A fairly straightforward puzzle this week — if that’s an appropriate term for a cryptic. Struggled on a couple of wordplays but nothing that the BRB didn’t resolve. For some reason the grid isn’t showing the D in serdab (22D). I suspect a bit of a laxative theme.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BHELPURI | I massage back, swallowing e.g. daily dish of savoury rice (8) |
| B(HELP)UR,I – help=daily in rev(I rub). It’s an Indian rice dish. | ||
| 11 | LUDO | Competitive game, universal in Liberal party (4) |
| L(U)DO – dice game. | ||
| 12 | ONE-LINER | A drink vessel displaying crack (not long) (8) |
| ONE,LINER – ref. just “one” more [drink] and LINER is our vessel. | ||
| 13 | ARMOUR | It’s designed to protect queen in love (6) |
| A(R)MOUR – R=regina=queen. | ||
| 14 | ENVOI | Conclusion of verse, that verse penned by number one (5) |
| [vers]E,N(V)O,I | ||
| 15 | CLUSTERBEAN | Misshapen tubercles on one forage crop (11) |
| (tubercles)*,an=one — fixed parsing thanks to bridgesong below. | ||
| 17 | LOSSES | Reverse for multinational hidden within covers of ledgers? (6) |
| rev(ESSO) in L[edger]S | ||
| 19 | D(Y)ING | Final yard in dash (5) |
| ding=dash it turns out. | ||
| 20 | TYPESET | Composed person, and determined (7) |
| TYPE=person,SET=determined | ||
| 21 | REVERSE | Send back touching lines (7) |
| RE,VERSE – here is “verse” again (see 14A) | ||
| 24 | GLAIR | Varnish providing extreme shininess, we hear (5) |
| sounds like “glare” | ||
| 26 | AMERCE | A dealer ignoring rule finally getting fine (6) |
| A,MERCE[r] – mercer=dealer. | ||
| 29 | UNPERSUADED | Small number taken in by a superdude, posturing without conviction? (11) |
| N in (superdude)* – Azed solving hint: when you see Azed using vocab like superdude, highly likely to be anagram fodder. | ||
| 31 | GREAT | Looking back, label worn by monarch? Several actually (5) |
| rev(ER=our monarch in TAG=label) and indeed there have been several such rulers: Peter, Catherine, Alfred, Putin. | ||
| 32 | UNGLAD | Gun shot youngster, far from cheerful (6) |
| UNG*,LAD | ||
| 33 | HARDWARE | Tools etc, on being cut down in African capital (8) |
| HAR(D[o]W[n])ARE – ref. Harare | ||
| 34 | EUGE | ’E’s given ’umungous old cheer (4) |
| ‘E,[h]UGE – well done! (presumalby archaic) | ||
| 35 | ABERDEEN | Scottie, a breed misguidedly English neuter (8) |
| A,BERDE*,E,N – a Scottish terrier. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BLACK-DRAUGHT | Left caught by undertow? It’s cathartic (12, 2 words) |
| B(L)ACK DRAUGHT – it’s cathartic… for the bowels since it’s a purgative medicine. | ||
| 2 | HURLEY | What the Irish play, energy put into commotion (6) |
| HURL(E)Y – hurling, an Irish form of hockey | ||
| 3 | LOOSENER | What gets one down? E.g. ladies with twisted sneer! (8) |
| LOO,SENER* – another laxative, causing one to “get down” to the toilet presumably. Ladies is an instance of a LOO. | ||
| 4 | POUTY | Sulking loudly where one’s missed out in remuneration (5) |
| P,OUT,Y – replace A=one in pay=remuneration with OUT=loudly. Struggled a bit parsing the wordplay since out=loudly didn’t occur to me until I’d exhausted other options (e.g. loudly is often ff) | ||
| 5 | UNREST | Tuner’s dealt with discord (6) |
| (Tuner’s)* | ||
| 6 | REARLY | Count protecting a king aforetime (6) |
| RE(A,R)LY – rearly=rare=obs. early. Count=RELY. | ||
| 7 | WINE | Beef, not a slice of ham hock, say (4) |
| W[h]INE- nice misdirection in sufrace — need to separate ham and hock to make sense of the clue. | ||
| 8 | ENVASSAL | Subordinate once organized nave with girl coming up (8) |
| nave*,rev(lass) – archaic subordinate. | ||
| 9 | LEONE | Lira, European unit, monetary unit (5) |
| L,E,ONE – not a European unit of currency — in this case, from Sierra Leone. | ||
| 10 | PRIEST-RIDDEN | Hierocratic rule in spirit ended disastrously (12) |
| R=rule in (spirit ended)* | ||
| 16 | LIVENERS | Cruise ships have short breaks – they’re stimulating (8) |
| LI(‘VE)NERS – “have short” -> ‘ve. | ||
| 18 | SELVAGED | Rarely, of old, edging gave out – being so? (8) |
| SEL(VAGE)D – gave* in seld=archaic rarely (“rarely, of old”) so I guess an &lit since selvage is an edging… and since it’s old it’s likely to have given out by now. | ||
| 21 | SERDAB | Exposes raised dead interred, one of many in Valley of the Kings? (6) |
| D in rev(bares=exposes). “a secret chamber in an ancient Egyptian tomb.”. This is actually 22D in the grid — 21 is a misprint in the paper. | ||
| 23 | ENSURE | Guarantee runs batting between Nos. 1 and 5 in XI (6) |
| E(NSUR*)E – XI=eleven – the first and fifth letters are E and E. | ||
| 25 | ICE AGE | Big freeze is cold and endlessly severe (6, 2 words) |
| I’,C,EAGE[r] – turns out severe=eager as well. | ||
| 27 | MURAL | Painting that’s rarely framed artist put in stack upside-down? (5) |
| RA=artist (a crossword idiom) in rev(lum=chimney-stack) | ||
| 28 | TUNER | Control identifying part of broadcast unerringly (5) |
| hidden in “broadcast unerringly”. | ||
| 30 | PADS | Guards heading for depot kept in step (4) |
| PA(D)S – pas=step | ||
*anagram
Hi, Ilan. I think CLUSTERBEAN is an anagram of tubercles and an (one).
Yep… you’re right. sloppy parsing…
Pretty straightforward by Azed’s standards, but one which has finally prompted me to update my copy of Chambers after 10 years…