Blogging these puzzles, having to explain every little detail, makes me appreciate AZED more and more. I even look forward to the sometimes dry as dust surfaces as a break from the never-ending quest for inventiveness one gets in modern cryptic puzzles. Plus I never get tired of looking stuff up in Chambers, which must make me look more than a little sad I know. Thank you AZED.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ZIFT | Technique following IVF? Spot female’s inside (4) |
| F (female) inside ZIT (spot) – my first one in. I was more than a little surprised when this speculative guess turned out to be correct. | ||
| 5 | JUJUBES | Chewy sweets showing that special magic, almost tops (7) |
| JUJU (that special magic) and BESt (tops, almost) | ||
| 10 | ALEURITES | Oil-yielding plants pounded in ritual, see (9) |
| anagram of RITUAL SEE | ||
| 12 | PARROT | Standard nonsense from one of the polls? (6) |
| PAR (standard) and ROT (nonsense) – Polly or Poll is the archetypal name for a pet parrot | ||
| 13 | ROOMIE | Dashing Romeo, one taken in as fellow lodger (6) |
| I (one) in ROMEO* | ||
| 15 | BATT | Sheet of wadding required by combat troops (4) |
| found inside comBAT Troops | ||
| 16 | TALKEE-TALKEE | Story about keel Kate steered, in pidgin? (12) |
| TALE containing anagram of KEEL KATE | ||
| 17 | DARCY | Entry for Cambridge housed in mixed yard – Fitzwilliam? (5) |
| Cambridge (entry for, first letter of) in YARD* – Fitzwilliam Darcy from the novel Pride and Prejudice perhaps | ||
| 18 | TRIORS | Peers deciding cases involving their fellows rule in groups of three (6) |
| R (rule) in TRIOS (groups of three) | ||
| 20 | CICUTA | Poisonous plant I stayed away from, in case? More than one of them (6) |
| I CUT (stayed away from) in CA (abbreviation for cases, more than one case) – thanks to Frogman and his correspondent Steve for clearing this up for me | ||
| 23 | SDAYN | The old spurn successive characters in trendies’ day nursery (5) |
| found inside trendieS DAY Nursery | ||
| 25 | SCOPOPHILIAC | Caliph is excited about peeler with nothing on? Such’ll turn one on (12) |
| anagram of CALIPH IS containing COP (peeler) with O (nothing) | ||
| 26 | SCOW | US yacht is daunting, stem to bow (4) |
| COWS (is daunting) with later letter moved to front | ||
| 28 | CHENAR | Timid person boarding e.g. Berlin plane (6) |
| HEN (timid person) in (boarding) CAR (Berlin, type of coach body) | ||
| 29 | RIPPLE | Place to tuck into excellent ice cream? (6) |
| PL (place) inside RIPE (excellent) | ||
| 30 | ATTENTIVE | Unlikely to miss wine in vat, i.e. blended (9) |
| TENT (wine) anagram of VAT IE | ||
| 31 | GOSPELS | Doctor taking in obese golfer? There are four of them (7) |
| OS (obese, out-size) in ELS (Ernie Els, golfer) | ||
| 32 | SEED | Consult date for issue (4) |
| SEE (consult) and D (date) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ZAPOTEC | Sleuth going after vitality, old, of early Mexican (7) |
| TEC (sleuth) following ZAP (vitality) O (old) | ||
| 2 | FERULA | Commander’s staff following former walk behind battlements up (6) |
| F (following) then ALURE (walk behind battlements) reversed (up) | ||
| 3 | TURF | Offspring once raised, I vacated territory (4) |
| FRUiT (offsrpring, archaic) reversed (raised) missing (vacating) I | ||
| 4 | PROTECTORATE | Wretched rotter O. C. interrupting crown? That was it! (12) |
| anagram of ROTTER OC in PATE (crown) – O.C. here is Oliver Cromwell who briefly interrupted the line of succession | ||
| 5 | JITNEY | Whizzing in jet has reduced yen for cheap bus (6) |
| anagram of IN JET then Yen (reduced) | ||
| 6 | JEOPARDISING | Risking damage to Jag I rode, spin out of control (12) |
| anagram of JAG I RODE SPIN | ||
| 7 | BAMAKO | Capital hoax, a stunner (6) |
| BAM (hoax) A KO (knock out, stunner) – capital city of Mali | ||
| 8 | EVITERNAL | Timeless depravity? Bird one found trapped by that (9) |
| EVIL (depravity) contains (traps) TERN (bird) A (one) | ||
| 9 | SPET | Gob (in local parlance) ready to swallow a piece of pizza … (4) |
| SET (ready) contains Pizza (first letter, piece of) | ||
| 11 | TRATT | … Herein? It’s dry with upturned artificial topping (5) |
| TT dry following (with…topping) ART (artificial) reversed (upturned) – a trattoria, which presumably sells pizza, has a watertight roof, clumsy waiters and customers with no table manners. | ||
| 14 | RADICCHIO | Salad veg chic cooks featured in broadcast? (9) |
| anagram (cooks) of CHIC in RADIO (broadcast) | ||
| 19 | SUCCEED | Cricket club in tailored suede turn out well (7) |
| CC (cricket club) in anagram (tailored) of SUEDE | ||
| 21 | COOEYS | Unplaced twice? Syce troubled about that calls for attention (6) |
| O (unplaced, of a racehorse) twice in anagram (troubled) of SYCE | ||
| 22 | APORT | A post-prandial tipple showing the way it should go (5) |
| A PORT (post-prandial tipple) – to the left, the way the port should be passed | ||
| 23 | SHARES | Rations go quickly on board ship (6) |
| HARE (go quickly) in SS (on board a ship) | ||
| 24 | YIPPIE | Radical squeal over confused state (6) |
| YIP (squeal) on PIE (confused state) | ||
| 26 | SCAG | Junk clubs in bag (4) |
| C (clubs) in SAG (bag) | ||
| 27 | OPTS | Wales to Scotland, post redirected (4) |
| anagram of POST – wale is a Scottish word meaning choice or choose | ||
*anagram
definitions are underlined
Thanks, PeeDee
It’s obvious that others have little to say about this puzzle, but there’s one thing that’s wrong. I’m sure that Azed knows the difference between ‘stem’ and ‘stern’ but one appears to have been mistaken for the other during typing-up at the clue for SCOW. I expect more comment along these lines next week, too.
Well, my eyesight isn’t quite as sharp these days so I luckily read it as stern. On the whole gentle perhaps for Azed, with all understood clearly by the end, though lots of words that clearly don’t exist outside of the BRB… 🙂
I thought 26ac was stern too. I could see well enough to make out that the r and n looked a little peculiar, but I put this down to my failing eyesight. I don’t expect AZED sees any better than most of us do.
I did notice that the grid in the PDF version had a bar missing in the lower half. There has been some sort of error in most of the AZEDs I have blogged recently, usually misnumbered clues. I am not complaining though, quite the opposite. I am amazed how AZED keeps on going as he does, I gladly overlook a few trivial layout errors here and there.
I got the puzzle from Frogman’s link to a scanned copy of the paper version because the Grauniad had messed up yet again and not published the puzzle on time (how hard can it be to get it right?). That’s been taken down now but as far as I remember “stern” was clearly printed, though it does look like “stem” in the PDF on the Graun site. I think Azed must be getting royally miffed with such incompetence, as I’m sure most of the mistakes aren’t his – I suspect the missing Y in a clue in 2313 was down to the Graunlins too. It says something that although I wrote to alert the Graun to the error on Sunday morning, and didn’t receive a reply till Wednesday. Perhaps the IT team were on a trip organised by their nursery school, though I can’t help wondering if the low comment count on Azeds here has been noted and priorities set accordingly…
Anyway, excellent puzzle and I agree with PeeDee: give me “dry as dust” surfaces any day if it means fair and accurate clueing!
Same subject! I read ‘stern’ as’ stem’ for many bad quarters of an hour and thought that AZED must be a little short of knowledge of sailing terms. Certainly in the PDF version the blame lies with the sans serif font and the way letters are spaced in computer generated text. The font 15-squared provides in this box is just like the one you got on a typewriter before the electronic age with plenty of serifs. This reply when submitted will appear in a sans serif guise and the two words will again look pretty indistinguishable.