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 2,645 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

An entertaining puzzle, with some neat clues. I would have placed it slightly below the middle of the difficulty spectrum, but the SE corner just nudged the level up a tad.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 27a, “I’m bowed, in rags, hobbling around Australia (7)”. When writing a clue for a word like this, one might look it up in Chambers and decide that the definition is going to be ‘instrument’ (or even ‘musical instrument’). This is fine, but it leaves very little scope for misdirection. The addition of ‘played like a fiddle’ in the dictionary entry should start you thinking, though. What about “One’s bowed” or “I’m bowed”? In the surface reading you can then get right away from the musical context, such that the definition appears to suggest someone who is bent forward with age. Azed has done this very nicely here, but it’s not that difficult if you know what you are trying to achieve – starting with a definition that allows you to lead solvers gently up the garden path is the key.

Across

1a Money going into drink, leading to depression (4)
There are a lot of three-letter words for ‘drink’ into which the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘Money’ could be inserted, including names of specific beverages (eg RUM), nouns meaning ‘a drink’ (eg TOT), and verbs meaning ‘to drink’ (eg LAP); it is one of the last type which is required here.

4a Negotiate screed, penning answer (8)
The wordplay has a five-letter word for a screed or long written passage (as well as a region or area) containing (‘penning’) a three-letter abbreviation for ‘answer’.

10a Gouty old French leader admits grip failing finally (9)
The leader in question was President of France between 1995 and 2007; having previously described the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher and John Major as ‘Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism’, his own Gallic liberality clearly got the better of him, and in 2011 he was found guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public confidence. His surname contains (‘admits’) the word GRIP from which the last letter has been removed (‘failing finally’). My Ancient Greek O Level suggested to me that the resulting word had something to do with hands, and so it (a little surprisingly, since I had previously imagined that gout was specifically a ‘foot thing’) proved.

25a An old-fashioned carriage, line scrapped for bishop? (4)
The indefinite article is followed by a seven-letter alternative spelling of the name for ‘an old four-wheeled covered carriage, with a seat at the rear covered with a hood’ which must have the consecutive letters LINE removed (‘line scrapped’). The solution is what you would expect to see at the bottom of a letter from a particular Scottish bishop, not that I have ever received one myself.

30a Reel sailor’s to tighten with rope (5)
A tricky double definition clue, with neither of the meanings being familiar, I suspect, to your average land-lubber. ‘Fleet’ would have been another possibility, but not in a nautical sense.

32a Rats etc? See one of them I dealt with round old lair (8)
An ever-so-slightly indirect anagram, where the the letters RAT (‘one of them’) and I must be rearranged (‘dealt with’) around the usual abbreviation for ‘old’ and the sort of lair frequently encountered by crossword solvers.

33a Joe maybe disheartened as Mac’s well off (4)
I must confess that Joe’s surname didn’t immediately spring to mind. It forms something of a counterpoint to the protagonist in 19d, and once it has been deprived of its central letter (‘disheartened’) if yields a Scots word for ‘well off’.

Down

1d Stupid one left with bungled prep right away after school (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘left’ plus an anagram (‘bungled’) of PREP missing the single-letter abbreviation for ‘right’ follow the standard abbreviation for ‘school’.

3d Murphy that is discounted for seat (4)
An Anglo-Irish term for solanum tuberosum (‘Murphy’) has the usual abbreviation for ‘that is’ omitted (‘discounted’) to produce the solution. According to a 1972 edition of The Islander from Victoria, BC, 

We call them ‘spuds’. The Irish affectionately call them ‘??????s’ and they sometimes call mashed potatoes ‘poundies’.

4d Floor covering I’m lifting after so long (6)
A reversal (‘lifting’) of I’M follows an interjection meaning ‘goodbye’ (‘so long’) which originated in the nursery but passed into widespread (informal) use. It is also the name applied to Sir Richard Paget’s theory that language originated in an attempt to imitate the body’s gestures with the vocal organs. According to Wikipedia, Paget had a reputation as an ‘eccentric amateur’ scientist:

Sir Richard’s daughter, Pamela Paget (later Lady Glenconner), was often a subject of his experiments. Pamela’s nephew and Sir Richard’s grandson, Alexander Chancellor, wrote in his “Long Life” column in The Spectator that Pamela had broken her arm when Sir Richard encouraged her to throw herself backwards from the open platform of a London bus on Park Lane to demonstrate his theory that, due to air currents, one could fall horizontally from a bus travelling at a certain speed and land safely on the road. According to Lady Glenconner’s obituary in The Telegraph, Sir Richard had also filled his daughters’ ears with treacle (to simulate deafness) while testing his sign language system.

6d Drink, what teetotaller takes, giving up half? It may be painful for jogger (6)
As in 1a, we are looking for a three-letter ‘drink’, but here it is one of those tot-like nouns which must be followed by the six-letter word for a written promise to abstain from intoxicating liquor which has lost its second half (‘giving up half’).

7d Charm e’er denied a driver of pack animals (6)
The letter A (from the clue) and an eight-letter term for a driver of pack animals has the consecutive letters EER removed (“e’er denied”) in order to produce the solution.

8d Artist captivated by a Pacific climbing plant with bright blooms (9)
A very neat clue, where the usual two-letter abbreviation indicated by ‘artist’ is contained (‘captivated’) by a reversal (‘coming up’) of A (from the clue) and a six-letter word meaning ‘pacific’; the deceptive capitalization of a word, such as ‘pacific’ here, is generally considered acceptable, although setters try to avoid it where possible.

19d Trump (crucial) showing desire to catch up (7, 2 words)
The word ‘showing’ here simply links the definition to the wordplay, which comprises a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] desire’ (in an intransitive sense) and a reversal (‘up’) of a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] catch’. Azed clearly felt that ‘Trump’ alone was a little vague as the definition, given that we are looking for a specific trump which is a crucial element of the game in which it features.

22d State founder adorning flag (6)
The family name of the ‘state founder’ provided the first four letters of the name of one of the British North American colonies which he founded and which became one of the original thirteen states.

28d Wipe foredeck up (4)
The Chambers definition of foredeck, ‘the forepart of a deck or ship‘ (my italics), should help guide you to the plural noun which must be reversed (‘up’) to form the answer.

(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 2,644 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

This was a bit like the curate’s steak – tougher in some parts than others. Overall, I thought it probably earned a difficulty rating just a whisker above the middle of the range. I am very grateful to Roslyn for providing the scanned copy of the puzzle which enabled me to tackle it, as tradition demands, over breakfast.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 10d, “Entering here wronged fool gets redress (8)”. OK, hands up everybody who was expecting a solution that meant something like ‘remedy’ or ‘atonement’. I was, and I’m always on the lookout for deceptive definitions. This clue illustrates one of the key areas where setters can entirely legitimately misdirect solvers, by using an ambiguous definition where the context established by the surface reading leads the solver straight up the garden path before the wordplay, and perhaps the checked letters, lead to the penny dropping. When setting a clue, one of the first things I look for is a synonym which offers the potential to mislead – if you are writing a clue for BETEL, a definition like “leaf that’s chewed” doesn’t leave much scope for trickery, but a little more investigation reveals that ‘pan’ is a synonym, and suddenly it becomes easier to mislead than not! ‘Empty bain-marie, check round pan (5)’, perhaps.

Across

12a Head of US college accepts university process for recycling fuel? (5)
A US college slang term for the president of such an institution contains the usual one-letter abbreviation for ‘university’. The answer is a word made up from the first letters of the two chemical elements involved plus  bits from ‘reduction’  and ‘extraction’, I am reliably informed. Well, actually I got the information from Wikipedia, so it could be that the alternative explanation given by Chambers is correct.

15a Sandy’s extended shortened speech? (4)
An eight-letter word for ‘speech’ loses its last four letters (‘shortened’) to produce a Scots form (hence the “Sandy’s”) of a word meaning ‘extended’.

16a Wild canine about to die, put back in wretched quarters (7)
A five-letter wild dog indigenous to the Deccan plateau of India is put around (‘about’) a reversal (‘put back’) of a word meaning, inter alia, ‘to die’. I did refer to Chambers to confirm the answer, but frankly it just sounds so right that I probably needn’t have bothered.

20a One born to serve couple finding new position in Aussie tavern (5)
A familiar word which in Australia can, according to Chambers, be applied to a public house has a consecutive pair of characters (‘couple’) shifted to a different place (‘finding new position’).

23a Songbird, something heard circling over high place (8)
A five-letter word for ‘something heard’ is seen here surrounding (‘circling’) the usual cricketing abbreviation for ‘over’ and a two-letter adverb meaning ‘[on] high’. The three-letter verb from which the noun derives can certainly (and, in crosswords, often does) mean ‘to hear’, but is the noun actually ‘something heard’. The jury, as one might say, is still out.

26a SA antelope, one in circular path, tailless (5)
The Roman numeral for ‘one’ is contained by a term for the sort of circular path that might be followed by a planet, lacking its last letter (‘tailless’).

32a Fungus displayed by pimples, on inside (7)
You’ll probably need most of the checked letters in this unless you know either the fungus or the five-letter plural of a six-letter word for a whitish pimple inside which the letters ON (from the clue) are positioned.

34a Fool in front of painting no longer puts blobs on? (7)
A three-letter fool who makes regular cruciverbal appearances is followed by a plural noun that Chambers gives as meaning paints or painting of a particular kind. The sense of ‘sully’ indicated by the definition involves a catachrestic usage which seems to be traceable to Benjamin Disraeli and specifically his novel Sibyl:

“Yes, I mourn over them,” said Sybil, “the deep convictions that made me look forward to the cloister as my home. Is it that the world has ??????ed my soul?”

Down

1d Amphibians born mostly abroad in half of great river (10)
The usual abbreviation for ‘born’ and an anagram (‘abroad’) of MOSTLY are contained by the first three letters (‘half’) of a great river and a dispatcher of many white vans.

4d/5d Stake on gee-gee coming in behindhand (but not last), … (6) / … One such, last in race, having pound on (5)
The first of these linked clues has a shortened (it couldn’t really be any shorter) form of ‘on’ plus the letters represented by ‘gee-gee’ coming into a word for ‘behindhand’ from which the last letter has been omitted (‘but not last’). The second has the final letter (‘last’) of ‘race’ being followed by an informal term for a pound, and the ‘one such’ refers back to the ‘gee-gee’. It’s interesting to see that Azed has used ‘on’ here to indicate that the second element follows the first; I believe that ‘on’ can legitimately be used to indicate any of the four possible juxtapositions (before/after in across/down clues), but I also feel that in down clues its use to indicate ‘B following A’ (as here) should be avoided since it is counterintuitive.

6d What’s the point of upending earth, scraping it for food? (8)
This is probably the hardest clue in the puzzle to parse. The answer to the question “What’s…?” is: a three-letter word for a headland (‘the point’), a single-letter shortened form of the word ‘of’ (‘of’), and a reversal (‘upending’) of a four-letter word for the den of a wild animal (‘earth’). The ‘it’ in the definition references the ‘earth’ in the wordplay.

8d Bum having to be persistent when denied work (4)
A two-word (2,4)  phrase meaning ‘to be persistent’ has the usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘work’ removed (‘denied work’), yielding the sort of bum that originated in the US but can now be seen elsewhere.

9d Delicacy, bit left uneaten with section removed from goose’s head (7)
A three-letter ‘bit left uneaten’ combines with the name formerly given (somewhat confusingly) not to a goose but a gannet, from which the letter S at the beginning has been lost (‘section removed from…head’).

14d Literal translator came across early female playwright’s fragment of tragedy (10)
A three-letter word meaning ‘came across’ is followed by the possessive form of the first name of a Restoration playwright whose surname was Bern (not the first time Azed has featured her) and the first letter (‘fragment’) of ‘tragedy’. There is a similar word which would fit with the checkers but which satisfies neither the wordplay nor the definition.

21d Scot taking legal possession I’ll have to think about (7)
The letter I (from the clue) has a word meaning ‘to think’ outside (‘about’). The solution sounds like the sort of word that might be found in the works of Sir Walter, and so it proves.

24d What may be full of chocolates, some milk that one’s opened (6)
The five-letter term for ‘some milk’ calls to mind all those TV adverts from the Milk Marketing Board, in particular the ones with the catchphrase ‘Drinka ????? milka day’. Fresh milk also ‘had a lotta bottle’, and housewives were asked the telling question “Is your man getting enough?” They weren’t responsible for the milk-stealing Humphreys though – that was Unigate. A single-letter word for ‘one’ has ‘opened’ (ie split) the carton.

25d Charged particle ‒ what’s done when opening current is switched? (6)
A six-letter term for something that’s done (or something that film directors are supposed to shout at the beginning of a ‘take’) has its first two letters, which form the abbreviation for a particular type of electric current, exchanged (‘when opening current is switched’).

(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 2,643 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

There was nothing particularly tricky about this 13×11 puzzle, but I can’t say that my passage through it was akin to that of a hot knife through butter, so I reckon it was somewhere close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. Plenty of deviousness and deception, as we expect from Azed, but none of those wordplays with mildly questionable punctuation which have popped up on a few occasions recently.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 29d, “‘Sunny’ fellow enraptured with removal of bottom half (shed)”. Nothing too difficult about this clue, an eight-letter word for ‘enraptured’ having its bottom half removed to produce a man’s name. There are two points of interest, though, both relating to Azed giving the solver a little extra help. There was no need for him to include the parenthesised ‘shed’, but by doing so he tells us what that ‘bottom half’ is. More importantly, the clue illustrates a point on which Azed and I are in firm agreement – it is simply not sufficient to use ‘man’, ‘girl’ etc to indicate a random forename of the setter’s choice, any more than ‘food’ is an adequate indication of ‘tomato’ or ‘krill’. Azed generally either uses definitions by example, so here he might have written ‘Shankar, perhaps’, or else he qualifies the indication by reference to the ‘Some first names’ section of Chambers, so ‘Dulcie’ might be ‘sweet girl’ and the fellow we’re looking for here is ‘sunny’.

Across

1a Once overworked crown’s somehow leaving king in a cleft (9)
I first encountered this word (in fact a variant spelling thereof) in an Azed a few years ago, and it’s one that’s hard to forget. In order to produce it, an anagram (‘somehow’) of CROWNS without (‘leaving’) the monarchical abbreviation for ‘king’ must be put inside a four-letter word for a cleft or a pronged instrument.

13a Poet’s come down a glen grasping start of idyll (6)
A (from the clue) and a four-letter word for a glen are put around the first letter (‘start’) of ‘idyll’, the result being a Spenserian verb meaning ‘to come down’ or ‘to alight’. This is not Edmund’s sole contribution to the puzzle…

18a Pub atmosphere feeding stale crusts to hard-working creatures (9)
…as witnessed by this clue, where the solution results from ‘feeding’ (introducing) a five-letter word for ‘crusts’ shown by Chambers as ‘Spenser, etc’ (hence ‘stale’) to a word for the sort of creatures who are axiomatically busy.

22a I’m backing out of jogs yielding ruptures (5)
A reversal (‘backing’) of IM (from the clue) is omitted from (‘out of’) a seven-letter word that  isn’t actually synonymous with ‘jogs’ (’causes to remember’ is probably about as close as you could get), but which won’t, I think, give solvers too many problems.

23a Raw recruit returned to the French trenches (one of them) (5)
The ‘raw recruit’ whose three letters must be reversed (‘returned’) and put in front of the French for ‘to the’ will be more familiar to most solvers as a lout (although originally one was simply a boy or youth).

24a Endless sleep, drams drunk deep? (9)
An anagram (‘drunk’) of SLEEP missing its last letter (‘endless’) and DRAMS produces an adjective which could perhaps mean ‘deep’ when applied specifically to sleep.

25a A particular bean soup (5)
A double definition clue which is likely to demand recourse to Chambers, the ‘particular’ bean being a coffee bean (Collins gives it as ‘any of various seeds or dried kernels, such as a coffee bean’), but (much) more commonly a succulent fruit. Regarding the second meaning, the OED suggests that it is a corruption seen only in combined forms and does not list it on its own.

28a Labiate, unusually rich, suggesting type of bean? (7)
A three-letter word for catmint (‘labiate’) is followed by an anagram (‘unusually’) of RICH; the definition is a tad fanciful, hence both the ‘suggesting’ and the question mark, given that the adjective which results cannot strictly speaking be used to describe a shape.

33a Precious stone, stone that is including a bit of tourmaline (9)
A six-letter word for a fruit-stone is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘that is’ containing the first letter (‘a bit of’) ‘tourmaline’. I’m glad that the clue didn’t read ‘Precious stone, one that is…’ since the second stone is not of the precious kind. ‘Stone, one that is…’ would have been ok, but the definition would then have been rather vague.

Down

1d Unreasonable old rumpus in remote department (7)
A three-letter word for a rumpus is contained by another three-letter word meaning ‘distant’, the combination being followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘department’. The answer is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’, hence the ‘old’.

3d Main character in epic plays, not the first (4)
A five-letter word for plays (of the theatrical sort) collectively has its first letter removed (‘not the first’). The character appears in a Sanskrit epic, traditionally ascribed to the Maharishi Valmiki, which narrates the life of Sita, the Princess of Janakpur, and ????, a legendary prince of Ayodhya city in the kingdom of Kosala.

6d One caring for the sick to roll up with number during Passover feast (11)
A three-letter word for ‘roll’ (as film cameras might) is reversed (‘up’) and followed by a specific number expressed as three letters within (‘during’, not an insertion indicator that I like) a five-letter word for ‘the ceremonial meal and its rituals on the first night or first two nights of the Passover’. The solution is hyphenated 5-6.

9d Outlet for meal I call up in Maine (7)
Another hyphenated solution, 4-3 this time, produced by putting I (from the clue) and a reversal (‘up’) of a word meaning ‘[to] call [loudly]’ inside the standard abbreviation for ‘Maine’.

11d Feature of Ford westerns the old master located on centre of plain? (4)
A correspondent asked the other day what the term ‘&lit’ meant when applied to a clue. This is not an &lit as such, but could be viewed as what Ximenes called an ‘offshoot &lit’ and is sometimes termed a ‘partial &lit’, where the whole clue provides the indication of the answer but only part of it constitutes the wordplay. I haven’t underlined the wordplay part, which has an obsolete shortened form of ‘master’ being followed by the middle letter (‘centre’) of ‘plain’, but it could certainly be seen as part of the definition. Incidentally, I reckon that ‘Feature of Ford films’ would have been valid, since John Ford is remembered primarily for classics of that genre such as Stagecoach and The Searchers, but again Azed has gone out of his way to steer us in the right direction.

19d Blooming noise of e.g. US breakers with tide coming in (7)
A term for the tide (as in expressions such as ‘the ??? was in’) is contained by a four-letter word for the roar of the surf, shown by Chambers as ‘now US’, which appears in TS Eliot’s The Dry Salvages:

The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,
The distant ???? in the granite teeth.

20d Soft cloth one with money included in array (7)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and a three-letter slang term for money much valued by crossword setters are contained by a  three-letter word meaning ‘[to] array’ or ‘put in position’.

26d East-ender’s reputed to sink Scotch? (4)
The East-ender here is assumed to be a Cockney, and true to type he is dropping the aitch from a word meaning ‘reputed’, the solution being a Scots word for ‘[to] bury.’ I think the question mark is intended as a nod to those from north of the Border who would suggest (gently, I have no doubt) that Scotch and Scottish are nae the same thing at a’.

(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 2,642 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

The number of clues which I marked as being worthy of comment as I solved the puzzle suggested that it was perhaps just a little north of average difficulty, but as I wrote these notes I concluded that it was probably bang in the middle of the range. There was quite a high proportion of archaic or obsolete words, although as one expects with Azed it was possible to work them out from the less obscure aspects of the clues combined, where necessary, with the checked letters.

Clue Writers’ Corner: This month’s competition word is shown by Chambers as being both an adjective and an adverb, which means there is no risk of defining it as the wrong one! I expect to see a lot of anagrams among the successful entries, so be a little wary of the most obvious ones. There will also be plenty of &lits, with the adverbial sense of the word lending itself to being indicated by ‘thus’, ‘as’, how’ or ‘so’ – as illustrated by these clues from Messrs Manley, Dixon, Henderson and Young for SUBORDINATELY from comp 1,967:

As in ‘B-role’ duty possibly [anag &lit]

How you might see drone busily at work [anag &lit]

Conform readily (no buts) thus [anag &lit]

Yank used Tony Blair so? [anag &lit]

Note, though, that two of the three prize winners and many of the VHCs for that comp were not &lits, so normal wordplay + definition clues still have a good chance of success. A top-notch &lit will beat all comers, but a top-notch conventional clue is the next best thing.

Across

11a Exercise position, one of healing abandoned by Tory (5)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ is followed by an eight-letter word meaning ‘of healing’ from which the consecutive letters TORY have been lost (‘Tory abandoned’).

12a King with prince exhibiting austerity? (5)
The king takes the form of his monarchical abbreviation, while the prince owes his fame to Alexander Borodin and the opera bearing his name, the libretto for which Borodin adapted from the fourteenth/fifteenth century Russian epic The Tale of ????’s Campaign. At the time of his death in 1887 the opera was incomplete – it was finished off by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov and received its première in St. Petersburg in 1890.

16a Non-speaking film star portrayed as twit in press (6)
A three-letter ‘twit’ is contained by a verb meaning ‘to lean’ or ‘to press’; the star comes not from the age of silent movies, nor is he Harpo Marx, rather (at least in his first incarnation) the son of Red Brucie and Bright Bauble (both of Glamis).

23a Artist muses, what one might call a bit down in the mouth (6)
The usual abbreviation indicated by ‘artist’ and the number of Greek Muses combine to form a word which is a real horror to define – I think Azed has made a very good fist of it, but I’m less happy about ‘Muses’ having been deprived of its initial capital letter.

29a Foreign agent in committee with gallery confronting king (9)
Here we have a charade of a three-letter abbreviation, the five-letter name by which a gallery in Madrid is commonly known, and the same king who featured in 12a.

31a Large predator accounting for duck on Scottish island (5)
The valid uses of ‘on’ as a juxtaposition indicator seem to provoke a good deal of debate, but it is I think universally accepted that ‘A on B’ can indicate BA in an across clue and AB in a down clue. The island is to be found in the Firth of Clyde and the duck in cricket scorebooks.

32a Engraving maybe daughter posted in Scotland (6)
Since Chambers is the primary reference for the puzzle, this clue is fine (the solution being found in the Big Red Book under a headword ending in ‘ll’), although it really shouldn’t be. The engraving is named after the artificially produced form of iron occasionally used for printing illustrations, and the solution is a past tense which as far as I can determine appears just once, in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 24:

Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath ?????’?,
Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,
And perspective it is best painter’s art.

In modern English, this is usually rendered as ‘engraved’, so in reality the wordplay and the definition are just variations of the same word.

33a Judge taking amusement after retiring in private room (6)
A three-letter informal term, a shortening of a word for ‘pleasurable occupation of leisure time; an amusement or sport’, is reversed (‘after retiring’) in a word for a private room which will be no stranger to solvers.

Down

2d Tree moss from New England in its native environment (5)
A two-letter abbreviation is contained by another abbreviation, this one representing the ‘native environment’ not of the moss but of New England.

4d Root layers, twisted, old, with endless imbalance (6)
A three-letter obsolete word meaning ‘awry’ (‘twisted, old’) is followed by a word for ‘imbalance’ (something that a partisan or a bowl displays) from which the last letter has been omitted (‘endless’). That ‘twisted’ word is to be found in Chambers under an alternative form beginning with a ‘k’, where it is shown as being ‘Shakespearean’, although he spelt it ‘kamme’.

5d Grand family manager employs ten mostly in grand family historically (12)
A four-letter word for ’employs’ and the word TEN (‘from the clue’) missing its last letter (‘mostly’) are contained by the name of an English noble house, among the estates owned by which is ‘Brideshead‘, as seen in the 1981 television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel.

15d Novella that is distinguished by blue ribbon in shop (9)
The usual abbreviation for ‘that is’ and one of the same length for ‘teetotal’ are put inside a word for a shop. The ‘blue ribbon’ was a small strip worn by certain abstainers from alcoholic beverages, as a means of mutual recognition, and as a public indication of their principles. ‘To take the blue ribbon’ meant ‘to abstain from alcoholic drink’, and the ‘Blue Ribbon Army’ was the name given to an association of such Total Abstainers. Those last two words immediately make me think of Dr Jock McCannon, memorably played by Graham Crowden in the BBC’s A Very Peculiar Practice, but that will only mean something to those familiar with the programme.

19d Abstract pictures, daubed, central couple disposed of (6)
The word PICTURES has the two letters in the middle removed (‘central couple disposed of’) before being rearranged (‘daubed’). The wordplay does rather suggest that the rearrangement takes place before the loss of the central characters, but even if interpreted that way it can still arguably deliver the solution.

22d Mite unpacked present in course of Christmas, getting up (6)
The word ‘present’ is deprived of all but its first and last letters (‘unpacked’) before being put inside a reversal (‘getting up’) of a synonym for ‘Christmas’.

24d Fragment of ancient poetry’s measure, stirring (5)
At first glance I thought there might be two wordplays here, but in fact it’s just the one – the first letter (‘Fragment’) of ‘ancient’ being followed by a term for a division of a line of poetry (“poetry’s measure”).

26d Old swindler regarding set up (5)
That familiar piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’ and a word meaning ‘[to] set’ are reversed (‘up’), producing ‘a cant term for a Londoner who formerly bought coals of the country colliers at so much a sack, and made his chief profit by using smaller sacks, making pretence he was a country collier.’

27d No longer observe special rule book (4)
The standard single-character abbreviation for ‘special’ plus a word for a book of rules for determining the Church office for the day combine to form an archaic spelling of a familiar word meaning ‘[to] observe’.

(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 2,641 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

An entertaining puzzle that I felt was just a scintilla above average difficulty, with the parsing of several clues requiring a bit of thought.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clues 24a, “Parisian I love, or having left untrustworthy woman (4)”, and 33a, “Part of pre-history, not the first by-name (4)”. Both these clues involve subtractions, of OR from the ‘Parisian I love’ and of the first letter from the ‘by-name’, but it’s worth looking at the way in which the deletions are indicated. In the first instance, the comma gives us an expression of the form ‘X, Y removed’ – the intention here is clear, and solvers can be expected to infer the word ‘with’ following the comma. In the second instance, though, the equivalent expression is ‘not Y X’. This surely does not tell the solver to remove Y from X; a comma is needed after Y, whereupon ‘not [having] Y, X’ can justifiably be inferred. This second clue as written clearly instructs us to remove the first letter from the ‘Part of pre-history’, which makes it (mildly) unfair. When writing clues, one should try to ensure that the solver can reasonably be expected to interpret the wordplay in the intended way.

Across

11a Care for old poet creating effect for listeners (4)
The ‘effect’ for which a homophone is required is a verb meaning ‘to bring about or cause (harm, havoc, damage, etc)’, and the old poet is Mr Edmund Spenser, affectionately known to many setters, if not to his chums, as ‘Ed’.

13a Nut shell? Get nasty pain cutting coarser part (8)
An anagram (‘nasty’) of PAIN is contained by a word for the coarser part or refuse of anything, most commonly applied to the husks of grain removed from the flour, and the definition is slightly whimsical (hence the question mark).

15a Minimal boundary marker one removed (6)
One of those clues that is likely to involve the identification of the cart that is the definition before the wordplay horse. A nine-letter dialect word for a lump of rock marking a boundary has the consecutive letters ONE omitted (‘one removed’) in order to produce a much more familiar (to me, anyway) word meaning ‘minimal’.

21a Bat is on 50 when trapped by spin going back (7)
The usual abbreviation for ’50’ and the letters IS (from the clue) are contained (‘trapped’) by a word meaning ‘[to] spin’ which has been reversed (‘going back’). You can see how competition entrants tackled this word back in 2003.

23a Sword causing any wound with a touch piercing (7)
An anagram (‘wound’, as in ‘twisted’) of ANY has the letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] touch’, which evokes a simple children’s game, inserted (‘piercing’).

24a Parisian I love, or having left untrustworthy woman (4)
A French expression meaning ‘I love’ has the consecutive letters OR omitted (‘or having left’).

30a What may be applied to point that is insignificant in law? (5)
What Azed is telling us here is that placing the solution in front of (‘applied to’) the word POINT produces a term which will be familiar to seamsters, being ‘tapestry work using small stitches diagonal to the canvas threads.’

34a Stern of frigate below the water-line, one assumes – if it is (5)
The last letter (‘stern’) of ‘frigate’ is put inside the part of a ship used for cargo (so if it’s in there we can assume that it is below the water-line). I would have preferred ‘if it’s this’ as the definition, rather than ‘this’ being implied.

Down

3d Trinity to arrange university in term’s odd characters going up (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘to arrange’ or ‘to dress’ is followed the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘university’ and a reversal (‘going up’) of the odd characters from IN TERM.

5d Wine offered in popular bar before expansion (7)
The ‘popular bar’ first saw the light of day in 1932 in Slough (I am tempted to add ‘of all places’, but a nagging concern that some readers of this blog may live in, or have  a particular affection for, the town militates against so doing), while the ‘expansion’ is a botanical term for a leafy expansion running down a stem. The bar took its name from its inventor, who was also responsible in whole or part for Snickers, Milky Way, Maltesers and M&M’s, not to mention Uncle Ben’s Rice and Pedigree Petfoods. In an act of pure altruism, he introduced Peanut M&M’s in 1954, despite suffering from a lifelong allergy to peanuts.

6d Collection of 20 characters master is dominated by since turning up (4)
The standard single-letter abbreviation for ‘master’ and a word meaning ‘since’ (as in expressions like ‘he long since gave up smoking’) are reversed (‘turning up’), the result being an ancient alphabet of 20 characters, from ailm (A) to straif (Z), along with five supplementaries.

8d SI unit? Those lacking faith have no initial ardour for this (5)
A nine-letter collective term for people who have no religion has a word meaning ‘ardour’ removed from the start (‘no initial ardour’) to produce the SI unit of inductance named after the American physicist who discovered the phenomenon of self-inductance (which, despite rumours to the contrary, cannot damage your eyesight).

9d The lady’s restricted by precedence – I’ll be bound (7)
A three-letter pronoun for ‘that lady’ is contained (‘restricted’) by a four-letter word for ‘precedence’, such as an athlete might take in a race. The ‘I’ in “I’ll be” refers to the solution, but I don’t think it would go down well with most crossword editors.

17d Microphone (old) to stop function in fleapit (8)
A word that I don’t remember coming across before, constructed from a three-letter word for a (concealed) microphone, an obsolete (hence the ‘old’) word meaning ‘to stop’, and a three-letter word for ‘function’.

27d Driver taking look round zone (5)
A four-letter word for a ‘look’ or ‘air’ is put round the usual one-letter abbreviation for ‘zone’, while the driver will not be found in a car or a golf bag, being originally “a large sail formerly used at the aftermost part of a ship in fair weather, set ‘square’ (i.e. transverse to the ship’s length) on a yard at the end of the spanker-boom” and  now ‘applied to the spanker, a fore-and-aft sail at the same part of the ship; sometimes distinguished as a sail smaller than the spanker, but set on the same boom and gaff.’ So there.

29d Lizard we lost in searches (4)
The letters WE are lost from a six-letter word for ‘searches’ ( as in ‘their radar searches a wide area’).

31d Inch maybe was trifling largely, viewed from below (4)
A five-letter word meaning ‘was trifling’ or ‘trifled’ has its last letter removed (‘largely’) before being reversed ( ‘from below’) to give a word which probably covers a slightly narrower range than ‘inch’, hence the qualifying ‘maybe’ as it could thus be seen as a form of definition by example.

(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 2,640 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

I thought this one was of significantly above average difficulty – no particularly tough clues, perhaps, but quite a few that required teasing out.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 10d, “Be subjected to officer commanding rude men being drilled (9, 2 words)”. Nothing too tricky about this clue, the wordplay involving a two-letter abbreviation for Commanding Officer followed by an anagram of RUDE MEN, but the point of interest here is the definition. The answer is a phrasal verb which can only be used in a transitive sense, just like many others such as ‘get over’ – you have to get over something, you can’t just ‘get over’. It might at first glance appear that ‘be subjected’ would serve as an acceptable definition, but this cannot take an object – in order to adequately define the solution, ‘be subjected to‘ is required. There is a very easy test when you are setting puzzles, which involves substituting your proposed definition for the answer in a meaningful sentence. Is ‘gave preference’ a valid definition of ‘favoured’? Try replacing ‘favoured’ in “He favoured his younger son” with ‘gave preference’ and you will readily find out.

Across

2a Ultimate in rank assuming first place, a shocker (4)
The wordplay here requires the solver to move the last letter (‘ultimate’) of a (loose) synonym for ‘rank’ to the start (‘assuming first place’). You might think of ‘rank’ in this sense referring to a particular location, but Chambers confirms that it can also describe the vehicles that are waiting there.

12a Edible fish, maigre churning mud with rain (10)
A three-letter word for the maigre (a large Mediterranean food-fish), and also a place where you might get a drink, is followed by an anagram (‘churning’) of MUD and RAIN.

17a Like some windows, crumbled, one on inside (9)
Like me, you may well get this one from the definition rather than the wordplay, which has the Roman numeral for ‘one’ and ON (from the clue) inside a word meaning ‘crumbled’.

18a Piece of parchment, variable length? Old one (4)
The first letter (‘piece’) of ‘parchment’ plus a three-letter word for a variable measure of length (probably most often seen in the expression “give him an inch and he’ll take an ???”) produces an obsolete (hence the ‘old’) term for a roll of parchment (the ‘one’ referring back to the ‘piece of parchment’ in the wordplay).

23a Mother recalled a Spanish broom, for instance (6)
A five-letter word for ‘mother’, as used by ancient Romans and boys at public schools, is reversed (‘recalled’) and gets an A (from the clue) tacked on the end, yielding ‘a name for various desert switch-plants, either papilionaceous or caesalpiniaceous [fine words both], including Spanish broom.”

24a Like RNVR, open to attacks fended off (4)
A ten-letter word meaning ‘open to attacks’ has the consecutive letters FENDED removed (‘fended off’). The Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) is known as the ‘Wavy Navy’ on account of the rank stripes (rings) on officers sleeves being wavy rather than straight; the answer here is strictly speaking solely a heraldic term, but I think the definition is perfectly fair.

28a E. Anglian birds fiddle with wings over the Atlantic (7)
A charade of a four-letter word for a fiddle (of the dishonest kind) and a three-letter word from ‘across the Pond’ for a wing of a building which gives the overall structure a specific shape when viewed from above. The answer is a Shakespearean hapax legomenon, found in The Tempest, where Caliban says:

I’ll bring thee
To clustering filberts and sometimes I’ll get thee
Young ??????? from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?

It has been suggested that this is a Norfolk name for the bar-tailed godwit, although there appears to be little evidence to support this (and how, you might ask, would Shakespeare have known the term). It could supposedly also be a misprint for ‘staniel’, a kestrel. I would have thought that ‘sea-mell’ (a sea mew or a seagull) was an equally likely candidate, and at least one ‘translation’ of the play into modern English gives “I’ll catch seagulls for you on the rocks.”

31a Severe colic suffered in the trenches in places (6)
I got this one from the first of the two definitions, a complaint which I associate with a particular sort of water administered to infants in order to relieve its symptoms. It is also a dialect (hence the ‘local’) version of a word for a small ditch. The restorative water was invented in 1851 by William Woodward and initially marketed with the slogan “Granny told Mother and Mother told me.” Prior to the removal of alcohol (3.6%) from the recipe, Woodward’s maximum recommended dose of the stuff contained an alcohol content equivalent to five tots of whisky for an 80kg adult. It was only in 1992 that Britain mandated that alcohol be removed from the product, which I imagine gave boozy ankle-biters a cause to, er, complain.

Down

1d Contest among varied rose beds made flat in a way (12)
A four-letter informal word for a contest (only in more recent editions of Chambers, but a contraction that has been in common use for many years) is contained by an anagram (‘varied’) of ROSE BEDS, the solution being a botanical term meaning ‘flattened from front to back.’

3d Police officer that’s lost her leg (4)
A seven-letter slang term for a police officer (dating back to the nineteenth century) has the consecutive letters HER omitted (“that’s lost her”) in order to produce the leg.

7d Large salmon tavern served in country spot (7)
The usual three-letter cruciverbal synonym for ‘tavern’ is contained by a dialect word for a pimple (ie ‘country spot’), the result being a name for the king-salmon as well as the Californian, Columbian, or Chinook salmon of the North Pacific coast.

8d One interested in lumber once, grubby, but not if old (5)
The wordplay here involves a familiar seven-letter word meaning ‘grubby’ having an archaic form of ‘if’ removed (‘not if old’). The definition hinges on the archaic slang sense of ‘lumber’ (see lumber⁴ in Chambers), ‘pawn’, as in the shop with the balls outside…

9d Stale pud, still turning up, I swallowed (5)
…and the definition in this one refers to pud² in Chambers, a paw, fist or hand. A word meaning ‘still’ (or ‘yet’) is reversed (‘turning up’) around the letter I (‘I swallowed’), producing an archaic word for a fist. This clue is ambiguous, since that ‘I’ could potentially slot into the second or third position, thus making alternative spellings of this word, but to fit with the crossers it must go into position 2.

15d Tea-time treat – creating intense shudder for Spooner? (9)
Azed uses Spoonerisms sparingly, but here we have a small, heart-shaped (5-4) delicacy containing currants that the reverend gentleman might have turned into a sharp tremor.

21d See one former Persian ruler leaving university in his royal headgear? (7)
The letter of the alphabet with the name ‘see’ is followed by the Roman numeral for ‘one’ and the name of a ruler of Persia from which the usual single-character abbreviation for ‘university’ has been omitted (‘leaving university’). There were three of these chaps, but the most famous is the first of them, accorded the epithet ‘the Great’, who ruled the Persian empire from 522BC to 486BC. 

25d Outdated unit not fit for purpose in fuel (5)
 A two-letter abbreviation for ‘unserviceable’ (‘not fit for purpose’) is contained by a word for a fuel (or indeed various broadly similar fuels) in common use. Whether the unit is ‘outdated’ is perhaps open to question, but it does belong to the CGS (centimetre-gram-second) system, which has largely yielded to SI (the International System of Units), wherein the tesla fulfils a similar role.

(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 2,639 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A plain puzzle with a 13×11 grid which I would place pretty close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. A good variety of clues, and a word at 12d which those of us whose chemistry studies were confined to the previous millennium may have struggled with.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 7d, “Took part in boat race in sound course (4)”. When writing homophone and reversal clues, setters need to be careful that they are not ambiguous – “Animal caught naked” could lead to either BEAR or BARE. The solution is generally to place the homophone (or reversal) indicator at one end of the clue, so that it can only apply to the adjacent word(s), eg “Naked animal caught” can only be a clue for BARE. Here the homophone indicator, ‘in sound’, is in the middle, but since one of the words delivered by the clue is five letters long and the answer is only four letters there is no ambiguity.

Across

1a See a punch I swung, angry – my arm-ends are balled (13, 2 words)
The (8,5) solution comprises the letter of the alphabet named ‘see’, an anagram (‘swung’) of A PUNCH I, and a five-letter word meaning ‘angry’.

10a Re gland, see two adjacent parts transposed in a pig’s (8)
The letter A plus a seven-letter word for “pig’s” (or ‘of pigs’) has two adjacent letters swapped over (‘adjacent parts transposed’) to produce a word meaning ‘(of a gland) whose product is formed by the breakdown of part of its active cells’. The definition here may not be strictly accurate, but it’s good enough for me, particularly given that the word itself is something of a pig.

14a Aromatic rhizome left on dipping in dippy (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘left’ and an archaic two-letter form of ‘on’ are ‘dipping’ into a word which more commonly these days is used to mean ‘in senile dotage’, but can also have a more general sense of ‘dotty’.

15a Peanuts, singularly wretched pay (6, 2 words)
An anagram (‘wretched’) of the singular form of ‘peanuts’ produces a (4,2) phrasal verb which is found in Chambers under the entry for its first element.

17a Restore revenue in Polish city (7)
A charade of a four-letter word used when retracting a correction to printed text and a three-letter slang term for ‘money’ (‘revenue’ seems a little bit of a stretch) gives us the name applied to a particular Polish city up until 4 October 1945, so strictly speaking the definition should be something like ‘old Polish city’.

23a Salmon in small boat, heated, trimmed in the same way (4)
Three-letter words meaning ‘a small boat’ and ‘heated’ have the same closing letter removed (‘trimmed in the same way’).

29a Losing heart she goes after bloodless turns, passing (6)
The word ‘she’ without its central letter (‘losing heart’) goes after a reversal (‘turns’) of a word meaning ‘bloodless’, producing a noun which is more familiar as a verb. The grammar of the wordplay, specifically ‘goes after…turns’, is slightly questionable – ‘turning’ would be more satisfactory, but the surface reading would then make no sense at all.

31a Crowning vegetable to cut back (4)
A six-letter vegetable has the letters TO removed (‘to cut’) before being reversed (‘back’).

Down

1d American plant seen in two states briefly (6)
The two (American) states to be abbreviated are those where the Mamas & the Papas were dreaming and the lights went out for the Bee Gees. Incidentally, it seems that the relevant line from the song by the latter group was meant to suggest that everyone had gone to a ‘happening’ city in the state where the former outfit were based.

3d German dish, accompaniment for soup, not available? (5)
A seven-letter word for something that might be added to your soup has a two-letter word meaning ‘available’ (as soup might be in a café) removed (‘not available’).

4d What’ll sell takeaway (no starter) for dropout? (6)
OK, I admit that I looked up ‘hinese’, but that was a momentary aberration. The place that will provide a takeaway, and which loses its first letter (‘no starter’), is as quintessentially English as Joyce Grenfell and tiddlywinks.

12d Newcomer joining table turned up in vain taking in a point (9)
The wordplay here has a reversal (‘turned up’) of a (2,2) phrase meaning ‘in vain’ containing (‘taking in’) the letter A (from the clue) and a four-letter word for a headland or ‘point’. The table which the solution recently joined is the periodic table, its admission being formally ratified on 28 November 2016.

22d Water rising in channel sounded warning? (6)
The water that’s ‘rising’ (ie reversed) is the sort that might be passed rather than drunk (unless you’re Bear Grylls), and the channel is the sort that would belong to a river.

26d Couple finally changing places in sign of approval embrace (5)
I can’t help feeling that ‘sign of approval’ here should be ‘signs of approval’ or ‘signals approval’, but anyway the last two letters of the resulting word must be exchanged (‘couple finally changing places’) in order to produce the solution.

(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 2,638 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A pleasant solve, the difficulty seeming to me just a tad below average. The ‘possibly unfamiliar trade name’ is found at 19d, although it will not be unfamiliar to anyone who shares (or even exhibits a  fraction of) my enthusiasm for a particular type of food.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 7a, “Eric, maybe, not employed in Lidl emporium (4)”. Azed quite frequently, as here, bolts a second definition onto a normal clue. This clue would work perfectly well without the first two words, but he has chosen to add a reference to a member of the Monty Python team and the co-creator of The Rutles. Modern crossword editors are apt to reject this type of thing, as much as anything because of the space constraints increasingly constraining printed puzzles, so although such a clue adds a bit of variety and gives the solver additional direction towards the solution I would in general advise steering clear when setting for newspapers, although clues with an extra definition – or an extra wordplay – are absolutely fine when it comes to Azed competition entries..

Across

1a Drinks knocked back, including round, in early youth (8)
A four-letter word meaning ‘drinks [by licking up]’ is reversed (‘knocked back’) around (‘including’) a four-letter word for a round [thing]. The ‘early’ is there to qualify the definition ‘youth’, since the solution is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’.

11a Peasants skin a chicken, to be stuffed with sage finally (9)
A four-letter word meaning ‘skin’ (or ‘to cut down’) is followed by A (from the clue) and a three-letter word for a chicken, into which the last letter (‘finally’) of ‘sage’ has been ‘stuffed’.

12a Transfer a lot in computer’s memory for arts degree (4)
The solution here is both an abbreviation for a particular type of arts degree and a word which Chambers defines as “to transfer a large array of bits between different locations in a computer’s memory.” I spent many years working in IT without ever coming across this word, but that is probably no great surprise as it turns out to be the name of a bitmap graphics terminal developed at Bell Labs in 1982. At that time I was working on PDP-11  telex systems and knew little of graphics devices. Hands up all those who remember telexes. Well, you must at least remember fax machines. No? You’re having me on. Anyway, the name of this particular device was derived from the second syllable of the term for the bit-block transfer operation that was fundamental to the terminal’s graphics capability. I have seen it suggested that the verb dates back to the 1970s, so it may already have been in use when the device was named.

14a Contract closed after shock (7)
A two-letter word meaning ‘closed’ (as a door might be) follows a word for ‘to shock’ or ‘to horrify’.

15a This opens in composition…as in opera maybe? (4)
A composite anagram &lit, where the solution (‘this’) plus OPENS when rearranged (‘in composition’) can potentially produce (‘maybe’) AS IN OPERA. The whole clue represents the definition.

16a French tradespeople aroused ire opening large works (8)
An anagram (‘aroused’) of IRE is inserted into (‘opening’) a five-letters word for large works, particularly of the written or filmed sort.

26a Manure to touch up a bit of horticulture (4)
The three-letter word for ‘touch’ required here (the ‘up’ has been added purely to improve the surface reading) has six entries in Chambers, the most common probably being ‘pretentious odds and ends of little real value, eg in an antique shop’. The ‘bit’ of horticulture is simply the first letter of the word.

32a Occupants of reptile house, close together, shut up inside (9)
A five-letter verb meaning ‘to close together’, most commonly seen these days as a related seven-letter adjective and applied to ranks, has a four-letter word meaning ‘shut up’ or ‘enclosed’ inside.

Down

1d Music heralded our queen’s arrival – see special Arab coat (4)
A spot of general knowledge is needed here, the reference in the definition being to a brief but lively passage for oboes and strings from Handel’s 1749 oratorio Solomon that featured in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony at the point where James Bond (Daniel Craig) went to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The wordplay has the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘special’ being followed by the term for an outer garment made from a Syrian cloth of the same name.

4d Weakling, poorly raised, in endless poverty (6)
A three-letter word for ‘poorly’ is reversed (‘raised’) inside a four-letter word for poverty from which the last letter has been omitted (‘endless’).

5d It’s avoided in some diets, stuff with (unequal) parts switched (6)
A six-letter word meaning ‘[to] stuff’ has its last four letters exchanged with its first two, ie ‘with (unequal) parts switched’.

9d The French embracing love in Rome getting end away – they softened (8)
There’s a continental flavour to this clue, where a three-letter French word for ‘the’ is put around (’embracing’) the Italian (‘in Rome’) word for ‘nothing’ or ‘nothingness’ with its last letter removed (‘getting end away’). The past tense is used in the definition because the answer is shown by Chambers as not only ‘medical’ but also ‘archaic’.

18d Curved roof timbers, we her, forming a cross (4)
A homophone for a relatively uncommon six-letter word for curved timbers which, when deployed in pairs, support the roof of a particular type of house that should on no account be confused with the sort having an A as their third letter rather than a U.

19d Tea-time treat? It has middle of chocolate (double) coating on (4)
The wordplay here tells us that the solution (‘It’) involves two instances (‘double’) of the central character in (‘middle of’) the word ‘chocolate’ surrounding (‘coating’) that two-letter piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘on’ or ‘concerning’ familiar to all cruciverbalists.

24d Scottish institutes, after time belonging to that lot (6)
The five-letter word that follows the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ (‘after time’) is not an unfamiliar Scottish word that has the meaning of ‘institutes’ but rather a familiar word that is indicated by a meaning of ‘institutes’ known only to the Scots – this is a trick that Azed comes up with every so often, but I know from experience that crossword editors don’t like it (though I can’t see why, as it seems perfectly legitimate).

29d What may occupy base? Not much turns up (4)
A reversal (‘turns up’) of a (1,3) phrase meaning ‘not much’ or ‘very little’. It is left to the reader to take a view on the legitimacy of the definition.

(definitions are underlined)

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

Azed 2,637 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

First of all, let me wish all readers a very happy and healthy New Year, with plenty of good puzzles to enjoy.

This puzzle seemed to me to sit somewhere close to the middle of the spectrum, although I could probably be persuaded that it was marginally below average difficulty. It seemed to lack a little of the verve of some recent Azeds, but it was an enjoyable solve nonetheless.

Clue Writers’ Corner: This week sees a return to normal competition, the requirement being to provide a clue to the solution at 1d. Because this is a down entry, positioning devices such as ‘rising’, ‘above’ etc can be used, while those specific to across clues (eg ‘from the east’) cannot. Since the competition word is a noun, given by the OED as “One who is skilled in matters of eating”, it may of course be defined in clues by a noun or noun phrase (as in the asterisked definition), but other options are available. The word relates to a person, so pronouns such as ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘I’, ‘one’ and even ‘who’ are valid, for example ‘I know about food’ or “Who could help you with eating” – there are examples of this kind of definition in (among others) 12a, 21a and 30a here. Azed is also happy to allow clauses with an implied subject to be used – as he observed in the slip for comp 354,

“I’ve said before that an adjective is an inaccurate (because unfairly misleading) way of indicating a noun (and vice versa of course). I do accept however that a verb (in the appropriate person) can indicate a noun. ‘Barks and is man’s best friend’ defines DOG far more clearly than, say, ‘Furry and domesticated’.”

 So something along the lines of “Knows a lot about food” would be ok here.

Although I generally advise against ‘obvious’ anagrams for short answers, with words of this length there are clearly gong to be a lot of possibilities, including those that involve a letter or two being added or subtracted, and I would therefore expect to see a lot of anagrams featuring among the published entries. For the most recent competition requiring a normal clue for a twelve-letter competition word, BOTTLE-WASHER in 2,534, only three of the successful entries did not include an anagram of some sort. With such words, the non-anagram possibilities are often in fact more obvious than the ones which involve anagrams (eg the use of the first and the last five letters of this week’s competition word).

One other tip when writing &lit clues for words of this sort: the last letter selection indicator ‘term’ can prove extremely useful, as in this clue for AXMAN – “Term for Hendrix, penned by American, avoided by Clapton?” [(hendri)X in AM(eric)AN]. It can also be used to add a missing letter to anagram fodder whilst at the same time introducing the definition.

Across

12a One’s clumsy in company, breaking end off fine china (4)
The name of a Stoke-on-Trent pottery founded in 1770 and now part of the Portmeirion group loses its last letter (‘breaking end off’) to produce a slang term for someone who is socially inept. As the Tatler informed us in 1989,

 Like all closed societies Eton has developed its own language. If you are a ‘goggy’, ‘zoid’, ‘????’, ‘gunk’, or ‘Wendy’, you are a social misfit.

13a Late addition after stodge: nasty stomach ache (6)
The ‘stodge’ which is here followed by the two-letter abbreviation for something added to piece of writing is not a noun but a verb, meaning ‘to stuff with food’.

14a Upper class requiring gossip about inherited estate (5)
The complexity in this clue relates to the phrasing of the wordplay, which reads as though it might have been generated by a Sinclair Scientific calculator. The letter used by Alan Ross to represent ‘upper class’ requires a four-letter word for gossip to be [put] about [it].

15a Protective covering for old horse, one pulling light carriage (7)
A double-definition clue, with the ‘horse’ from the first definition (given by Chambers as ‘hist’, hence the ‘old’) being picked up by the ‘one’ in the second definition, which on the basis of the four-letter word for a  light carriage from which it is derived you might have expected to be a pony.

20a Tons included in half of tote, not wholly (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘tons’ is included in the first five letters (‘half’) of a ten-letter word for a system of pool betting invented in 1867 by the Catalan entrepreneur (and co-founder of the Moulin Rouge) Joseph Oller, which these days is probably most closely associated with the state-controlled French gaming operator responsible for all betting on horse races in that country.

22a Lyle’s partner showing his bit in putt at eighteen (4)
Even by Azed’s standards, this is a bit of an odd one – two definitions and a ‘hidden’ wordplay, but the second definition requires ‘his’ to refer to a Scottish person, ‘his bit’ then indicating a Scots word for a small portion. Is it reasonable to expect the solver to understand ‘Lyle’ for that purpose (though not for the benefit of the first definition) to be Scots golfer Sandy Lyle? Perhaps, but surely ‘his’ relates not to Lyle but to “Lyle’s partner”. Is it then reasonable to assume their Scottishness by association? Nah.

30a Exhausted fellow in rush: what’ll cab in Wellington charge? (6)
A three-letter word for an exhausted individual (who might well be limp) is contained by a three-letter ‘archaic or poetic’ word meaning ‘to hasten’.

Down

2d Head of SA clan maybe publishing firm answer (4)
The three initials of a publishing body first granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586 are followed by the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘answer’. The ‘maybe’ indicates that the resulting person might be the head of a South African clan – but might not be.

5d Cowboy’s charge? First for him, leading cavalier (7)
The ‘First for him’ indicates the initial letter of ‘Cowboy’, to be followed by a six-letter word for a knight, taken directly from the German language and shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’.

8d Consort of Queen Empress, maybe, champion of old (4)
The idea here is that the consort of a queen empress could be a king emperor, and those two words must be abbreviated to a single letter and three letters respectively. The clue could equally well have read ‘King Emperor, champion of old’.

10d Has forgotten king in layout with fellows in club (12)
The usual abbreviation for a king of the monarchical variety is contained by a four-letter term for ‘the layout of cards’, a word more familiar when followed by ‘en scène’, and the whole lot is followed by a seven-letter word for ‘fellows in [a] club’ (or ladies, but I see why Azed opted for the fellows here).

16d Heretic, a sailor imprisoned in punishment once (8)
The letter A (from the clue) and a three-letter “setters’ favourite” for ‘sailor’ are contained (‘imprisoned’) by an obsolete word for ‘punishment’ often indicated in puzzles by ‘long’.

24d Fond of sledging at the Gabba? Offhand after half-century (5
Those relatively unfamiliar with the vocabulary of cricket may not know that ‘sledging’ is the term applied to the making of remarks, light-hearted or otherwise, usually delivered to the batsman by a close fielder shortly before the bowler delivers the ball, and designed to put him off his stroke; the term is of Australian origin and derives from the phrase ‘as subtle as a sledge-hammer’, which it usually is. Here’s one of the wittier examples, addressed by Australia’s Merv Hughes to England’s Robin Smith:

“If you turn the bat over you’ll get the instructions mate.”

There are two recommended techniques for dealing with sledging – one is to ignore it, and the other is to give as good as you get, as in this dialogue between Australia’s Mark Waugh and England’s James Ormond:

Waugh: “What are you doing out here? There’s no way you’re good enough to play for England.”
Ormond: “Maybe not, but at least I’m the best player in my own family” [Mark’s brother being former Australian captain Steve Waugh]

25d Like Caesar, wretchedly tinged with gore, losing reign, undone? (5)
“Infamy, infamy” and all that…here we have a subtractive anagram, the solution being a rearrangement (‘wretchedly’) of the letters  in TINGED and GORE after losing the letters of REIGN in any order that the setter wants (‘undone’).

27d Outsize bust? It must be held in for gym! (4)
The ‘bust’ in this clue is a frolic or spree, particularly the sort which involves the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

29d Lute string – note position when it’s plucked (4)
A two-letter anglicized name of a note in sol-fa notation (the one what Julie Andrews calls herself) is followed by a four-letter word for a position or location from which the letters IT have been removed. 

(definitions are underlined)