As always a thoroughly satisfactory crossword from Azed. Quite apart from the quality of the clues, I am always impressed with his grids. More often than not, it seems, he has answers straddling the complete grid, sometimes several, and he seldom has many short words, although in this one he has the most un-Azed-like total of six with four letters or fewer. How he achieves this is a constant source of amazement to me.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PANI(S{talls})C |
| 7 | OUTSAT — (quotas – q)* t — Azed, thoroughly sensibly, it seems to me, doesn’t use the Times convention that A on B in an across clue = BA |
| 11 | P INTO |
| 12 | HUSHABY — h (ayah busy – ay)* |
| 13 | TABBINET — tab [= curtain] bin({cradl}e)t |
| 16 | STYE — rare spelling for sty — tyes with the s moved to the front — I was trying to get something to work involving pigs in shit |
| 17 | LEVANTER — leva (rent)* — 100 stotinki = 1 lev, and the plural of lev is leva, so there must be at least 200 stotinki |
| 18 | CHINKERINCHEE — chink ere round (niche)* |
| 23 | INTROVERSIBLE — (into vers libre)* |
| 24 | SPURRIAL — def ‘bit of old gold’ — 1 in (larrups)rev. |
| 27 | FOOD — 2 defs, one of them an old spelling for feud |
| 28 | ADDITIVE — (diet avid)*, &lit. |
| 30 | UNSTATE — (taunts)* e — I’m not totally comfortable here: it seems that we are to interpret ‘deny dignity to old’ as ‘deny dignity (archaic)’, but is ‘to’ the right word for this? |
| 31 | cAKE NEver |
| 32 | VAL(IS)E — the word is apparently now American, although I know someone who uses it regularly; but then he is American, so no surprise really |
| 33 | G(ER)ENT — one of ours = the Queen |
| Down | |
| 1 | PUT SCHIST |
| 2 | A(PATH)Y |
| 3 | I(N BEN)T |
| 4 | STINKHORN — (knit)rev. in shorn |
| 5 | CON{fined} |
| 6 | CHEERLEADER — (RE ale)* in cheder — Azed often uses Jewish words |
| 7 | OUTVIE — (voiture – r{ust})* |
| 8 | THIN — if you put this word into ‘nog’ you get ‘nothing’, which is ‘jack’ in the US |
| 9 | S(AIT)HE |
| 10 | ABYE — an old spelling of abide — A bye [as in cricket] |
| 14 | HANDSPIKE — hands = turns, pike = weapon with shaft |
| 15 | PRECEDENT — (tender cep)* |
| 19 | STUNSL — short for studding-sail — a comp. anag. &lit. where there is a definition — [unless it] … [stunsl ie] |
| 20 | A(VIA)TE — ‘piercing’ the inclusion indicator |
| 21 | SIFTER — (refits)* |
| 22 | S(LOVE)N |
| 25 | PUNA — (an up)rev. |
| 26 | {e}ROTI{c} |
| 29 | D AG — the old copper is d. |
For 30, I took the definition to be “deny dignity to”, UNSTATE being a transitive verb.
Thanks Azed and John.
I had FEOD for 27.
I think I’m right with FOOD at 27ac, Colin, as one of the definitions is ‘keep’, which is food (as in food and keep), and also an old spelling of feud.
Thanks John. I’m still struggling with Azed but I’ll persevere.