Comments on: Azed 2124

By: paul

paul — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 14:41:19 +0000

I agree – wonder if setter got confused with mondain, which can mean both fashionable and worldly, whereas both Collins and Chambers (12th ed) only give mondial as meaning the latter. A quick google of mondial + fashionable didn’t yield any evidence in favour of the fashionable sense either.

Rgds and tks for the blog

Paul

By: Norman Hall

Norman Hall — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:23:42 +0000

Thanks for the blog.
I needed (and got) explanations for SHRINE, OUTAGE and TERENCE.

A colleague tells me that his father was a tailor and he used what he called a sad iron. His was not pointed at both ends.
Putting ‘Antique Tailor’s Irons’ into Google and pressing ‘Images’ he found a lot of interesting images of irons, one or two looking exactly like his father’s. I think a sad iron is just a heavier-than-usual iron, such as those that tailors used to use.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:05:10 +0000

Oops, my explanation of SADIRON came out completely garbled – I’ll correct it.

Also I think bridgesong must be right about MONDIAL/MONDAINE – I didn’t check the definition of MONDIAL because it looked vaguely right, but MONDAINE fits the def much better, though not the cryptic construction. I wonder if this came about from a last-minute change to another word in the grid..

By: bridgesong

bridgesong — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:39:16 +0000

Andrew, thanks for the blog: I completely missed the point of Sandy in OUTAGE, so thanks for explaining that, and for parsing SHRINE.

Aren’t sadirons pointed at both ends, not as both irons?

By: bridgesong

bridgesong — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 12:31:16 +0000

I thought the same: has Azed perhaps confused MONDIAL with MONDAINE?

By: DuncT

DuncT — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:49:22 +0000

Thanks Andrew.

“Brian-with-an-eye” has just beaten me to it – I was typing up the same question on 19d. Seems unusually loose for Azed.

By: Brian-with-an-eye

Brian-with-an-eye — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:44:16 +0000

I actually finished this one, so it must have been on the easy side. Thanks for the blog, Andrew – I’d completely missed the mouse = shiner link in 24a. But can you or anyone else explain how MONDIAL means fashionable in 19d. Maybe it’s just my old edition of Chambers showing its age again, but the only meaning it gives is “of the whole world, worldwide”. Thanks.