Azed 1895 — me, me, me! – Fifteensquared

I found this a relatively easy Azed. The four long answers on each of the edges provided a good lever to open up the grid. All were anagrams or near complete partial anagrams and, I felt, clearly indicated so. A little bit of juggling of letters and three of the four could be guessed even if the answer was unfamiliar. 36a was less guessable but also less helpful than 1a and 11d.

* = anagram
< = reversal


Across
1	ABSORPTANCE	(CAN’T BE AS PRO)*	ABSORPTANCE is “the ratio of the radiant flux absorbed by a body to that incident on it”
12	PLANURIA	PLAN+U+AIR<	excellent clue using one of the less common definitions or AIR as “effluvium” conjuring up a disturbing sounding solution to a problem at a sewage farm. Waterworks as part of the definition though is being used as a slang term for the urinary system.
13	PUISNE	IS in PUNE	PUNE is the more modern name of Poona in India. A PUISNE is a “puisne judge” where puisne means junior.
14	TRIPS	TRIPS(is)	tripsis is massage or shampooing.
15	CENTRA	deCENT RAdiographer	CENTRA are the main parts of vertebrae.
16	LASKET	ASK in LET	a LASKET is a loop at the foot of a sail.
17	ACKEE	(h)ACKEE	a hackee is a chipmunk. I found the inclusion of (hard) a little strange here. Was Azed just trying to be even more helpful by telling us what letter made up the head? It did help me as I knew ACKEE (from akee) and so looked up hackee to check the word play.
19	SOCREDS	RED in SOCS	an odd Canadian word here meaning, “a person or political party espousing a social credit policy”, presumably an abbreviation from SOCial CREDit. SOC is a right to hold a local court.
21	FRYER	FERRY*	for non-UK residents a chip pan is a pan used to cook chips, ie fries.
22	TAZZA	‘T+AZ+AZ<	me = AZ, used twice here, once reversed.
25	OHM’S LAW	(HOW ALMS)*	a basic law of physics learned by most children doing basic science.
29	BURGH	(H+GRUB)<
31	HOPPER	triple def.	the first definition is part of a piano called a jack, the J of Jack is up-cased fairly at the start of the clue misleading slightly. I initially thought jack(rabbit) might be a hopper! The third definition is for a machine for harvesting the hops used in brewing. Finally, there’s a definition by example referring to the actor and director Dennis Hopper.
32	ULNARE	(NEURAL)*	simple enough clue but one that brought back memories of a recent Listener puzzle by Radix where I struggled to convince myself that neural was a type of bone.
33	AGAPE	AGA+PE	an Aga is a classic British cast iron stove used for cooking and heating. We have its slightly looked-down-upon cousin the Rayburn, not so good from crosswords.
34	MUSTEE	E for R in MUSTER	MUSTEE is one of those words devised by the white imperialists to describe just how mixed-race a person is, “the offspring of a white person and a quadroon”.
35	FETE-DIEU	IE in FETED+U	ref. Corpus Christi is a college of both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
36	SARSEN-STONE	(SORENESS+TAN)*	a SARSEN-STONE is a grey-wether, a grey-wether is a grey-coloured, rounded block of sandstone or quartzite, a relic of denudation, looking from a distance like a grazing sheep. What a beautiful definition.

Down
2	BLUECOAT	CLUE* in BOAT	a lovely tribute to Azed’s predecessor Ximenes. Ximenes, Derrick Somerset Macnutt, was Head of Classics at Christ’s Hospital (a school). A bluecoat is a pupil of Christ’s Hospital, after the blue coats forming part of their uniform. This is a far from obvious definition but given the word play and the checking letters there is no ambiguity. A tender is a small boat.
3	SWINK	W in SINK	an archaic word for toil.
4	OYSTER	cordurOY’S TERrible	OYSTER here is a colour.
5	PLEAD	P+LEAD	PLEAD is to maintain by argument.
6	TAPLASH	TA+PLASH	TAPLASH is beer you’d take back to the bar and complain about.
7	ANTAE	wAlNuT pAnEl
8	NURSER	RERUNS*
9	CRIKEY	CRI+KEY	cri being a French word is clued using “from Paris”, the French theme is then carried through with the excellent definition of “Zut alors!”
10	MASTER-WHEEL	(WHERE METAL’S)*	a MASTER-WHEEL imparts motion to all the other parts of a machine.
11	UPCAST-SHAFT	(PUSH ACTS)* + AFT	a shaft to carry the stale air from a mine.
18	SEA-GREEN	AGREE in SEN	ref. “sea-green incorruptible”, a person sincerely and unshakably devoted to an ideal or purpose, espescially in public life (originally used by Carlyle of Robespierre)
20	DO-OR-DIE	DOOR+DIE	a single DIE is often referred to as a dice (the plural), that error is used to effect here in slightly masking a straightforward definition of one of the parts.
23	ZAPATA	(TAPA in AZ)<	me = AZ again, a ZAPATA is moustache not unlike a walrus moustache.
24	ZAPPER	APP in ZER(o)	Azed resisted using “me” this time!
26	SUNSET	S+UNSET	excellent hint to unset
27	WEEDS	WEE+DS	widow’s weeds are mourning clothes. DS = document signed. minute here means small = wee.
28	RUMEN	ME in RUN	and finally here “me” does not mean AZ.
30	RATOO	R+A+TOO	too = as well, to boot.

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