Azed 1934 – Right and Left
Posted by Andrew on June 28th, 2009
The luck of the draw is giving me all the Azed specials to blog these days. Right and Left is another one that comes up fairly regularly: I think the format was devised by Azed’s predecessor Ximenes (there’s an example by X on Derek Harrison’s site. As always there’s one answer that links the two halves of the grid. It’s notable how seamlessly the two-clues-in-one are joined together, with no superfluous words and often apparently in the middle of a phrase: to illustrate this I’ve indicated below where the splits lie. There seems to be a high proportion of unusual words in the puzzle – maybe this is an unavoidable consquence of the restricted space in the two halves of the grid. I’ve shown the answers in the order they appear in the grid: I hope it’s clear from the explanations which half of the clue each relates to.
| Across | |||
| 1. FLOATING VOTE | (I’VE AN OTT GOLF)* – a clearly-indicated and not-too-difficult anagram, but Azed still manages an amusing and vaguely relevant surface reading. It’s always nice to get the answer to a long 1 across early on, and of course it’s particularly helpful in this kind of puzzle. | ||
| 5. ASCIAN/ABITUR | cold/air | C in ASIAN; (AIR BUT)* | |
| 7. POOHS/HAOMA | at/barrow | O in SHOP< ; Homophone of “howe” (an archaeological feature) + MA | |
| 8. TOTTIE/MATZOS | Crackers/until | TO T TIE ; MAT ZOS – the ZO (or zho,dso, dsho or dzo is a hybrid breed of cattle in the Himalayas, and a regular visitor to Azed puzzles. | |
| 10. DOLMAS/WHIRRY | shift/to | DO + ALMS*; HIR(e) in WRY | |
| 12. SCLERA/SATORI | malfunctioning/in | (I ROTAS)< ; CLEARS*. “In” is the abbreviation i’, as for example in Shakespeare’s “the poor cat i’ the adage”, much referred to by Bertie Wooster | |
| 16. CREASE/ADVERB | profit/e.g. | (in)CREASE = profit ; BRAVED*, defined by two examples | |
| 17. ARGUS/VIVDA | pheasant:/five | SUGAR*; V D in VIA. Vivda is a type of dried meat in the Shetlands, hence a “sort of jerk” (c.f. beef jerky). | |
| 18. BENDEE/ALL ONE | bowed,/left | END in BEE; L in ALONE. Chambers gives bendee = bendy (heraldic); I’m not sure it’s justified to define this as “bowed”: while “bow” is given as a definition of “bend”, the heraldic meaning is a diagonal band. | |
| 19. SLYEST/NEBRIS | bristols/with | STYLES*; hidden in fiNE BRIStols | |
| Down | |||
| 1. FANTADS/NAE MOWS | supporters/trembling | TAD in FANS;(AS WOMEN)* – listed in C under MOW | |
| 2. OCOTILLO/VIA TRITA | poor/art | COT ILL in (p)OO(r); (ART I) in VITA. As indicated in the preamble, the second answer is part of the Latin proverb via tria, via tuta – “a beaten path is a safe path” – which was new to me. | |
| 3. TAHINA/TUMOUR | gut/one’s | TUM + (g)U(t) in OR; A in THIN A | |
| 4. INSET/ERASE | congealed/bits | IN SET; first letters | |
| 6. SPOT/BHAI | religion/to | dd; BAHAI less A | |
| 9. EMERAUDE/PROVEDOR | green/Venetian | EME + A in RUDE; ROVED in POR(t) | |
| 11. SAKERET/YIBBLES | falcon/trained | A in TEREKS<; (BY E BASIL less A)*. A marvellously misleading definition for YIBBLES: “Scotsman’s perhaps”. | |
| 13. CARREL/AEDILE | left/private | R (centre of libRary) in CLEAR*; hidden in togAED I Left | |
| 14. SCABS/PAVAN | strike/measure | SC + ABS;A in P VAN – a stately dance (more often spelled “pavane” – remember Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante Défunte) | |
| 15. ESSE/BRAN | variable/rule | ESSE(x); R in BAN |
June 28th, 2009 at 9:06 am
16ac CREASE – I also though this was a sort of DD, as LINE=CREASE also.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Andrew
A belated thank you for a very comprehensive and enlightening blog. I’m particularly grateful for the explanation of HAOMA, which had me puzzled. I agree that there were more unfamiliar words than usual; Chambers was essential.