A 13 x 11 grid for this week’s plain from Azed.
A more than usually educational puzzle (for me, anyway) with quite a few obscure terms and some wordplay which I have been unable to resolve to my satisfaction. I particularly liked the & lit clues at 9 and 10 down.
| Across | ||
| 1 | AT LOGGERHEADS | Showing variance about recording device has date wrong (13, 2 words) |
| LOGGER in *(HAS DATE). | ||
| 11 | TWIRE | Women in discarded dress making the old leer (5) |
| W in TIRE. | ||
| 12 | COFFER | One unpopular at opera in audience box? (6) |
| Sounds like “cougher”. | ||
| 14 | HOGGEREL | Mutton in the upper house George freely tucked into (8) |
| *GEORGE in H(ouse) of L(ords). | ||
| 15 | RUND | List of Scotch concealed in bar (underneath) (4) |
| Hidden in “bar underneath”. | ||
| 16 | BRICKRED | Trained to admit blunder, looking very embarrassed! (8) |
| RICK in BRED. Rick can be a short form of ricket, an obscure term meaning a blunder, but I can only find this usage in older versions of Chambers. | ||
| 17 | JEEL | Move on left in frozen state north of the border (4) |
| JEE (more usually GEE), L. | ||
| 19 | HEARS | Garden implement without starter is trying (5) |
| (S)HEARS. “Trying” here is used in the sense of trying (or hearing) a case in court. | ||
| 20 | WINTER ACONITE | Women engage in exchange about backing No. 1 with energy, creating early bloomer (13, 2 words) |
| W INTERACT around NO 1 (rev), E(nergy). | ||
| 24 | SCENA | Part of opera featuring contralto in Indian army (5) |
| C in SENA. | ||
| 26 | SHOP | Special spring grass (4) |
| S HOP. Grass here is used in the slang sense of “inform on “. | ||
| 29 | TOLLGATE | There’s no free passage here – all to get hammered (8) |
| *(ALL TO GET). | ||
| 31 | SWAT | Squash mug (4) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 32 | LIFELINE | Bit of liver I set before cat? It’s on my palm (8) |
| L I FELINE. | ||
| 33 | RIMMED | With borders all round, less sunny having switched ends (6) |
| DIMMER with the first and last letters exchanged. | ||
| 34 | ROTOR | Propeller beginning to turn in moving ro-ro (5) |
| T in *RO-RO. | ||
| 35 | SCINTIGRAPHIC | Showing results of body scan? Charting pics I become troubled (13) |
| *(CHARTING PICS I). | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | TWOUP | Women (not men) entering hammer tossing game (5) |
| WO(men) in TUP. Two-up is a coin-tossing game in Australia and New Zealand. | ||
| 3 | LIGNIN | Bit of gardening I like, rearing plant stiffener (6) |
| Hidden and reversed in “gardening I like”. | ||
| 4 | GEESE | Formation flyers, those on wings of gyrating energy (5) |
| GEES (plural of Gee, as in the letter G), E. | ||
| 5 | GERBERA | Plant mostly raised in dunes from the south (7) |
| BRE(d) in AREG (all rev). Areg is given in Chambers as a plural of erg, a Saharan area of shifting sand dunes. | ||
| 6 | EVERLASTING | Timeless number among great lives possibly (11) |
| N in *(GREAT LIVES). | ||
| 7 | HONCHO | Church accepted distinction without hesitation for leader (6) |
| CH in HONO(ur). | ||
| 8 | EFIK | Nigerian submerged in drink if ever heading westwards (4) |
| Hidden and reversed in “drink if ever”; “heading westwards” suggests that this was intended as an across clue. | ||
| 9 | AFARA | Tree, one seen in African area (5) |
| A in AFR, A. As it’s an African tree, I think that this qualifies as an & lit clue. | ||
| 10 | DESERT | Where you’ll find dead shrivelled trees (6) |
| D, *TREES. And this is also an & lit. I wonder if Azed was tempted to include ellipses to join these two clues? | ||
| 11 | THROWSTER | Gambler worst off in the short run (9) |
| *WORST in THE R. | ||
| 13 | RED SETTER | Pet maybe making me very embarrassed! (9, 2 words) |
| A simple charade (Azed being the setter) and the second use of “very embarrassed” in a clue in this puzzle. | ||
| 18 | ACHE FOR | Pant after a course overseer leading other ranks (7, 2 words) |
| A CHEF OR (other ranks). | ||
| 21 | ICONIC | Source of idolatry concentrated around one venerated? (6) |
| I(dolatry), I (one) in CONC. | ||
| 22 | EAGLET | Sharp-eyed youngster eyes missing quite ornamental tag (6) |
| E(yes) AGLET. I didn’t know about aglet (an ornamental tag) so it took a long time for me to parse this clue. Yes equates to quite, in some usages anyway. | ||
| 23 | INWITH | Does it suggest whit Jock’s enclosed? (6) |
| Sounds like “in wit”? I’m not sure I’ve quite understood this clue. | ||
| 25 | ELAMI | One man’s taken up third space in bass section? (5) |
| 1 MALE (rev). Even my musically knowledgeable wife was unfamiliar with this term from old church music. | ||
| 27 | OPERA | E.g. Lulu, some years after her forte, without No. 1? (5) |
| Another clue where the wordplay has puzzled me. It’s ERA after something ending in -op, but there is more than one possible answer. Is Azed referring to (p)op? | ||
| 28 | HANOI | A number trapped by hail in foreign capital (5) |
| A NO in HI. | ||
| 30 | LIMN | League I’m in scoring first draw (4) |
| L(eague) IM (i)N. | ||
*anagram
In 16 it is quite possible that Azed’s encyclopaedic memory doesn’t always included which edition of Chambers the word appeared in.
27 seems to be a sort of Azed special where bits of the clue overlap, it’s not the first time I’ve seen it and I took it as Azed referring to (p)op too.
23 I read as “Where is ‘H’?” “It is in wit.” Sort of.
Thank you as ever.
Damn – I had GEEL at 17 and assumed it was in one of the versions of Chambers I don’t possess.
I agree with Sidey’s explanations of 23 and 27.
A nicely tricky puzzle – perhaps there’ll be letters complaining that Azed’s too hard these days!
Azed getting too hard? I’ve just returned to doing Azed. I did it back in the late seventies and eighties but switched to Beelzebub when the Independent on Sunday started. I’ve been finding Azed taking longer to solve than Beelzebub, but this one went in a lot faster, the fastest solve for me since I restarted doing Azed. Must be getting used to the style again.
As I’m sure you realised, Dormouse, I was referring to all the kerfuffle about the Guardian puzzle supposedly being too hard. I find that Azed almost always takes me less time than Mephisto these days.
Oh, indeed I knew that. It was just that the comparative ease of completing last week’s puzzle seemed worthy of mentioning.
I found last week’s puzzle easier than some of these week’s Indie daily puzzles.