I mostly made quick progress with this, but for some reason ended up havng a lot of trouble with the NE corner. Some of the parsing took a bit of work, but all is now resolved, I hope, though with a couple of quibbles. Thanks to Azed.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | FURBISHER | Renovator, one angling to get round former pope (one off) (9) URB[AN] (former pope) in FISHER |
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| 11. | ROOM-MATE | Chum maybe slugs round in repetitive performance (8) AMMO< in ROTE |
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| 12. | GATSO | It may catch you speeding round after bachelor party’s over? (5) STAG< + O[ver] |
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| 13. | STEN | Jock’s bound to take tour away from his taxman (4) STENTOUR (= stentmaster, “a person who determines the amount of tax to be paid”, from Scots “stent”= a tax) less TOUR, and STEN (or stend) is Scots “to bound” |
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| 14. | UP-TEMPO | What corrupt emporium conceals presto (7) Hidden in corrUPT EMPOrium – I don’t think “up tempo” necessarily implies “presto”, but I suppose it’s close enough |
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| 15. | TITRE | Volume of added liquid robbing cordyline of energy finally (5) TI TREE (a tree of the genus Cordyine) less its final E |
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| 16. | SELD | Ecstasy and LSD distributed rarely in the past (4) (E LSD)* – a variant of “seldom” |
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| 17. | MINIMENT | Old means of defence, one chaps installed in pile? (8) I MEN in MINT (as in “make a mint”, or a “pile” of money”) |
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| 18. | PRESTERNUM | Part of bone enters rump after it’s minced (10) (ENTERS RUMP)* |
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| 21. | DIASTEMATA | Dental gaps at aforementioned back, trapping chewed meat (10) MEAT* in (AT SAID)< |
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| 23. | GOADSTER | One driving oxen gets road all snarled up (8) (GETS ROAD)* |
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| 26. | JEAN | Girl displaying cotton twill (4) Double definition |
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| 27. | LINKS | Wild cat said to appear where coastal drives occur (5) Homophone of “lynx” – a links is a seaside golf course |
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| 28. | REPASTS | Collations like those consumed without footwear by travellers (7) AS THOSE less HOSE (footware) in REPS (travelling salesmen) |
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| 31. | ATOP | Crowning this king involves pink toga (4) ATOP KING = (PINK TOGA)* |
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| 32. | METOL | Developer’s constituent, one plenty backed (5) ME (one) + LOT< |
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| 33. | SIMPLIST | Expert in herbal medicine has cut troublemaker on register (8) ‘S (has) + IMP + LIST |
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| 34. | ALCYONIUM | Soft coral that’s supplanted centre of calcium compound (9) Anagram of CALCIUM wih the central C replaced by YON. Alcyonium is a genus of corals that includes the species called “dead man’s fingers” |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | FUGU | Form of amnesia, forgetting eastern edible fish (4) FUGU[E] |
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| 2. | RATTLED | Sinuous tart took the initiative, getting one flustered (7) TART* + LED |
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| 3. | BASE | Value support (4) Double definition – I’m not sure about the “value” part: perhaps as a base of logarithms or (e.g.) decimal notation; or it may be the result of a misreading of the Chambers definition: “’low in place, value, estimation or principle;’” |
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| 4. | SOAPIE | Long-running serial and accordingly a mishmash (6) SO A PIE |
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| 5. | HOT ON | Well-informed about part of photonovel (5, 2 words) Hidden in pHOTO Novel |
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| 6. | EMETINE | Constituent of ipecac to note for throwing up in the evening (7) Reverse of ITEM (“to make a note of”) in ENE (variant of E’EN) |
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| 7. | MATTE | Masked image, thing with end obscured (5) MATTER minus its last letter or end |
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| 8. | STERNUTATOR | Dwarf was famously one stout errant, working? (11) (STOUT ERRANT)* – the Dwarf in question is Sneezy, but Chambers only defines the word as “a substance that causes sneezing” as opposed to “a sneezer”, as the clue would seem to require |
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| 9. | VENETIAN | An Italian vehicle, one with pains once getting doubled up inside (8) Reverse of I + TEEN ( = pains) in VAN |
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| 10. | CAPERNOITIE | Frolic before number one marriage – Scotch drunk (11) CAPER + NO 1 TIE. There’s a note that this “appears in earlier editions [of Chambers]” – fortunately I’m still using the 11th edition |
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| 16. | SPYGLASS | With which one views from afar endlessly frisky gypsy girl (8) GYPS[y]* + LASS |
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| 19. | TASSELL | Hawk seen from below perched on ancient seat (7) SAT< + SELL |
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| 20. | MAESTRI | Leading musicians, such as merit’s rendered abnormal (7) (AS MERIT)* |
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| 22. | TEENSY | Youngsters with yen for mini (6) TEENS + Y |
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| 24. | ANOMY | Sense of hopelessness at getting lost in analysis (5) AN[AT]OMY |
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| 25. | TROIC | Endless deception brought about Dido’s end? Typical of Aeneas (5) [did]O in TRIC[k] – Troic = Trojan, and Aeneas was a Trojan hero |
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| 29. | AEON | Without gravity, mature over a long time in space (4) A[G]E + ON (over) |
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| 30. | SLIM | Meals? With each ignored I contrived to lose weight (4) Anagram of MEALS less EA[ch] + I |
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I managed about a third of this without recourse to Chambers, which is good going for me, so guess it was on the easier side. Also struggled a little at the end in the NE corner. One or two I couldn’t fully parse, so thanks for the blog.
Thanks to Azed and Andrew. I had to make a quick recourse to Chambers.
10ac is in the 13th edition.
I have only recently started to tackle Azed, with great enjoyment. A little disappointing that the blogs – which must be hard work – are rewarded with so few comments.