A fairly straightforward puzzle this week, which took me a little over two hours to solve, although there were the usual number of obscure and unfamiliar words. No major quibbles, except for one about enumeration.
Rather than reprint the clues, I thought I’d try attaching a link to the pdf of the puzzle for easy reference.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CANTUS FIRMI | *FRANTI(C) MUSIC |
| 10 | SPACE-AGE | PACE in SAGE |
| 12 | TOWAGE | To wage (war) |
| 13 | APRON | PRO in AN |
| 14 | GINK | GIN + K. It’s also an anagram of KING. Not sure about the definition here (“man regarded as usual”): Chambers defines the word as a slang term meaning “a person, esp. one considered odd”. |
| 15 | CROMED | ROME in CD. The word is a dialect word meaning to draw, using a hook or crook. |
| 16 | NANKIN | NAN + KIN. A variant of nankeen, from Nanking in China. |
| 18 | DEFT | DEF(ici)T. |
| 20 | SPLITTER | S + P + litter |
| 22 | TIE-BREAK | *BIER in TEAK. |
| 24 | KEMB | Last letters of steak available form lamb; curry (meaning to groom with a comb) is a very clever definition, giving an excellent surface reading. |
| 26 | STEPPE | STEP + PE |
| 29 | RERAIL | ERA + I in (ste)RL(ing) |
| 30 | OBOL | (H)OBO + L. It’s an ancient Greek coin. |
| 31 | U-TURN | UTU + RN. Utu is a Maori term which can mean vengeance, so the reference to Wellington is to the New Zealand city, not the general after whom it is named. |
| 32 | KELOID | *O LIKE + D |
| 33 | SPLUTTER | SP + L + UTTER. SP , which stands for sine prole, meaning without issue or children, is a regular in Azed crosswords. |
| 34 | REPLENISHER | REP + LENIS + HER. A reasonably straightforward charade, but I had to look up both rep and lenis to discover their meanings. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | CUT-AND-THRUST | CAD’S UNTRUTH + T* |
| 2 | APOGAEIC | I GO APE* in AC |
| 3 | NO-WIN | NOW + IN. Azed is a cricket lover, so you can always expect to find a cricket reference such as “in” in his crosswords. |
| 4 | TWANK | W in TANK. The word is only found under “twang” in Chambers, something that I didn’t discover for some time, and which led me to wonder if Azed had made a mistake. |
| 5 | SPEAN | PEA in SN (chemical symbol for the metal tin). The fact that spean is a Scottish word is indicated in the clue by the reference to a bairn. |
| 6 | FALCULA | CU (copper) in FALL, + A. Not sure what “bent” is doing in the clue. |
| 7 | REPORT | RE(d) + PORT |
| 8 | MARMITE | MAR + MITE |
| 9 | GENDER BENDER | REG and NED* + BENDER. I’m not sure about the definition “batting for both sides” unless it’s intended to refer to the batting of eyelashes, in which case it seems a little obscure. And Chambers does not include a hyphen, so this phrase should have been clued as two words. |
| 11 | CARD | CARD(i) |
| 17 | SEMPLICE | PIECES + LM* |
| 19 | FERRULE | REF(rev.) + RULE |
| 21 | PERLITE | PER + LIT + E (the tip, or end, of torcherE. |
| 23 | BEAR UP | EAR in PUB (rev.). |
| 25 | BINT | N in BIT. “Totty” used as a definition indicates that the clue word (and indeed one of its components) may be in poor taste. |
| 26 | SOKEN | OK in SEN (without). The clue here is particularly misleading. You have to read “limits” as a verb, not as a noun, for the wordplay to work. |
| 27 | EBLIS | A compound anagram. Take the letters of “Malefic I” from “Islamic belief” and rearrange them. The anagram indicator “bedevil” is almost the definition, although you have to read the clue as a whole for the full meaning. |
| 28 | POOCH | COOP (rev.) + H |
Thanks, Bridgesong. Not entirely completed without aids, but slightly less reliance on them than usual. So it must have been easier! Still managed to miss BINT. I had MINT, and I can’t explain why!
re Gender-bender. ‘Batting for both sides’ is a common expression meaning someone who is bisexual. Not that obscure, I would have thought!
Re 14A I initially took this to be a misprint, but clearly ‘unusual’ would render the surface reading even less convincing. No, it’s in the reading of ‘regarded as usual’ taken to mean the default definition, a person.
Re 26D ‘sen’ as meaning ‘without’ is completely new to me. My reading is SO + KEN(NETH) (= ‘handsome) – see the names section in C.
Bob
From Chambers – sen. (music) abbrev: Senza (Ital), without
Thank you, Gaufrid – you remind me that I did,in fact, follow this line (I’m using a 1988 edition this morning) but I sided with the name explanation after having misgivings about ‘limits’ that I now see were unfounded. I had doubts also about ‘so’ and ‘without limits’ being synonymous. Problems with short-term memory – I often find that I can solve a clue, and then, if I don’t record both def. and subsidiary, I have to do it all again, often much later in the overall process.
Didn’t like gender-bender = bisexual, not the same really. Redeemed by the silly marmite clue.
The answer to 1ac is misprinted online, that’ll confuse.