Another enjoyable and educational tour of the forgotten corners of the English language with Azed as the guide.
Some sort of error is becoming normal in Azed puzzles nowadays. I don’t really mind, in fact I have begun looking forward to spotting them as a new feature of the puzzle. Thank you Azed.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ASSET STRIPPER | Ruthless financier when placed before one revealing all (13) |
| AS (when) SET (placed before) STRIPPER (one revealing all) | ||
| 11 | SAUL | Scottish person asked for by name? (4) |
| double definition – Scots form of soul (person) and Hebrew name meaning “asked for” | ||
| 12 | VOCAB | Words in verse on occupant of rank? (5) |
| V (verse) O (on) and CAB (occupant of rank) | ||
| 14 | PULDRON | Bit of shoulder armour lord damaged in clinch (7) |
| nagram (damaged) of LORD in PUN (clinch) | ||
| 15 | TRUG | One carries flowers as once to throw possibly(4) |
| T (to, obsolete=as once) and RUG (throw possibly) | ||
| 16 | ATTRITE | A Rechabite ceremony making one repentant through fear (7) |
| A TT RITE, a teetotal ceremony such as the Rechabites might have. | ||
| 17 | TESTEE | One aiming for pass probably, quite steep in part (6) |
| part of quiTE STEEp | ||
| 18 | SORGHO | After turning fat almost stop sugar source (6) |
| GROSs (fat, almost) reversed (after turning) then HO (stop) | ||
| 20 | CASSABA | Melon fool put in handbag (7) |
| ASS (fool) put in CABA (handbag) | ||
| 25 | ARTISAN | Journeyman, one in trains off the rails? (7) |
| A (one) in anagram (off the rails) of TRAINS | ||
| 26 | HEARTH | Brazier, innermost part hot (6) |
| HEART (innermost part) and H (hot) | ||
| 27 | TWENTY | Old English division wary about start of war (6) |
| TENTY (wary) contains (about) War (starting letter of) | ||
| 30 | THECATE | Tense when confronting mysterious goddess, sheathed (7) |
| T (tense) then (confronting) HECATE (goddess of mystery) | ||
| 32 | MELA | Alme dancing in festival abroad (4) |
| anagram (dancing) of ALME | ||
| 33 | REGALIA | First-class beer making comeback in the Big Smoke (7) |
| AI (A1, first class) LAGER (beer) reversed (making a comeback) – a cigar | ||
| 34 | CRUSE | Small cup and saucer one dropped, shattered (5) |
| anagram (shattered) of SaUCER missing A (one) | ||
| 35 | TIED | What was the time (or so it’s said) to get hitched? (4) |
| TIED sounds like (or so it’s said) tide (the time, season formerly) | ||
| 36 | CENTRAL PAHARI | Nepali arch sculpted with art in division of Indo-European (13, 2 words) |
| anagram (sculpted) of NEPALI ARCH with ART | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | SAUTOIR | Necklace gentleman takes in car (7) |
| SIR (gentleman) contains (takes in) AUTO (car) | ||
| 3 | SULTRY | Sweltering despot, tan yielding to effort? (6) |
| SULtan (despot) with TAN being replaced by (yielding to) TRY (effort) | ||
| 4 | TORI | Plant receptacles gobbled in rotavator incident (4) |
| found inside (gobbled in) rotavaTOR Incident | ||
| 5 | SCOTOMA | Blind spot exhibited by e.g. Jock over parent? (7) |
| SCOT (e.g. Jock) O (over) MA (parent) | ||
| 6 | TONE CONTROL | New cornet blown? Implement gripping that is what modifies sound (11, 2 words) |
| anagram (blown) of N (new) and CORNET inside (gripped by) TOOL (implement) | ||
| 7 | RITT | Murrayfield score: half time try almost converted (4) |
| anagram (converted) of TIme (half of) and TRy (almost) – Murrayfield is a stadium in Scotland, indicates Scots word | ||
| 8 | IVRESSE | Result of Paris student’s binge, having left off his books on banks of Seine? (7) |
| LIVRES (books, in Paris) missing L (left) then SeinE (banks of) – drunkenness | ||
| 9 | POUSSE | Get our lot in place for meal of old legumes (6) |
| US (our lot) in POSE (place) – an old variant of pease, itself now replaced by the modern peas. A meal could be pease pudding perhaps? Chambers does not give pease on its own a a meal. Maybe there are two definitions: “meal of old” and “legumes”? | ||
| 10 | EASE | Move very slowly when entering centre of reef (4) |
| AS (when) in rEEf (centre of) | ||
| 11 | SPASMATIC | Special rice, first off cold, rarely moving jerkily (9) |
| SP (special) bASMATI (rice, missing first letter) then C (cold) | ||
| 13 | BREADHEAD | Bass, one in ginger? Dough is all I really care about (9) |
| B (bass) then A (one) in REDHEAD (ginger) | ||
| 19 | HUSTLER | Trull, she? Possibly, when given latitude (7) |
| TRULL SHE is an agagram (possibly) of HUSTLER and L (latitude) | ||
| 21 | ASH-HEAP | Remains of pyre – death of Cleo – packed with African timber? (7) |
| 22 | BATTIER | Non-drinker that is entering pub, more than simply crazy (7) |
| TT (non-drinker) IE (that is) inside BAR (pub) – a super surface | ||
| 23 | FINEST | Like the nation’s elite if sent abroad (6) |
| anagram (abroad) of IF SENT | ||
| 24 | ARALIA | Decorative plant from ME region showing length not breadth (6) |
| ARAbIA (ME region) with L (length) replacing B (breadth) | ||
| 28 | WIRE | Jam specialists concerned with dip (4) |
| WI (Women’s Institute, aka “Jam and Jerusalem”) and RE (regarding, concerned with) – definition is pickpocket | ||
| 29 | YAMA | Representation of mortality featuring in many a mass (4) |
| found inside manY A MAss | ||
| 31 | EGMA | Ignorant neologism getting reporter stripped of ‘Liberal’ name (4) |
| LEGMAN (newspaper reporter) missing L (Liberal) and N (name) – a mispronunciation of enigma, originally from the rather stupid Costard in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I would have expected some indication of the word “enigma” in the definition. Just stating that the solution is an ignorantly coined word does not seem to be a definition to me. | ||
*anagram
definitions are underlined
Thanks PeeDee. I wouldn’t endorse the notion of including a ‘Spot the error, deliberate or otherwise’ feature in any setter’s crosswords. 21 down just doesn’t work, does it? The jumbled letters of ASP and SHEA do not produce ASH-HEAP. There’s one S too many and an H too few.
Epeolater – that would be a spot the blogger’s error feature then. You are correct, I will go and sit in the naughty corner.
Many of the errors I have been finding are in the grid image or the clue numbering which might be typesetting and not attributable to Azed himself. Clues that do not work are relatively rare. I don’t intend any disrespect.
I found this quite a bit easier than recent Azed puzzles, though none the less enjoyable for that.
I agree with PeeDee that many of these errors – misnumbered clues, incorrect enumerations, and perhaps missing words/letters – are probably typesetting issues, but recently there have been a few clues which don’t work, and I don’t remember this happening often or at all in the past. Still, to err is human (but it takes a computer to really foul things up) and this shouldn’t detract from the overall enjoyment of the puzzles.
I remember struggling quite badly with this one last week, with lots of trips required to the BRB. A few issues with the clue numbering I can cope with. 🙂