Nick: I am trying a new format here, with the full clue next to the clue number and the solution with word play/comments underneath. Often when reading other blogs on this site, I would like to read the clue but alas they are sometimes inaccessible. If it appears too busy, please let me know.
A strange AZED this week with two peculiar clues (35ac and 8dn) that seem almost non-AZEDian in their complexity; perhaps a deliberate respite after last weeks playfair puzzle. Otherwise we have the normal usual unusual words and unobvious meanings that AZED tends to find to occupy the grid and clue with.
Legend to solution comments:
* = anagram.
< = word reversed.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Drug for river blindness, one that’s jolly uncomfortable etc when injected in vein (10) | ||
| IVERMECTIN | I + ((RM + (ETC*)) in VEIN) convoluted wordplay to start |
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| 11. | Quite bowled over about kiss that’s exciting (4) | ||
| SEXY | (YES<) around X | ||
| 12. | Novelist’s unique creation: ‘Money bags I make’ (8) | ||
| OCHIDORE | I DO in OCHRE a Charles Kingsley ‘non-word’ meaning shore-crab; lovely mislead with ‘money bags I make’, with ‘bags’ here meaning to grab hold/surround of ‘I DO’ |
||
| 13. | Thick silky fabric: swindle contains a cheaper one? (6) | ||
| CREPON | REP in CON | ||
| 14. | ‘Bridge Road’? Place half reduced in recession (4) | ||
| ACOL | LOCA(tion)< a bridge (card game) system of bidding named after Acol Road in London, so a double definition as well as word play here |
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| 16. | Groove cut to receive edge, blunt (6) | ||
| REBATE | dd Chambers seems to refer to ‘rabbet’ as the lead word here, but I think ‘rebate’ is more commonly used when referring to a groove in wood etc. |
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| 17. | Basques in revolutionary cause about autonomous region (7) | ||
| EUSCARA | AR in (CAUSE*) | ||
| 18. | Stirred cooking pan when half reduced (5) | ||
| WOKEN | WOK + (wh)EN | ||
| 20. | Delirious US grimalkin’s lost in sweet extract of whey (9, 2 words) | ||
| MILK SUGAR | (US GRIMALK(in)*) | ||
| 23. | Exercise: reversed spiral turn I do twirling wing-like (9) | ||
| PTERYGOID | PT + (GYRE<) + (I DO*) | ||
| 25. | Don presenting extract of verse, Norwegian (5) | ||
| SENOR | hidden; verSE NORwegian | ||
| 26. | Intimate of Siegfried S. has look around Italian town (7) | ||
| LIVORNO | LO around IVOR N(ovello) the reference here is to Siegfried Sassoon, war poet, and his affair with Ivor Novello. I spent a while searching the war poets for an IVOR (Ivor Gurney is one, and this detracted me for a bit). BTW, the excellent (and harrowing) film regeneration is worth a watch |
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| 28. | Observation I put into slip retracted (6) | ||
| ESPIAL | (I in LAPSE)< | ||
| 31. | Alchemist’s tincture of what might be classified (4) | ||
| TOAD | TO + (classified) AD See entry under BUFO in Chambers |
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| 32. | Lush no longer let out after six? (6) | ||
| VIRENT | VI + RENT I spent a while looking for VIVENT here |
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| 33. | Like many an east end trip, alas, badly organized (8) | ||
| TRIAPSAL | (TRIP ALAS)* Is the definition accurate here? ‘many an east end’ doesn’t really mean ‘having three apses’, I feel |
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| 34. | Pipe put under water, we hear (4) | ||
| DUCT | homophone of DUCKED With my Pompey accent, I had to say this a few times to make it work 🙂 |
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| 35. | Suffering, like Samson latterly might one suppose? (10) | ||
| DISTRESSED | DIS TRESSED This old chestnut with a newish take. Not like AZED clueing we have come to expect, really |
||
| Down | |||
| 2. | Being tart, displays immorality including what’s jure punished (8) | ||
| VERJUICE | (JURE*) in VICE | ||
| 3. | River requiring constant management (4) | ||
| EXEC | EXE + C | ||
| 4. | Percy, dissolute knight fixing post in Oxford or Cambridge? (6) | ||
| RYPECK | (PERCY*) + K | ||
| 5. | An implement no longer used for lifting greens? (5) | ||
| MOOLA | (A LOOM)< greens = money = moola. Great misleading surface reading |
||
| 6. | Chewed rich cigar, suggesting swollen fingers? (9) | ||
| CHIRAGRIC | (RICH CIGAR)* | ||
| 7. | Channel with a strong current, one with early freshness in Scottish river (7) | ||
| TIDEWAY | I DEW in TAY | ||
| 8. | Blunt response from Parisian populace to M. Antoinette offering meal? (6) | ||
| NOCAKE | Punning sort of &lit. clue ref: Marie Antoinette; ‘Nocake’ is a meal made with parched maize, so I guess the starving French may have tried to eat it | ||
| 9. | Bazaar’s ending – going round it discerned tat (4) | ||
| GROT | R in GOT | ||
| 10. | E.g. deer, despatched, misguided noodle stuffed (10) | ||
| SELENODONT | (NOODLE*) in SENT | ||
| 13. | Bodice: sewn border I put inside and the rest taken up (10) | ||
| CHEMISETTE | HEM I SET in (ETC<) | ||
| 15. | Reception rooms for grand French ladies in court – most fell (9) | ||
| CRUELLEST | RUELLES in CT See FELL³ in Chambers |
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| 19. | Controversial artist in the future denied first distinction (8) | ||
| EMINENCE | (tracey)EMIN + (h)ENCE The artist Tracey Emin |
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| 21. | One steamer within another making pounds for the Scots? (7) | ||
| STRAMPS | TRAMP in SS | ||
| 22. | Voluntary, and più mosso, outstanding (6) | ||
| UNPAID | (AND PIU)* mosso = animated, the anagram indicator. Is ‘outstanding’ superfluous here? Two definitions here, one each end of the clue! |
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| 24. | Fare accompanied by beans – we were loaded! (6) | ||
| GOURDS | GO + URDS Gourds are die, so a cryptic sort of definition |
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| 27. | Flimsy stuff, paltry, with nothing in it (5) | ||
| VOILE | O in VILE | ||
| 29. | Rowan sometimes planted amid grass or bracken (4) | ||
| SORB | hidden: grasS OR Bracken | ||
| 30. | Going up, applied for divinity (4) | ||
| DEUS | (SUED)< sue = to make (an) application, so applied = sued |
||
22dn. ‘Outstanding’ is a second definition (as in ‘an outstanding bill’).
I like this format, with the clues included.
Much appreciate the new format. It makes it much easier to follow the blog and will prove invaluable for those weeks when I have inadvertently thrown out the newspaper!
Thanks Nick. I think this new format is excellent – I hope the your fellow bloggers follow suit…
I like the format. Good work.
Many chippies I’ve worked with would create a rebate with a rabbetting plane.
What I should have said is that they would use both terms
Thanks Chris, #1, I have updated the clue explanation to suit – how I didn’t twig there was two definitions, I don’t know.
I am glad the new format is popular – it doesn’t take much time really as I copy and paste from the on-line print version, correcting typos on the way (‘Italian’ was spelt ‘Italain’ e.g., but was spelt correctly in the PDF version).
Nick
The NOCAKE clue is not an & lit., Nick – ‘meal’ is the defn, the rest of the clue bar ‘offering’ is the wordplay part. Very surprised to see ‘nocake’ appears not to be etymologically related to ‘cake’ at all.
Including the clues is a good idea. The font’s a tad on the small side, though.
Didn’t have enough time to finish this – busy with other things.
Thanks for the blog Nick. I agree that 35ac is a bit weak by Azed’s standards, but I suppose there’s not much scope with a word like DISTRESSED. (DESSERT SID reversed is the other obvious approach, but that’s probably been done to death too.)
33ac – the definition is “Like many an east end”, which I think is reasonable.
I think I like your new format – I’m blogging this week’s Azed so I’ll try using it myself.
Another alternative for 35ac – Devil locked in torment.
Why is the crossword titled “Plain”? I was looking for some additional encoding in the answer grid, without success.
garble, ‘plain’ refers to the standard title of AZED crossword (i.e. a straight cryptic) – the other being the competition puzzle type.
Nick
Nick – not quite: a plain is, as you say, a straight cryptic, but the opposite is a “special” (e.g. Printer’s Devilry, Misprints). A competition puzzle (the first of each month, plus Christmas) where solvers (usually) have to provide a clue, can be either a plain or a special.
Garble, your alternative to 35 Ac “Devil locked in torment” would have been very nice … except ‘Devil’ doesn’t mean ‘Dis’, and ‘locked’ doesn’t mean ‘tressed’!
Good work on the new format – much easier to remember which clues were tough to parse this way. I found this an odd puzzle, about two-thirds of it I got very quickly, but the north-east quadrant took me ages to finish off.
Thanks, Nick. I like the format, which is especially useful for the tricky wordplays of Azed. Didn’t quite finish this. I had CRETON at 13ac which messed up 4dn and a few gaps in the NE corner too, including ORCHIDORE.
Another one of my gaps was ACOL. I was very amused to see the explanation for this in the blog. Many years ago we tried to buy a flat in Acol Road and at that time the street had just the sort of faded West Hampstead gentility you might associate with the development of a bridge bidding system!
I was also a little surprised at the style of 35ac and was only convinced the answer was right after other clues confirmed it.
Thanks for the blog, Nick, and for experimenting with a new format. If I can cope with the fact that I don’t really understand html, I’ll give it a try next time it’s my turn to blog.
Like others, I found the northeast corner tough to finish; I should (as a bridge player) have found ACOL a bit sooner than I did, and it’s a word Azed has used before (but with a different clue, of course). I think we’ve seen Tracey Emin before, as well.
Re 35 Ac: Azed does indulge in these sort of fanciful punning “definitions” from time to time – watch out for telltale phrases such as “might one suppose?”. Indeed, today’s puzzle contains a clue that’s very similar in style to the DISTRESSED one!
Re 35 Ac: Azed does indulge in these sort of fanciful punning “definitions” from time to time – watch out for telltale phrases such as “might one suppose?”. Indeed, today’s puzzle contains a clue that’s very similar in style to the DISTRESSED one!