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 2,617 ‘Jigsaw’

Difficulty rating: (5.5 / 10)

Note that the enumeration for 2 is incorrect – it should be (9)

The Jigsaw makes its fifteenth appearance overall and its sixth as a competition puzzle. Azed has generously given us the word lengths this time, albeit with one error. In the absence of relevant superpowers, quite a bit of blind solving is required before anything can be entered in the grid. Ideally here one would solve three of the four clues with nine-letter solutions, which would enable the grid-fill to begin. Sadly I didn’t have these, so I had to settle for all eight six-letter solutions and a couple of the ten-letter ones, which allowed me to make five entries with complete certainty. From there, progress became pretty straightforward. I’ll be interested to hear how other solvers rated the difficulty of this one taken as a whole.

Comments on selected clues are followed by the layout of the puzzle row by row and column by column for anyone who needs some extra help (or confirmation that they are on the right lines).

Setters’ Corner: For those who haven’t attempted to set a particular type of puzzle, it isn’t always obvious how hard (or otherwise) such a puzzle is to construct. With some varieties, such as Printer’s Devilry, the increased difficulty of solving is matched (or indeed exceeded) by increased difficulty of setting. The Jigsaw, however, requires minimal extra effort. You take a filled grid with a good mix of answer lengths, remove the numbers, and arrange the clues in alphabetical order of solution. You do need to check that there are no ambiguities (unlikely to occur with anything except four-letter words which differ by only one letter), and when writing the clues you should take into account the amount of blind solving which will be required – this is particularly relevant to the longer answers, several of which will be required in order to unlock the puzzle. Omitting the enumerations (answer lengths) is an option which will probably take the puzzle beyond the scope of some solvers but will please those that like something positively chewy to deal with. The considerations when setting a Carte Blanche are very similar.

1 Being directly juxtaposed, fixed A1 lino, trim within (10)
An anagram (‘fixed’) of AI LINO contains a word meaning ‘trim’ (in the ‘tidy’ sense).

4 Crone, sickly, given lead by bishop as guru (7)
The abbreviation for ‘bishop’ familiar to chess players ‘gives a lead to’ a three-letter word for a crone and and a three-letter word for sickly[-looking].

7 Extreme poverty making one submit to tonsure, one assumes? (8)
The subsidiary indication here involves a whimsical interpretation of the solution as a word meaning ‘to submit [someone] to tonsure’, which might similarly be imagined as ‘unlock’. Just to be clear, ‘making one’ is the link from the dictionary definition to the ‘alt definition’ (‘one’ being the solver), and ‘to submit’ is being used in the sense of ‘to subject’.

9 Cheer about what occurs regularly in amour contest (9)
A seven-letter word for ‘cheer’ is put outside (‘about’) a couple of letters ‘regularly’ selected from the word ‘amour’.

11 Tears strip off coxes going wrong way holding speed round island (10)
The word ‘way’ in this clue is superfluous, and a little confusing. An anagram (‘going wrong’) of COXES is containing (‘holding’) a synonym for ‘speed’ which itself contains the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘island’.

13 Intentionally disregarding small fish (4)
This is a craftily disguised double-definition clue, the first definition leading to a (2-2) solution.

15 King following dance, not active, a cumbersome fellow (4)
The king is the sort that might be associating with the bishop at 4, and he follows a four-letter dance more familiar in its 4-4 (if not 4/4) form, from which the usual abbreviation for ‘active’ has been removed.

18 Falconer’s charge, first in annual programme released (6)
A seven-letter word for a calendar which shows the whole year at a glance for scheduling purposes is deprived of its initial letter (‘first of…released’).

19 Feverfew we put in collected blossom (7)
The letters WE (from the clue) are put inside the five-letter past tense of a verb meaning ‘to collect blossom’ which rather than a ‘use by’ date has a ‘use only on’ date.

20 Cages for hawks or gulls (4)
Two relatively obscure definitions, but the second one happens to be the same as the noises typically associated with the birds in question.

21 Shopkeeper went bust, awful snag with end of trade admitted (9)
Slightly tricky to parse, the wordplay has an anagram (‘awful’) of the last letter (‘end’) of ‘trade’ plus SNAG admitted into an anagram (‘bust’) of WENT.

22 Once in the country, evidence of mirth is restricted in storm (9)
A four-letter dialect form of ‘once’ has something that is clear evidence of mirth ‘restricted’ within it. The wordplay would work better for me if either the comma or the word ‘is’ were omitted.

25 Scottish husky? It follows needs around (6)
The letters IT (from the clue) follow a reversal (‘around’) of a word meaning ‘needy’; the answer being a Scots word.

26 Rake’s unshod relaxing inside cabin (10)
A neat clue has an anagram (‘relaxing’) of UNSHOD inside a four-letter term for a rakehell.

27 Rock showing two features of golf course? (8)
The first feature would be found in a bunker (no, not another rake) and the second on the green.

28 Sea fish dries out, hurried inside (8)
An anagram (‘out’) of DRIES has a three-letter word meaning ‘hurried’ inside.

29 It indicates tatties below mash, awfu lacking in crust (4)
A wordplay which is more straightforward than it looks, a bit of ‘crust removal’ from the words separated by a comma being all that is required.

(definitions are underlined)

Click on a row/column to reveal the clues which relate to its entries.

Rows

Columns

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 2,616 Plain

Difficulty rating: (4 / 5)

We find Azed in a very mischievous mood today – he has taken a few liberties here and there, but the puzzle delivers plenty of entertainment. The grid fill is not simple, and fully parsing all the clues takes an extra effort that certainly places the puzzle in the ‘above average’ difficulty range. I originally assessed it as a ‘3’, but a reappraisal based on feedback received has led me to revise the rating upwards.. Since I can’t recall a harder plain puzzle in recent months, I think the amended grading is appropriate.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 22d, “Top of helmet I found in Crimea, battered, rear piece missing (6)”. The definition here is ‘top of helmet’, and the wordplay has the letter ‘I’ (from the clue) found inside an anagram (‘battered’) of CRIMEA without its last letter (‘rear piece missing’). Surely there’s not much more to say? Well, the point is that CRIMEA undergoes two cryptic manipulations, with the order of the indicators making it clear that the ‘battering’ should precede the ‘tailing’. This means, in effect, that we need to resolve the anagram as CIMERA and then remove the closing A; but nothing tells us to put the A at the end of the rearrangement. The problem could be very easily be fixed simply by changing the order of the words in the clue, ie “Top of helmet I found in Crimea, rear piece missing, battered”, or by explicitly identifying the letter to be removed, eg replacing ‘ rear piece missing’ with ‘before pulling out’. You could argue that the sequence of operations doesn’t really matter in this instance, but if the first manipulation had been a reversal then it certainly would, since the ‘rear’ would now be the front, and vice versa.

Across
7a What may be piping hot, making one curse? (4)
A three-letter ‘literary and poetic‘ term for a shepherd’s pipe (which would indeed be ‘piping’ if the shepherd were blowing into it) is followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘hot’. The use of ‘making one’ to link the wordplay and the definition (‘one’ is not part of the definition) is an Azed favourite, although it’s not universally popular among crossword editors.

10a Comic interlude, very old, filled with pulp mostly (10)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘very old’ (technically speaking, at least 100 years) containing (‘filled with’) a term for ‘pulp’ from which the last letter has been lost (‘mostly’). There are two similar options for the latter term – one has an A as its second letter while the other has a U; it’s the one with an A that is required.

12a ‘Hush’? That’s ‘mum’, put another way (5)
A two-letter interjection meaning ‘Hush!’ is followed by an anagram (‘put another way’) of MUM, with the whole clue standing as the definition of the answer, this therefore being an ‘&lit’ or ‘all-in-one’ clue. The relevant meaning of ‘hush’ in the definition is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic‘.

18a Head of Rugby no lad’s messed with? (6)
A very nice &lit, an anagram (‘messed with’) of the first letter (‘Head’) of ‘Rugby’ and NO LAD producing the surname of the educator and historian who was Head Master of Rugby School between 1828 and 1841. Perhaps the most famous schoolmaster of all (Principal Skinner notwithstanding) he single-handedly changed the face of English public school life in the space of a few years. He features heavily in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s Schooldays (aka Tom Brown at Rugby), which describes Rugby School in the 1830s when the Head Master was getting rid of the ‘Flashman’ culture and radically changing the curriculum. The playing of the game supposedly invented by William Webb Ellis at the same school in 1823 was also encouraged, albeit with rather less constraint on the numbers involved – when Queen Adelaide visited in 1839, she was able to watch the 75 members of School House taking on the 225 making up ‘The Rest’. His character in  Tom Brown’s Schooldays (probably more than the man himself) was a huge influence on the young Pierre de Coubertin, who, following a visit to Rugby School in 1883, made it his mission to introduce sport into the French educational system. This led on to the foundation of the International Olympic Committee and the establishment of the modern Olympic Games; the role in this played by the Head Master is commemorated by a plaque on Rugby School’s Doctor’s Wall, unveiled in 2009 by Lord Sebastian Coe.

24a Road sign needs to be this round start of excavation (9)
A third &lit in the space of eight clues. This time the answer is the indicator which would need to be applied to ROAD SIGN such that when it is put round the first letter (‘start’) of excavation it produces…the solution. I’m slightly surprised that Azed didn’t choose to italicize ‘this’ in order to give it the appropriate emphasis.

27a In which you’ll see more than one slope arms and get drilled (7)
A smooth surface reading cleverly disguises the cesura between wordplay and definition. The soundness of the wordplay depends on your view as to whether a sequence of two or more words separated only by spaces (here ‘arms and’) can govern a plural verb (here ‘get drilled’); Ximenes said it was alright, and Azed’s view was shaped by that of Ximenes. I don’t often strongly disagree with Azed, but I can see no justification for the practice.

29a Old philosopher, one mostly kept in readiness (5)
The Roman numeral for ‘one’ is followed by a (2,3) phrase meaning ‘kept in readiness’ from which the last letter has been omitted (‘mostly’).

32a What’s associated with Milton (centrally)? Blindness may have affected such (4)
One needs to be thinking geography rather than poetry in order to identify the six-letter word ‘associated with Milton’ from which the outer letters must be removed (‘centrally’). The solution is shown by Chambers as archaic, as befits Milton J.

33a Search Scots in quick movement? They may do that (8)
A four-letter Scots word for ‘search’ (along the lines of ‘scour’) is put inside another four-letter word, this one being the quick movement of a Hungarian csárdás. You’re probably wondering what the slow movement of that particular dance is called – it’s a lassu.

Down
1d Deer e.g. avoiding marshy ground (4)
The letters EG are lost from (‘e.g. avoiding’) a six-letter Canadian term for a swamp, bog or marsh.

3d Dance making you miss work (5)
I rather like this one, a charade of a three-letter ‘miss’ and the usual two-letter abbreviation of a word meaning ‘work’. The ‘making you’ here is leading from the definition to the wordplay, rather than the other way round, but I think it’s just about ok as there is no manipulation of the wordplay elements.

4d Troubled pal taken in by jocular Australian subtitle? (9)
An anagram (‘troubled’) of PAL is ‘taken in’ by the name jocularly given to Australian English.

6d Talisman, a cross with letter associated with one (6)
The letter A (from the clue) is followed by the four-letter term applied to a hybrid animal (specific or generic) and the letter associated with a particular sort of (non-animal) cross.

9d Male sitter, recognized locally? One deserved hanging (8)
This is a (2,2,4) charade of a male, a sitter (in the sense of someone who holds a seat in parliament), and a dialect past tense of a word meaning ‘recognize’ or ‘observe’. The solution is an interesting one – both Chambers and OED ascribe to it the meaning ‘gallows-bird’ (ie someone who deserves to be hanged), but this interpretation seems to be based on a single appearance in Henry IV Part 2 where Mistress Quickly says:

Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo’t, wo’t thou? Thou wo’t, wo’t ta? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou ****-****!

It would seem more likely that the word is a malapropism for ‘homicide’ (she also speaks malapropos of a ‘honeysuckle villain’).

16d Follower of Huss curtailed forbidden liturgy (8)
A  five-letter word meaning ‘forbidden’ with its last letter removed (‘curtailed’) is followed by a term for a liturgy or ceremony, the outcome being a member of the extreme section of the Hussites.

23d Sailor joining middle of sail, not all at once (6, 2 words)
I do think Azed has been a little naughty here in using ‘joining’ to indicate that one wordplay element (the four-letter word for a sailor) is to be put inside the central part (‘middle’) of ‘sail’. I think ‘joining pieces in middle of sail’, or something along those lines, would have been preferable.

25d Perch causing head of splinter to pierce bottom (5)
The perch that’s required turns out to be the fishy sort. However, as 🍊 points out below, ROOST would be an equally good alternative with the same basic structure, ie the first letter (‘head’) of ‘splinter’ being inserted into (‘piercing’) a four-letter word for ‘bottom’. Does that make the clue a 🍋?

26d Eponymous hero appearing in early page (not English)? (4)
If anyone got this without having any checkers, kudos! The wordplay involves the usual abbreviation for ‘page’ being followed by a number (a relatively low one, hence an ‘early page’) from which the standard abbreviation for ‘English’ has been removed. The answer is the last name of  the lead  character in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel which, published in the US the year before Lolita, first established the author’s reputation there. Timofey **** is a Russian émigré lecturer who suffers from chronic disorganization and struggles with the challenges of everyday life:

If he failed the first time he took his driver’s licence test, it was mainly because he started an argument with the examiner in an ill-timed effort to prove that nothing could be more humiliating to a rational creature than being required to encourage the development of a base conditional reflex by stopping at a red light when there was not an earthly soul around, heeled or wheeled. He was more circumspect the next time, and passed.

(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 2,615 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

This struck me as being a little above average difficulty, although I was somewhat distracted by having discovered during breakfast an ‘unfastened’ Cheerio – I’ve eaten a lot of Cheerios but never before have I encountered a straight one. I would preserve this potentially unique specimen (a ‘Cheeri’?) for posterity, but unfortunately I’d already put the milk on before I spotted it. I’m drying it out, but I suspect it may be beyond conservation. Anyway, this was an enjoyable puzzle, even if it did suggest a preoccupation with the word UP.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 16a, “Spenserian isn’t perfect (one featured in bulletin)? (5, 2 words)”. Nothing very interesting about the wordplay, a single-letter word for ‘one’ inside a four-letter word for information on recent events producing the (2,3) solution, but the definition poses a problem for the setter. How do you define a  (Spenserian) phrase meaning ‘was not’ that itself contains the word ‘was’? ‘With difficulty’ is the answer. But you can rely on Azed to find an answer, and he has used ‘perfect’ in its grammatical sense of ‘ denoting completed action’ to indicate that “isn’t” should be interpreted in its perfect form, ie ‘was not’. Job’s a good ‘un!

Across
1a System aiding ships, one tar’s deployed after direction-finder showing south not mobile (12)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and an anagram (‘deployed’) of TARS follow a seven-letter word for a direction-finder in which the usual abbreviation for ‘mobile’ has been replaced by the standard abbreviation for ‘south’. As stated in the footnotes, the paper version of Chambers lists the (6-6) solution under the entry for its second half.

12a Durable skin turned up on annoying fly found round Arabia (8)
‘Up’ makes its first appearance, being reversed (‘turned’) and followed by the four-letter name of ‘a small but very troublesome Brazilian biting fly’ which contains the usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘Arabia’.

13a Chatterbox such as Violet? (6)
When appended to the solution, Violet produces the title of a 1945 satirical novel by Christopher Isherwood describing the making of a film of the same name, a melodrama set in nineteenth-century Vienna (home of the park sharing its name with the chatterbox). The book draws on Isherwood’s experience as a screenwriter on the film Little Friend (1934), directed by Berthold Viertel.

16a Spenserian isn’t perfect (one featured in bulletin)? (5, 2 words)
See “Setter’s Corner” above.

20a Avoid bypass, missing junction (4)
A five-letter word meaning ‘[to] bypass’ or ‘[to] sidetrack’ loses the single letter representing a type of road junction in order to produce the solution.

23a Before start of November reach for thick coat (5)
A neat clue, but one of those where both the answer and an element of the wordplay are relatively obscure. The four-letter word which must be put before the first letter (‘start’) of ‘November’ may not be unfamiliar in the sense of a vein of metallic ore, but I don’t remember coming across the meaning of ‘a reach of water’ before.

29a Angular unit, excellent, stylish, one installed (6)
A three-letter slang term of North American origin with a meaning very similar to ‘cool’ (ie ‘excellent’) is followed by a two-letter word for ‘stylish’ or ‘fashionable’ into which a single-letter word for ‘one’ is inserted (‘installed’).

30a Cattle in large area of land showing paralysis (8)
A four-letter biblical term for cattle is contained within a four-letter proper name applied to a specific, and very large indeed, land mass.

32a Scottish well, one with fish (5)
A (1,1,3) charade, the fish being the sort that could easily find itself being jellied.

Down
1d It was used in drawing blood, raising gallons in lesson (12)
A six-letter word for ‘raising’ (based on that two-letter word we’re starting to see a lot of) and the single-letter abbreviation for ‘gallons’ are contained by a five-letter word for a lesson or lecture, the outcome being a (7-5) hyphenated term for a vessel with an open mouth used in the operation of ‘cupping’; apparently where there was insufficient space for such a vessel to be used, the leeches would be summoned instead.

3d Left a meal in lifting up ornamental tray (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘left’, A (from the clue) and a three-letter meal are all contained by a reversal (‘lifting’) of…yes, you guessed it, UP.

4d Sensation to do with possible misprint in Shakespeare (6)
A charade of a four-letter word for a sensation or commotion and that oft-sighted bit of commercial jargon meaning ‘to do with’ results in a word that appears in the Prologue of Troilus and Cressida (followed, of course, by ‘up’) and is now usually rendered as ‘sperre up’, ‘sperr up’, or ‘spar up’ (all in the sense of ‘lock up’).

5d Wound piercing surface part of Roman shield (6)
Be careful here – the combination of the wound and the Roman shield might lead you to a word ending in ‘-um’, but that won’t fit the  rest of the clue. The three-letter ‘wound’ is entering (‘piercing’) a word (more commonly seen in a four-letter form) applied to the lighter upper part of the continental crust (of the earth, nothing to do with baguettes), and the ‘of’ is part of the definition.

9d Gulf offering grand drive (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘grand’ is followed by a word meaning ‘drive’ (noun or verb, your choice) to produce a term given by Chambers as ‘literary’ for something which ‘gulf’ is shown as signifying poetically.

19d Small ungulate, briefly on edge found shivering in hunter’s periphery (7)
A shortened form of (‘small’) ‘on’ and an anagram (‘found shivering’) of EDGE are contained by the first and last letters (‘periphery’) of ‘hunter’, the answer being a (3-4) ungulate which is not some strange hybrid, although its Latin name is Axis porcinus.

22d Worthless type, monkey turning up in courts (6)
A three-letter word for a ‘useless type [of person, invariably a chap, I think]’ is followed by a reversal (‘turning up’) of a three-letter capuchin monkey, producing the English  plural form of a word for a court of justice.

26d Shortened aperçu, possibly (5)
A nice &lit, the whole clue serving as an indication of the answer produced from an anagram (‘possibly’) of APERCU without its last letter (‘shortened’). Whether the solution here is likely to be shorter than an aperçu is something that need not trouble us.

(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 2,614 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

The across clues in this puzzle struck me as being generally on the easy side, while the down clues seemed quite a bit trickier. Taken as a whole, I’d place this puzzle right in the middle of the difficulty range. There were a couple of ‘interesting’ anagram indicators, but not too much else with which I would take issue.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 35a, “Making hay with décor vary improvisation (8, 2 words)”. The wordplay involves a simple anagram (‘Making…vary’) of HAY and DÉCOR, but this raises a question: in the anagram fodder there is an E with an acute accent, while in the answer it is unaccented – is that a problem? The short answer to this is ‘no’ – it is universally (as far as I’m aware) accepted that diacritical marks are ignored, whether in cryptic wordplay or solution, so “I care desperately about first slice of lemon cake” is fine for ÉCLAIR. Note that this dispensation does not extend to definitions within the clue itself, ie ‘pâté’ cannot be used as an indication of ‘head’. Punctuation marks – and spaces, of course – which might appear to be part of, say, the fodder for an anagram can also be ignored, so “One’s blown?” would work for NOSE, with the apostrophe being discarded.

Across
13a Jug, one with ice in it? (6)
The sort of clue that it’s best not to analyse too closely, the answer here immediately puts me in mind of Captain Virgil Hilts, the character in The Great Escape memorably played by Steve McQueen, and in particular the part of the camp where he spends a large proportion of his time. This in turn makes me think of the 1970s TV series Colditz, which featured a character (played by Anthony Valentine) called Major Mohn – I’ve always wondered whether this was meant as a joke along the lines of General Panic and Justice Thumbs…surely it can’t have been accidental?

15a Quick-witted slave, upright one caught in act (6)
There’s a bit of pre-processing to be done here, turning ‘upright’ into a five-letter word which is applied to upright (ie non-italic) type. Its three-letter abbreviation is then joined to the Roman numeral for ‘one,’ and the combination inserted into (‘caught in’) a verb meaning ‘act’. The slave in question is from Syracuse…or is he the one from Ephesus? Confused? You won’t be after this week’s episode of The Comedy of Errors… (anyone who didn’t watch Soap will have no idea what I’m talking about!)

19a Some foreign money forwarded in press (7)
A four-letter word meaning ‘forwarded’ is put inside a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] press (or ‘be situated’), producing the necessary in Lesotho.

23a Peerless and free, once saddled? (7)
A charade of a four-letter and a three-letter element, and the archaic past tense of a verb which might suggest being on horseback.

32a Drunk went begging after beer-money? (7)
This time the charade is 3+4, with the ‘went [or ‘was’] begging’ coming after the beer money (a gratuity); I tend to think of the verb which gives rise to the answer as being intransitive, but it has a transitive form, hence ‘drunk’ is fine as the definition.

Down
2d Feature of patch worn by pirate? (6)
The ‘patch’ here is a vegetable patch. Nuff said.

4d I’ll be encapsulated by ‘a negative’? (5)
An &lit, where I (from the clue) is ‘encapsulated’ by A (from the clue) and the sort of negative that de Gaulle was wont to use when asked about Britain’s potential admission to the Marché Commun, the whole clue acting as an indication of the solution.

7d Artillery stuck in boggy ground, dangerous situation (6)
The usual two-letter abbreviation for the Royal Artillery is ‘stuck’ in a word which can mean ‘boggy ground’ but is now more often applied individually or collectively to the small plants which are often found growing in such terrain.

8d Indian tree topped old club in wood? (4)
Those who know a brassie from a niblick will surely be familiar with the five-letter club (no, Donald – not Troon, but close) which must be deprived of its first letter (‘topped’) in order to produce the name of an Indian tree.

11d Old desk because turning up in set, as is alleged (11)
The old  word for a desk (which starts with the same three letters) is one that I once had to clue in a puzzle, and I haven’t forgotten it – together with a three-letter word meaning ‘because’ it is reversed (‘turning up’) inside a word having a meaning of ‘set’ (as in ‘inclination’) but more commonly used to denote a layer of thickness.

21d The old strain to invest a grand, maximizing assets (6)
An obsolete (‘old’) spelling of a word meaning ‘[to] strain’ or ‘endeavour’ is to be placed around (‘to invest’) the letter A (from the clue) and the usual abbreviation for ‘grand’. It seems the answer can also be used to describe broken coffee beans, the stuff that falls to the bottom of the barrel and is then sifted out.

22d Water flowing repeatedly within banks of Stour for edible mollusc (6, 2 words)
The two-letter dialect word for water that frequently flows in barred crosswords makes a double appearance here, sandwiched by the first and last letters (‘banks’) of ‘Stour’. The solution is (3,3), and a type of abalone.

24d Unlimited release featuring (say) ranch compound (5)
The first and last letters must be removed (‘unlimited’) from a seven-letter word which might describe a release featuring a ranch, and almost certainly would describe one featuring cowboys.

26d Place associated with saint, centre of worship (Polish) (5)
The simple wordplay here delivers the somewhat unlikely name of the city where Saint Augustine served as bishop and with which his name is often linked. Now Annaba in Algeria, it was an important place in ancient times and was for a few years the capital of the Vandal kingdom prior to the Vandalization of Carthage.

27d Sort of lavender, an aromatic plant cropped (5)
An alternative form of ‘an’ is followed by the sort of thing that could be Sporty or Scary (though not both at once), from which the last letter has been removed (‘cropped’). I don’t think that strictly speaking the term can be applied to a plant, only to an aromatic substance of vegetable origin, but I’m happy to let that pass. The answer is a another name given to the ‘Great Lavender or Spike’.

30d One on board denied work? Must be a mistake (4)
A six-letter word describing something that might be found on a board (or in a palace) is deprived of (‘denied’) the usual abbreviation for ‘work’, the result being the sort of mistake which in the Jennings books was often prefixed by ‘frantic’ (and possibly, on occasion, ‘lobsterous’).

(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 2,613 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

Once again, I though this puzzle was marginally above the average difficulty level that has been established during the last year or so. Solving it over breakfast without a dictionary, there were several entries that I had to make in light pencil because I wasn’t familiar with the answers, though the accuracy of Azed’s wordplays meant that they all proved to be correct. And thankfully the marmalade splodge seems to have confined itself to the solution for 2,610.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 33a, “Royal from the orient, welcomed by America (5)”. Here the letter E is ‘welcomed’ by an abbreviation for ‘America’, producing a title given to certain Afghan rulers. However, this clue contains one of my bugbears (‘Just the one?’ I hear you say), the indication of an abbreviation (here E) by something other than the word or phrase to be abbreviated (here ‘from the orient’), such that we have to first translate ‘from the orient’ into ‘eastern’ and then we have to abbreviate it. I believe that abbreviations fall into two distinct categories – those which can stand alone in a sentence and those which can’t. Would I accept ‘record’ for LP? “He’s got a large LP collection” – yes, that’s fine. ‘New driver’ for L? “I braked and an L ran into the back of me” – no. “The promise offered by this Turkish delight is E” – not for me, thank you.

12a A youngster bags score, batting – too late (9, 2 words)
A (from the clue) plus a three-letter word for a young animal of certain types contains (‘bags’) an anagram (‘batting’) of SCORE, the solution being French and divided (5,4).

15a A party includes culmination that’s softer and slower (8)
I was going to say that the party here isn’t the sort that Boris used to be in charge of, but that might not have made things any clearer. A three-letter word meaning ‘for each’ (ie ‘a’) and a two-letter word for a bash are set around (‘includes’) a three-letter ‘culmination’.

21a Whale, male, caught within water surface’s fluctuation (6)
The combination of a three-letter word for a sort of rorqual (‘Whale’) and a two-letter word for a male has the usual abbreviation for ‘caught’ inserted (‘within’) to produce a word that I’d like to say that I’ve never come across before, but given its instant forgettability I quite likely have!

25a Key opening expensive car displaying heraldic decorations (8)
This is  a charade of a three-letter key on a computer keyboard and a five-letter informal term for a car offering the Spirit of Ecstasy, but I don’t see how ‘opening’ can belong to either element and I’m not happy with it as a juxtaposition indicator. It looks like my old f(r)iend the ‘missing comma’, which if placed between ‘opening’ and ‘expensive’ would just about make things right.

30a Antimalarial pill swallowed in stormy rain (7)
Chambers gives ‘antimalarial’ only as an adjective, but I think that its use to describe an antimalarial drug is well established. The wordplay has a three-letter ‘pill’ being swallowed by an anagram (‘stormy’) of RAIN.

31a What’s troublesome in a toe when it’s not over? (5)
A nice &lit which has taken some careful crafting to ensure grammatical soundness – it’s an anagram (‘troublesome’) of IN A TOE when it ‘has not’ (ie is missing) the cricketing abbreviation for ‘over’.

1d Native American? I’ll be among one of seven (5)
At first I was thinking that the ‘one of seven’ was going to be a ‘sage’ or a ‘star’, but the reference is to another solution within the puzzle itself.

2d To sum up roughly Carmen, say, divides RC rite (12, 2 words)
An anagram (‘roughly’) of TO SUM UP has the type of entertainment exemplified by Carmen inside (‘divides’), producing a (4,8) rite.

4d ‘Footy’, might one suppose? It’s exercise time (6)
A whimsical definition, and a wordplay which combines a two-letter abbreviation representing ‘exercise’ (one of the acceptable sort – see Setters’ Corner above) and a four-letter word which slightly counterintuitively can mean ‘time’ (often the two are complementary rather than synonymous).

8d Each one includes prepared pastry crust (6)
A three-letter word often indicated in crosswords by ‘one’ contains (‘includes’)…well, something that might involve a prepared pastry crust, but I’d think that austerity had gone way too far if I ordered a beef an ale one and was presented with just a pastry crust. 

9d Getting in again, try missing gully (4)
A seven-letter (hyphenated) word for ‘getting in again’ has the consecutive letters TRY missing, the result being a variant spelling of a term used in SW England for a ditch.

11d Wound stank, once spoken about (7)
If this was your first one in, kudos! Checking stank² in Chambers will help with the first bit of the wordplay, the resulting four letters then being put inside a Miltonian spelling of ‘said’ (‘once spoken about’).

19d Old tiles? A vehicle like this hoisted tons loaded (7)
A (from the clue), a three-letter vehicle, and a two-letter word meaning ‘like this’ are all reversed (‘hoisted’) and the usual abbreviation for ‘tons’ is put inside (‘loaded’).

22d A BBC broadcast, that is one occupying Noddy? (6)
An anagram (‘broadcast’) of A BBC is followed by the two-letter abbreviation meaning ‘that is’, but I do feel Azed may have missed a trick here, given that Noddy (with the capital) is himself a taxi-driver. As it is, ‘Noddy’ has been deceptively capitalized (not something generally viewed as desirable), the surface reading is less than pleasing, and it’s a little questionable whether the person here would occupy a noddy.

24d Civil enforcers needing time to replace canine (6)
The enforcers of law and order have the oft-seen abbreviation for ‘time’ replacing the less-oft-seen abbreviation for ‘canine’, as used in dental formulae. Why Chambers gives this latter abbreviation but not m for ‘molar’ or i for ‘incisor’ I have no idea (OED gives all three).

28d Old-fashioned girls, by the sound of it, are bewildering (4)
A homophone (‘by the sound of it’) for the plural of an ‘archaic’ and ‘poetic’ term for a maiden – Theresa and Imelda, perhaps? Note that this clue is ambiguous, as the ‘by the sound of it’ could potentially apply to either the two words that precede it or the two that follow; It seemed more likely that Azed was asking us to find a homophone for the ‘Old-fashioned girls’, and so it proved. Had the homophone been for ‘are bewildering’, he could have avoided any doubt by changing the word order, ie ‘Old-fashioned girls are bewildering, by the sound of it’, With the homophone being for the ‘old-fashioned girls’ there isn’t quite such a simple way to remove the ambiguity., but something like ‘Heard old-fashioned girls are bewildering’ would do the trick.

(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 2,612 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

Quite a tricky one, I thought, certainly a little way past the middle of the difficulty spectrum. 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 24d, “Foreign gent erected guttering for Scots (5)”. The wordplay is covered below, the reversal of the Scottish guttering leading to the foreign gent – but why shouldn’t it be the foreign gent who’s being ‘erected’ to produce the gutters? The answer is that it equally well could be, and therefore the clue is ambiguous. This is far from ideal, requiring solvers to identify the second, fourth or fifth checked letters in order to establish the solution, and I’m surprised that Azed included the clue as it stands. If the intended answer had been the gutters, the clue could have read ‘Guttering for Scots foreign gent erected’, but it’s not so easy to get the reversal indicator away from the foreign gent. Something like ‘Scottish guttering erected for foreign gent’, with the wordplay/definition link removing any potential ambiguity, would probably be the best option without making material changes to the clue.

10a Lizard, large or small variety and tailless (5)
An abbreviation (‘small’) of ‘variety’ plus AND (from the clue) without its last letter (‘tailless’).

12a Father having trouble writing accompaniment for Indian? (8)
One of many alternative spellings for these crisp flatbreads results from a charade of a three-letter word for ‘father’, a three-letter word for ‘trouble’, and a two-letter abbreviation for a handwritten book which Azed often indicates by ‘writing’.

14a Stuff our country is short of and as of old (6)
The name of a country which many (though far from all) Azed solvers will consider ‘ours’, shorn of the letters AND (‘short of and’), is followed by the Latin word (‘of old’) for ‘as’ (normally seen followed by ‘infra’ or ‘supra’, if seen at all).

19a Love poetry set before HM editor lost? (8)
The usual single-letter representation of love, a five-letter word for ‘poetry’, and the cipher of Queen Elizabeth II combine to produce an obsolete (‘lost’) term for an editor.

20a E.g. Bunthorne, upset about these being distributed (8)
A crossword regular for ‘upset’ or (more often)  ‘worried’ is put outside (‘about’) an anagram (‘being distributed’) of THESE. ‘Bunthorne’ is not the former Guardian crossword setter, rather the ‘fleshly poet’ in Patience from whom he took his pseudonym.

Am I alone,
And unobserved? I am!
Then let me own
I’m an æsthetic sham!
This air severe
Is but a mere
Veneer!
This cynic smile
Is but a wile
Of guile!

23a What’ll come from murder motive as reported? (4)
A homophone (‘as reported’) for a motive, and an oblique definition which requires a knowledge of collective nouns relating to corvids (such as conspiracies, parliaments, chatterings, scolds, mischiefs, and the one here).

25a Highland clamour, increasingly restrained, from the right (5)
A word meaning ‘increasingly restrained’, or ‘less interesting’, is reversed (‘from the right’) to produce a Scots word for an uproar.

30a Occupying lodgings mostly, ten awfully hard-up (8)
A two-letter word for ‘occupying’ is followed by a four-letter word for lodgings (once common but rarely heard these days) from which the last letter has been removed (‘mostly’) and an anagram (‘awfully’) of TEN.

1d One against exemplar of industry digs art possibly, fan of modernism? (12)
A one-letter word for ‘one’, the usual abbreviation for ‘against’, an ‘exemplar of industry’ from the insect world, and an anagram (‘possibly’) of DIGS ART combine to produce the hyphenated (5-7) solution.

2d Getting up, make space for former idol (5)
A reversal (‘getting up’) of a two-letter word meaning ‘make’ and a three-letter word for a space (the sort you have to mind when in London), producing an obsolete (‘former’) term for an idol.

4d Take on gardener’s enemy, something found in plant cells (6)
The usual abbreviation for ‘take’ is followed by (‘on’) the technical term for a small homopterous louse that sucks the juices from plants, usually accompanied by many small and thirsty friends.

6d Military caps raised, king ignored aid to road-holding (4)
A five-letter word for military caps as sported by members of the French Foreign Legion is reversed (‘raised’) and the abbreviation for ‘king’ that would be familiar to Magnus Carlsen removed. 

7d Smoke rising round centre of verdure creeps over the border (6)
I initially thought that the ‘smoke’ which was to be reversed (‘rising’) around the middle letter (‘centre’) of ‘verdure’ might  be the usual spelling of a term for a roll of tobacco leaves, but that didn’t produce a real word. However, a variant spelling, starting with two different letters, delivers the Scots word for unpleasant people (ie ‘creeps’).

16d Cavalry piece? Nelly’s holding on (8)
For this one you either need to know the name of the large calibre rifle once used by mounted troops which constitutes the solution, or the type of bird exemplified by a ‘nelly’. The latter, often associated with ‘storm’ (or ‘stormy’), is ‘holding’ the letters ON (from the clue).

23d Candied peel? This, aged, is misused in decorating (6)
A composite anagram of the friendliest sort. The letters of the solution (‘This’) and AGED can be rearranged (‘misused’) to form DECORATING.

24d Foreign gent erected guttering for Scots (5)
The plural of a Scots word for a roof-gutter is reversed (‘erected’) to produce the title given to a gentleman from a particular European country.

26d Nothing surmounts this compact for Danish conurbation (5)
If the usual single-letter representation of ‘nothing’ were to be placed before the solution here, the result would be the name of the third-largest city in Denmark. The clue might seem to suggest that the answer is a noun, but it is an adjective.

(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 2,611 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

At first I thought that the Guardian web site had generously provided the solution as well as the puzzle, but no, it was the grid and solution from three weeks ago. Thankfully the clues were the correct ones, so combining them with the grid from the first page produced a complete puzzle, albeit in two parts.

The recently-recalibrated Tuffometer® gave a reading just above halfway, influenced I think by the tricky SW corner. There were a couple of wordplays which I found a little unsatisfactory, but generally it was an acceptable puzzle, even if it lacked the gusto of Azed’s headiest concoctions.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 29d, “Dog having special identification mark (4)”. A straightforward wordplay leads us to ‘stag’, a verb shown in Chambers as meaning ‘to follow, dog, shadow’, so it’s hard to fault the clue. However, I always feel distinctly uneasy about employing one word which is clearly being used in a metaphorical sense to indicate another such word. The Chambers Thesaurus gives ‘mole’ and ‘canary’ under the entry for ‘rat’, and while I have no problem with ‘informer’ being used to indicate any of these terms, I cannot accept ‘rat’ as a definition of ‘canary’. They are simply not the same thing, as any but the most unscrupulous pet shop owner will tell you. Were it not for the Chambers entry, I would feel rather similarly, if perhaps a little less fervently, about ‘dog’ being used for ‘stag’.

6a Erstwhile conductor in bus mostly with lot transported (5)
The conductor here is a man who owes his fame less to London Transport than the London Philharmonic; he conducted the first performance of his friend Gustav Holst’s The Planets in 1918, received a knighthood in 1937, and after being forced to retire from his position as director of music at the BBC in 1950 revived the flagging fortunes of the LPO. The wordplay involves an anagram (‘transported’) of BUS without its last letter (‘mostly’) and LOT.

10a Legal sponsor representing oneself (without son) occupying large house (10)
The  wordplay here sees a two word (2,6) phrase meaning ‘representing oneself’ with the letters SON removed (‘without son’) being put inside (‘occupying’) a five-letter word for a large house.

20a Three out of twelve growing wild in grass I planted (8, 2 words)
I believe that the intended reading requires the now-familiar ‘missing comma’ to be placed between ‘grass’ and ‘I’, such that an anagram (‘growing wild’) of IN GRASS has the letter I (from the clue) inserted (‘planted’).

21a Site of famous tablet round Troy? It’s been turned over, I swear (8)
The name of the port on the Nile Delta near which a famous tablet (strangely not an iPad) turned up in 1799, almost 2,000 years after its inscription, is put round the usual abbreviation for ‘troy’ (Azed has perhaps taken a slight liberty with the capitalization, but no more so than setters routinely do when using ‘river’ for R) and the whole lot reversed (‘turned over’). Perhaps my favourite clue in the puzzle.

24a English out of place in current plundering of Scotland (4)
A four-letter word which can mean ‘current’, although is more often used in the sense of ‘prevalent’ or ‘abounding’, has the usual abbreviation for ‘English’ moved from one position to another (‘out of place’) to produce a Scots word for ‘plundering’; whether ‘plundering of Scotland’ is strictly accurate seems unimportant, since we all know what Azed is getting at.

27a Train guard’s aid in determining quantities? (6)
An imperative anagram indicator (‘Train’) leads us to the shortened name of a Latin dictionary of prosody (translated form: ‘a step to Parnassus’) which was for many years used in English public schools. First printed in England around 1691, it was intended as an aid in Latin versification, both by giving the ‘quantities’ of words (hence the definition here) and by suggesting poetical epithets and phraseology; the term was applied to subsequent works of a similar nature. As Thomas Hughes wrote in Tom Brown’s School Days,

The three fell to work with ****** and dictionary upon the morning’s vulgus

30a Virtuosic person (if lacking that prime bit of prowess?) (4)
A five-letter word for a person (often used in a legal setting) has the first letter (‘prime bit’) of ‘prowess’ taken away, the result being an adjective which one might not immediately think of as meaning ‘virtuosic’, but a brief consultation with the dictionary should provide the necessary confirmation.

33a People of old Arabia, without date, biblical book included (5)
One generally expects ‘without [a] date’ to indicate the abbreviation SD (‘sine die’), but here we have the less common (in my experience, anyway) ‘sine anno’, which has the three-letter abbreviation for one of the books of the New Testament ‘included’, producing the name of a people best known for their queen, who came to Jerusalem “with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones”.

34a Heir, on being given bit with end of estate (7)
A three-letter synonym for ‘on’ in a cricketing context is followed by (‘given’) a three-letter word meaning ‘bit [into]’ and the last letter (‘end’) of ‘estate’.

4d Row of old guns producing broadside (4)
When the two definitions in a double-definition clue relate to the fourth and fifth headwords in Chambers, there’s every chance that solvers are going to need to get some checked letters before having recourse to the aforesaid work, which makes it somewhat unsatisfactory in my estimation. The first headword is the one we all know – ‘to become weary’ etc.

6d Good queen about king ‘I smother with affection‘ (6)
The name applied to a queen also known as Gloriana is placed around not just an abbreviation for ‘king’ (person not piece) but also the letter I from within the quotation marks.

8d A gun going off, ‘umongous start of destruction without measure? (8)
An anagram (‘going off’) of A GUN is followed by a synonym of ‘humongous’ with the leading ‘h’ analogously removed and the first first letter (‘start’) of ‘destruction’.

16d Rage when heading north entering Scots border, attracting tax (8)
A four-letter word for the sort of ‘rage’ which (with the same sound but a different spelling) frequently overcame Mr Wilkins in the Jennings books is reversed (‘heading north’) inside (‘entering’) a four-letter Scots word for a boundary mark, itself having an alternative spelling ‘dool’.

17d Organ, or rag, distributing the written word? (8)
A three-letter word for a rag (or junk generally) is put inside (‘distributing’) a five-letter term for normal spoken and written language (‘the written word?’).

19d Energy-filled hospital facilities? Armies will want their support (7, 2 words)
A five-letter word for the sort of facilities very much associated with hospitals is ‘filled’ with a two-letter word for energy, the result being a (3,4) term.

22d Scale as in wee round (6)
The word ’round’ here seems redundant and somewhat unfair. A three-letter word meaning ‘in the capacity of’ inside (‘in’) another Scots meaning much the same as ‘wee’ delivers the answer nicely. I suppose ‘in wee round’ could be interpreted as something like ‘enclosed by wee on all sides’, but I’m not keen.

23d Orangey stuff, one to get (but not in) (6)
The Mad Jaffa Cake Eater (as played by Victor Spinetti) used to steal people’s Jaffa Cakes while loudly declaring “There’s Orangey”, but that seemed unlikely to be relevant here, and so it proved. A two-letter word meaning ‘one’ is followed by a six-letter word for ‘to get’ or ‘to achieve’ from which the consecutive letters IN have been removed (‘but not in’).

28d Take a little girl climbing (4)
A slang term for a girl is reversed (‘climbing’) to produce a word more familiar as a noun in a specific expression, but which Chambers gives as a verb with a meaning exactly matching the definition here, although it is shown as ‘obsolete’, something which Azed has chosen not to indicate.

(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 2,610 ‘Eightsome Reels’

Difficulty rating: (5 / 10)

The Eightsome Reels variation was originally devised by Azed, the first one appearing in November 1972, and this was its twenty-fourth outing. I rather like having normal clues but a different way of entering them in the grid; sometimes with this sort of puzzle the clues are made a little too easy in order to compensate for the extra difficulty of the format, but Azed didn’t make too many concessions in this one. The effect was that instead of steaming towards the finishing line after getting a few interlocking solutions the solve was more about maintaining steady progress right through to the last couple of entries.

When solving an Eightsome Reels puzzle, clearly a single answer cannot be entered in the grid unless the solver possesses the relevant paranormal ability. To get going, one needs first of all to solve the clues to two adjoining squares – let’s assume that they are side by side, and the solutions are MEPHISTO and CURTSIED. The three consecutive shared letters are IST/TSI, so there are only two ways these can be entered:

The fact that the shared letters are reversed in one solution means that the entries will both run clockwise or both anticlockwise (if they were in the same sequence, eg MEPHISTO/BRISTLED, then one will run clockwise and the other anticlockwise). If you can then solve a clue to a ’reel’ above or below either of these two, you can then confidently enter all three solutions into the grid. I got started with 3, 4 and 10, none of which are too difficult – respectively a double definition (the piece of furniture being hyphenated 3-5, the other definition being somewhat whimsical), a 2+6 charade, and a ‘hidden’.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 15, “US warehouse keeper calls about putrefaction all over”. Here we have a five-letter word for ‘calls’ containing (‘about’) a three-letter word for putrefaction, the whole lot (‘all’) being reversed (‘over’). But hold hard! Surely in the grid the solution isn’t ‘over’, it’s ‘going round the wrong way’? This is true, but in puzzles of this type it is accepted that the manipulations in the clue are all applied prior to entry in the grid, so they take place in the same plane as the clue. Hence ‘over’, ‘about’ etc are absolutely fine – when you think about it, even containment indicators would be a bit questionable if they were applied at the time of entry into the grid.

1 Deadhead what overdue bloomers display?
I’m a little surprised that Azed has run the words ‘dead’ and ‘head’ together, particularly as ‘dead-head’ is an alternative form. Anyway, each part leads to a four-letter word and together they produce the solution.

7 Control such as is contained by ultra deploying energy
A two-letter abbreviation for ‘such as’ is contained by an anagram (‘deploying’, =’taking up strategic positions’) of ULTRA plus the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’.

9 Government put forward for discussion what’s likely to collapse?
The ‘Government’ here translates to the plural of a two-letter word meaning ‘a member of the party in office’; this is followed by a verb meaning ‘[to] put forward for discussion’.

13 Group we’ve left involved G. Stein, one for developing master race?
The group we’ve left had more to do with B. Johnson than G. Stein, but its abbreviated name is followed by an anagram (‘involved’) of the latter.

14 Gentle old fellow with fatty stuff on end of nose
A charade of a word for a fellow, a four-letter word for fatty tissue, and the last character (‘end’) of ‘nose’. The ‘old’ indicates that the solution is shown by Chambers as ‘archaic’. This was the word chosen for AZ competition 1593, and resulted in one of those rare instances where first prize was shared between two identical clues.

17 Cow, English, in favour of being kept in appropriate group
The standard abbreviation for ‘English’ and a three-letter word meaning ‘in favour of’ are kept in the sort of group which is very likely to contain cows.

18 Doctor back, on firm ground being completely variable
A reversal (‘back’) of a two-letter abbreviation for a doctor (in the armed forces or other organizations) is followed by an anagram (‘ground’) of ON FIRM.

20 Doctor intervening when cocaine is involved
A seven-letter adjective meaning ‘intervening’, more familiar as a verb, with the usual abbreviation for ‘cocaine’ inside (‘involved’), producing a solution which in the past meant ‘to doctor’, in the sense that one might doctor alcoholic drinks (an example given by the OED talks of ‘wine in the time of the old Romans being *doctored* with pitch and resin’. Should’ve gone to Oddbins…

22 Welsh elite, part of circle that’s brought back dance (not accepted)
A three-letter part of a circle is reversed (‘brought back’) and followed by the name of a dance (which has a nine-letter form as well as the six-letter one here) from which one instance of the standard abbreviation for ‘accepted’ has been removed. The solution is a derogatory term applied to  ‘Welsh people who snobbishly affect English customs, manners and speech.’ Incidentally, mention of the dance in question always brings the tune Wheels (originally recorded by the String-A-Longs, subsequently by Joe Loss and his orchestra) into my head, and once there it’s hard to dislodge.

23 ‘Foul mixture’, reverse of solid, mass Scotsman swallowed
A four-letter word for ‘solid’ is reversed and the usual abbreviation for ‘mass’ plus a three-letter name often applied to a Scotsman are contained therein (‘swallowed’).

28 Symbolic meal came up in talk informally
A four-letter word meaning ‘came up’ is contained by a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] talk informally’. Apologies for the earlier error, caused by me putting in the parsing I first thought of when I looked at the clue rather than the one that actually got me to the solution! My thanks to the correspondent who (very gently) pointed out my lapse.

30 Wire edging, obstruction when bent back
A five-letter word for an edge or brink shown by Chambers as ‘poetic’ and a three-letter word for an obstruction (also a reason why a tennis service would be cancelled out) are put together and reversed (‘bent back’).

31 Trouble following dip in river? Something to deal with extremities on hand
A three-letter word for ‘[to] trouble’ and the standard abbreviation for ‘following’ are contained by (‘dip in’) the name of a major African river. Azed, like Ximenes before him, accepts that a sequence of wordplay elements (here ‘Trouble’ and ‘following’) can govern a plural noun. In my view, unless they’re separated by a comma or a conjunction such as ‘and’ they can’t.

32 Showing brass that’s bust, lacking inner volume
A nine-letter word meaning ‘bust’ (as a company might have gone) loses the usual abbreviation for ‘volume’ from within.

34 Bull may be pulled by this diminutive bird entering drink
The five-letter name of a member of a group of small finches including the canary is put inside a three-letter traditional drink of which the Dutch version is Advocaat, although I believe that the methods of production vary somewhat.

35 Erica, breaking rule? – ‘a thing of shreds and patches’
I’m not sure how well known the ‘Erica’ here is these days – it’s almost fifty years since Fear of Flying was published. Anyway, her surname is followed by an anagram (‘breaking’) of RULE. The ‘shreds and patches’ started out in Hamlet’s description of his usurping uncle Claudius as ‘a king of shreds and patches’, but the reference here is to the famous song from The Mikado which Nanki-Poo starts thuswise:

A wandering minstrel I —
A thing of shreds and patches,
Of ballads, songs and snatches,
And dreamy lullaby!
My catalogue is long,
Through every passion ranging,
And to your humours changing
I tune my supple song!
I tune my supple song!

(definitions are underlined)

The unchecked letters in the corners are: [1] NES, [6] PEE, [31] IFL, and [36] MOS.

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 2,609 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Not quite at the level of last week’s puzzle, perhaps, but an enjoyable solve nonetheless. I have recalibrated the Tuffometer® slightly, as I felt that based on the difficulty of the last hundred or so puzzles this one was smack bang in the middle of the spectrum.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 8d, “Brit leader’s abandoned, astray? (6)”. As we expect from Azed, there’s some misdirection going on here, with the ‘Brit’ being not a British person but ‘a young herring, sprat, or other fish’. Note how Azed has ensured that ‘Brit’ is at the beginning of the sentence in order to avoid giving the game away by putting ‘brit’ or by falsely capitalizing the word, a practice which should be avoided as it unfairly misleads the solver. The thing I wanted to highlight here, though, was the question mark. It’s clear from the definition of ‘Brit’ above that its use to indicate ‘herring’ constitutes a definition by example (not all brits are herring), so this needs to be indicated. One option for this would be the inclusion of a word like ‘perhaps’ to qualify the DBE, but if this were put before the word being qualified (ie ‘Perhaps Brit…’) then the capitalization problem rears its head, while it cannot be put after ‘Brit’ without destroying the surface reading (‘Brit perhaps leader…’). The other option is to use a question mark, but I am firmly of the opinion that this is only valid when the DBE comes at the end of the clue; I wouldn’t consider that ‘Brit leader’s abandoned, astray perhaps’ suggested that ‘Brit’ was the DBE, and I don’t see why a question mark should work any differently.

11a Service book, one lying behind e.g. main part of church, from east to west (10)
A four-letter word for ‘[some]one [who is] lying’ follows a reversal (‘from east to west’) of EG (from the clue) and a four-letter word for the main part of a church.

12a Bobby on Thursday beat (5)
Another diminutive form of the name ‘Robert’ is here following (‘on’) an abbreviation for ‘Thursday’.

17a Shut up in prison, one given time (5, 2 words)
A three-letter slang term for prison (invariably, I think, preceded by ‘the’) and the Roman numeral representing one are followed by (‘given’) the usual abbreviation for ‘time’.

24a One of a pair connected in vice, creating frightful noise behind church (5)
A nice oblique definition of the solution (‘involved in’ would perhaps have read even better, but it would be stretching things a bit), and a wordplay that requires a two-letter abbreviation for ‘church’ to have behind (following) it a three-letter interjection which will be familiar to readers of children’s comics of the 1950s to 1980s or thereabouts. Not so much a frightful noise as a frightened noise, it would be emitted (along with the appropriate number of exclamation marks) by softies such as Walter when confronted, say, by a mouse (the presence of which was usually attributable to Dennis). I don’t think I ever stopped to think what it actually sounded like, its appearance on the page said all that needed to be said.

28a Afternoon song by the camp fire? We’ll provide leafy cover (5)
The single-letter abbreviation for ‘afternoon’ is joined by the name of a song, the first verse of which is traditionally sung by Girl Guides and Boy Scouts around the campfire before retiring to their tents. Originally a bugle call used at US military ceremonies, it is also known as Day is Done (for obvious reasons) and (for less obvious ones) Butterfield’s Lullaby.

30a Soldiers in unusually large unit reduced by 50%, like one such (10)
After a little teasing out, the wordplay here reveals itself as a three-letter word for soldiers (the ones that aren’t officers) inside an anagram (‘unusually’) of LARGE plus one half of the word UNIT (ie ‘unit reduced by 50%’), the adjective that results referring to ‘soldiers in…[a] large unit’.

31a Nogs drunk were flowing with daughter welcomed as one of the family (8)
One of those ‘missing comma’ clues, the imaginary mark being between ‘drunk’ and ‘were’, so that an anagram (‘drunk’) of NOGS has a three-letter word meaning ‘was flowing’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘daughter’ taken inside (‘welcomed’).

32a Ball penetrating one side of wicket, turning – I must get even (4)
A single-character, two-dimensional representation of a ball (slightly questionable, but we’ll let it pass) is contained by (‘penetrating’) a reversal (‘turning’) of the three-letter term applied to one side of a cricket field, specifically the side on which a right-handed batter stands when taking guard.

1d One lacking entry permit we support when it’s shortly acquired (7)
I don’t remember coming across this word before, a very expressive term for an illegal immigrant who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico to the US. The wordplay leads to WE (from the clue) and a four-letter word meaning ‘[to] support’ with a shortened form of ‘it’ inserted (‘acquired’).

2d Police abroad, ideal when following car or lorry up (6)
The solution will be familiar to most solvers, myself included (though not from direct personal experience, I hasten to add), but what was not familiar to me was the slang term for ‘a car, lorry or wagon’ which is here reversed (‘up’) over the usual two-letter representation of a description applied to something (originally a ship) in tip-top condition (‘ideal’).

5d English Pernod I spit out swallowing it – it’s bad for the heart (12)
The usual abbreviation for ‘English’ and the six-letter name of a famous producer of anise-flavoured pastis apéritifs take advantage of another missing comma to be the ‘it’ which is swallowed by an anagram (‘out’) of I SPIT. Having spent a while puzzling over the relevant Wikipedia pages,  I have concluded that the decision on whether ‘Pernod’ is a valid indication of the name here should, as they say, be left to the reader as an exercise.

7d Where cattle are kept warm and dry, gale swirling outside (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘[to] air and dry’ has an anagram (‘swirling’) of GALE outside.

10d Cornish visitor, one with good vision letting go of rope (5)
I expect that those of an optometric bent will have written in the solution here without delay, but I had to work back from the solution – thankfully the ROPE that needs to be let go comes at the end of the nine-letter word for someone with good vision, so my visit to Chambers was a brief one. Will I now remember the word for future use? Unlikely.

13d Moravian, German gent, Jaeger, name becoming leader (10)
The four-letter German term of address equivalent to ‘Mr’ is followed by a familiar six-letter word exemplified by a jaeger (or by Orion)  wherein the standard abbreviation for ‘name’ has ben moved to the beginning (‘name becoming leader’).

20d Hull? That’s involved with North Sea mostly (7)
The ‘that’ which is ‘involved’ (mixed up) with the standard abbreviation for ‘North’ and the first two letters of SEA (‘sea mostly’) is HULL; the anagram in this neat clue delivers a synonym of ‘hull’ completely unconnected with the context established by the surface reading.

21d Travelling box one’s packed into Jordanian destination? (6)
The ‘Jordanian destination’ into which a single-letter word for ‘one’ has been packed is the subject of a poem by John William Burgon. The place in question was the chosen theme in the 1845 competition for Oxford University’s Newdigate Prize for Poetry. Despite having never visited the city (or even the region), Burgon – at the time a very mature student of 32 – lifted the prize for his submission, best known for its closing couplet:

Match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose-red city half as old as time.

In doing so, he added his name to a list that includes Oscar Wide, Matthew Arnold and John Buchan. It was to be another 17 years before he eventually got to see the subject of his poem through his own eyes.

23d Object of worship I wrapped in loose gown (6)
Neither the solution nor the five-letter word for a loose gown in which the letter I (from the clue) is wrapped are exactly in common use, although the gown might be more familiar in a seven-letter version with the ending -eau.

24d Tolling sound, a complex tone (5)
A double definition – the first is probably more likely to spring to mind than the latter, a musical term more often spelt with an initial K.

(definitions are underlined)