Azed 1962

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Azed starts the new year (though not, please, the “second decade of the 21st Century” – that’s next year) with a puzzle that was mostly straightforward: I manage to complete most of it without Chambers but with a number of educated guesses. Some clues needed quite a bit of unravelling when I came to write up the blog though. Onward to Azed 2000 in September!

 
 
 
Across
1. SYBOW BY< in SOW – it's a Scottosh word for a spring onion
7. WARM WAR MS (manuscript) – such as a writer in the trenches might leave behind when going over the top
12. PLEURISY-ROOT (ROLE YOUR SPIT)*
13. RUSTICAL (SUIT CARL)*
15. ORGANON ORG[y] + ANON
16. CLIENT LIEN in CT
17. UPSET Hidden in daTES PUt, reversed
18. ANADEM The competition word. The Chambers defintion of “A fillet, chaplet or wreath” is remarkably unhelpful in explaining the word.
19. SPERM PERMS with the S moved to the front. The meaning referred to is the same as spermaceti, as obtained from sperm whales.
22. STERE Hidden in foreSTER Especially. A stere a cubic metre, used in the measurement of timber, from the same root as “stereo”.
23. ASSURE ASS + URE (“(obs) use, practice, operation”)
25. IN PUP PIN-UP with the first P “buried” later in the word
28. MINIMS M in MINIS. Chambers tells me that a minim can be “a friar, sister or lay member of any of the three orders founded by St Francis of Paula”, named on account of their supposed humility.
29. INERTIA (TRAIN IE)*
31. TARPEIAN Classical references galore. A RP (received pronunciation, or “speaking properly”) in TEIAN (“of the poet Anacreon“, who was from the city of Teos).
32. MUSTER-MASTER MUS TERM + ASTER (a plant of the Compositae family)
33. ESTYN PRESTATYN with the letters of PRAT removed (“in pieces”, i.e. not consecutively) &lit? Estyn is the Welsh equivalent of Ofsted, so the definition seems to be inaccurate, as both are inspectors, not examiners,
34. STEWY WE< in STY
 
Down
1. SPRECHSTIMME (EHS + C[harts] + REM + TIMPS)*. Music using a style of vocalisation between singing and speaking, supposedly first used by Englebert Humperdinck in the opera Königskinder (not his much-better-known Hansel and Gretel).
2. BESHINE SHIN in BEE
3. OUTWEAR Composite anagram: OUTWEAR + THING is an anagram of A TOUGH WINTER
4. WRIT [her]R[ing] in WIT
5. PICOTÉ COT in PIE. PIE is “an easy thing” (“easy as pie”). Picoté means “ormanented with picots”, which are ornamental loops, so the definition is “with ornamental loops”.
6. ASARUM A R in MUSA<. Musa is the banana genus, and I suppose it's "split" by the insertion of A R
8. ARDAS A R D (acute respiratory disorder) + AS (when). Ardas is a Sikh prayer
9. ROYNE ROY (fashion-conscious Australian) + NE (old word for “not”).,
10. MONOTREME NOT RE in MOME (Spenserian fool)
11. STONEMASONRY (MAN ONE’S)* in STORY
14. PLATINOUS LATINO in PUS
20. PUNIEST PUN I EST[ablished]
21. ERINITE TIN< in ERIE. Erinite is "an arsenate of copper found in Cornwall and Ireland", and Cornwall was known as a tin-mining area.
23. APIARY AR in (I PAY)*. “Gum” is, I learn, an American word for a beehive.
24. SMARMY MS< + ARMY (host). The second manuscript in the puzzle – see also 7ac.
26. NEIST Hidden in liNE IS This. Very well hidden too – it took me a while to spot it, even after I’d guessed the word.
27. PRATY R in PAT + Y[es]. Anglo-Irish word for “potato”.
30. UPAS A (dialect “it”) in UPS (up = “someone who is in prosperity”). The Upas is both a mythical and a real poisonous tree.

5 comments on “Azed 1962”

  2. Paul B – I assume Andrew is referring to the fact that there wasn’t a year zero AD. Therefore the first hundred year was years 1 – 100 and the 20th century was therefore 1901 – 2000. Similar comments were made around the Millennium’s being celebrated at the start rather than the end of the year 2000.
    Of course, a decade is any set of ten years, though most of us generally regard a change of decade as being when then ten’s digit changes in the year number. By that definition 2010 is the second decade of the 21st century even if we accept that only nine years of the previous decade fell within that century

  3. Thanks, Andrew. As ever, looking through the blog it all seems very straightforward, which makes me wonder why it has taken me all week to complete this puzzle. Even then I didn’t understand the wordplay in a couple of clues (31a, 30d), so thanks for the explanations.

  4. I don’t think the absence of a year zero comes into it. Those designations of dates were created long after those events. Yes, the third millennium did not start till 1 Jan 2001 but you could see why people celebrated when 1999 turned into 2000. Decades are a bit different tho ie they are a period of ten years. Hard to argue that eg the 1950s is anything other than the years 1950 to 1959. Similarly the ‘noughties’ are 2000 to 2009. Did not tackle the puzzle so not sure if the ‘second decade of the 21st century’ is specifically relevant to it.

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