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 2,561 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

Following last week’s ‘hiddenfest’, Azed throws in just two lurkers this week, one to kick things off and another in the final clue. A reasonably entertaining puzzle which I felt was slightly past the half-way line of difficulty, with the NE corner being tricky, though I was on the ball when I tackled it this morning and it didn’t require much extra time. At least one clue (30a) would have had solvers crying ‘foul’, if not actually making them cross, and a couple of others I’ve flagged below as somewhat iffy. No trophy is on offer, so when you’ve completed the puzzle don’t bother sending it off…

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 29a, “It portrayed a novelist’s life whiskey cut short” (4). This is a good example of where the spelling of a word in a clue can provide implicitly the extra information needed by solvers; ‘whiskey’ sticks out here, being the Irish/US spelling of ‘whisky’, and most obviously represents Irish whiskey, often known simply as ‘Irish’. The opportunities to use this device are relatively infrequent, but I do recall a clue of mine along the lines of

 [su_spoiler title=”Wake when honor students start putting calculators away (9)”]AFTERMATH [AFTER MATH][/su_spoiler]

it can make a pleasant change from the rather trite explicit indicators of context, such as ‘American’ or ‘US’ which could have been used instead of the ‘honor’ above.

5a RC congregation is involved in branch of learning after mass (7)
The word IS is contained by a four-letter word for a branch of learning which can be qualified by ‘fine’ or ‘dark’, and an M (mass) is added to the front to produce the plural form of a term for a member of a particular evangelical RC sect.

13a Fashionable style has abandoned orangey dyes (4)
The more clues I write, the more I take against wordplays which strain the English language beyond breaking point. Here HAS must be removed from a seven-letter word for ‘orangey dyes’ to produce the answer, but I cannot accept that ‘x abandoned y’ can mean ‘y without x’, and I know that several crossword editors feel the same way. Whilst I’ve no issue at all with ‘x abandons/abandoning/has abandoned y’, where x is the subject of the clause, with the participle ‘abandoned’ the subject is y and in order to mean ‘y with x abandoned’ the clause must include a comma, ie ‘x abandoned, y’. The wordplay of this clue therefore requires a comma between ‘abandoned’ and ‘orangey’, which would spoil the surface reading. ‘Fashionable style has passed by orangey dyes’, where HAS has been ‘passed’ or disregarded ‘by CHICHAS’ might not read quite as well (‘passed orangey dyes by’ would be more natural) but is grammatically sound.

17a Bank involved with brief transactions in market (4)
A composite anagram  with a whiff of indirection, the letters of the solution (‘bank’) and a two-letter abbreviation for ‘transactions’ can be rearranged (‘involved’) to produce MARKET.

19a Showy bird supplied by one seeing to pets on a small scale? (7)
The fanciful indication of the solution  given by the wordplay resolves as a four-letter word for ‘small-scale’ and a three-letter word for someone who might see to pets. This clue didn’t really do it for me.

25a Place for tools, second in garden opening presto? Far from it (6)
The second letter of the word ‘garden’ is contained by (‘opening’) a musical indication of tempo which is a long way from ‘presto’ (‘presto? Far from it’) to  produce a hyphenated (4-2) solution.

29a It portrayed a novelist’s life whiskey cut short (4)
The ‘whiskey’ is Irish, and it must be ‘cut short’ to produce the title of the 2001 film based on John Bayley’s 1998 memoir.

30a Opposition‘s tricks, unnatural but not strained (4)
As Bobfos observes below (and I hadn’t spotted), the wordplay here doesn’t work: CONSTRAINED (‘unnatural’) without STRAINED (‘but not strained’) produces CON rather than CONS. If ‘strained’ had been ‘trained’ the wordplay would be ok, and perhaps since ‘unnatural’ and ‘strained’ are synonymous this may have been Azed’s intention. There are also two definitions for the price of one here, with that awkward “‘s” in between them which seems out of place when there is not only a second definition following but also a wordplay.

I did idly wonder whether “Opposition’s trick, unnatural but not strained” would be valid, featuring a single definition (‘Opposition’) and two elements of wordplay separated by a comma, each leading to CON and together therefore representing CONs. I would want to see a question mark at the end of such a clue, but it doesn’t strike me as blatantly unfair.

33a Market contains delicate cut woodland plant (7)
A four-letter word for [a] market contains a four-letter word meaning ‘delicate’ with the last letter omitted (‘cut’).

3d Trumpeter maybe interrupts cheers for African race (6)
A four-letter word for a species of bird exemplified by the trumpeter (‘Trumpeter maybe’) goes inside (‘interrupts’) every setter’s favourite two-letter word for ‘cheers’ to produce the name of an African people or their language.

4d The No. 1 cleric revised what’s typical of Galilean ideas? (12)
Nothing complex about the wordplay, but the ‘Galilean’ refers not to a Roman division of Palestine but to a great mathematician from a Queen song.

6d Just like Pooh CR found in pot upended (7)
A neat clue, where the letters CR are to be place inside the word DIOTA (an ancient case, ie a ‘pot’) and the whole lot reversed (‘upended’).

9d Apostrophe: abbreviation of ‘has’ follows one in middle (5)
A single-letter abbreviation of ‘has’ follows a single-letter representation of the number ‘one’, the pair being put into a three-letter word which roughly equates to ‘middle’ and is often indicated in crosswords by ‘corporation’.

18d Russians historically raising temperature a long way for Irish stew! (7)
A seven-letter word for citizens of the former USSR has the T in position six moved up to position two (‘raising temperature a long way’), the result being Irish stew.

19d People in Scotland suffer endlessly – this is used to ease pain (7)
The wordplay here is deceptive, breaking down as ‘People’ (three letters) and ‘in Scotland suffer endlessly’ (a five-letter Scottish word meaning to endure or suffer). The outcome is something used as both a topical analgesic and a decongestant, the key element of a joke about a Smartie and a gang of Lockets which it would be inappropriate to reproduce here.

22d Dark spot round square heraldic bearing (6)
Unless you are familiar with the lozenge-shaped, perforated bearing which constitutes the solution, you will need to know that a MACLE is a term for a dark spot within a mineral.

(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 2,560 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A 1970s ad for Crawfords Cheddars maintained that “If you like cheese, you’ll love these”, and similarly if you like a ‘hidden’ you’ll have loved this ‘un. Five of the little fellows, and not even a reversal among them! But there were enough tricky clues to go with them, particularly in the NW corner (where there were no ‘gimmes’),  that I have placed the puzzle right in the middle of the difficulty spectrum. 

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 11a, “Large fish I netted – it involves vigorous hand movements” (5, 1 or 2 words). Nothing too interesting about the wordplay, although we have to infer the word ‘with’ between ‘fish’ and ‘I’ in order to work out that ‘I’ has been ‘netted’ by the TUNA to produce TUI NA. The problem, though, which has confronted the setter here, regarding the enumeration is one that I have never come across before. Where a clue leads to two separate ‘answers’ with different punctuation, eg ‘Endure stupid person’ for GO ON/GOON, conventionally the ‘simpler’ one is chosen as the solution, so in this example GO ON would be treated as the wordplay, GOON as the solution, and the clue would be shown as ‘Endure stupid person (4)’. Here, however, we have just a single answer, but while Chambers gives TUI NA as the principal form it inconveniently adds ‘also TUINA’. I don’t think it would be wrong to go with ‘(5)’ or (5, 2 words), but Azed has covered both bases with a highly unusual choice of enumeration – I do wonder if it is more confusing than helpful.

1a Sage I’d omitted separately from formal food item, stuffing weighed (6)
The letters I and D must be omitted separately from VIAND (Chambers: “(formal) an article of food”), which is then put inside (‘stuffing’) a word meaning ‘weighed’ (as well as ‘settled’). The comma, required by the surface reading, adversely affects the grammar of the wordplay – as the clue stands, it is the ID which ought to be doing the ‘stuffing’.

13a It helps in fighting the flab – enrol in varying rota (8)
The word for ‘enrol’ which must be inserted into an anagram (‘varying’) of ROTA is more familiar in this sense when similarly prefixed with ‘en’.

14a Measure ring behind second of stirrups (9)
A neatly constructed clue disguising the definition of the sort of adjective which can be very tricky to clue. A four-letter word for [a] measure plus a four-letter word meaning [to] ring are placed behind the usual abbreviation for ‘second’.

15a E.g. dal creating trouble for Indian village (4)
This clue uses three of the four entries for the solution in Chambers (in the same order in which they are listed there, which may not be coincidence), but omits the first and most familiar, a unit of weight. I don’t much like multiple definition clues where there are superfluous words between the individual definitions – particularly, as here, where the clue suggests that one produces another (‘creating’, ‘for’). I’ve no problem with a wordplay producing a solution, but here the answers are the same, so any linking words must surely indicate equivalence rather than constitution (so ‘E.g. dal is trouble’ would be acceptable). I once produced a clue for the Sunday Times clue writing contest consisting of just five definitions (with no linking words), but frankly that’s all it was memorable for.

29a Tiny piece of cell, piece cut by a slop untidily (8)
A three-letter word for a piece containing (‘cut by’) an anagram (‘untidily’) of A SLOP.

1d Tenor interrupting part of his programme once annoyed (5)
The standard abbreviation for ‘tenor’ is put inside (‘interrupting’) a four-letter word for something that would be one of many in his (ie a tenor’s) repertoire.

2d Some change in Iceland, air beginning to resonate (5)
A four-letter word for ‘air’ or ‘distinctive character’ is followed by the first letter of (‘beginning to’) resonate, producing the plural form of a small Icelandic currency unit.

3d Cowardly fellow of yore opposed to Trojan, old (7)
A charade clue made up of a one-letter abbreviation for ‘opposed to’, a five-letter word for ‘Trojan’, and the usual abbreviation for ‘old’.

6d He deserves death penalty, to wit something that facilitates hanging permits (12)
The wordplay here involves a two-letter abbreviation of a Latin word for ‘to wit’ or ‘specifically’, a (1,3) description of something that facilitates hanging (of eg a coat), and a six-letter word meaning ‘permits’. 

8d It helps to stimulate growth that all can view when fed to cuttin’ (5)
The old designation for a film ‘that all can view’ is placed inside a five-letter word for ‘cutting’ (of train services, say) which has been contracted in the same way as “cuttin'”.

19d Sunken passage round US building, 100 sq m off (7)
A three-letter metric land measure (100 sq m) is here followed by a four-letter word meaning ‘off’.

20d Tailed car I abandoned nabbed by a tec in disguise (7)
The ‘car’ is the name of a German car manufacturer; its closing ‘I’ is abandoned and it is contained (‘nabbed’) by an anagram (‘in disguise’) of A TEC.

23d Line given to one ‘of infinite jest’ not OK in song (5)
The standard one-letter abbreviation for ‘line’ is followed by the name of a ‘fellow of infinite jest’, from which the letters O and K have been separately removed (‘not OK’). This puts me in mind of one of the great TV adverts, the Carling Black Label ‘Hamlet’ one (to paraphrase a comment on youtube, ‘Great ad, rubbish beer’). Definitely in my top ten, though not quite as good as the wonderful Dulux plasticine men or Specsavers vet. But that’s just my opinion.

(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 2,559 Plain

Difficulty rating: (4 / 5)

I got the feeling that Azed enjoyed setting this one, and I think that it would have proved quite a tester for someone unused to his ‘little ways’. I thought that the clues at 1a, 12d and 28d were particularly good, but there were many to admire, more than in any recent puzzle that I can recall.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at the clue for 31a, “I’ll be captivated by s-spiffy little bird on the river” (8). This features a device which is quite often seen in Azed puzzles but rarely occurs elsewhere, and involves a word in the clue being modified in order to tell the solver that an analogous modification must be made to the word indicated. Like the ‘Cockney’ device, where for instance ‘ammer might indicate ‘it, here the modification suggests a stammer which must be similarly applied to the word derived (the result will not be a real word, but will form an element of the solution), so ‘remain b-blue’ could indicate ‘be l-low’ , and here ‘I’ is contained by ‘d-dapper’ to produce ‘didapper’. It is not a device that I’m particularly fond of, and one of the few in the Azed portfolio that I would not use in my own puzzles.

1a Greedy one studies food supply – his targets were sounder, but loose? (12)
A three-letter word for a greedy person (‘Greedy one’), a four-letter word meaning ‘studies’ (which Chambers shows as archaic), and a five-letter word for a supply of food (based on where it might be arrayed) combine to give a (3-9) hyphenated solution. The clever definition exploits the fact that a ‘sounder’ is a herd of pigs.

13a Join climbers in Cairngorms? Retreating deer whines (8)
A three-letter word for a deer closely related to the moose combines with a five-letter word meaning ‘whines’ or ‘complains’, the whole lot being reversed (‘retreating’). The result is a Scots word (‘in Cairngorms’) meaning ‘to clamber’.

17a Old peasant troubled shrink, admitting start of eccentricity (7)
An anagram (‘troubled’) of SHRINK containing (‘admitting’) the first letter of ‘eccentricity’; ‘old peasant’ might at first glance seem inappropriate to indicate an obsolete adjective, but in the cryptic reading ‘peasant’ is also an adjective (‘of or relating to peasants’). Since Chambers gives ‘e’ as an abbreviation for ‘eccentricity’ (of a conic section), the words ‘start of’ are superfluous.

18a Cheeky minx, woman replacing husband, mimsy one (5)
A five-letter ‘minx’ (often brazen) has her (initial) H for husband replaced by a W for…well, for ‘women’ or ‘wife’, but not according to Chambers for ‘woman’ (I’m pretty sure Azed did the same thing a few weeks ago). The solution can be an adjective or, as here, a noun, defined (rather loosely, it seems to me) as ‘mimsy one’.

19a Coarse Scots when going after Mrs Grundy, firing off extremes (5)
The usual two-letter word for ‘when’ follows a five-letter word for a person of extreme propriety (‘Mrs Grundy’) from which the first and last letters have been removed (‘firing off extremes’). Mrs Grundy ‘appears’ in Thomas Morton’s 1798 play Speed the Plough, although at no point does she actually take the stage; that she is the personification of all that is proper, however, is witnessed by the  sensitive Dame Ashfield’s frequent references to her, often in the phrase “What will Mrs Grundy say?” This became something of a catchphrase in the early nineteenth century, and the 1810 pantomime The Bold Serjeant included the song “What’ll Mrs Grundy Say?”

23a Is this player, shiner, exciting in orchestra? (5)
The first of two composite anagrams, here the letters of the solution (‘this player’) plus SHINER can be rearranged (‘exciting’) to form IN ORCHESTRA.

25a Disciple of theological pioneer admitting 50% of errors (7)
A very neat wordplay which involves a three-letter poetic contraction of a six-letter word meaning ‘admitting’ or ‘even if’ followed by the first four letters of an eight-letter word meaning ‘errors’ (ie ‘50% of errors’).

30a Militant supporting what’s left of spread (5)
A three-letter word meaning ‘supporting’ or ‘in favour of’, plus a two-letter abbreviation of a word for the left-hand page of an open book. I’m not entirely happy about the two-step process required to convert “what’s left of spread” into the required form; I would have preferred something along the lines of “what’s left of spread, in short”.

32a Place giving Aussie bad feeling? Leaving capital optional (5)
This is a double definition clue with a twist: the ‘Place’ is known by two names, the longer form including the prefix ‘London’ – this can be omitted while referring to the same place, so ‘leaving [out the name of the English] capital’ is optional (though mandatory for some).

2d Staffage appalling at Balmoral in queen being put up therein (7)
A four-letter Scots (‘at Balmoral’) word for ‘appalling’ has the letters IN R (‘in queen’) reversed inside (‘put up therein’). ‘Staffage’ refers to ‘decorative accessories in a picture, or subordinate additions in any work of art’, ie decoration or embellishment 

5d Some turning up seeking famed Louvre piece head off (4)
A simple ‘hidden reversed’, but a neat definition which forms part of an appealing surface reading. The ‘famed Louvre piece’ is the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which – perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it is over 2,000 years old and was buried in pieces – is missing a few minor elements, most obviously the head. Her right hand was found as recently as 1950, so there still hope…

8d Heap of refuse, last to be cast from furnace’s function? (4)
The eight-letter function of a certain type of furnace has the letters LAST removed in order to produce the solution, possibly Microsoft’s biggest ‘heap of refuse’ since Vista.

9d Iron tenon: some instruction required with one installed (8)
Here we have a six-letter word for a ‘prescribed portion of instruction’ containing W I (‘with one installed’).

13d Product of teashop creator…OAP’s thrilled with it! (11)
The second composite anagram, this time of the &lit variety. The letters (‘Product’) of TEASHOP CREATOR are the same as those of OAP when mixed up (‘thrilled’) with the solution (‘it’). As something of a cake aficionado, I was expecting great things when I picked up a slice of the ‘Original’ (made to the original recipe, I think, not part of first batch from 1832) cake from the Vienna confiserie. It was a very hot day, which probably didn’t do the cake any great favours, but I’m afraid that I was sadly disappointed. The local apple strudel with a generous blob of ice cream, though, was a horse of a very different colour.

17d Render in rough stone old-style wharf, possibly first installed (8)
A three-letter ‘earlier’ (ie ‘old-style’) spelling of a word for a wharf that is more familiar in four-letter form contains an anagram of FIRST (‘possibly first installed’), resulting in one of those words that make you wonder why anyone felt the need to create them – in fact, this one isn’t given by the OED, so perhaps the editors of Chambers invented it just to fill an empty space.

20d Nurse comes round opening up premed alkaline (7)
A three-letter word for a nurse (an alternative spelling of ‘ayah’, and one that is very useful to setters) contains (‘comes round’) a four-letter word for an opening that has been reversed (‘up’).

22d Prophet’s descendants rising proudly to the surface, last rising about halfway (6)
The wordplay here is focused on a six-letter word  which (in botanical circles, describing leaves) means ‘rising above the surface of water’. The ‘proudly’ is used in the sense of ‘in a way that stands out from the surface’, and the ‘last rising about halfway’ tells the solver that the last letter of the word must be moved up to either of the central positions.

28d What kept Pyramus from Thisbe – or Ida from mice! (4)
Very nice – a Shakespearean word for the thing that kept Pyramus and Thisbe apart, they being able only to whisper their love through a crack in it, which is produced by removing the letters IDA from a seven-letter word for the mouse family.

(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 2,558 ‘Right and Left’

Difficulty rating: (4.5 / 10)

I thought that we were due a non-competition ‘special’, and was half-expecting an ‘Eightsome Reels’, but instead we have a ‘Right and Left’. An entertaining variation, where the best place to start is the entry across the top; if you can get that and then move on to the first five down clues, then you can really get a foothold into the puzzle. There were several easy clues (or half-clues), but a few others that would have proved quite tricky even in a plain puzzle. The somewhat ungrammatical note telling solvers that the Chambers Dictionary ‘does not give proper name’ should read ‘It does not give one proper name’ (this absentee is to be found at 14dL).

Setters’ Corner: Writing ‘double’ clues takes a bit of getting used to. The fundamental rules are that the two individual clues must not overlap, and there should be no redundant words between them. Azed pushes the limits of the latter rule in a couple of clues – in 15a the words ‘in it’ are superfluous, and have to be read as meaning that the solution is ‘in’ the wordplay, and in 14d similarly the solution is ‘displaying’ the result of the wordplay. The first key attribute of a good double clue is that the break should be well-disguised, not appearing at a natural break in the surface reading; 7a and 8a are good examples of this. The other thing is that the whole clue should read well as a single entity, which ideally means having a single theme – this can be very hard to achieve when (say) the solutions are two unrelated nouns such as those in 6a, and sometimes the setter just needs to do the best they can. Note that there is no requirement for the separated clues to make any sense when read individually, and any attempt to make them do so is likely to weaken the overall clue.

After the notes on some of the clues (in some instances only one part) I have included a checklist showing where the break occurs in each clue and whether the solution to the first half of the clue belongs in the left or right of the grid. Since no-one commented last week to the effect that they didn’t like me underlining the definitions I will keep on doing it until I’m asked to stop!

1a Limbs flailing about right and left, i.e. at a modified feature of this puzzle? (12)
Here we have an anagram (‘flailing’) of LIMBS containing (‘about’) an anagram of R, L, IE AT A; the result is a feature of this particular puzzle.

7a Middy too far into side channel / to disturb fens steered with it (6,6)
‘Middy’ is an informal term for a midshipman, and the solution is perhaps a slightly less respectful name for one. The wordplay involves a three-letter abbreviation of a term meaning ‘too far’ (although in the abbreviated form, ‘going too far’ might be preferable) being contained by a three-letter Canadian word for a side channel (which can also be spelt with an ‘e’ on the end) that immediately makes me think of the Beatles song I Am The Walrus, but that will only make sense to you if you know the (somewhat arcane, it must be said) lyrics.

8a Bulging trunk mostly containing what’s central for your / use, lot untidily loose (6,6)
A five-letter word for a trunk (in the human body sense) with its last letter removed (‘mostly’) is ‘containing’ the middle letters of the word ‘your’ (“what’s central for your”)..

10a Buccaneer from rear artist included / to expose in bed, showing him a debauchee (6,6)
Here we start with a word for a buccaneer coming ‘from’ a four-letter word for ‘[a] rear’, in which the usual two-letter representation of ‘artist’ is included. Then we have a two-letter dialectal form of ‘him’ (or ‘one’), followed by a four-letter debauchee; the bed is the sort that might be occupied by flowers, fruit or vegetables.

15a Account, one to draw on, returning currency unit in it / universal in palaver with a revenue subdivision (6,6)
The first wordplay involves a reversal (‘returning’) of the usual two-letter abbreviation for ‘account’, A (‘one’) and a three-letter word meaning ‘to draw on’; as mentioned above, the ‘in it’ is somewhat de trop. The second wordplay has an abbreviation of ‘universal’ inside a synonym for palaver in the sense of a discussion.

17a Egoist flourishing weedy regalia / turning brown in senescence as related (6,6)
The wordplay in part one is straightforward (an anagram of EGOIST), but the ‘regalia’ (as confirmed by the use of ‘weedy’) relates to regalia² in Chambers, not a word I knew. Part two has a three-letter word for ‘brown’ reversing (‘turning’) inside a three-letter word which on a good day might just about mean ‘senescence’ (although more accurately it’s the result of senescence).

1d Not quite front-rankers waved for old poet / renewing art as of religious movement (5,5)
The first of the two definitions (this one leading to a hyphenated solution) refers to that group of celebrities who are well known but have not achieved the absolute pinnacle of fame.

2d Plant extract, not one consumed by two units, / number besieged in a fortified mound – it plays abnormal role among parts of speech (6,6)
If you didn’t know that the fortified mound which has a two-letter abbreviation for ‘number’ contained within is A DUN then you’ll probably have needed a few checkers to get this one.

3d Copy super daubed almost Monet-style / top coat applied in swirling action (8,8)
The solution here consists of three words (including a couple of accents), and the ‘Monet-style’ is there to indicate its Frenchness.

5d Spenser’s teacher, one cloaked in endless enigma, / understanding little new, infatuated about it (7,7)
The ‘endless enigma’ could refer to a work by Salvador Dali, or one by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but it doesn’t. It’s a seven-letter word for an enigma missing the last letter (‘endless’) wherein A (‘one’) is contained (‘cloaked’). ‘Infatuated’ translates to a six-letter French loanword into which the usual abbreviation for ‘new’ (‘little new’) is inserted to produce another word donated by the French.

9d South African shipping company? Head may be wrapped up in this / triangular structure redesigned for twelve housing first of them (8,8)
To start with we have two four-letter words which when put together might describe a South African shipping company; the second wordplay involves an anagram of FOR (‘redesigned for’) followed by a four-letter word for ‘twelve’ in a temporal sense containing (‘housing’) the first letter of ‘them’.

12d Light bathrobe that looks disgusting on a fatty’s middle before a / rare reception in woven calico (6,6)
A three-letter interjection meaning ‘That looks disgusting!’ is followed by (‘on’) A and the central letter of ‘fatty’ (“fatty’s middle”) before another A.

13d Start of indulgence after period denying it – numbering days / get plastered as fair amount of fine grappa’s upended (5,5)
This is a ‘reverse hidden’, but the interest is in the definition – in order to make the surface reading work, Azed uses ‘get plastered’ instead of ‘plaster’. I wouldn’t like to see this sort of thing too often, but ‘I want to plaster that wall’ and ‘I want to get that wall plastered’ can mean pretty much the same thing.

14d High achiever on board, we hear, regularly / displaying energy opening cask, porter serving Scotch of old (5,5)
The first part of the clue leads to the one ‘non-Chambers’ proper name in the puzzle, a homophone for a word meaning ‘regularly’. The second part has the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’ being inserted into (‘opening’) a four-letter word for a  barrel or cask, producing one spelling of a word for an ’18th century messenger or errand porter in some large Scottish towns’; an alternative spelling is more familiar to golfers.

Division of Clues

In 6a the division is between ‘entered’ and ‘in’, and the first half of clue relates to an entry in the left hand side of the grid; 7a: channel/to, R; 8a: your/use, R; 10a: included/to, L; 11a: leader/changing, L; 15a: it/universal, R; 16a: sight/is, L; 17a: regalia/turning, R; 18a: fear/frisson, L; 1d: poet/renewing, L; 2d: units/number, L; 3d: Monet-style/top, L; 4d: below/cross, R; 5d: enigma/understanding, R; 9d: this/triangular, L; 10d: isles/hitting, R; 12d: a/rare, L; 13d: days/get, R; 14d: regularly/displaying, L.

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 2,557 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

This was decidedly tricky for a plain puzzle, and there were too many liberties taken in the wordplays for my liking. It all felt a little bit strained and I didn’t find it a particularly enjoyable solve when judged against Azed’s exceptionally high standards.

As an experiment, I have underlined the definition parts of the clues which I have picked out for comment; I know that this convention is used in other crossword blogs. Let me know whether this is something that you would like me to continue with.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 21d, “Very old coat? Half of it covers more than half of terrier (6)”. The second part of the wordplay requires ‘terrier’ to represent ‘Aberdeen’. There is a very clear rule which determines whether this is acceptable, the deciding factor being whether the entry for the first word in Chambers includes a reference to the second. The entry for ‘Aberdeen’ has “(in full Aberdeen terrier) a coarse-haired kind of Scottish terrier”, so an Aberdeen is indeed a terrier. Similarly, Chambers gives ‘cairn’ as “a small variety of Scottish terrier”, but conversely although it has a separate entry for ‘Border terrier’ there is no mention of it under the entry for ‘border’. Hence ‘terrier’ is fine for ‘Aberdeen’ or ‘cairn’, but not for ‘Border’; likewise ‘couch’ can legitimately indicate ‘grass’ (couch == couch grass), but ‘Vera’, or even ‘Vera, say’, cannot indicate ‘aloe’. If one were determined to involve Vera in a clue for ‘aloe’, it would have to be through the use of ‘name given to type of aloe’ or something along those lines – Vera is not an aloe.

7a Baby’s mum wiping bottom – not something one could get out of! (5)
There is nothing in the wordplay to indicate it, but the three-letter word for bottom must be ‘wiped’ from the outside of “Baby’s mum”.

12a Higher organism turning ‘tail’ pursued by a peasant farmer with energy (9)
A three-letter word for a tail, in the sense of a long twist of hair at the back of the head is reversed (‘turning’) and followed (‘pursued’) by A, a four-letter word from the Indian subcontinent for a peasant farmer, and the usual abbreviation for ‘energy’.

14a Wherein political gossip circulates, ‘ideous in endless run (9)
A six-letter word for ‘hideous’ with the first letter removed (by analogy with ‘ideous) is contained by a five-letter word of Italian origin for a race or run with the last letter removed (‘endless’).

16a Super character I found in Vergil (5)
Maro is the cognomen of the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro, usually known as Virgil; although the spelling ‘Vergil’ is technically correct the two-i’d misspelling seemingly dates back to late antiquity and is now dominant in several languages, including English. The ‘super character’ is a portly, mustachioed plumber who in 1985  teamed up with his brother Luigi to rescue Princess Toadstool from the wicked Bowser. A series of successful enterprises followed, and at some point he abandoned the world of compression fittings and U-bends, Nintendo having updated his profile in 2017 to describe him as “All around sporty, whether it’s tennis or baseball, soccer or car racing, he does everything cool. As a matter of fact, he also seems to have worked as a plumber a long time ago…”

17a Old Scottish ship capsized – 100 on it overturned inside (7)
The Roman numeral for one hundred is followed by IT reversed (‘overturned’), and the combination is put inside an anagram (‘capsized’, a very iffy anagram indicator) of ‘ship’. The result is the name of a language which could loosely be described as ‘Old Scottish’.

18a Cape for woman or unaccompanied man, might one conclude? (6)
The solution breaks down as x ON y (ie ‘x beside y’) and when x is placed beside y a four-letter word meaning “a man who goes to dances, etc unaccompanied by a woman” (or the term for a male deer) is produced.

22a Cutters in sound? They may be looking out for shoals (5)
The solution sounds like ‘hewers’ (ie ‘cutters in sound’), and the people in question are looking out for pilchards (should have gone to Sainsbury’s).

25a In retrospect rue being taken in by flyer for poisonous apple (6)
The Latin name for the rue genus is ‘taken in’ by a two-letter abbreviation for a ‘flyer’ or ‘advertisement’, and the whole lot is reversed (‘In retrospect’).

31a Just like mater, accepting recipe for cereal (5)
A rather unsatisfactory clue has DURA (‘dura mater’ being “the exterior membrane of the brain and spinal column distinguished from the other two, the arachnoid and the pia mater”) containing (‘accepting’) R (recipe) to produce the name of a type of food-grain. However, ‘Just like mater’ doesn’t in my view indicate DURA, and the grain can also be spelt DURA, which would certainly have caused me to reject the clue.

32a What’s enjoyed in Kenyan tavern? British ale, without hesitation (5)
A three-letter word for ‘British’ common in the antipodes is followed by a four-letter word for ale missing one of the two standard two-letter interjections expressing hesitation (‘without hesitation’).

33a Indulged girls fed with old English trotters (9)
A three-letter adjective meaning ‘indulged’ plus a four-letter derogatory word for girls or young women containing (‘fed with’) the usual abbreviations for old and English.

36a Drops backward booby, say – why don’t we? (8)
The definition here is ‘Drops’, and the wordplay involves a four-letter generic term for a member of the large class of vertebrates of which the booby is an example (‘say’) being reversed (‘backward’) and followed by a four-letter informal expression meaning “why don’t we”.

1d Eye sweet: fool (11)
Chambers gives ‘jack’ as a slang term for a detective (though more commonly a member of a police force), and later editions extend the definition of ‘eye’ to include “A private eye (informal)”. The former is followed by a seven-letter word for a sweet or dessert to produce a hyphenated (4-7) solution.

3d Mites one removed from above and around fruit trees (6)
A five-letter term for ‘mites’ has the ‘a’ at its start deleted (‘one removed from above’), being followed by the usual two-letter abbreviation of ‘circa’.

5d Traitor while following Trump (not one Democrat)? (5)
I don’t recall Azed ever demonstrating his snooker knowledge before, but here we have the first name of the 2019 world champion (‘Trump’) without one of the D’s (‘not one Democrat’) plus a two-letter word for ‘while’. I don’t need much excuse to reproduce my favourite sporting quote: when the former world champion John Spencer was nearing the end of his career he suffered from myasthenia gravis, which resulted intermittently in double vision. When asked what he would do if on getting down to play a shot he was confronted with the sight of two yellow balls, he replied “I pot the easier one.’

13d Like barley sugar, say, or chocolate, one of Easter’s pair replacing egg? (9)
A weird clue this – an E (“one of Easter’s pair”) replaces one of the O’s (‘egg’) in CHOCOLATE, and the resultant letters are then slightly rearranged, but there is no discernible anagram indicator and the whole thing is a bit, well, tortuous.

21d Very old coat? Half of it covers more than half of terrier (6)
The (second) half of the word IT (‘Half of it’) on top of (‘covers’) five-eighths of the name of a type of terrier (‘more than half of terrier’).

27d This sec last? It’s confused with claret maybe (5)
A composite anagram, where the letters of LAST plus the solution (‘This sec’) are a rearrangement (‘confused’) of IT’S together with CLARET

29d Tangle of brushwood ideal for conifer (5)
A three-letter word for a tangle of brushwood (or hair) is followed by a two-letter adjective meaning ‘first-class’ or ‘excellent’…or here, although it’s a slight stretch, ‘ideal’.

30d What scavenger’s retrieved – one left little amount (5)
A three-letter word describing what a scavenger would retrieve from dustbins or rubbish tips followed by A (‘one’) and the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ (‘left little’). I’ve no idea why Azed chose ‘little’ to indicate the contraction of ‘left’ rather than ‘small’ or ‘reduced’, either of which would have worked better in the surface reading.

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 2,556 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3.5 / 5)

I thought that this puzzle was of above-average difficulty and slightly below-average entertainment, with some of the clues seeming to me a little unsatisfactory, although Azed’s sense of fun still shone through clearly. I must admit that my views regarding the quality may have been affected by tetchiness at having to delay my breakfast by a quarter of an hour or so, the result of the late appearance of the puzzle on the Guardian website.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 14a, “Site that is missing a prisoner? Not one for that kind” (6). The wordplay – analysed in the notes below – makes up the first sentence (no pun intended) of this clue for STALAG. The second part (‘Not one for that kind’) plays no part in the cryptic indication of the solution, and cannot on its own define it, but when combined with ‘Site that is missing a prisoner’ the whole serves as a definition of the solution. So what type of clue is this? It is what Ximenes termed an ‘offshoot &lit’, where the entire clue provides a definition of the solution, while part of the clue (always a group of consecutive words at one end of the clue or the other) doubles up as the wordplay. The example which Ximenes gave was “What a bishop may have had before getting a crook” for PREBEND, where the cryptic element is ‘before getting a crook’. Whilst not as satisfying as a true &lit, where all the words in the clue contribute to both wordplay and definition, this construction is used by Azed on occasion and can facilitate some inventive clues. This appealing clue from AZ 2,200 could be considered as having a simple definition/wordplay construction, but works as an offshoot &lit:

 [su_spoiler title=”What AZ has to go through and measure efforts (7)”]ENTRIES [EN TRIES (‘measure efforts’)][/su_spoiler]

3a In pash being thwarted by female, showing cunning about that aid to better sex (10, 2 words)
An anagram (‘thwarted’) of IN PASH followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘female’, the whole lot being inserted into a three-letter word meaning ‘cunning’ or ‘crafty’ to produce a (7,3) solution.

13a Fellow managed prison (all names withheld) – it maintains a lively rhythm (6)
Three-letter words for ‘Fellow’, ‘managed’ and ‘prison’, each of them missing their (closing) N (‘all names withheld’), the result being something that could be used to maintain a lively rhythm.

14a Site that is missing a prisoner? Not one for that kind (6)
Here we have SITE without IE (‘that is missing’) plus A and a three-letter word for a prisoner. The prisoner in the wordplay is specifically a convict, and the second part of the clue indicates that the camp in question would have held prisoners of a different kind.

17a Slating material, furious in being written out (4)
A six-letter word for ‘furious’ has the letters IN removed (‘in being written out’), the result being a large rough slate. 

20a Former disgrace, portent (not the first) – goodness me! (6)
A four-letter word for a portent (not the one in 21d) missing its first letter (‘not the first’) and a (1,2) expression meaning ‘goodness me!’ combine to produce a Shakespearean spelling (hence the ‘Former’) of a word meaning ‘disgrace’.

22a Aids this barge being refitted – lakeside possibly (4)
A composite anagram, where AIDS plus the solution (‘this barge’) when rearranged (‘being refitted’) can form LAKESIDE (‘lakeside possibly’).

26a Can’t stand to let off e.g. MOT? (6)
I think that it is stretching the bounds of fancifulness to suggest that to ‘de-test’ could mean ‘to let off a test’.

29a Former PM in charge of ideal state (before fall) (6)
The four-letter surname of the British Prime Minister undone by the Suez crisis is followed by the normal abbreviation for ‘in charge’, the whole being an adjective referring to a biblical paradise. If the words in parentheses had been ‘before the fall’ then the word ‘fall’ would have required an initial capital; since a fall is ‘a lapse into sin’, then I think ‘before fall’ is ok. Just.

31a Ex-president (English not American) has installed Chinese interpreters (8)
The six-letter surname of the 33rd US president of the US must have its A replaced by an E (‘English not American’) and the standard abbreviation for ‘Chinese’ inserted (‘has installed Chinese’). The resulting word is shown by Chambers as obsolete, and I am surprised that Azed did not indicate this – ‘Chinese interpreters in the past’ would arguably enhance the surface reading.

32a Permit (one assumes) required before start of excavating Turkish borate (10)
‘Permit (‘one assumes’)’ tells us, as it turns out, that the letters making up the word PERMIT are to be divided, with a suitable conjunction placed between the two parts. The first letter of ‘excavating’ (‘start of excavating’) completes the wordplay.

3d Never stood for spicy meat en brochette (5)
One could certainly argue that ‘never stood’ and ‘remained seated for ever’ (here expressed as two words) are not the same thing, but it makes for quite a nice clue.

4d Bit of immature creature, part replacing one in farm animal (6)
A three-letter farm animal has its central I replaced by a four-letter word meaning a ‘part’ of the type that might be played (‘part replacing one’).

6d Water running into shore’s rotten – could be ‘dead’ hippo (8)
A two-letter word for ‘water’, much loved by barred puzzle setters, is contained by an anagram (‘rotten’) of SHORE’S to produce an obsolete (‘dead’) word for a hippopotamus.

11d Falconer’s bird? Deal in the latest cracking experience mostly (11)
The wordplay requires a four-letter word for ‘deal in’ and a three-letter word for ‘the latest [information]’ (or ‘the lowdown’) to be inserted into (‘cracking’) a five-letter word for ‘experience’ (or ‘sample’) missing its last letter (‘mostly’). The result is a Spenserian (not indicated in any way by Azed) term, hyphenated 7-4, for a male peregrine falcon.

18d Isotope: it’s discovered in notable achievement, independent of pH (7)
Here the word IT is ‘discovered’ in a seven-letter word for a notable achievement from which the (closing) letters PH have been removed (‘independent of pH’).

19d Beneficiary set up a limit for trust maybe (7)
The usual cruciverbal synonym for ‘[to] set’ reversed (‘up’), the letter A, and the name of the letter found at either end of ‘trust’ (‘limit for trust’). The ‘maybe’ on the end seems a tad de trop.

22d King set out for audience, one resisting conquerors from abroad (6)
Ugh! – a partial homophone, this one for ‘left’ (‘set out for audience’), follows the abbreviation for king that appears in chess notation.

25d Jock’s stall – is this his den ransacked for merchandise? (5)
Another composite anagram, wherein an anagram (‘ransacked’) of the solution (‘this’) plus HIS DEN can produce MERCHANDISE.

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 2,555 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

This wasn’t an especially hard puzzle, but it wasn’t an especially easy one either, so I have given it a rating right in the middle of the difficulty spectrum. My breakfast-time solving was interrupted by the discovery of an insect floating on the surface of my mug of tea, as a result of which I decided to brew up a replacement. Although Azed notes that ‘the plural form at 33 may be considered questionable’, I think it’s absolutely fine, as the singular describes one of a family of compounds, not a specific compound (similarly ‘alcohols’ would be ok, while ‘ethanols’ would not). My thanks to Steve (see comments) for pointing out the misplaced apostrophe in the clue for 15a.

Setters’ Corner: This week, rather than using one of Azed’s clues I’m going to look at a clue from the recent Spoonerisms competition, Richard Heald’s second-placed entry for SPAVIN: “What might Hubble track? Scattered outer parts from supernova, it having exploded”. I’ve made no secret of my admiration for Richard’s clues – their originality, crispness, and complete soundness (this last attribute being absent surprisingly often in successful clues from other competitors) set him above all the other Azed comp entrants  – including even myself in my rare sorties!! Here he delivers an object lesson in writing  a successful Spoonerisms clue, where the key is catching Azed’s eye with the spoonerism itself. I’m sure that many competitors considered the words ‘trouble’ and ‘hack’, but I doubt whether too many put them together and those that did might have got no further than “It hubbles track”. Often some manipulation is required in order to make the inflections work, and here the addition of an auxiliary verb does the trick – “What might trouble hack?” / “What might Hubble track?”. The wordplay answers the question, and the clever use of ‘parts from’ in the sense of ‘leaves’ is the icing on the cake. I would strongly advise anyone looking to improve their clue-writing skills to have a look through Richard’s portfolio in the excellent Azed Slip Archive. There are some cracking clues in there, but if pushed to choose a favourite it would probably be (click on the ‘+’ to reveal the solution) :

Moving on to the clues in puzzle 2,555:

14a Former king gets patriotic composer in for stock of poems (6)
Where would setters be without the composer of “Rule, Britannia!”, or at least his surname? Here it is surrounded by the two letters representing King George, producing a poetic word for a stock or store of anything (ie ‘stock of poems’).

18a These pictures may show recess he adorned with such cherubs (5)
A composite anagram, where THESE PICTURES could be represented as (‘may show’) RECESS HE mixed up with (‘adorned with’) the solution (‘such cherubs’).

25a Bruce’s hiding place beside loch, providing his chance (5)
There is little evidence that Robert Bruce actually hid in a CAVE following his defeat at the battle of Methven (1306), let alone that he received inspiration there from a pertinacious spider; the legend seems to date from the early 19th century, when Walter Scott included it in his series of books on Scottish history, Tales of a Grandfather.

27a Make fun of Old Tom having little energy (4)
Anyone guessing the unchecked letter based solely on the definition is likely to get this one wrong. GIB is an old word for a cat, especially a male one, in later usage one that has been castrated. 

31a Animate foot-warmer by the sound of it (6)
The solution (meaning ‘[to] animate’) is a homophone for a piece ‘of some material placed inside a shoe for warmth, dryness or comfort.’

34a Ice sliver for Scotch? Mixed us jigger (half each) (4)
The answer, a Scots word a ‘pellicle of ice’ (a thin film, it appears), is an anagram (‘mixed’) of the first half of ‘us’ and the second half of ‘jigger’. I have learnt something here (two things if you include ‘pellicle’), as my mother had a copy of A Grue of Ice by Geoffrey Jenkins on a bookcase in our living room for many years without me ever knowing what one was.

35a What’s evident in guest’s last letter, see, penned by a correspondent? (8)
The wordplay here has the single letter C (‘see’) contained (‘penned’) by A plus a word for the sort of correspondent that Elvis Presley’s letters kept coming back to. The solution is a feature of certain lower-case letters (such as the ‘t’ in ‘guest’) which extend above the mean line of the font. It is these bits, together with their chums that go below the baseline, which help us to quickly recognise words; studies carried out at the start of the construction of the British motorway network concluded that words with mixed-case letters were much easier to read than ‘all-caps’, resulting in a font being specially designed for motorway signs.

3d Good Friday: dad, as RC, prepared the day before (9)
Here we have the usual two-letter word for ‘dad’, followed by an anagram (‘prepared’) of AS RC, and finished off with a three-letter word for ‘the day before’. I don’t recall ever having come across the solution before.

4d Menu extra: mushroom rolled in crust partly (7)
A three-letter mushroom particularly enjoyed by crossword setters is reversed (‘rolled’) inside a four-letter word for the lighter upper part of the earth’s continental crust, the term reflecting the fact that the rocks therein are rich in silicon and aluminium oxides.

9d Regarding desire for intake, commander’s retaining muscles (7)
The abbreviation for Officer Commanding is seen containing (‘retaining’) the plural of ‘rectus’, the name of ‘various muscles, esp. of the abdomen, thigh, neck, and eye, so called from the straightness of their fibres.’

10d Pig (by name) imbibing steins, drunk for duration (11)
The pig who is ‘imbibing’ an anagram (‘drunk’) of STEINS is one who has made a lot of money for M&S, and shares his name with the pigeon who moved into our back garden a couple of years ago. At one point he was extremely protective of his new territory, doing sterling work by chasing other pigeons away, but since we added a pond to the garden he has started inviting friends round to enjoy the facilities on offer, a wholly inappropriate way of showing his gratitude.

16d Aid to measuring distance? A journal mostly filling tiny amounts up (9, 2 words)
The wordplay here has A plus a five-letter word for a journal deprived of its last letter (‘mostly’) inside (‘filling’) a four-letter word meaning ‘tiny amounts’ or ‘specks’ reversed (‘up’); the solution is divided (6,3).

21d Damaging charge received, a long time coming up? One may be on list (7)
A three-letter word for a long time is reversed (‘coming up’), with a ‘damaging charge’ (in an explosive, depth charge sort of way) inside (‘received’).

23d Aim to miss goose, catching wing (6)
Here we have a four-letter word for a goose or fool containing (‘catching’) a two-letter American term for a wing on a building (reflecting the resultant shape of the building as a whole).

24d Purposes for Scotch, topping stingers? (6)
I misread ‘stingers’ as ‘stringers’, which didn’t make solving the clue any easier. The solution, a Scots word for ‘purposes’, is obtained by ‘topping’ (removing the first letter from) a seven-letter word for ‘stingers’.

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 2,554 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

The long entries across the top and bottom were easy starters, and there were a couple of hiddens to help out, but there were enough tricky clues to push this one just above the average difficulty mark, I thought (but do let me know if you disagree). The puzzle featured some nicely constructed clues which offered plenty of entertainment.

Setters’ Corner: The clue for 28a is “Foreign knife, its head buried in dog now dead (4)”. The ‘its’ is intended to refer back to ‘knife’, and it is the first letter (‘head’) of this word which must be removed from KUKRI to produce KURI, the ‘dog now dead’. The clue raises two points: firstly, going back to last week’s discussion of self-referencing clues, can ‘its’ legitimately refer to ‘knife’ alone? In my view, no – the result of pre-processing the clue is “Foreign knife, foreign knife’s head buried in dog now dead” and the wordplay fails; “Knife, its head buried in dog now dead” would work very nicely. Secondly, could ‘its head’ alternatively have indicated I, the first letter of ‘its’? No, that would have demanded the use of “it’s head” (which makes no sense) – ‘its head’ does not mean ‘the head of the word it’ (or of the word ‘its’). A possessive pronoun can never (fairly) be used in wordplay with a letter selection indicator alone in order to deliver a letter from the pronoun itself – ‘their leader’ is not T, nor ‘his conclusion’ S.

14a Cheese, round, in yellow wrapping? It’s opened out to be studied (8)
A four-letter (crumbly) cheese is reversed (’round’) inside a four-letter word meaning yellow in colour (‘in yellow wrapping’), the whole describing an oversize page which has to be folded out in order to be studied, but more familiar to me as a description of certain LP covers (Santana III and Axis: Bold as Love spring to mind from my own collection).

15a Colourful bird to be sold in marketplace (6)
The wordplay here combines two barred puzzle staples – TRON, a ‘chiefly Scottish’ marketplace, and GO in the sense of ‘to be sold’, as in ‘Apples go for £1.20 a pound’.

23a Last course over after post-school education? If so, one’s had enough (5, 2 words) (4)
A three-letter informal term for the last course of a three-course meal is reversed (‘over’) following (‘after’) a two-letter abbreviation for education that is undertaken after leaving school.

25a Final challenge for Balliol undergrad, maybe, to announce impending nuptials for last time (6)
There may be a particular reference that I’m missing here (the ‘Final’ at the start seems redundant), but the final challenge for the Balliol undergraduate is an ‘Oxford University (abbreviated) TASK’. I wondered if the clue had something to do with Boris, but he isn’t an undergrad.

28a Foreign knife, its head buried in dog now dead (4)
A five-letter word for a sharp, curved Gurkha knife has the first letter of ‘knife’ (‘its head’, ie “knife’s head”) removed (‘buried’) – from the middle, not the start – to produce the name of an extinct New Zealand dog.

30a Distinctive sound of mobile Girton ‘fresher’, not old (8)
The definition here is ‘Distinctive sound of mobile’, with the wordplay indicating an anagram (‘fresher’) of GIRTON followed by a two-letter, obsolete word for ‘not’ (‘not old’). I’m not sure about any comparative being used as an anagram indicator, so I’m unconvinced by ‘fresher’.

31a Great fighting cocks (4)
A double definition, where a consultation with Chambers is likely to be required in order to confirm that the word meaning ‘great’ or ‘chief’ is also a term for a set of cocks involved in a match.

32a Cross almost always kept in pannier (6)
A four-letter word for ‘always’ with its last letter removed (‘almost’) is ‘kept in’ another barred puzzle regular, PED, a dialect word meaning a pannier or hamper.

4d Extended bit of verse? Digital player replaces one in time (6)
A three-letter word for time (the sort that every dog has) with the four-letter name of a portable media player replacing the central A (‘replacing one’).

7d Not far from Edinburgh, Eastern quarter (5)
The wordplay here involves the normal abbreviation for Eastern being followed by the full name of a cardinal point of the compass (‘quarter’), but does ‘Not far from Edinburgh’ satisfactorily define a word which means ‘near’ in Scotland? I think it’s a moot point, but I would have preferred (say) ‘Glaswegian not far from Eastern quarter’.

11d Mature pacific tree, green all round – a sudden change (9)
A four-letter word meaning ‘mature’ or ‘fully developed’ plus yet another regular, TI (‘[small] pacific [lileaceous] tree’, is contained by a three-letter word which describes the shade of the Owl and the Pussy-Cat’s boat (‘green all around’).

13d I’ll yield to fool in character, one sharing lessons (9)
The letter I in a seven-letter word meaning ‘character’ (or ‘condition of a country or region with regard to temperature, moisture etc’) gives way to a three-letter word for a fool (“I’ll yield to fool”). Reiterating a point made in Setter’s Corner recently, Azed has used “I’ll yield” here rather than ‘I yield’ because the latter would be grammatically unsound in the cryptic reading.

21d On our side, holding ring that’s anything but impregnable (6)
If you are on our side, then you are PRO US.

24d Installed head of state admitting space (5, 2 words)
The head of state in question belongs to Russia, and his surname is ‘admitting [a] space’ in order to produce the two words required by the definition ‘Installed’. The ‘admitting space’ is not required to make the clue sound, but Azed presumably felt that it added some interest to the concise but rather dull “Installed head of state”, the clueing equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel (not that I’ve ever shot fish in a barrel, you understand).

26d Star group exchanging parts, no longer equal in Scotland (5)
The star group (or constellation) which must have its first three letters exchanged takes from the Latin for ‘table’ the name it shares with a society founded by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware  in 1946. Its professed aim was to take in members based purely on their IQ, without reference to social distinctions. However, when this was exactly what happened they weren’t too happy. Berrill had sought an ‘aristocracy of the intellect’, and the high proportion of non-U members rather spoilt that, whilst Ware apparently bemoaned the fact that ‘so many members spend so much time solving puzzles’. What a terrible waste .

27d King’s given over part of church for his consort’s junior in rank (5)
A one-letter abbreviation for king is put above (‘given over’) a part of a church to provide a playing card which ranks immediately below the king’s consort.

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 2,553 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Although this puzzle didn’t detain me long past my second slice of Toastie, I felt that the high obscurity count probably brought it into the middle of the difficulty range. Thankfully, as ever with Azed, even the unfamiliar words could usually be confidently entered thanks to the accuracy of the wordplays.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 23a, “One unseating e.g. Herod rent him in pieces” (9). While the solution here is clearly DETHRONER, derived from the letters of HEROD RENT, it may not be immediately obvious where the ‘e.g’ and ‘him’ fit in. Clues may legitimately be self-referential, for instance by including a pronoun which refers to a noun appearing earlier in the clue. This requires the solver to essentially pre-process the clue, replacing the reference with the item referenced – so here ‘him’ must replaced by ‘Herod’, making the normalised clue “One unseating e.g. Herod rent Herod in pieces”. where the definition is ‘One unseating e.g. Herod’ and the wordplay is ‘rent Herod in pieces’. Note that because the pre-processing takes place before the clue is solved in the conventional definition/wordplay sense, the internal reference must ‘work’ in the context of the surface reading. The clue “Compass point, one to avoid (4)” for SNUB [S + NUB] is unfair – it must expand in line with the surface reading as “Compass point, compass point to avoid” (not “Compass point, point to avoid”), and the indication of NUB is no good. Incidentally, ‘”Compass point, one most up-to-date”, pre-processed to “Compass point, compass point most up-to-date”, would be just about ok for NEWEST.

1a Who’s involved in it? Cited Ken Hom (not English) (10)
A nice &lit to set the ball rolling, even if the cryptic reading probably requires a ‘What’ rather than a ‘Who’. The answer to the question ‘What must be tangled up to produce the solution [ie it]?’ is CITED KEN HOM minus E.

13a I love being included in Cub Scouts – one of muster maybe? (6)
The wordplay is straightforward, with IO (‘I love’) being included in a four-letter word for a group of Cub Scouts, but the solution is a questionable reading in Shakespeare (hence the ‘maybe’) and a muster is a company of peacocks.

16a US bumpkin, honest – more than one’s seen in closet once (4)
Two definitions here, both qualified by ‘US’,  and a pointer towards a third. In the US the solution means both ‘a bumpkin’ and ‘honest’ (or ‘OK’), while the self-referential “more than one’s” tells us that the plural form of the bumpkin word is a (Shakespearean, hence the ‘once’) privy.

25a One entering turn off embarrassed – it’s unsuitable for regular traffic (8)
This clue reminds me of an unfortunate incident involving a new road that was being constructed a few years ago off a roundabout (or ‘island’ as we Midlanders say) somewhere near Oxford. Well, they should have put a barrier across the exit if they didn’t want people driving up it. But let us speak no more of that – here we have a single-letter representation of ‘one’ inside (‘entering’) an anagram (‘off’) of TURN, followed by a three-letter word meaning embarrassed, the whole being an adjective that could describe a road that was ‘unsuitable for regular traffic’.

26a Dance, one in the White House years ago (4)
The eleventh President of the United States was James Knox Polk. Perhaps the original ‘dark horse’, when the delegates at the Democratic convention of 1844 could not agree whether Martin van Buren or Lewis Cass should be put forward as their presidential candidate, they eventually broke the deadlock by selecting Polk, perhaps to his surprise as much as anyone else’s. His Whig opponent Henry Clay lamented that someone ‘more worthy of a contest’ had not been chosen, a remark which seemed ill-judged in the light of Polk’s comfortable victory. Usually characterized as straight-laced and humourless, Polk was apparently described by one fellow politician as ‘a victim of the use of water as a beverage (his wife had banned hard liquor – and dancing – from the White House). Unsurprisingly, therefore, none of his tweets have survived. He served a single term, his departure from office in 1849 being quickly followed by his death from cholera.

27a At the time of retiring certainly goes after secluded spot (4)
Here a two-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘at the time of’ is being reversed (‘retiring’), with a two-letter informal word meaning ‘certainly’ following (‘goes after’) to produce a word for a ‘secluded spot’.

31a I sit out on fringes of party – I don’t have many others to speak to (6)
I like this one – since there are believed to be less than 5,000 Ido speakers in the world (24 of them in Finland – who knew?) I think that Azed’s statement is incontrovertibly correct.

33a Dismisses pointed tool, we hear, for low gnarled tree (4)
Azed uses homophones sparingly, which suits me fine. Here the solution sounds like ‘sacks awl’ (‘Dismisses pointed tool’).

2d Copper one’s dropped into muddy drain, losing it (7)
The ‘one’ in the cryptic reading of this clue is the setter, who has dropped the chemical symbol for copper into an anagram (‘muddy’, not an anagram indicator I’m familiar with, but the meaning of ‘confused’ makes it perfectly fair) of DRAIN. The definition ‘losing it’ initially struck me as very clever, but having checked the solution in Chambers I think that ‘likely to lose it’ or similar would be more accurate.

5d Duffer stuck awkwardly the lady’s clutching (8)
An anagram (‘awkwardly’) of STUCK has a word meaning “the lady” (I would I think have preferred ‘that lady’) containing (‘clothing’) it.

8d Point out former impairment limiting lives (6)
A four-letter word often used as a verb meaning ‘to disable’ but archaic as a noun (hence the ‘former’) containing (‘limiting’) a two-letter word meaning ‘lives’. I wasn’t initially sure about the fanciful definition ‘point out’ for ‘aim badly’, but on reflection it seems perfectly fair.

13d Discipline needed going round one small island, of little value to Uncle Sam (10)
A six-letter word meaning ‘[to] discipline’ (in a chastising sense) ‘goes round’ I (‘one’) plus a three-letter word for a low island or reef (which has an alternative spelling often associated with Florida). I wasn’t familiar with the solution, which relates to the name formerly given in some southern US states to the Spanish half-real, a coin with a value of six and a quarter cents.

19d Anti-damp precaution that is not seen in Scots town, Jock’s own (7 
The seven-letter name of a town in Scotland must have the IE removed (‘that is not seen’) from its end, to be replaced by a three-letter Scots word for ‘own’ (as in ‘my own’).

24d Strong winds from opposite quarters with rose buffeted between them (6)
The opposite quarters which have a rearranged (‘buffeted’) version of ROSE between them are north and south.

30d Facility for sewers, openings for effluent they use inside (4)
In the surface reading the ‘sewers’ are drainage channels, but in the cryptic reading they have turned into seamsters.

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 2,552 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

After last week’s fit of bun, this week we have a plain Azed that seemed to sit right in the middle of the difficulty spectrum. A good variety of clues, with the standout for me  being 31a.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 20d, “Route? I’ll abandon public transport on it” (7). Nothing too difficult about the wordplay here, I ‘abandoning’ TRAINS IT to produce TRANSIT (a route), but it highlights a classic trap for setters. The slightly shorter alternative “Route? I abandon public transport on it” looks absolutely fine at first sight, but consider the grammar of the cryptic reading – it is not the person ‘I’ abandoning TRAINS IT, but the letter I. If the clue read ‘One abandon public transport’ the error would be obvious, but because we expect to see ‘I’ followed by a verb in the first person it is easy to miss. Likewise “You abandon adolescent” to give TH (YOUTH – YOU) is flawed. The usual workaround is to include an auxiliary verb (normally ‘will’) where the first and third person endings are the same, which is what Azed has done here; “I will abandon…” works in both the surface and cryptic readings.

5a Lenten psalm to perform in hope mostly (7)
A three-letter word meaning ‘to perform’ is contained by a five-letter word for ‘hope’ (or faith’) from which the last letter has been removed (‘mostly’).

14a Hob? Small fish put in to cook (5)
The ‘small fish’ which must be inserted into a three-letter word for ‘to cook’ is the AI, more commonly known as the ayu or sweetfish.

15a Scot typically rejected Irish and English seizing independence (6)
The parsing of this one isn’t straightforward. The definition is ‘Scot typically’, the solution being a noun which is most often applied to (certain) Scotsmen; the wordplay has a four-letter Irish word for ‘rejected’ (or murdered) together with the usual abbreviation for English, containing (‘seizing’) the single-letter abbreviation for independence.

16a Rare old ruminant, smash hit united with curry once (7)
The smash hit is the sort that might end a boxing contest, ‘united’ is represented by a single-character abbreviation, and ‘curry’ is an old form (‘once’) of ‘quarry’ in the hunted animal sense.

19a New actor entering, reverse of overly alert (9)
The cryptic reading of this clue has an implied ‘With’ at the start, so the wordplay involves a three-letter word for ‘overly’ being reversed (with) N plus a five-letter informal term for an actor ‘entering’ to produce a doubly-hyphenated solution.

30a Spy magnolia son plucked mistakenly, referring to different plant class (10)
An anagram (‘mistakenly’) of SPY MAGNOLIA without the letter S (‘son plucked’). Chambers only gives the (nine-letter) name of the class, but OED confirms the adjectival form with an ‘n’ on the end.

31a Injection of fluid, rarely pleasant, from behind (5)
A word for ‘pleasant’ shown by Chambers as rare (‘rarely’) is reversed (‘from behind’) to give us a chuckle.

32a Under cover in region of Italy (not the outer fringes (6, 3 words, apostrophe)
Most of what I know about Italy I have learnt from Inspector Montalbano, and it is the bit of the country separated from Salvo’s stamping-ground by the Strait of Messina which must have its first and last letters removed (‘not the outer fringes’) to produce a (1,1’4) French expression meaning ‘under shelter’.

1d Paddy rudely dividing group, causing shift as before (7)
Here we have a four-letter term for an Irishman given by Chambers as ‘offensive slang’ (ie ‘rudely’) contained by (‘dividing’) a three-letter word for a group, producing a term for a shift or smock. Chambers doesn’t show the solution as being obsolete or archaic, so the ‘as before’ is unnecessary. I’m never happy about one personification being used to indicate another, so while I’ve no fundamental problem with a setter using ‘Irishman’ for ‘Paddy’ or ‘Mick’ (though it’s not something I do myself), I don’t see how one can indicate the other – Paddy is Paddy and Mick is Mick. Similarly with figurative terms – a scoundrel could be described as a dog or a swine, but that surely doesn’t mean that ‘dog’ can be used to indicate swine.

6d Corner piece for fleece (4)
The ‘corner’ is the corner of a chessboard, which is where the piece in question would be found at the start of a game.

9d Chinese ready? That could make it handier (5)
A composite anagram &lit (not one of Azed’s finest, IMHO), where the letters of CHINESE READY can be rearranged to form (‘could make’) the solution plus HANDIER; for the definition, ‘ready’ is used in the sense of ‘money’. The last five words seem to add very little to the definition.

17d Spear exotic fruit that’s turned mature inside (8)
The exotic fruit is an ASSAI, the product of a South American palm, and a three-letter word meaning [to] mature is reversed (‘turned’) inside it to produce an unfamiliar spelling of a word for a slender African spear.

23d Is it showing first signs of sorrowful mien in face? (6)
An &lit, where ‘Is it’ should be read as ‘Does it mean’ in the non-cryptic reading (ie the definition); the cryptic reading has the first letters (‘first signs’) of ‘sorrowful mien’ being contained by a four-letter term for the ‘face’ of a watch or clock.

28d This pond pest could be pampas rodent (4)
A nice composite anagram &lit brings up the rear. The letters of the solution (‘This’) plus POND PEST could be rearranged to form PAMPAS RODENT. Although the animal in question is called the Patagonian Hare, and hares are not rodents, this guy is indeed a rodent, having the ears of a hare but the body of a small deer. It is also known as the dillaby or Patagonian cavy – this latter name could result in a shock if you bought one thinking you were getting a guinea pig, along the lines of Manuel’s ‘filigree Siberian hamster’.