Comments on: Azed 2120/more than one slut

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:37:02 +0000

PS. My parsing of 1a @8 has a small error in it – SASTRUGI ARE is (not are) an anagram of GREAT RUSSIA. Sorry about that; hope it was still clear what I meant – presumably it was because I’d just written “are”. I thought it was a very smooth comp. anag. – &lit. too, perhaps?

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:29:05 +0000

@Pelham Barton -
You’re right about the two versions of 13a – they’re still different. It’s rather odd. I must say the java version, without the apostrophe, makes a better surface (“Aussie barker purrs weirdly about itch” – I imagined a dog with a skin complaint). With the apostrophe I’m not sure what’s going on in the surface – a ‘spruiker’ (oddly) happy that something’s gone wrong, maybe?

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:30:11 +0000

Correction to 10: “at least” not “it least”.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:29:30 +0000

Thomas99 @8 re 13ac: There is an apostrophe in the pdf but not the Java version online (or it least that was the case when I looked just now). I agree the apostrophe is needed by Azed’s normal rules.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:52:43 +0000

Thomas,I wasn’t aware of the alternative but I used your version too.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:03:18 +0000

Thanks for the blog. Found this fairly hard.
1a I thought this was a comp. anag.: You’ll find such icy ridges [=SASTRUGI] are [+ARE] all over the place in [are an anagram of] GREAT RUSSIA. So no need to worry about abbreviating “great”.

13a I agree on the parsing and quite like this clue, but I can’t remember Azed doing this before with itch standing for hitch etc. Normally he’d have something in the clue to indicate that hs were being dropped (e.g. an apostrophe). I’d have thought the approach here counted as “libertarian”. At first I assumed “ike” was an obscure synonym for “itch” or that Eisenhowere had two nicknames.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 19:16:17 +0000

Let us hope the typesetters are reading this!

By: NormanLinFrance

NormanLinFrance — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 13:29:12 +0000

RCW and Pelham
It happens to rne too.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 11:57:16 +0000

RCW@4: I too occasionally have problems with the rn/m thing.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 10:46:54 +0000

Thanks all
Just to complete the difficulty spectrum, I jotted ‘average difficulty’ on my copy when I finished.
I did have a major quick entry through ‘acetaldehyde’ and last in was ‘strides’.
Although I did sort them out I had some problems parsing 1ac and 27ac.
Does anyone else share a problem which I often have with Azed?
The spaces between words (and possibly letters rn/m) is very small and sometimes confuses me.