Azed 1907 — Plain

by

A fairly standard Azed, I think.  Lots of words of which I’d never heard, fairly predictable and verified in Chambers, and as usual a very well-constructed grid, with words of many lengths (except that Azed has never in my experience sunk to using three-letter words).

Across
1 BUSS HELTER{-skelter}
12 A LO(E)VER A
13 N(IRL)IE
14 runS CUTting
15 SCUDDLE — (secluded – e)*
16 PRASE — (spar e{merald})*
17 TO BE (or not to be)
19 FOSTER — quite hard, this — I think it’s 2 defs and then wordplay: encourage, old woodman (Spenserian form of ‘forester’), then (of)rev. ster{e}
21 SKEESICKS — “skis” (sick)*
23 PEATSTACK — (taste)* in pack
26 P{urchase} AT {m}ACA{u}
28 WILI{ness}
30 AB OVO — v{alue} in (a boo), a boo being the opposite of a cheer
31 PAR AD(E)D
33 puB IN Kilbride
34 OCTANE I think — (to acne)* — but according to Chambers an octane is any of a group of eighteen hydrocarbons, so how does this make an octane one of eighteen hydrocarbons?
35 LECANORA — (near coal)*
36 EASTERMOST — (as term O) in (set)*
 
Down
2 U NICODE{mus} — I just can’t see the significance of the exclam in this clue, which seems straightforward and fairly clever, but …
3 SCRUB — 2 defs
4 SI(L)D
5 HA(I)D UK
6 LOVE F({patienc}E)AT
7 TEMPOS — (so p met)rev.
8 RECATCH — (arch etc)*
9 CRUSE — “crews”
10 WATER SPIDER — (repast)* in wider
11 UNSTOPPABLE — (pop)* in unstable
18 MET A PLOT
20 PA(TON)CE
22 KALENDS — d in (ankle’s)*
24 SCORNS — seats with eat replaced by corn
25 CIRCA R{aj}
27 {b}ABIES
29 ID(AH)O
32 euphoriA TO Mate — stripped atom, free atom

4 comments on “Azed 1907 — Plain”

  1. Thanks for the blog, John. Not entirely sure I understand your comment about 34 ac.

    Is it just me, or have the Guardian failed entirely to post today’s Azed (in any format)?

  4. Bridgesong: You’re right to be not entirely sure about my comment about 34ac. Even though I quoted Chambers correctly, I was reading it as ‘any group of 18 hydrocarbons’. Crazy.

Comments are closed.