Azed No. 2,515 ‘Cherchez la Femme’

11 comments on “Azed No. 2,515 ‘Cherchez la Femme’”

1. Thanks PeeDee.
   Great fun this one, once I was sure there was only one altered letter per row. ‘Cut’ as an anagrind is a bit out-there.
   Glad to remenber AGNATIC.
   Thanks Azed as ever.

2. Thanks to Azed for a great puzzle and to PeeDee for the expert analysis.

   You wonder “if the name has any personal or topical relevance”. Surely it acts as a reminder of the current PM’s long-standing readiness to lie. He was sacked in 2004 as a shadow minister not for his affair with Petronella Wyatt, but for denying it privately and publicly (the famous ‘pyramid of piffle’). At least he doesn’t have double standards, having quickly promoted two colleagues whom Theresa May previously sacked for devious conduct (Patel, Williamson). That was my train of thought, anyway, as soon as the name became clear.

3. I was reminded of the Petronella Wyatt affair as well, but it’s a bit of a stretch to attribute a political intent to Azed, whose clues give no hint as to his political views.  I suspect that it was chosen at random, being the right length to suit the grid.

4. I agree that this wasn’t as hard as the preamble suggested, though I got in a mess in the NW corner by entering SITHE. I was so chuffed that I knew an archaic word for SCYTHE I failed to read the clue properly, which clearly states that the E should be inside the anagram of THIS. I’m bot convinced about “cut” as an anagram indicator either (“cut up” might be OK) though I’ve seen it before.

   I didn’t attach any significance to the name Petronella, other than it being of suitable length. It’s rather a nice name, I think.

5. Yes, this turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it was going to be from the instructions.  As I recall, a lot of the clues were easy – for Azed – which allowed me to get a number of the changed letters.  This in turn allowed me to guess the name which meant for the remaining clues I could work out where the other letters should go and in turn, if I had one half of the pair I could get the crossing letter for the other half.

6. I generally find Azed’s specials pretty impossible, but managed to do this one. Before getting PETRONELLA I flirted with THOMASELLA; and was somewhat confused by Petronella being in Chambers, although not as a female forename. Many thanks to Azed and PeeDee.

7. This was the first extra-rules Azed I’ve attempted, and it felt like less of a struggle than some of the recent Plains.  It helped that I guessed the name after 4 letters, but I also wonder if the selection of answers was deliberately a little less obscure to compensate.

   I ignored the suggested entry method, though.  More effective to squeeze the clashing pairs into a single box, with the midway letter outside the grid.  It’s not like I was actually going to submit it on completion.

8. I was surprised to manage all of this except the unchecked “B” in BIGA/BEGA, as I usually find Azeds impenetrably obscure. I parsed that clue correctly, but could not figure out what GI? had to to with any rock. (It had to be “?IGA” to make “Petronella” work.) But even if the clue had said something like, “Rock, end broken off …,” I do not think I would have arrived at Gibraltar. I saw BIGA in a dictionary, but still did not make the connection. Oh, well.

9. Interesting comments. I passed over “cut” without blinking. I thought it meant drunk, as in “half-cut”. The best I can come up with from my Chambers is “broken”, so all good, I think.

   The one that raised my eyebrows was 9 Dn: “… I’d taken back in.” I’ve read somewhere, Ximenes or Azed, that you cannot have “back” in a Down clue. It was most severely criticised. Only Across clues have things in them going back. In Down clues they must go up. But Azed is right, again. “Reverse” in Chambers has in its very first definition “upside down”.

   I thought this was quite an odd Azed. It was almost simple, yet it was also a convoluted special.

   Stefan

10. I meant to comment on the ingenuity of the clashing letter device. Having the missing letter fall midway between the clashing letters meant that, until I guessed the name, I had to solve all of the clues correctly, with no confidence about the crossers except for the letters in the words with known clashes. I don’t know. Some of these crosswords with weird instructions seem as though they would be relatively simple to reverse-engineer, but this technique, not so much. Well, I guess the span of 6 steps either way gave the setter some flexibility to pick the crossing/clashing words. Still–marvelous.

11. A bit late blogging but I felt I had to get in to say how much this brightened dark times. As an ex-teacher I think every day of the schools with their anxieties this week.

    Was fortunate in spotting the P almost immediately and even guessed PETRONELLA, though had not remembered the scandal. It was a wonder of construction and a real treat.

    Thanks to Azed and  PeeDee

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