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 2,697 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I made steady progress through this puzzle, but the number of clues which I marked as being worthy of comment suggested that it was at least in the middle of the difficulty range, perhaps even a scintilla above the halfway mark. Some entertaining clues, and only a couple of things with which I would take (minor) issue.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 13a, “Fruit creation of banana with raspberries (5)”. The name of a melon-like fruit is made up of a chunk at the end of ‘banana’ and a slightly bigger one from the start of ‘raspberries’. The ‘hidden’ clue (aka the ‘lurker’) is probably the easiest sort of all to solve, as the letters that make up the answer are not only in plain view but are in the correct order (or the exact opposite thereof in a ‘reverse hidden’, or ‘rekrul’). They are therefore very handy for providing the solver with a route into a puzzle, particularly a tricky one, but should not be overused – I would suggest  including no more than two in a normal puzzle, and certainly not going beyond three. The challenge for setters is to make them interesting – ‘Chap in Germany (3)’ for MAN is both very easy and very dull. Try to use a natural-sounding phrase as the hiding place, and look at using either a less familiar ‘hidden’ indicator (eg ‘quantity of valuable antiques’ for LEAN) or one of the many containment indicators which can legitimately suggest that one string is to be found within another (eg ‘several male nurses’ for ALMA). Another ploy, seen in the clue here, is to split the hiding place such that solvers have to butt the two pieces together, eg ‘caught between Scylla and Charybdis’ for ACHAR. It’s not exactly a ‘hidden’, but an appropriate clue to finish on is this one from John Henderson: ‘The real reason for the merger meeting of Volkswagen and Daimler? (6,6)’.

Across

11a Reduced height pursued by planes, very fine (8)
I know I said there wasn’t much for me to take issue with, but I think that indicating the seven-letter word which follows the usual abbreviation for ‘height’ (‘reduced height’) by ‘planes’ is pushing things. ‘Route of planes’ or ‘plane operator’ would have been fine.

12a Salad garnish Escoffier’s devised – not the off-licence! (5)
A five-letter informal term for an off-licence is removed from ESCOFFIER’S (ie ‘not the off-licence’) before the remainder is rearranged (‘devised’) to produce the answer.

15a Against hazard I released fish (5)
A two-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘against’ is followed by a word for a hazard (of the sort that frequently needs to be assessed these days) from which the letter I has been omitted (‘released’).

17a Rape without passion, ecstasy, look, being limited (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘without passion’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘ecstasy’ and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] look’ contained within it (‘being limited’).

19a Shellfish tooth, bits in the wrong order (5)
A five-letter word for a tooth or a notch (its Latin meaning), the stem of a longer adjective meaning ‘furnished with battlements’, has its first three letters exchanged with its last two (‘bits in the wrong order’). The result is the shellfish which yields mother-of-pearl.

25a Turk requiring fragrant stuff, tiny amount applied (8)
A charade of two four-letters words, the first being a fragrant oil (and Bismarck’s first name), the second a small amount or a tiny arachnid.

28a Corneal deposit? Philosopher has me accepting this (5)
When the answer is accepted (ie contained) by the letters ME, the result is the surname of a German-American philosopher who was influential in the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research (the ‘Frankfurt School’). In the early 1930s he fled to Geneva and thence to the USA, where the Institute was re-established. He served as an intelligence officer in WWII, and remained in the US when the Institute returned to Europe. He came to wider attention at the age of 66 with the publication in 1964 of One Dimensional Man, which condemned the ‘repressive tolerance’ of modern industrial society and saw students as the alienated elite who would sort things out. They did try, briefly.

34a Boy trapping sea birds – does it help to support budget? (8)
A three-letter ‘familiar form of address’ to a boy contains (‘trapping’) sea birds which are related to gulls and come in various forms; I still recall being attacked by one of the Arctic variety on Inner Farne (thankfully I was, as advised wearing a hat, since they tend to go for the highest bit of anyone they don’t like the look of). I suspect that the answer to the question posed in the definition, might strictly speaking be ‘no’, although a budget is ‘a fixed rudder on a barge’ so we know where Azed is coming from.

Down

2d Old woman’s taken over shift in Scotsman’s cravat (7)
The single-letter abbreviations for ‘old’ (standard) and “woman’s” (an invention of Azed, not infrequently seen) are placed above a word for a relieving shift (or a team race involving such ‘shifts’). The first four letters of the solution constitute the Scots form of a familiar preposition, and the answer is to be found in Chambers under the entry for the latter (there is an indication of where to look against the entry for the former).

3d Final exam one’s working on in overcoat (7, 2 words)
A two-letter preposition meaning ‘working on’, almost invariably in the phrase ‘?? it’, is contained by a coarse jacket in the Levant (and a slang term for a rough great-coat). The answer is (5,2), and is something that one might work towards at Cambridge University. In the cryptic reading, “one’s” could be taken as ‘one is’ (ie the final exam is the result of the wordplay) or ‘one has’ (ie the solver has a two-letter word inside a five-letter one’) – it makes no difference to the rest of the clue.

4d Mug for pet? (4)
The two words that share a spelling in this double definition clue appear in the required senses in this ‘joke’ (I use the word loosely – though it isn’t a ‘dad joke’ because I’m pretty sure my mum told it to me) from the late 1960s or thereabouts: “Don’t put the cat in the washing machine – you might get a sock in the ????”.

9d Drudge had nothing on disposing of bundle outside (5)
The wordplay here involves a (3,5) phrase meaning ‘has nothing on’ (like Adam pre-fig leaf) losing (‘disposing of’) a three-letter word for a bundle from its outside. I wasn’t conversant with the ‘drudge’ meaning of the answer, a word which post-fig leaf Adam had reason to remember.

16d Writer, English, gets wind up inside like a lot of old fossils (8)
The combination of a three-letter word for a ‘writer’ which will be familiar to all solvers of cryptics (but is not the author of “Swann’s Way”) and the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ is placed around (‘gets…inside’) a reversal (‘up’) of a word meaning ‘[to] coil’.

21d Backhand stroke fashioned by Rafa initially to a great extent (7)
The first letter (‘initially’) of ‘Rafa’ is followed by a (4,2) expression meaning ‘to a great extent’. The stroke in questioned would be executed not with a tennis racket but a sword or dagger.

23d Sad sack following one in a fog (6)
I remember reading the Sad Sack comic strips in my youth (I had a lot of American comic books, though I’m not sure where I got them from), but having no idea what a ‘sad sack’ was. I likewise missed the point of some of the names of D.C. Thomson comic strips and characters therein which had clearly been thought up in Dundee (‘King Gussie’ being one that particularly puzzled me). Anyway, the synonym required here is produced by putting the usual abbreviation for ‘following’ and the Roman numeral representing ‘one’ inside a familiar word for a fog.

24d Jacques maybe going topless, about right get-up (6)
The diminutive Jacques whom Eric Sykes referred to as ‘Harriet’ loses her first letter and is placed ‘about’ the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘right’.

26d Sojourn in vague W. European area of old? No thanks (5)
A ‘name given from the 14c by W European peoples to a vast, ill-defined area of E Europe and Asia’ is deprived of a two-letter informal form of ‘thanks’ (ie ‘no thanks’).

27d Bunter was part of it, forgetting Latin in tests (5)
A six-letter word for ‘tests’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘Latin’ removed, the result having nothing to do with the Fat Owl of the Remove or Lord Peter Wimsey, and everything to do with a series of strata, the other divisions of which are Muschelkalk and Keuper.

(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 2,696 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Having received a scan of the puzzle from Roslyn in time for breakfast, I made a quick start on this puzzle, but when it came to the bottom half in particular I thought there were some tricky parsings that raised the overall difficulty at least to the halfway mark. I wonder if it might even be slightly above the mid-point. Anyway, it was an entertaining solve.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 12d, “Is at MGM flicks after wine? It affects viewing badly”. The straightforward wordplay has an anagram of IS AT MGM following a four-letter sparkling wine which will be familiar to all solvers even if they’ve never touched a drop, and the surface reading is nice. The problem is that the latter is achieved only through the use of ‘flicks’ as an anagram indicator, and a look in Chambers confirms that while ‘flick’ can mean ‘to move or touch lightly and quickly’, it exists only in a transitive form. So you can flick a speck of dust or a Subbuteo man/lady, but you can’t just flick. One might argue that the OED gives an intransitive sense of ‘to move with quick vibrations’, but the OED offers all manner of meanings which crossword solvers cannot possibly be expected to know or be able to track down. Sometimes when writing clues one has to accept that there is simply not a word (here an anagram indicator) which can legitimately fulfil the required cryptic role in your proposed clue without destroying the surface reading, and that is the time for a complete rethink. Don’t be tempted to submit a clue which you know in your hear doesn’t work.

Across

7a Hooter signalling special police (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘special’ is followed by a four-letter word for ‘police’. Chambers might seem to indicate that the answer on its own is not sufficient to satisfy the definition, but others sources suggest that it is.

13a Silly tailor about to make mess of bright summer wear (10, 2 words)
An anagram (‘silly’) of TAILOR containing (‘about’) a four-letter word meaning ‘to make a mess of’ or ‘to hack about’ produces a (5,5) garment which some might feel should never have been allowed outside Honolulu.

14a Fencer no longer confident, pierced by delinquent? (8)
A familiar four-letter word meaning ‘confident’ contains (‘pierced by’) an informal term for an offender, of which a delinquent could be a youthful example (hence the question mark).

15a Meal of foreign brand (discontinued) (5)
A three-letter meal (and drink) is followed by a foreign word meaning ‘of’ (‘of foreign’) to produce a term for a resinous piece of pine used as a torch (ie ‘brand’) not seen since Elizabethan times (‘discontinued’).

26a I’m turned out in fur, long, outworn (4)
It might cross your mind that this could be a double definition clue, and had it started “I’m turned out in feathers…” then it could have been. But as it stands the wordplay involves a six-letter type of fur associated with the nobility having the reversed form (‘turned’) of IM removed (‘out’). The ‘outworn’ indicates that the answer is past its best before date, being shown by Chambers as Spenserian.

27a Favourite sweet’s middle in pecan nuts, a craving (9)
A three-letter word for a favourite and the middle letter of SWEET are contained by an anagram (‘nuts’) of PECAN.

29a Last in boozer moving forward, part of mass (5)
A word for a habitual heavy drinker has its last letter brought forward, producing ‘a phrase formerly interpolated in different parts of the mass’. Is that ‘part of mass’? Probably close enough, although some suggestion of that ‘formerly’ would have been good.

32a I’ll enter sale – pipe down (5, 2 words)
The letter I (from the clue) is contained by (‘[wi]ll enter’) a (chiefly Irish) word for a sale by auction, a homograph of which means ‘ a hypocritical, affected or perfunctory style of speech or thought’. The (3,2) solution is an instruction no doubt frequently heard in H. J. Heinz’s Wigan plant.

33a Member of strict order requiring waterproof before liturgy (8)
A charade of two four-letter words, the first being a traditional Japanese garment made of straw and combining pretty good rain protection with a rather poor fire rating. The second part is a word not just for a liturgy but also for any sort of religious ceremony.

Down

2d Little old boat, not once having a portable phone installed (7)
The two-letter obsolete form of ‘not’ frequently indicated in cryptics as ‘not old’ or ‘not once’ has the letter A (from the clue) and a four-letter informal term for a mobile phone (derived from what it connects to) inserted (‘installed’). The answer is more frequently seen describing an engine housing, the basket of a balloon or the gondola of an airship, but the long-obsolete meaning of ‘a little boat’ is the original one.

3d Filling stations? There’s fury when their supply is out (7)
A four-letter word for ‘fury’ has a word for what filling stations supply (given by Chambers as ‘N American, Aust and NZ’, but hardly unfamiliar in the UK) surrounding it (‘out’) to produce the word that in times not so long gone we regularly used when talking about places to fuel up the car.

4d Pod of a kind, pieces breaking the whole (6)
A three-letter term for the sort of pieces that are regularly handled by Magnus Carlsen is contained by (‘breaking’) a word for ‘the whole’ (or ‘everybody’). The answer appears in Chambers under a longer headword which has the same six letters at the beginning.

6d Caper may yield this injury – one falls after it (8)
A charade in three parts, comprising a four-letter word for injury, a single-letter word meaning ‘one’, and the three-letter spelling of a word for a waterfall (ie ‘falls’). The ‘caper’ is wild rue, a plant of the bean caper family.

8d Bilious? Have break, day off, cold before and after (6)
A seven-letter ‘break’ (from work, say) with the consecutive letters DAY removed (‘day off’) is both preceded and followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘cold’ (‘cold before and after’).

10d Head of department showing improvement when it’s cut (4)
A six-letter word for ‘improvement’ or ‘gain’ is deprived of the consecutive letters IT (“it’s cut”).

18d Endless time installed over in Paris as head of order (8)
Here we have to imagine a comma between ‘installed’ and ‘over’, since the three-letter French word for ‘over’ (‘over in Paris’) has a word for ‘time’ missing its last letter (‘endless’) inserted (‘installed’).

21d Cornish salt appearing as fool in lake (7)
A three-letter fool (of the sort once sought out on schoolchildren’s heads) is contained by the name of a lake regularly seen in cryptic crosswords. The word for the salt suggests that it ought to be Irish rather than Cornish, but it turns out to be a green arsenate of copper found in both places.

22d Against cuts provided by a single body, not terribly important (7)
The usual single-letter abbreviation representing ‘against’ goes inside (‘cuts’) a word meaning ‘that joins together’ (one of those adjectives which Chambers doesn’t define and of which the meaning is far from obvious, a source of frustration to setters).

25d Instrument trio finally lacking in harmony (6)
A nine-letter (musical) instrument has its last three letters removed (‘trio finally lacking’) in order to produce the solution.

28d Bits of ordure regularly alternating with matter in Glaswegian drains (5)
The ‘bits of ordure’ which must be regularly interspersed with a three-letter word for the sort of matter that might be exuded are the word’s first two letters. The draining refers to the removal of the water in which the neeps and tatties (say) have been cooked.

30d Remove crusts of foreign bread in exotic sandwich (4)
A four-letter foreign word for ‘bread’ (not French this time) plus the word IN have the first and last letters (‘crusts’) removed.

31d Mac’s lightweight entity, numskull shedding what he’s known to wear? (4)
I first of all thought that what the five-letter numskull was having removed was the letter that might be seen on his headgear, but on reflection I concluded that it was his ‘cap’ which was to be taken off. Either way, the result is the same, being the Scots word for a familiar unit of weight. I cannot see the word ‘numskulls’ without thinking of the six characters (Alf, Fred, Luggy, Snitch, Brainy and Blinky) who worked in the various departments that comprised “our man’s” head in the Beezer comic strip.

(definitions are underlined)

In the absence of the puzzle on the Guardian website, and with thanks to Roslyn,  I have uploaded a copy of the scan to the Clue Clinic.  Should you have any problems with that link, there’s another copy here.

The notes on the puzzle are now available here. 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 2,695 ‘Give & Take’

Difficulty rating: (5 / 10)

Note: for anyone who is completely mystified by how the puzzle works, I would strongly recommend having a look at the fifteensquared blog for the most recent puzzle of this type.

A non-competition ‘special’, and the first Give & Take, I believe, since May 2018; I think the only one I’ve ever blogged was 2,285 (March 2016). This type of puzzle is not a particular favourite of mine, as I don’t really like non-words in a completed grid, but it made a change. I found it hard to assess the difficulty of this puzzle, so I’ve put it smack in the middle of the range for specials – I will gladly adjust the rating if readers feel that I have got it badly wrong. A few points for anyone who hasn’t dealt with one of these before: (i) most of the entries in the grid are not real words, any that are being incidental; (ii) the letter added to a down entry may already occur elsewhere in that entry (eg ‘Seal stations up (4)’ for STSOP, STOP with extra S, POSTS<); and (iii) across answers can be entered as soon as you get them, while you may not be able to enter down answers without some checkers if the wordplay doesn’t pinpoint the position of the extra letter. Don’t forget that the wordplay always leads to the complete grid entry, and take particular care both when entering the across solutions and when recording the additional letters in the down ones.

The next line of the poem does indeed have a relevance to the theme, although it perhaps suggests a rather more reciprocal relationship.

After the notes on individual clues I have included a checklist of the positions from/into which the letters should be removed/added. Let me know if there are any other clues which you would like me to comment on.

Setters’ Corner: A couple of points about puzzles of this sort (Give & Take, Letters Latent). Firstly, the clues should ideally not include ‘link words’ between wordplay and definition, particularly those which suggest equivalence (eg ‘is’, ‘making’), since the outcome of the cryptic wordplay is not the same as the word defined; Azed has generally adhered to this principle here, although there are a couple of exceptions (19a, 21d). Secondly, putting together a puzzle like this is complicated – bear in mind that each entry has to be deprived of/increased by a specific letter as demanded by the required message, and on top of that it is far from easy when setting a puzzle to deal with real words that become non-words. So a fine achievement? If you’re Azed, working without electronic aids, absolutely yes. A similar puzzle from an anonymous setter would impress me much less, though, because grid filling tools such as Qxw, when combined with a little technical skill, make it pretty straightforward to produce puzzles such as this.

Across

1a Preserve youth in wild area (9)
Since I had just started my breakfast when tackling this clue, the answer was starting me in the face! Later on, I’m afraid I found a bit of it on the puzzle. The wordplay has a three-letter youth inside an anagram (‘wild’) of AREA.

10a Pie transformed vapour to expose back abdominal parts (10)
An anagram (‘transformed’) of PIE is followed by a three-letter word equating to ‘vapour’ and a reversal (‘back’) of another three-letter word, this one meaning ‘to expose’ or ‘to broadcast’.

16a Parts of border changing places took shape (6)
The two halves of a four-letter word for a border (the obvious one) are exchanged. This is the only clue where consecutive letters are removed from the defined answer.

22a Cherishing Indian title separating names to coin I omitted (12)
Quite a tricky wordplay, with the four-letter spelling of the ‘Indian title of great respect given to a man’ being contained by two instances of the usual abbreviation for ‘name’ , the whole lot being followed by a word meaning ‘to coin’ (as they do at Llantrisant) from which the letter I has been omitted.

27a Rob to prepare for exams is dropping out (5)
There’s no doubt about the solution to be entered in the grid, supplied by a six-latter word meaning ‘to prepare for exams’ without the letters IS (‘is dropping out’), but the letter missing from the defined answer could be an A or an I – as it turns out, it is an A, but the only way to establish this with certainty is from the quotation. 

31a Fill with mortar, usually replacing one in clayey paste (7, 2 words)
The name for the creamy paste used by potters has the Roman numeral representing one replaced by the abbreviation for ‘usually’. The untreated solution is (5,2).

32a Malaysian wood component of older antiques (7)
Another one where determining the omitted letter is likely to be harder than finding the grid entry, which is hiding in plain sight; it’s the first letter of the untreated answer.

34a Acreage calls on grass (8)
The standard abbreviation for ‘acreage’ is followed by a word meaning ‘calls on’ or ‘consults’.

Down

1d Australian mountain measure: bit of hiking equipment? (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘Australian’ precedes a four-letter South African word for a hill or mountain and a two-letter unit of measurement used in the printing trade.

2d Scream, soil trembling, simultaneously feeling quake (9)
This is clearly an anagram (‘trembling’) of SCREAM SOIL, but the key to working out the answer is thinking of the stem which is common to several words with earthquake-related meanings and putting it in the middle of the defined answer.

4d What swimmers should avoid, a stretch of broken water rising in middle of rain (5)
Here, the letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for a stretch of broken water (which I associate particularly with a sort of tide) are reversed (‘rising’) within the letters in the middle of RAIN. The danger to swimmers is often seen spelt with seven letters, although this five-letter version is more useful to setters and thus may be more familiar to solvers.

6d Monkeys, dark-coloured, to caress, tailless (5)
A three-letter word for ‘dark-coloured’ which also means ‘sorrowful’ is followed by a word meaning ‘to caress with the lips’ from which the last letter has been removed (‘tailless’).

13d Awfully empty, time to stuff meat? It’s used for setting (9, 2 words)
An anagram (‘awfully’) of EMPTY is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ inside (‘to stuff’) a particular sort of meat, associated with schnitzels. The answer is (4,5).

21d Lecturer involved in mounting rows causing hurt (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘lecturer’ is contained by (‘involved in’) a reversal of a six-letter word meaning ‘rows’ in the ‘racket’ sense. The ‘causing’ here is an interloper and should be ignored.

24d End of cooling system brought to the fore? One goes after the dealers (5)
A nice example of this type of clue. The sort of cooling system that one might find in a car has the last letter moved to the start (‘End…brought to the fore’).

26d Lesson at Glenalmond? Duck French coming up after Latin (4)
The four-letter word that is reversed (‘coming up’) after the usual abbreviation for ‘Latin’ would presumably describe a duck scored in French cricket, being the French word for ‘nothing’.

(definitions are underlined)

Positions of omitted/added letters

Across:

In 1 across the letter is omitted from positions 1 and 4 / 6: 6 / 10: 7 / 11: 1 and 4 / 12: 2 / 14: 2 and 8 / 16: 3 and 4 / 18: 4 and 5 / 19: 8 / 22: 1, 8 and 10 / 25: 1 / 27: 3 / 29: 3 and 7 / 31: 5 / 32: 1 / 33: 3 / 34: 1, 4 and 8 / 35: 7 and 9.

Down:

In 1 down the letter is added in position 1 / 2: 1 / 3: 4 / 4: 1 / 5: 3 / 6: 3 / 7: 3 / 8: 5 / 9: 1 [or 2] / 13: 6 / 15: 3 / 17: 3 / 20: 4 / 21: 1 / 23: 6 / 24: 3 / 25: 4 / 26: 2 / 28: 3 [or 4] / 30: 4.

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 2,694 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

During the solve, I felt this puzzle was pretty close to the middle of the difficulty range, though when I wrote these notes I decided that it was perhaps slightly towards the easier end of the spectrum. No ‘ladies of the night’ this week, but an unusual feature was the inclusion of two clues (25a and 20d) which featured no wordplay in the conventional sense. The competition clue word has made a previous appearance as one half of a ‘Right & Left’ in AZ comp 2131.

I will allow myself a brief plug for this month’s prize puzzle at the Crossword Centre, Annus Mirabilis, which is one of mine. It has a theme, but the clues are all normal and of Azed-ish difficulty, so it can be treated as a ‘plain’ – though once you’ve completed the initial grid-fill, the rest should fall into place quite readily. A PDF version is also available (note that it doesn’t include the information about how to enter the competition, only to be found through the first link).

Clue Writers’ Corner: Sometimes one finds oneself needing to indicate a single letter in a wordplay, perhaps something like F or K that doesn’t form part of many short words. A way of dealing with such a situation is to use a single-letter selection indicator. The big advantage of this is that it gives you a huge range of options from which to choose one which fits nicely into your clue – ‘source of funds’, ‘closer to half’, ‘opener for Kent’, ‘end of week’ etc. It’s a device I use a lot in my own clues, but I would urge caution when it comes to Azed competitions. Firstly, it adds three words to the clue, when an abbreviation – ‘force’ for F or ‘king’ for K, say – would only add one, and secondly because it can be seen by the judge for what it is, an opportunity to introduce a word into the clue which is there simply to contribute one letter. Plenty of successful competition clues have included single-letter selections, and I certainly wouldn’t suggest that they should be studiously avoided, but I would recommend looking at alternatives and, if you do decide to use one, try not to make it too obvious – this can be done either by combining it with another element in the clue, eg ‘best end of neck’ for STARK, or by misdirection, eg ‘lead from roof’ for R.

Across

1a Winger maybe, balanced in part furthest from finishing (12)
The first part of this 4+8 charade is a term applied to a player in various sports, such as soccer or hockey, whose main role is at their own end of the pitch, while ‘balanced’ has the sense of ‘not leaning in one direction  or the other’. The definition probably doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny, while the solution should be enumerated as (12, 2 words).

12a Health, disposing of last two bumped off (5)
A seven-letter Gaelic interjection meaning ‘[good] health!’ is deprived of its last two letters.

13a To macerate, man cut with chopper (5)
A funny-looking verb is produced from a four-letter word for a man, missing its last letter (‘cut’), followed by a term for a chopper; why Azed has not indicated that this is the North American spelling of the word I know not.

17a Fatty stuff Greek character enclosed in cover (5)
A Greek letter familiar to geometricians is contained by (‘enclosed in’) a word for a cover.

25a A dependable guy? A view not universally held! (5)
There isn’t a wordplay as such here, but if you get the informal word for ‘a good, trusty person’ you will understand where Azed is coming from.

27a Seats mostly searched from back to front (4)
A five-letter word meaning ‘searched’ has its last letter removed (‘mostly’)  before being reversed (‘back to front’).

Down

4d Rest dithering around, one heads north making way across border (6)
Not the easiest clue to parse, the cryptic reading being something like “with an anagram (‘dithering’) of REST outside (‘around’), a single-letter word for ‘one’ goes in front of (‘heads’) the usual abbreviation for ‘north'”. The ‘way’ is a narrow outside passage between Scottish houses.

5d Derelict, touching failure (6)
The wordplay is a charade of that ubiquitous bit of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’ (ie ‘touching’) and a four-letter word for a failure of the sort often predicted on Juke Box Jury. The required meaning of the definition ‘derelict’ is ‘neglectful of duty’, which is shown by Chambers as ‘chiefly N Am’ – I’ve certainly never seen it used in that sense on this side of the pond.

6d Oriental porcelain I found by the sea, timeless (5)
The letter I (from the clue) is followed by an eight-letter word meaning ‘found by the sea’ from which the consecutive letters TIME have been omitted (‘timeless’).

8d Certain categories? Lot once accepted (4)
A quick look at ‘lot’ in Chambers will reveal the required ‘historical’ synonym, to be followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘accepted’.

10d Affluent rulers, smart, left court rolling within (10)
The answer here is not the plural which one could be tempted to write in without fully parsing the clue, but a collective term formed by by putting the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ and an anagram ‘rolling’ of COURT within a four-letter word meaning ‘fast’ or ‘smart’.

11d Radical in medley creating super record (10)
A four-letter word for a root (‘radical’) is put inside a word for a medley, usually encountered as a verb describing what one might do at a party. The answer is hyphenated 4-6 and describes the sort of record introduced in the 1970s which includes not just two tracks, but additional instrumental versions or, more recently, remixes thereof.

20d Pacific islander unchanged after being brought up (7)
Again, there is no wordplay to speak of, simply an indication that if the answer were to be reversed (‘brought up’) it would remain the same, ie it is a palindrome.

21d Better-looking woman’s one captivated after James turns up? (7)
A rather hippopotamian wordplay has the Roman numeral representing ‘one’ being contained (‘captivated’) by a possessive pronoun meaning “[that] woman’s”, this combination following a reversal (‘turned up’) of the first name of a famous comedy actor with the surname James (ie ‘James…?’). The first bit would only really work if the three-letter word meant ‘woman’ rather than “woman’s”, since “woman’s one captivated” could then translate to ‘woman has one captivated’; as it stands, one has to infer a comma after “woman’s”.

23d Évian added to wine? It damages hock (6)
A three-letter term for a resort such as Évian is followed by a word for wine (which might be heard there). This is a nice clue, although I don’t like the gap between ‘Évian’, and the question mark which indicates that it is a definition by example; I would have preferred ‘Évian perhaps added to wine?’ or similar.

24d Cadogan maybe, earl wearing ’Arry’s topper uptilted (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘earl’ is contained by (‘wearing’) a reversal (‘uptilted’) of a (3,3) term for a ‘topper’ which has suffered aitch-dropping such as might ‘appen at the ‘ands of a cockney (ie “Arry’s”). A particular form of the item in question is termed a ‘Cadogan’, as it was copied from a Chinese porcelain wine dispenser in the collection of Lord Cadogan. It has no lid, and was filled upside down through a tube running from the base into the upper part of the interior, which allowed it to be turned the right way up without any escape of liquid. Despite the function implied by the name, the near-impossibility of effectively cleaning the things means that they were probably only ever used for holding the hot water used for making other drinks.

28d Explanation of Latin text (section in course) (5)
A little care is required here if you’ve got all the checkers, although the answer that might spring to mind doesn’t satisfy the definition or the wordplay, the latter involving the usual abbreviation for ‘section’ being contained by a word for a course or passage, although nowadays usually the cost of same.

29d Dug round in dock (4)
The round letter of the alphabet is contained by a word meaning, among other things, ‘[to] dock’ or ‘[to] cut (hair) square across’, producing an answer defined by dug² in Chambers.

(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 2,693 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

I thought this was far from easy. The clues for the two entries on the top row were straightforward, but plenty of others were not. After last week’s courtesans we have another, rather less elegant, pair of filles de joie, but at least one of the indications has nothing to do with the oldest profession.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 23a, “Swarm maybe circling island that’s most local”. There are two points to make regarding this clue, where NEST (‘swarm maybe’) containing (‘circling’) I (‘island’) produces NEIST. The first is that although the Chambers entry for ‘nest’ explicitly mentions a swarm, it is as an example – ‘the occupants of a nest, eg a brood, a swarm, a gang, etc’. Their relationship is not therefore symmetric, so whilst a nest could indicate a swarm, a swarm cannot be used on its own to indicate a nest, hence Azed has correctly added a ‘by example’ indicator,  ‘maybe’. The second point relates to the definition – the solution is shown by Chambers as being either a dialectal form of ‘next’ or an obsolete dialectal form of ‘nighest’. The ‘most local’ here is surely directing us towards the former, and both words are required to indicate ‘nearest’, so there is no qualification of the definition. It is generally accepted that obsoletisms should always be flagged in some way, and it is unusual for Azed not to do so, which makes me wonder if he may have misread the entry in Chambers.

Across

13a Without involving iodine shield old joint (5)
The name given to the sacred shield of the ancient Romans, said to have fallen from heaven, and on the preservation of which the prosperity of the city was supposed to depend, has the chemical symbol for iodine removed (‘without involving iodine’) to produce an obsolete (‘old’) spelling of a familiar joint.

14a Fool’s invention is holding together tip come adrift (9)
The letters IS (from the clue) are bookending (‘holding together’) an anagram (‘adrift’) of TIP COME. Rather differently to 23a (see above), although the definition doesn’t explicitly suggest that the word is a Shakespearean one-off, I think there is sufficient implication in there. As the Fool in Twelfth Night has it (interpretations on a postcard, please):

I did ????????? thy gratillity, for Malvolio’s nose is no whipstock, my lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses.

15a Such as Derrick making contribution to horological repairs? (7)
A seven-letter chunk of a (5,7) term for ‘[the making of] horological repairs’ provides a term for the people following in the professional footsteps of Thomas Derrick. a famous executioner of the early seventeenth century. It wasn’t a job for which there were typically many applicants, since reprisals from the friends and families of one’s victims were only too likely. Derrick was pardoned of his own crime by the Earl of Essex on condition that he took the job at Tyburn; during his career, he despatched more than 3,000 individuals, amongst whom, somewhat ironically, was the Earl of Essex. He gave his name originally to a type of tackle used on the mizzen-mast of a ship, and subsequently to several other similar contrivances, such as the structure which supports the drilling equipment over an oil well. The answer, in the required sense, is given by Chambers as both Scottish and obsolete; the obsoleteness is covered by the fact that Derrick and his like operated in the distant past, although being Scottish wasn’t (as far as I know) a requirement for his role.

21a Old Dobbin with a touch of tussis? Vet may prescribe this (6)
A five-letter word for a horse, found in 17th/18th century poetry but now only in regional use, is followed by the first letter (‘a touch of’) TUSSIS, forming a word which will be familiar to regular purchasers of paracetamol in an easy-to-swallow form.

22a One third of eglise its vicar assured (6)
Two consecutive letters from (ie ‘one third of’) EGLISE are followed by the term for a parish priest in the country with which you would associate an eglise (ie ‘its vicar’).

25a Place to set a trap – gunners (especially Scots) endure (7)
The ‘gunners’ deliver a familiar two-letter abbreviation, while the rest of the wordplay leads to a verb meaning ‘to endure’ shown by Chambers as ‘chiefly Scot’, hence the qualification. Chambers has the solution as a single word, although the OED has it hyphenated, 3-4. I think that the definition is rather vague, and would have benefited from a question mark or a ‘perhaps’.

28a One puffing away on a last bit of bowl, fragrant stuff (9)
The ‘one puffing away’ could be greeting the arrival of the haggis at a Burns supper; he or she is followed by ON A (from the clue) and the last letter (‘bit’) of BOWL.

29a Club for golfers in Argentine? (5, 3 words)
The two letters which are associated with perhaps the world’s most famous golf club when joined together produce the IVR code for Argentina.

30a Small amount of money, very small, last in purse (4)
The first element provided by the wordplay would perhaps be better indicated by ‘very small, small’, as it is the three-letter abbreviation of a ten-letter word meaning ‘very small’. The second element is the last [letter] in PURSE.

33a To build on, lop off stone strip (6)
Be careful here if you haven’t already got 16d – two words differing by one letter fit the definition, but only one satisfies the wordplay, where a seven-letter word meaning ‘to build on’ with the consecutive letters LOP omitted (‘lop off’) is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘stone’.

Down

1d I.e.Hyman’s lingo, tortured? I moan this maybe (8)
A composite anagram &lit, where the letters of IE HYMANS LINGO can be rearranged (‘tortured’) to produce I MOAN and the solution. The whole clue stands as an indication of the solution, ‘Hyman’ being a name of Yiddish origin.

3d Left municipality on the way up, far from critical (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘left’ is followed by a reversal (‘on the way up’) of a familiar word for a municipality. The definition might seem a bit strange, but in the context in which the solution is normally used ‘critical’ is, if not its polar opposite, at least a radically different alternative.

5d Edible lichen, mature, used to stuff three cod cooked (12, 3 words)
The four-letter word which is used to ‘stuff’ an anagram (‘cooked’) of THREE COD might describe a lump of brie which has achieved seniority. The solution is French, divided 5,2,5, and even in that language doesn’t sound awfully appetising.

6d Lives in wretched place, celebrated, embittered (12)
A two-letter word for ‘lives’ is put inside a three-letter word for a wretched place, often associated with vice or thieves, and the combination is followed by a word meaning ‘celebrated [in song]’ or ‘intoned rhythmically’.

8d Conveyance, half to do with the kitchen, we’ll collect in the vestibule (7)
Plenty of misdirection going on here – the ‘conveyance’ relates not to transport but ancient English law, while the vestibule is in the general region of the stirrup and the anvil. The second part of the wordplay is probably the most accessible part of the clue, involving an eight-letter word meaning ‘to do with the kitchen’ from which half (the latter half, as it turns out) has been lost.

9d Emerges as is not seen in form of isosceles (7)
I initially thought that it would be SO (‘as’) which would be removed from an anagram (‘form’) of ISOSCELES, but in fact the bit that must go is IS, which isn’t quite what the clue says.

10d Pip displaying depression when book opens (4)
Another word for a rather nasty disease (see pip⁵ in Chambers) which when preceded by the usual abbreviation for ‘book’ (ie ‘when book opens’) would produce a five-letter term for depression.

16d Part of kitchen furniture maybe displaying slipper (8)
A slightly whimsical  (3,5) phrase describing somewhere that you might place particular items of kitchenalia leads to a variant spelling of the term for a slipper having its origins in the French language.

17d As in Rome when going round street diverted à l’outrance conveys what’s this? (8)
The two-letter Latin word for ‘as’ containing (‘going round’) an anagram (‘diverted’) of STREET produces a word which is roughly suggested by the definition.

19d People will accept a tax rising with time – it’s within scale (7)
A three-letter word for ‘people’ contains (‘will accept’) a reversal (‘rising’) of a three-letter word for a tax, with the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ bringing up the rear. Unfortunately, ‘will accept’ only works grammatically if that single-letter is attached to the tax, not the combination of the people and the tax – in order to legitimately indicate the arrangement required here, it would either need to be ‘accepting’  or the words would need to be reordered as ‘People with time will accept a tax rising’.

26d What covers ’eifer in compound? (5)
A (2,4) phrase which describes what covers a heifer must have the aitch dropped from the the second word (analagously to “‘eifer”) in order to produce the answer. Nice clue.

27d West Indian is hanging around for boundary (5)
A double definition clue where the ‘boundary’ goes right back to Roman times but the West Indian slang term meaning ‘loiters’ or ‘hangs about’ is a relatively recent addition to Chambers.

28d No cons here giving cheers? It’s banned (4)
A six-letter salutation uttered during the drinking of toasts has the consecutive letters IT remove (“it’s banned”).

(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 2,692 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I found the difficulty of this one hard to assess – there were quite a few easy clues (including three hiddens), but also a couple of distinctly tricky ones; overall, I felt it was probably around the middle of the spectrum. Once again, there was a lady of easy virtue on show, this one making not one but two appearances.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 21d, “Focused briefly on poem? Wrong way round, I admit (7)”. A four-letter abbreviation and the reversal (‘wrong way round’) of a three-letter word for a poem combine to produce the answer, the definition being ‘I admit’ (a term used in logical disputation). But the first part of the wordplay requires ‘Focused briefly’ to deliver CONC, and the question is how it can do that. A synonym given by Chambers for ‘focus’ is ‘concentrate’, and ‘conc’ is given as an abbreviation for ‘concentrated’. All good, then? Not really – the problem is that ‘conc’ is used specifically in chemistry to describe the strength of solutions, as in eg ‘nitric acid (conc)’ (as opposed to the ‘dil’ variety, somewhat less of a health hazard). What we have here is an example of failed transitivity (just because a=b and b=c, a doesn’t necessarily equal c), something that setters need to be very wary of. Personally, where an abbreviation has no life of its own (eg ‘conc’ or ‘sch’, rather than LP or PE, which in practice are quasi-nouns), I wouldn’t indicate it using anything other than the expanded form given in Chambers, but if you choose to stretch things  it is essential that the meaning is preserved, eg ‘largely strong’ for CONC and ‘small educational establishment’ for SCH.

Across

11a Old fool I tear apart blocking means of escape (8)
The letter I (from the clue) and a three-letter word for ‘tear apart’ are inserted into (‘blocking’) a word which originally described a gap in a wall, through which you could look and, if moved so to do by what you saw, fire missiles; it is invariably these days followed by ‘hole’ and typically describes a defect in a law or contract which, figuratively speaking, provides a means of escape.

15a Work not fair? Almost last bit for serving woman (4)
The word WORK (from the clue) is deprived of two separate letters which together mean ‘fair’ or ‘satisfactory’ and is followed by a word meaning ‘last bit’ missing its final letter (‘almost’). The definition is slightly oblique.

16a Composition, very funny one rendered back to front (4)
A four-letter word for a very funny person has its last letter moved to the start. I can’t help feeling that ‘rendered back to front’ suggests a reversal; ‘back rendered to front’ would be closer to describing what is required here.

19a Stations mostly crucial when moving about in force (9, 2 words)
An anagram (‘when moving about’) of CRUCIAL without its last letter (‘mostly’) is contained by a three-letter word, taken directly from Latin, for ‘force’, producing a (3,6) answer which relates to the stations of the Cross.

29a Curly, very active, perverse, neglecting ward (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘active’ is followed by an archaic (not indicated) seven-letter word meaning ‘perverse’ from which the consecutive letters WARD have been removed (‘neglecting ward’). The Happy Mondays would describe the solution as less curly, more kinky.

31a He’s thrown off detective returning for sordid gain (5)
The first name of a famous fictional detective has the letters HE stripped from its outside (“he’s thrown off”) before being reversed (‘returning’), the result being something that could be distinctly filthy.

34a Tenors abandoned practice opening words set to music (8)
An obsolete (‘abandoned’) three-letter word for ‘practice’ or ‘operation’ – a barred puzzle ‘regular’ which differs by one letter from a familiar synonym – is inserted into (‘opening’) the five-letter plural of a term meaning ‘words set to music’, or ‘a short passage from the Scriptures’.

35a What Spaniards may dance to, afternoon after Whit? (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘afternoon’ follows a word for a whit (note the deceptive introduction of a capital letter in the clue, something which is deemed acceptable if not highly desirable), often associated with a tittle.

Down

3d Church stole, one with belt clothing artist (7)
The ‘one with belt’ containing  (‘clothing’) the two letters which often equate to ‘artist’ in cryptic crosswords, was a famous hunter and a model of Ford car (originally, and slightly confusingly, codenamed ‘Apollo’).

5d Poetic trifle, unfashionable, penned by e.g. Franciscan (6)
A three-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘unfashionable’ is contained by the Italian word for a brother or friar. The spelling of the answer is given by Chambers as ‘Shakespearean’, hence the ‘poetic’.

7d Public upset when urn is spilt (5)
An eight-letter word meaning ‘[to] upset’ is deprived of the consecutive letters URN (‘when urn is spilt’). I originally misread ‘spilt’ as ‘split’, which wouldn’t be valid as the clue stands but would work rather nicely in ‘Public upset when urn splits’.

8d Pink minerals, each half overturned (4)
A familiar four-letter word for naturally-occurring mineral aggregates has each pair of letters reversed (‘each half overturned’).

12d One of those doing the rounds in Glasgow? Chambers an obligation (6)
Here Azed has craftily put ‘Chambers’ at the start of a sentence, thus disguising the fact that it refers to things that might be found under the bed rather than in a bookcase. When followed by the three-letter ‘obligation’, it produces a term which Chambers (the bookcase one) shows as ‘Scot and Aust informal’, but is, I think, in pretty widespread use these days.

18d Getting worse again, ’e’s losing colour after getting up (7)
A (2,5) phrase equating to “‘e’s losing colour” is reversed (‘after getting up’) to form the solution.

20d Songbird, one in process of catching fish? (6)
A double definition clue, the second one being mildly whimsical (strictly speaking, I think ‘landing’ would be more accurate than ‘catching’, but we know what he means).

24d Sensation concerning probable misprint in Shakespeare (6)
A four-letter word for a sensation in the ’emotion’ sense is followed by that ubiquitous piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’. The ‘probable misprint’ is an interesting one. The word appears in the Prologue of Troilus and Cressida, 

To Tenedos they come, / And the deepe-drawing Barke do there disgorge / Their warlike frautage: now on Dardan Plaines / The fresh and yet vnbruised Greekes do pitch
Their braue Pauillions. Priams six-gated City, / Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, / And Antenonidus with massie Staples
And corresponsiue and fulfilling Bolts / ?????? vp the Sonnes of Troy.

This has long been seen as a misprint for ‘sperre’ or ‘sperr’ (=’spar’, to close in), but the principle of lectio difficilior potior (“if there’s a tricky reading and an obvious one, the former is probably right”), when combined with the ‘up’ which follows the verb, suggests that the answer here may be what the Bard intended, suggesting as it does the rising expectancy of the defenders brought on by their own preparation.

26d Old Jack climbing inside half of volcano? He’ll hope it won’t (5)
An obsolete term for the jack in the game of post and pair is reversed (‘climbing’) within the first two letters of a famous four-letter volcano. The words ‘do this’ or the like need to be inferred at the end of the definition.

28d Arthritis in the chest? It may kill you (5)
A two-letter abbreviation for a particular form of arthritis is contained by a three-letter word which can mean ‘material, tools, instructions, assembled, esp in a container, for some specific purpose’ or ‘the container itself’, although ‘chest?’ strikes me as a bit of a stretch. The creature which forms the answer is shown by Chambers as ‘deadly’, so the definition is fair.

(definitions are underlined)