Azed 1955

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An Azed of mixed difficulty, I found. I sailed through about three quarters of it with trouble at all, including most of the five long answers, but made much heavier weather of the last few clues.

Key:
dd = double definition
* = anagram
< = reverse

 
Across
1. GALAM GALA + M. Galam butter is named after a district of Senegal.
8. INFER INFER(tile). I think “one’s” has to be read as “one has”, with “one” as the neutral pronoun.
12. LIMBER dd
13. CONGRUE RUE replaces A in CONGA. The word is the root of “congruent”, the definition being “chime”, as in “agree with” rather than anything to do with bells.
14. ARBORICULTURE (COURBET I RURAL)*. Gustave Courbet was a French painter, though he seems to have gone in for erotic works rather than forest scenes (not that that invalidates the clue).
16. SENECIOS SEN + (SO ICE)<. "Sen" can be used in music as an abbreviation of the Italian "senza" = "about".
17. REPLACE REP (a corded cloth) + LACE (delicate fabric)
19. ORRA ARRO(w)<. A quarrel is a square-headed arrow, from the root "quart-" – no relation to the "argument" meaning.
20. NISSE Hidden – it’s “a friendly goblin”.
22. HACK HACKBUT (an arquebus) less BUT
25. OBLIGEE Composite anagram; (A BOILED EGG less GAD)*
26. PITTANCE (AT IT)* replaces E(arnings) in PENCE.
29. INTERIOR GRATE (p)RIOR(y) in INTEGRATE
30. CALYPSO PLAYS* in CO
31. REEKIE (g)REEK + I.E. – a reference to Arbroath smokies
32. ELEGY E.G. (as) in ELY
33. STUCK dd – Stück is German for piece (of music, for example)
. 
 
Down
1. GLAM (canin)G + LAM
2. AIR TERMINAL ER in (MAIL TRAIN)*
3. ABOLLAS OLLA in ABS. The abolla is a Roman military cloak, so the “miles” are (Latin) soldiers. Careless solvers might have gone for the Latinate plural ABOLLAE.
4. MERMAN dd – a male mermaid, and the actress and singer, who was legendary in her own way.
5. PRISCIANIST (f)RISC(o) in PIANIST – a very similar style of clue to 29ac
6. ECCE EC + CE
7. HOUNDS’-BERRY BENDS* in HOUR + RY
8. INLET L in I NET
9. FRUITAGE (A FIG TRUE)*
10. EUROSCEPTIC COURSE* + (i)T in EPIC. UKIP (aka “the BNP in Blazers”) are rather than just Eurosceptic, but I suppose a Eurosceptic might be tempted to vote for them..
11. REEST (f)REEST – “kipper” as a verb.
15. SPRATTLE S(car)P + RATTLE
18. WHIRRET ((pa)IR THREW)*
21. ELOGES (SEGOLE(ne))< Ségolène Royal unsuccessfully stood against Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 French presidential elections.
23. SPICE SPLICE less L, and two definition: the famous Girls, and a figurative touch
24. HARPY HAPPY with middle letter changed to R
27. COOK dd – Sea Captain James and batsman (not to be confused with another Cook).
28. GEEK GEE + K. “To suit” is one of six definitions of GEE in Chambers.

9 comments on “Azed 1955”

  1. Thanks, Andrew. My experience was similar to yours. I got three of the long ones quite quickly, which helped open up the puzzle. Annoyingly, I just missed completing it by the ‘o’ in ELOGES. I would never have seen the wordplay for that in a million years, so thanks for enlightening me!

  2. Thanks Andrew. Nice blog. I always struggle with AZED’s shorter word clues. Last in was STUCK. Forgot my O level German!

  3. With regard to 3 down, to be absolutely anally pedantic “miles” is the nominative singular of the Latin word for “soldier” so it should be followed by “is”. There, I enjoyed that.

  5. I decided to go back to my old habit of solving AZED without using Chambers (this started when I found myself reading the paper in the pub on Sunday lunchtimes, and thinking: damn, can’t solve it- there’s no dictionary here…)

    Amazingly enough, it all came out. (Solving time about 90 minutes).

    I thought the “miles” clue was a terrific one.

  6. Thanks for the blog.

    A bit late with this question – the print version had a different clue for 25a:
    “Love worker maybe given lie in one owes a favour (7)”.

    Can anyone please explain the wordplay here?

  7. jacinth, I presume it’s O (love) + BEE (worker maybe) containing (given .. in) LIG (=lie? I don’t have Chambers to hand to check this). The defintion is “one owes a favour”.

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