Azed 1978

by

The usual Azed, full of neat and tightly-constructed clues.

Across
1 KEKS — keks are trousers and kex is a dry hollow herbaceous stalk
4 POPESHIP — (hopes)* in pip, and the Pope is the Holy Father
10 N(A R)K — watch as a noun
11 I R-R(IT)ATE — nark as a verb this time — this device, which always seems rather artificial and a bit silly to me, is popular with Azed
12 ORGAN DIE
14 STA(N)G
15 BOD HI — a bod is a person is a soul, and the bodhi tree (the compound term about which Azed warns us) is the holy tree of the Buddhists under which Buddha found enlightenment
17 C(A DR)ANS — dr. is drawer (of a cheque etc I suppose) and a cadrans is a singular word despite its appearance
19 SPASMODIST — ‘rarely’ refers to the rarity of the word — (tips Mossad)*
20 SCALOPPINE — (lop pin) in (case)* — strange spelling, which made me suspect a mistake in the clue, but of course all is well
23 PA(TROO{p})N
26 PA(R)IS{e/a} — the paisa (plural paisa or paise) is a hundredth of a rupee
28 AN({stic}K)US — this is I suspect an example of something Azed once explained in a slip (I never really quite understood what he was saying) and which I’d never dare to do in one of his clue-setting competitions, the definition of the form ‘should get elephant moving’ rather than the more conventional ‘this should get elephant moving’ — he said it was OK, but I am unsure about it — granted this, a lovely clue
29 P(IAN IN)OS — refers I think to Ian Bell the England cricketer (and long may he remain so) — pos are chamber-pots
30 ENTER(S)ON
31 C(AT)O — refers to either of the two severe Roman censors
32 S TONKERS — stonker can be a verb meaning to kill or maim, so tops is a verb here
33 whisKY A Tumblerful — hidden — necessary in the money sense
 
Down
1 KNOSP — k (son)rev. p — a knosp is the unopened bud of a flower
2 EARTH-PEA — p in (reheat)*
3 SKA N(K)S
4 PINGO — GPO IS ‘P in GO’
5 PRIMA DONNA — ad in (p{lenty} in Norma)* — &lit.
6 STOORS — (roots)* S
7 HARD AT IT — (A-rd) in (that I)* (as pointed out below, I had stupidly omitted this)
8 IT CH
9 PELISSE — (is sleep)*
13 D(ECO LORIS)E{ad} — the definition is ‘pale’
16 CASTRATO — (star)* in Cato — ‘rarely seen today’? — I wonder where — Cato’s second appearance in this crossword
18 NON-QUOTA — it took me some time to see just how this works — it’s (on qu) in (a ton)rev.
19 S(APPLE)S — quarantine is quarrender, a type of apple, and sapples are soapsuds
21 CRIMEN — (mincer)*
22 P(AN)ICK
24 B A(N N)S
25 ASSOT — a{bout} (toss)rev. — I can’t see why the word ‘shortly’ is there, since Chambers gives ‘a’ as an abbreviation of ‘about’, and I’m also not quite comfortable with the equivalence of getting pie-eyed and befooling or besotting.
27 {fl}AUNT{ing} I think, although I’m not confident here: OK it’s obviously AUNT because it fits and because of Aunt Sally, but how is it ‘aunt’ escaping from ‘fling’ when it seems to me that it’s ‘fling’ escaping from ‘flaunting’?

9 comments on “Azed 1978”

  1. Re 32A I remember stonkers from my schooldays used as a general expression of approval. It’s connected to the second def in C (2008), (but missing from earlier editions) meaning something impressive or large of its kind. Thus tops may be read in both senses. A brilliant clue evoking all the joy and excitement of playing and watching cricket years since.

  2. I thought this was a tough one. 1a KEX, for KEKS isn’t a word pairiing that comes readily to mind, although I do seem to recall KEKS being referred to in ‘Brookside’ when it was on C4

  3. You must have been too “hard at it” to have missed entering the solution for 7 dn!

  4. Re 10ac I take watch as a verb, clearly defined in C. None of the noun defs has ‘watch’ as a synonym.

  5. 24D is an ‘&lit’ clue. Banns – which might be issued by a bishop as by any other parson – typically include the names of those to be married.

  6. Thanks, John. Yet again missed getting this out correctly by one letter. I had ENTERS IN at 30ac.

  7. I missed the verbal definition of ‘nark’, but I think it could perfectly well be a noun as well, since it is defined as a police spy, which is a sort of watch.

  9. I share your puzzlement. Perhaps an allusion to removing her clothing, made up of fling (throw), leaving her naked.

Comments are closed.