Although the structure of most of these clues is fairly straightforward, as witness the number of them that can be parsed in one bit, I found this one of Azed’s harder crosswords, with many difficult words and shades of meaning. Coomassie blue and makunouchi aren’t things I talk about every day. Indeed there are red squiggly lines under two of these words and they won’t go away.
As usual I’m not going to explain all these difficult words. I don’t want to be up all night.
Definitions underlined.
Across
1 Conclusion of argument translated from Pushto (6)
UPSHOT
(Pushto)*
6 Jerky movement, special one when catching swine (7)
SACCADE
s ac(cad)e
11 Top wrestling bout kami ordered, including one that hurts! (10)
MAKUNOUCHI
(un ouch) in (kami)*
13 Butterfly, toneless edges (5)
BRIMS
brims(tone)
14 Poet revealing predominant influence of Spenser (5)
RAINE
a Spenserian version of reign — this poet
15 Bone placed in organ as seen from the rear (7)
RADIALE
(e(laid)ar)rev.
16 Cakes, mouldy, half sent back (6)
TORTEN
rotten with the first half reversed
18 Lives in care of doctor-to-be, as mentioned before (8)
PREMISED
prem(is)ed
19 Biochemical dye imbues cool sea when dispersed (13, 2 words)
COOMASSIE BLUE
(imbues cool sea)*
22 Pole with mesh for vine produce (8)
CABERNET
caber net
27 Order from e.g. Garibaldi? (I’ll follow scholar avoiding front) (6)
AVANTI
{s}avant I
28 Race round hill turning over strips (7)
DENUDES
(se(dun)ed)rev.
30 Aims extractable from Eliot’s letters (5)
TELOI
(Eliot)*
31 With a wavy pattern caused by way of working with heat (5)
MOIRÉ
MO [modus operandi] ire
32 Helmsman has abbreviated meal with master at sea (10)
STEARSMATE
‘s tea {master)*
33 Punishment delivered by judge given lots of vintage wine (7)
JANKERS
j ankers — an anker is an old measure for wines and spirits
34 One’s name’s withheld (not in May, oddly) (6)
ANONYM
non in (May)*
Down
2 Plain (bare) you’ll find on chart to northward, divided by a river (6)
PARAMO
(o’ map)rev. around (a r) — I suspect that this clue was corrected: the software I’m using, which grabbed an early version from the website, had simply ‘… divided by river’, but the version I printed out from the website (not all that early) had this form, which is obviously the right one
3 Fancy sledge cads overturned when about to perform (6)
SKIDOO
do in (oiks)rev.
4 Rich in compost, much rotted, I planted (5)
HUMIC
I in (much)*
5 Despicable type displaying reverse of pluck? (4)
TOOL
It has to be this, being TO*L and Chambers giving this as a definition, and one definition of pluck is despoil or rob, which is just about the same as loot — but I’m not quite sure and may be wrong
6 Writ once punctured – prosecute when circumventing that (11)
SUPERSEDEAS
persed [an old spelling of pierced] in (sue as)
7 A wound with end of knife making one smart (not grave) (5)
ACUTE
Two pieces of wordplay: a cut {knif}e; a cute
8 Church that’s into church Latin, something of an amalgam (7)
CHROMEL
ch (Rome) L
9 Block in old copper mines may be opened through these (5)
ADITS
a(dit)s — the as, the old coin
10 Portion of gold, one entailed for beneficiary (5)
DONEE
Hidden in golD ONE Entailed
12 Woman whose work is selling of sex (not real!) embraces god (8)
VENDEUSE
ven(deus)e{real}
13 Feathery-footed pair tucked into by Tiddles? (8)
BRACCATE
brac(cat)e
17 Divided pie/tart in pieces (7)
PARTITE
(pie/tart)*
20 Dancing idly if old, soft and slow (6)
LYDIAN
(idly) an — an is an old word for if
21 Feature of Keatsian autumn, not the first in young adulthood (6)
UBERTY
{p}uberty — season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
23 A vessel for oats (5)
AVENA
a vena
24 Bear north for circuit connection (5)
BALUN
balu n
25 Old black cab, this? Car being restored (5)
NIGER
a comp anag. where [cab niger] … [car being] — in Azed’s latest clue-setting competition all the top three prizes were comp. anags, which shows how much he likes them. Yet he doesn’t use them all that much himself — you’d expect more
26 Couple tick e.g. Florentine attraction (5)
DUOMO
duo mo — there are duomos all over Italy, and Florence is only one of the places that has them
29 Book man taking many years to include final character (4)
EZRA
e(z)ra — ref the book of the Bible
*anagram
Thanks John.
Oddly enough, COOMASSIE BLUE was my first one in, but then I studied biochemistry many years ago.
I have to take issue with 8d, though. CHROMEL is not an amalgam, or even “something of an amalgam”. It just plain isn’t one. An amalgam is an alloy containing mercury as one of its constituents. If there’s no mercury, it’s not an amalgam, and chromel is just chromium and nickel.
I suppose you might argue that “amalgam” has come to mean any mixture or blend, and I can’t really dispute that. But to use the word to define a specific metal alloy which, by definition, is not an amalgam, is pushing things a bit too far, at least for me.
I was going to make that point about amalgam but this usage is in most dictionaries, you can’t blame their compilers for others’ sloppy usage.