A flawless Azed production
This is Azed at his best – straightforward, not overly difficult as long as you have access to Chambers, nothing contentious, easy to parse.
Thanks, Azed.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BUMPER STICKER | Large glasses leading to heart slogan displayed by motorist (13, 2 words) |
| BUMPERS (glassses filled to the brim for a taost, so “large glasses”) + TICKER (“heart”) | ||
| 10 | AQUABOARD | Surfing accessory: sailor’s alongside, as having entered (9) |
| ABOARD (“sailor’s alongside”) with QUA (“as”) having entered | ||
| 12 | CARDI | I’ll be pursuing one in pack, woolly (5) |
| I will be pursuing CARD (“one in pack”) | ||
| 14 | FERRET | Rummage around for thin ribbon (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 15 | KNISH | This Jewish doughball etc, cooking … thickens maybe (5) |
| *(hickn) which is THICKENS without ETC | ||
| 16 | BALANUS | Crustacean genus students found beside Welsh lake (7) |
| N.U.S. (National Union of “Students”) beside (Lake) BALA
Balanus is ther name of the genus that includes acorn-shells |
||
| 17 | SONATA | Some tourists on a tack. Pastoral perhaps (6) |
| Hidden in [some] “touristS ON A TAck”
The Pastoral Sonata is another name for Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 15 |
||
| 18 | SLEEKEN | Give glossy look to veg without (Italian) coating (7) |
| LEEK with SEN (short for “senza” the Italian for without) coating it. | ||
| 19 | DRYAD | Large tree suffering from drought, notice (5) |
| DRY (“suffering from drought”) + AD (“notice”) | ||
| 23 | RESPECT | Look to muscle in repose (7) |
| PEC (“muscle”) in REST (“repose”) | ||
| 26 | FRONTS | Directly opposes monk having more than half tonsure cut (6) |
| Fr. (friar, so “brother”) having *(tons) (“more than half” of “tonsure”) | ||
| 27 | TRENTAL | Church council introducing a Latin series of masses (7) |
| TRENT (“church council”) + A L (Latin)
The Council of Trent was held in Trento, Itlay in the middle of the sixteenth century. |
||
| 29 | JULEP | To start, my short exchanged for the French tonic? (5) |
| JU(m>LE)P where M = M(y) [short] and LE is “the” in “French” | ||
| 30 | TIEWIG | Ribboned hairpiece that is in fashion (6) |
| I.E. (“that is”) in TWIG (“fashion”) | ||
| 31 | CREDO | About to revise one’s faith (5) |
| C. (about) + REDO (“revise”) | ||
| 32 | EQUALISER | Lie square after changing score to draw level (9) |
| *(lie square) | ||
| 33 | HYPERESTHESIA | Trump’s excessive sensitivity? After publicity stunt he’s appearing in wild satire (13) |
| After HYPE (“publicity stunt”) HE’S appearing in *(satire)
This is the American (indicated by “Trump’s”) spelling of hyperaesthesia |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BACKSCRATCH | Supports crib to give mutual favours (11) |
| BACKS (“supports”) + CRATCH (“crib”) | ||
| 2 | MURINE | Mouse enclosed within old wall (6) |
| IN (“enclosed”) within MURE (“old” word for “wall”) | ||
| 3 | PADSAW | Adult type of sclerosis in hand? This makes tricky incision (6) |
| A (adult) + DS (disseminated “sclerosis”) in PAW (“hand”) | ||
| 4 | ROO BAR | Attachment for outback safari? Rumpus when last is lost, we hear! (6, 2 words) |
| Homophone [we hear] of RHUBARB with the B lost | ||
| 5 | SAGAS | Epic tales? Second’s a delight (5) |
| S (second) + A GAS (“delight”) | ||
| 6 | IDEAED | Having had a brainwave I exploit, retaining one (6) |
| I + DEED (“exploit”) retaining A (“one”) | ||
| 7 | CERNE | Name associated with giant mincer never includes it (5) |
| Hidden in “minCER NEver”
The Cerne Giant is an ancient naked figure carved into the chalk hillside above Cerne Abbas in Devon. |
||
| 8 | KURU | Brain disease universal among West African people (4) |
| U (universal) among KRU (a “West African people”) | ||
| 9 | RETINOSPORA | Conifer portions are chopped up (11) |
| *(portions are)
Retinospora (aka Chamaecyparis) is the genus of trees that includes cypresses and false cypresses. |
||
| 11 | RESENTED | Experiencing ecstasy with grass around? Took ill (8) |
| SENT (“experiencing ecsatsy”) with REED (“grass”) around | ||
| 13 | ANORETIC | Prank involving pickled roe that puts you off your food (8) |
| ANTIC (“prank”) involving *(roe) | ||
| 19 | DENIER | One rejecting old coin (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 20 | AFLOAT | Love being in an apartment and out of debt (6) |
| O (“love”) being in A FLAT (“an apartment”) | ||
| 21 | TOURIE | Scotch bonnet? In short it’s drooping for Jock (6) |
| A TOURIE is a Scottish bonnet, and (t)OURIE is a Scottish word for “drooping” | ||
| 22 | UNLESS | Cloudy? Sun’s come out if not (6) |
| (s)UNLESS (“cloudy?” with S (sun) come out) | ||
| 24 | PEWEE | Bird from N. America or Peru, very small (5) |
| PE (International Vehicle Registration for “Peru”) + WEE (“very small”) | ||
| 25 | TALUS | Sloping part of fortification sultan mostly reconstructed (5) |
| *(sulta) which is SULTA(n) mostly | ||
| 28 | REAP | Variety of cider apples? Crop thus spliced maybe (4) |
| REAP SPLICED is an anagram of CIDER APPLES | ||
*anagram
I found this enjoyable and straightforward too.
By the way, if you’re the kind of person that addresses and stamps an envelope in anticipation of sending of the AZED, then pay no attention to the online version today. It has the wrong address for today’s competition puzzle.
Thanks to Loonapick and Azed.
21dn got me, I had to do a dictionary search. Seems to me that in this one, the word play was of no use to get the answer if you didn’t already know it. If you had all the checked letters, then you had the word play already and no idea what the first letter should be. When I first was doing Azed back in the seventies, I would have searched Chambers letter by letter. Now I’ll do an electronic search.
Having just posted that, I had a further thought. Is “In short it’s” meant to indicate ‘t’? I was reading it as if you shorten TOURIE you get OURIE. A step to far for me.
Uncleskinny @ 1: Care to tell us the correct address, please?
In today’s Azed, 1D has a possible alternative answer. Typically, the wrong version was my 2nd one in. The two crossers at 11 and 14 resolve it.
The instructions should say something on the lines of:
Send correct solution (one only) and clue to replace definition asterisked (on separate sheet also bearing name and address, securely attached) to Azed No. 2,425, PO Box 518, Oxford, OX2 6WX.
Entries should be postmarked no later than Saturday. Please add a brief explanation of your clue (one entry only). £35, £30, £25 prizes and Azed bookplates for the three clues judged best.
Dormouse, that’s how I parsed TOURIE (‘t + ourie). I try to avoid wordfinders for AZED puzzles as a rule, but make an exception for clues that rely on obscure Scottishisms – especially if both answer and the bulk of the wordplay contain them.
Incidentally, although I have met many Scottish people in my half century on this planet, I have yet to hear any of them use more than a small fraction of the Scottish words used in barred puzzles (and the ones they do use are the well-known onws like WEE and POLIS). Has anyone else found the same?
I’m confident that the wordplay for TOURIE is indeed T (“In short[,] it”) + OURIE (“drooping for Jock”), which features one of my pet dislikes, namely the use of ‘has’ to indicate ‘is followed by’ – it’s an irrational dislike, because ‘to have’ can mean ‘to be given’, but I would never employ the device myself. I’m also none too keen on a clue to an obscure word where the wordplay also involves an obscure word, but I can accept one or two such clues if the meanings given in Chambers make the correct answers very clear and (as in Azed puzzles) there are some easier clues to balance them out.
My father’s family is of Scottish lineage and I’m therefore accustomed to hearing some words which might be slightly less familiar to English ears – eg ‘gomeral’ (I used to hear that one a lot from my father), ‘wabbit’, ‘dreich’ and ‘messages’ (meaning errands, shopping), but they still represent a small subset of the Scots words in Chambers, quite a few of which are I suspect well past their ‘spell by’ dates.
Thanks to both. The usual entertaining workout.
Um, Loonapick, you have scrambled the letters in your KNISH explanation. I know that is the idea of an anagram but it needs the right letters.
AZED is frequently an excursion into the extremes of the language and all the better for it.
Oops – will edit later
DRC, where is the HAS in the clue for TOURIE?
Also I think the parsing of 26 FRONTS is incorrect – surely the anagrind here is CUT?
Nick – the ‘has’ in the clue for 21dn takes the form of the apostrophe-s in “it’s” (which in the wordplay must surely be “it has” rather than “it is”), and the device appears again in the other clue you mention (26ac) where the FR is ‘having’ an anagram of TONS. Incidentally, ‘monk’ for FR is rather too indirect for my liking (akin to ‘medic’ for DR, neither abbreviation – unlike LP or RAC – ever standing alone), particularly given that Chambers shows monk as “a man (other than a friar, but loosely often applied to a friar also) of a religious community living together under vows”; I’m not sure why Azed didn’t simply use ‘friar’ in the clue.
I see – thanks for that explanation (obvious really). Also re-reading the TOURIE clue, it could be termed offensive. I was told/read/dreamt somewhere once that SCOTCH is a drink, whereas SCOTTISH is (to do with) the people of Scotland. Just looking in C, it sort of confirms it.
Except, of course, Scotch bonnet is an actual thing, has an entry in Chambers. As is Scotch egg and Scotch broth. I get the impression that this Scotch/Scottish distinction is comparatively recent – the last couple of hundred years or so.
Well, I think that is an indirect definition.