A plain puzzle with a 13 x 11 grid for this month’s competiton. No doubt Azed will delight us with something more complex for the Christmas special later this month.
Nothing too difficult here, although I’m not absolutely confident in my parsing of OPOPANAX, and I have a doubt about the grammatical correctness of INSULATIONS. There were of course lots of obscure words, including the competition word. There are also more & lit (or semi & lit) clues than usual.
Azed solvers may be interested in this blog by The Guardian’s Alan Connor about the proposed reissue of a murder mystery by The Observer’s first crossword setter, Torquemada. There is a link at the bottom of the blog to the publisher’s website, where you can get further details. (Full disclosure: I have signed up to subscribe to the book).
| Across | ||
| 1 | COWAL | Very little water among black stuff in Aussie swamp (5) |
| W(ater) in COAL. | ||
| 8 | MASAI | East African, one resident in Siam oddly (5) |
| A (one) in *SIAM. | ||
| 12 | PIXILATION | Oh-so-good football team, Roman, nets ball, being slightly crazy (10) |
| PI (oh so good) XI (football team) 0 (ball) in LATIN. According to Chambers, this sense has nothing to do with pixels or animation, but is formed by a combination of pixie and titillated (in the adjectival form). | ||
| 13 | CONSTER | Analyse in old Latin class extreme anxiety nation disposed of (7) |
| CONSTER(nation). It’s an old form of “construe”. | ||
| 14 | GRASPS | Comprehends page penned by German writer (6) |
| P in GRASS (Günter Grass, German novelist). | ||
| 15 | POTTLE | Dry? Stick around for several pints, old style (6) |
| TT (teetotal, or dry) in POLE. It’s an archaic term for half a gallon. | ||
| 17 | GASP | Have trouble breathing when doctor comes round (4) |
| AS in GP. | ||
| 18 | GUTTURAL | Throaty sound from the belly, ultra distorted (8) |
| GUT (belly) *ULTRA. Note that this can be a noun, so the definition in the clue is perfectly fair. | ||
| 19 | ANDREA FERRARA | Fine old blade, fad rarer arena’s displayed with a flourish (13, 2 words) |
| *(FAD RARER ARENA). It’s in Chambers under Andrew Ferrara and defined as “a make of sword-blade highly esteemed in Scotland from c.1600). | ||
| 22 | SARCOMAS | Bow during mass unsteadily, revealing fleshy lumps (8) |
| ARCO (the bow of a stringed instrument) in *MASS. | ||
| 24 | CHAT | Little bird: hard when it’s caught by its predator? (4) |
| H in CAT. | ||
| 27 | FUGLES | Loathe being taken in by backward personality? Acts as ringleader (6) |
| UG (an old word meaning loathe) in SELF (rev). Chambers attributes this verbal form to Carlyle; the term “fugleman” which can mean a ringleader is more widely established. | ||
| 29 | REDUIT | Garrison retreat: ruined number lost rebuilt with time (6) |
| *RUI(n)ED, T. It’s a secure room within a garrison. | ||
| 30 | ETAERIO | E.g. raspberry feature some Manoir eaters knocked back (7) |
| Hidden and reversed (“knocked back”) in “Manoir eaters”. It’s a definition by example, hence the “e.g.”. | ||
| 31 | INGEMINATE | Formally repeat what’s arranged in a meeting (10) |
| *(IN A MEETING). | ||
| 32 | CAESE | Dubious reading of Will’s English in subject of inquiry (5) |
| E in CASE. It’s a variant of sessa, a Shakespearean term whose meaning is uncertain. | ||
| 33 | ERNES | Sea eagles sailors spotted in experience from stern (5) |
| RN in SEE (rev). | ||
| Down | ||
| *1 | CACOGASTRIC | Dyspeptic (11) |
| The competition word. I started by confidently assuming it would be INDIGESTIVE until CONSTER arrived to change my mind. | ||
| 2 | OPOPANAX | Perfume dad got in on account of name, presented with a kiss (8) |
| 3 | WINOS | Drunks like this will turn up after success at the races? (5) |
| WIN SO (rev). | ||
| 4 | LITTLE | Drunk let off – it’s not much (6) |
| LIT (an old term meaning “drunk”, *LET. | ||
| 5 | AXEL | Guitar before start of liturgy, Dean’s speciality? (4) |
| AXE L(iturgy). This refers to Christopher Dean, the partner of Jayne Torvill. | ||
| 6 | VIRE | Transfer to adjust balance giving the old man energy (4) |
| VIR (Latin for man), E(nergy). | ||
| 7 | ALGATES | A liberal philanthropist, however old (7) |
| A L GATES. The reference here is to Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and philanthropist. | ||
| 8 | MARAT | —— hobo’s out of place in a bathroom – he met his end in one (5) |
| A compound anagram: take the letters of HOBO from ABATHROOM and arrange what’s left to obtain this French revolutionary who famously was murdered in his bath by Charlotte Corday. | ||
| 9 | ATAP | A blip? Thatcher might have had recourse to this abroad (4) |
| A TAP. It’s a thatching material in Asia. | ||
| 10 | SISTRA | Isis orants might have rattled these with endless noise (6) |
| Another compound anagram: take the letters of NOIS from ISISORANTS to obtain an anagram of the answer, which means “an ancient Egyptian wire rattle used in Isis-worship”. | ||
| 11 | INSULATIONS | They’ll save on heating bills – salon units I treated (11) |
| *(SALON UNITS I). Can you have a plural of INSULATION? The Oxford Dictionary of English defines it as a mass noun, which means that it cannot be pluralised (or at least that’s the rule Susie Dent applies on Countdown!). | ||
| 16 | PARASITE | Crown circling prince I’ll follow as hanger-on (8) |
| RAS (an Ethiopian prince) I in PATE (or crown). | ||
| 18 | GAMETIC | Name periodical brought up for ‘sexually active’ (7) |
| CITE MAG (all rev). | ||
| 20 | DRUDGE | Menial urged to work with day added on (6) |
| *(URGED D(ay)). | ||
| 21 | RUGATE | What’s displaying form of rut with age? (6) |
| *(RUT AGE). Another & lit clue, where the definition and the wordplay are the same. | ||
| 23 | OJIME | Bead fastener old James attached to one of netsuke’s pair (5) |
| O JIM E (E is one of the only pair of letters in the word “netsuke”). | ||
| 25 | HERON | What may be found in Rhone, flapping about (5) |
| *RHONE. And another & lit clue. | ||
| 26 | DUES | Deserts, or nameless features thereof (4) |
| DU(n)ES. You have to read this as in the term “just deserts”. | ||
| 27 | FENI | Indian liquor, peaty by the sound of it (4) |
| Sounds like “fenny”. | ||
| 28 | UTAH | Uxorious husbands abound there, principally, abroad! (4) |
| An anagram (“abroad”) of the initial letters of the first four words. Arguably this is also an & lit clue but I wasn’t wholly convinced. Utah of course is a state where over half the population are Mormons, although whether it is true to say that male Mormons are “excessively or submissively fond” of their wives is not something on which I feel qualfied to comment. I suspect Azed is referring to the fact that some Mormons used to practise polygyny. | ||
*anagram
I think you’ve overcomplicated OPOPANAX.
POP in O/A (on account of) Name A X kiss.
Christmas is going to exhaust my printer I suspect, far too many gentle puzzles recently.
Sidey, thanks, I’ve amended the blog.
Ref. insulations I think sometimes Azed uses a bit of poetic justice – I remember one Azed puzzle I blogged here used “suddener”. No one could justify it!
As to this month’s word to clue, I managed to come up with something reasonable!
Nick
Nick, I think perhaps you mean poetic licence?
And well done for coming up with something for “cacogastric”, I thought it was a pig of a word to clue. How much easier it would have been had the word been “indigestive”, as I first thought!
Yes, sorry – also I didn’t blog the suddener crossword either. Losing my marbles.
Nick
re INSULATIONS, a house may have rockwool in its loft, polyurethane underfloor, foamed concrete in its walls and double glazing in the windows. That’s four different insulations by my reckoning.
But a farmer could have 4 different breeds of sheep… or it that sheeps?
Nick
Sidey: that’s four different insulators, isn’t it?
Not in the construction industry, I suspect that “Four different types of insulation” would be more usual, but, you know, usage and that. There are plenty of examples in google’s ngram viewer.
Perhaps I’m out of practice, but I struggled throughout with this. Making the same assumption as bridgesong regarding 1d may be to blame for some of this delay, especially as I was writing in pen…
Does anyone know if the Xmas Azed will be on Dec 17th or 24th? I don’t want to go out and buy a copy of the paper if there’s not going to be a Xmas crossword.
Actually I’ve never been sure if you have to send in a cutout from the paper or if a printout will do. Never put it to the test; that might take a while.
Wil, according to & lit website, it will be 24 December.
Given that competition entries go direct to Azed, not via the newspaper, I should imagine that there’s no problem with sending a printout; but if nobody bought the paper, would we have a competition at all?
I get the Azed puzzle using the phone app, and before that the pdf from the website – my printout copies always are accepted (and sometimes win!).
Nick
Tough going, and like bridgesong @4, I fairly confidently had INDIGESTIVE pencilled in for a while, having apparently learned nothing from the EPIGRAMS debacle last month.
I scrapped my first attempt at clueing CACOGASTRIC on the grounds that I doubted Azed would accept Manx as a last-letter deletion indicator (CAT[S] was the fodder), even though it is in the Chambers Complete Crossword Companion. Until he actually uses it himself, one can’t be sure. A difficult one to clue a deceptive definition for, let alone composing those letters.
On the subject of print-outs, like Nick I can confirm they are accepted. I’m sure some people who buy the paper prefer to print the puzzle anyway – easier to work with and make notes on – and some Guardian/Observer subscribers will be digital only.
Pushing 90 I find it strange that people don’t read the paper on paper. O tempora, O mores. The Observer is still my go-to for sensible views, having survived some very odd ownership.
My first Ximenes solution was in 1953, on a train from London to visit grandparents in Swindon. Having rollicked through Everyman I turned to this strange beast and solved, one then two then more words and was hooked. I think I have, eventually , completed every Ximenes and Azed since that day, in the 70’s even going to the office to pick up ones I’d missed whilst on holiday. I’ve even appeared occasionally on the prize list (once as an HC alongside a youngster named Jonathan Crowther!).
Shall await with interest the “Most popular clue”- my choice was MARAT.
Once again this was a pleasure to tackle with the usual “can there possibly be a word such as…?” Certainly the clue word was a weirdo.
Sorry about the reminiscences.
Great story Keith. Alas here in Pompey now most (if not all) newsagents are gone, with the likes of ASDA the only people selling papers – and would you think they stock the Guardian?
I think the last time I saw a Guardian newspaper on sale was about 8 years.
Nick
I forgot – ’tis even worse to see the Observer on sale.
Nick
Blimey Keith, your first mention in the Azed slip is December 1959 – two months after I was born.
That is impressive.
Nick
Keith, many thanks for sharing your history with us and I look forward to seeing your name among the HCs (or even VHCs!) when the slip comes out. I suspect that you may not be the oldest Azed solver…