ‘One booting a scout has red curls’. Not likely to garner any laurels, I grant you, but it does satisfy the brief. Note that the treated words do not have to be consecutive in the clue, and other words (here the ‘a’) can also get involved.

The key to a good spoonerism clue is coming up with an original definition. It doesn’t have to be succinct or show pinpoint accuracy – if you look at the published clues for comp 2551, you will see the sort of thing that is likely to do well. If you are setting a complete spoonerisms puzzle, the wordplays should generally be relatively straightforward, but when it comes to competitions Azed’s judgement is influenced by the quality of a clue rather than its ready solvability (as long as it’s sound, of course), so I would avoid anything which is trivial to solve.

Note: As correspondent John has pointed out, the competition word appears as two separate headwords in Chambers, the second one being an alternative spelling of a word more often seen with four letters. The first thing to say is that whilst Azed has chosen in the puzzle to define the first entry, this is irrelevant when it comes to the competition; the requirement is to supply a clue to the grid entry, and competitors can choose whether they with to use the first or the second headword when producing their definition (just as with, say, BUNG in comp 2495). But if you do choose the second, be careful to get the right meaning of the four-letter word of which it is a variant. The point John makes is that the alternative spelling is not listed at the entry to which readers are referred. The lack of the cross-referring entry is of no significance – typically Chambers only groups variants with similar spelling (presumably in order to save space) and rarely (for the same reason, I suspect) refers back to variants that have their own entries. If one looks, for instance, at basil² in Chambers, one finds ‘same as basan‘, but the entry for basan makes no reference to ‘basil’. So you can choose either of the two distinct senses of the word at 26d. Incidentally, the definition which Azed has given us seems to be lacking an ‘or’ in the middle.

Across

1a Silly fool is working at last, evasive about lines, slow ebb restored (12)
An excellent clue to start with. The wordplay has a three-letter word for ‘evasive’ containing the usual abbreviation for ‘lines’, this combination being followed by an anagram (‘restored’) of SLOW EBB, while the definition leads to words of 5 and 7 letters  which are a spoonerized form of the answer (so it’s a type A).

10a S. African male, one attacking, regretted advance (5)
The wordplay in this type A is straightforward, a charade of a four-letter word meaning ‘regretted’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘advance’. The next step when solving the clue is almost certainly to look up the pronunciation of the resulting word in Chambers and then work back to the (2,6) phrase produced by the elements either side of the comma. However, as a correspondent has kindly pointed out, the two-letter word in this phrase is not pronounced oo or uː as in ‘zoo’ but ō or əʊ as in ‘beau’, so the spoonerism is faulty. I’ve come across that word many, many times in puzzles and never considered that it might be pronounced in other than the obvious way, so I’ve learnt something today! A clue along the lines of ‘I declare attacker regretted advance’ would work.

12a Maybe Mort’s found hanger with front missing? (5)
The definition in this type B isn’t too hard to work out, but you may not be familiar with the last meaning of ‘hanger’ given by Chambers which leads to the six-letter synonym that must lose its first letter (‘with front missing’).

16a A lot of planned devious items will hide them (4)
The wordplay in this type B is slightly odd – the ‘them’ makes it clear that it isn’t a ‘hidden’, but the alternative – an anagram (‘devious’) of ITEMS without (‘will hide’) M – would require “‘m” to be a short form of ‘them’, and Chambers doesn’t support this. I refuse to believe that Azed intends us to ‘lift and separate’ THEM to produce THE M.

25a Gold I found concealed in mine stores (6)
All the difficulty here is in identifying that it is a type B and then working out that only the first two words are involved in the definition.

31a Sum involved in crime – bit of cash for bloke in Fed once? (6)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] sum’ is contained by a word for an offence, particularly of the moral variety. Have the European Football Championships improved your knowledge of Slovenian geography? If not, then – like me – you may find yourself googling a four-letter proper name to check the definition in this type B.

32a River showing signs of slick, sleep in dhow? (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘river’ is followed by a word which could mean ‘showing signs of slick’. Initially I was a bit dubious about the spoonerized definition in this type B, but the OED gives ‘muddy’ as the first meaning of the answer.

34a Be informed of end of Scotch, finished with life finally (5)
This is a type A, where a charade of a word meaning ‘finished’ and the last letter (‘finally’) of ‘life’ combine to produce a word which can be spoonerized as a (4.3) phrase. The ‘of Scotch’ equates to ‘for Scots’.

Down

2d Such pints’ll spoil one pugilist – not sign to the fight once (6)
Here we have a type B, and a composite anagram, where the answer plus PINTS can be rearranged (‘spoil’) to form ONE PUGILIST.

3d Entrance in meadow having sheep on the sheltered side (7)
The wordplay has a four-letter word being contained by a three-letter one, while the type A ‘definition’ leads to a (3,4) phrase comprising a word for a sheep in its second year and a nautical term meaning ‘on the sheltered side’.

6d Worker demolished loaf? Very weak to be in debt (7)
A three-letter word for a proverbially busy creature is followed by an anagram (‘demolished’) of LOAF in this type A clue. Chambers suggests that the answer contains only two syllables, but when the answer is spoonerized it leads to a (6,3) phrase where the syllable (and hence the word) at the end remains unchanged .

8d Rock bed with sex to importune? Not so (5)
This spoonerism of the monosyllabic answer here is a little bit strained, with the second element of the (4,2) ‘definition’ being its last two letters. The wordplay has a seven-letter word meaning ‘to importune’ being deprived of the consecutive letters SO (‘not so’).

19d Tea urn’ll answer Scotch for John, one brewed inside (7)
A cracking definition in this type B, where the usual abbreviation for ‘answer’ and a Scottish form of ‘John’ have an anagram (‘brewed’) of ONE inserted (‘inside’).

20d Amateur appearing in short run, dark as tongue? (7)
The usual abbreviation for  ‘amateur’ is contained by a word for a short run, and the definition, which owes everything  to Henry Williamson, is my favourite type B of the lot.

(definition parts of clues are underlined)

Checklist of types

Across

1: type A (spoonerized entry); 10: A; 11: A; 12: type B (spoonerized definition); 13: A; 15: B; 16: B; 17: A; 18: B; 21: A; 25: B; 29: B; 30: B; 31: B; 32: B; 33: A; 34: A; 35: A.

Down

1: A; 2: B; 3: A; 4: B; 5: B; 6: A; 7: B; 8: A; 9: B; 14: A; 19: B; 20: B; 22: A; 23: A; 24: A; 26: definition of competition word; 27: B; 28: A.

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 2,715 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

I thought this was quite tricky in places, particularly the NW corner, and featured a high proportion of words which are rarely encountered in modern conversational English (not round here, anyway). It seemed a lot ‘tighter’ than last week’s puzzle, even allowing for a couple of repetitions of wordplay elements (eg 32a/22d), and generally seemed very sound. I’m sure that ‘see’ in 7d is a misprint for ‘seen’.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 18a, “I lost pity and almost declined old rebuke (6)”. The wordplay is discussed below, but it is the definition that prompts this discussion. We often see ‘old’ or similar used to qualify a definition, indicating that the answer is given by Chambers as obsolete, archaic, Shakespearean, Spenserian, or anything else that shows that it is no longer in current use. Let’s take an example – BRUST, shown by Chambers as a Spenserian form of ‘burst’. We clearly wouldn’t define it as ‘old burst’ (far too similar), but what definitions could we legitimately use? Chambers is typically the primary reference, so is any definition that Chambers gives for ‘burst’ good for BRUST, eg ‘break open old’ or ‘old spurt’? The answer, in essence, is ‘yes’; if we look at the works of Spenser we find that it is actually things like hearts and bowells (yuk!) that ‘brust’, but this would generally be considered irrelevant – he may never have used BRUST as a noun in his poems to describe an act of bursting, but it’s likely that he would have done so if he’d had the need. There are, however, certain caveats – senses which Spenser could not even have contemplated, such as recent introductions like ‘tore apart the perforated sheets of (continuous stationery)’ and informal or slang meanings like ‘a drunken bout’ must be ruled out. With the clue in this puzzle, Spenser in fact used the word with the sense of ‘to scold’ or ‘to rebuke’, so the definition is very hard to fault.

Across

10a S. Indian tree, once wan, before being brought in (5)
A four-letter archaic (‘once’) word meaning ‘wan’ (a variation on a more familiar word) contains the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘before’ (‘before being brought in’).

12a Traditional American individual, about 50, with jaunty lid (7)
A three-letter word for an individual contains (‘about’) the Roman numeral representing fifty and an anagram (‘jaunty’) of LID. The answer is hyphenated, 3-4.

16a One practising psychotherapy, I use rolling in hospital bed (7)
An anagram (‘rolling’) of I USE is contained by a word for a hospital bed, the result being a term that might be applied to someone whose mantra is ‘Every Sunday, with every Azed, I’m getting  better and better’.

18a I lost pity and almost declined old rebuke (6)
One of those clues where a comma has to be inferred in the wordplay, here between ‘lost’ and ‘pity’. The letter I is omitted (‘lost’) from a three-letter word often indicated in cryptics by ‘wrong’, but also an old informal term for a shame (‘pity’) – the Billy Myles song ‘Have You Ever Loved a Woman’ (an Eric Clapton favourite) contains the lines “You just love that woman. / So much it’s a shame and a ???. / But all the time you know. / She belongs to your very best friend.” The resulting two letters are followed by a five-letter word meaning ‘declined’ which has been deprived of its last letter (‘almost’).

20a Poet’s handle: ‘past its best’ where English is involved (6)
A five-letter word meaning ‘past its best’ contains the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ (‘where English is involved’).

24a Extremes of accent in an Italian maybe, displaying a strong one (7)
The first and last letters (‘extremes’) of ACCENT are contained by a first name of Latin origin associated with many Italian men, in particular the Venetian explorer who discovered the toroidal mint. The ‘one’ in the definition refers back to the ‘accent’ in the wordplay.

26a Knockout in G and S? It may be fatal for asses (8)
The ‘knockout’ contained by the letters G and S was used to good effect by TE Sanders in one of the shortest Azed cup-winning clues on record, his entry for PADDY-WHACK (Azed comp 221) using just nine letters and a hyphen.

28a I live without (ultimately) dead parts of intestine (4)
The letter I (from the clue) is followed by a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] live’ (almost invariably followed in this sense by ‘a life’) missing its last letter, this being the standard abbreviation for ‘dead’.

31a Measure to beat heroin (5)
A neat clue, made harder by the number of possible synonyms for ‘to beat’ which could precede the usual single letter representing ‘heroin’. It turns out to be the sort that Messrs Squeers and Quelch would have quickly identified.

Down

1d Chat maybe opens up in Shakespeare (4)
Kudos if you got straight to the solution by reversing (‘up’) a Shakespearean word meaning ‘opens’ or ‘undoes’. Otherwise, the way in is through chat³ in Chambers, a dialect term for a pretty tatty tattie, the ‘maybe’ indicating that this is a definition by example.

2d Source of flummery fit to appear in fog? (8)
A four-letter word for a fit of the shivering kind is contained by (‘to appear in’) a word for ‘[to] fog’ in the sense of ‘[to] make indistinct’. The flummery relates not to pudding but to humbug.

4d What’s associated with chips, containing nothing sour (6)
I’d immediately decided that ‘fish’ was a bit to obvious as the companion for ‘chips’, but it took me a bit longer to get from chips to ‘carpenter’, and thence to Lewis Carroll, and from there to a five-letter word for the comrade who wished to talk, inter alia, of shoes, ships and sealing-wax. This word contains the single character that represents love at Wimbledon.

5d Youngster, type that’s dropped in (5)
A seven-letter word for a family of typefaces based on 16th century Flemish types (and named after an Antwerp printer of the era) loses consecutive letters IN (“that’s dropped in”) to produce a familiar word for a vegetable organism also given by Chambers as a figurative term for a young person (this sense is shown by the OED as ‘rare’).

7d Old rose, something from Canterbury seen in Church? (6)
The four-letter word for something associated with Canterbury (the antipodean one rather than its Kentish namesake) is contained by one of the two-letter abbreviations often indicated in cryptics by ‘church’. Chambers confirms the Canterbury association, and tells us that the answer is Spenserian, hence the ‘old’.

11d High Court order, one on page received by gardener (11, 2 words)
A two-letter word for ‘one’ is followed by ON (from the clue) and the usual abbreviation for ‘page’, this pair contained by a six-letter word for a cultivator, or (perhaps) a member of an all-girl dance troupe which first performed in 1894 and is still, apparently, going strong (albeit, I suspect, with a few changes in personnel). The solution is (5,6).

17d Showy plant, a flag planted in miraculous venue (8)
The letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for such things as a handkerchief, a newspaper or a sail are contained by the site of the wedding at which water was miraculously changed into wine, a much more difficult undertaking than the reverse process.

18d One sails northward in company describing islands? (7)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and a reversal (‘northward’) of a three-letter word for ‘the form and arrangement of masts, sails and tackling’ are contained by a word for a company. The answer is hyphenated, 3-4.

24d Combine in bit of work in muddled group cutting lee (5)
A three-letter unit of work is contained by a five-letter word for a muddled group from which the consecutive letters LEE have been removed (‘cutting lee’).

27d Soft, old, and heavenly, not real (4)
An eight-letter word meaning ‘heavenly’ has the consecutive letters REAL omitted (‘not real’).

(definitions are underlined)

In the absence of the puzzle on the Guardian website, I have uploaded a copy of the scan to the Clue Clinic.

The notes on the puzzle will be available later. I will remove this post from the front page when the puzzle eventually appears on the Guardian site.

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 2,714 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

Another plain puzzle – surely July’s competition puzzle will be a ‘special’? I tackled this one later in the day than usual, but it seemed to me quite tricky in parts, so I’ve rated it as being just above the middle of the range. A couple of the definitions struck me as being decidedly iffy.

Setters’ Corner: Today I’m going to look at clue 23d, “Change label for small bird left in charge of another (7)”. The parsing of the clue is covered below, but the point of interest here is the definition. Azed has (as he invariably does) avoided a trap which can catch out even experienced setters and, on occasion, their editors. This is to define a transitive verb as though it were intransitive. For instance, the verb ‘rename’ is transitive – in the active form it must have an object, ie you always rename something (a newspaper, a pet, a chocolate bar etc). When writing a clue, you might think that ‘supply new handle’ was a nice oblique definition which could be used in a clue where the context misleadingly suggests a handle on a piece of equipment, eg “Ewer man damaged leaking whiskey? Supply new handle”. But trying the substitution test, is ‘They renamed Opal Fruits’ the same as ‘They supplied new handle Opal Fruits’ or ‘The supplied Opal Fruits new handle’? No, it certainly isn’t, because ‘supply’ would need to have two objects, the thing being renamed and its new name. Easily fixed in this example – “Supply new handle for ewer man damaged, leaking whiskey”. Similarly, a definition like ‘supply new label’ without a pronoun would not be sound. Note, however, that something like ‘give new handle’ for RENAME would be ok, because ‘give’ can function as a ditransitive (two-object) verb – ‘They gave Opal Fruits a new name’.

Across

2a Decay enveloping bones with time in stone circle (11)
A six-letter word meaning ‘[to] decay’ (as rubber might) contains (‘enveloping’) the plural of a word for the ankle-bone and the usual abbreviation for ‘time’.

13a Type of sword, of something not unalike tar abandoned (4)
A seven-letter word (probably more familiar in its eight-letter form, certainly if you are an aficionado of Reliant sports cars) for one type of sword (‘something not unalike’, ie not unalike the answer) is deprived of the consecutive letters TAR in order to produce the type of sword that needs to be entered in the grid.

15a Strip from e.g. prawn almost always involved in first half of meal? (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘always’ has its last letter removed (‘almost’) before being contained by (‘involved in’ ) the first three letters of a six-letter word for a particular meal.

16a Piece of (Greek) pottery found in excavation (not the first)? (4)
This just about scrapes through as an &lit, where the whole clue serves as an indication of the answer. The wordplay has the first letter (‘piece’) of POTTERY (‘Why not GREEK?’, I hear you ask) enclosed by (‘found in’) a four-letter word for an excavation (the sort that council workmen might be responsible for) missing its first letter (‘not the first’).

17a Bone suffers? Take out (5)
A six-letter word meaning ‘suffers’, in the way that one suffers a charge for leaving your car in a shoppers’ car park for more than two hours, has the usual abbreviation for ‘take’ removed (‘take out’).

25a Improves version of indefinable quality in orchestral section (7)
A two-letter word for that special  je ne sais quoi is surrounded by a term for a subset of the windy part of an orchestra.

29a Girl switching parts in drive? (4)
A four-letter term for a child, typically disrespectful when applied to a woman at any later point in life, has its first pair of letters swapped with the second pair (‘switching parts’).

34a Translation from Latin left out – it’s not found in formal language (4)
An anagram of (‘translation from’) LATIN missing the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ (‘left out’) results in something that certainly ???’? found in formal language, but the definition here doesn’t work for me.

35a Liquor is Scotch to put in calendar? (10)
The letters IS (from the clue) and a four-letter word with a Scots sense of ‘to’ (in fact, the English meanings also include ‘to’, in a sentence such as ‘He renewed his passport to the end of 2028’) are put inside a word for ‘calendar’ in the sense of ‘to fix a time for (an event)’.

36a Style traced thus? (11)
A self-referencing clue – when the answer (‘thus’)  is applied cryptically to the remainder of the wordplay, it produces itself.

Down

4d Dry off to hide maze of blood vessels (4)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘to hide’ has a three-letter word meaning ‘dry’ (specifically applied to vin) omitted.

6d Came across upcoming opening – when? (7)
A reversal (‘upcoming’) of a three-letter word meaning ‘came across’ is followed by a word for an opening (typically in the, or least a, skin). The definition is somewhat puzzling – the answer means ‘in the time of’ (applied normally to a ruler, eg Henry VIII, or a pre-eminent individual in their field, eg Galileo) but that’s not the same as ‘when’ (with or without a question mark).

7d Divine drink maiden’s drained from fine porcelain (5)
A six-letter word for the drink of the Hindu gods is deprived of the usual cricketing abbreviation for ‘maiden’ (“maiden’s drained from [the drink]”).

8d Cal. City guy tops eminent scientist in local tasks (6)
A (2,2) phrase which could describe a fellow from the California city that ten out of ten crossword setters like best is followed by a two-letter abbreviation for a body of eminent scientists and, by analogy with RA, thus one of said scientists.

12d Soapstone that can be bought cold, set with diamonds, tons (10, 2 words)
A five-letter word meaning ‘open to bribery’ (‘that can be bought’) and the usual abbreviation for ‘cold’ are put around (‘set with’) a three-letter slang word for diamonds and the usual abbreviation for ‘tons’. The answer is (6,4).

18d Spoils set out? Not much of a stretch in India (4)
A seven-letter word roughly meaning ‘spoils’ (as in ‘she spoils that boy’) has the consecutive letters SET deleted (‘set out’) in order to produce a word for a distance that seems like a fair stretch to me if I were asked to cover it at anything above a steady walking pace, particularly before breakfast and without the assistance of a motor vehicle.

23d Change label for small bird left in cage of another (7)
A three-letter ‘small bird’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ (again) are contained by (‘in cage of’) the name of another bird (female), larger than the first one, if hardly a whopper.

32d Old and young one reared in Orcadian estate (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘old’ is followed by a reversal (‘reared’) of a term for a young person, specifically male outside of equestrian circles.

(definitions are underlined)