Azed No. 2,542 Plain

9 comments on “Azed No. 2,542 Plain”

1. Thanks, PeeDee. In retrospect, a straightforward solve, especially once the long answers yielded.

   I popped in SECRETS instead of SEA RATS at first, then realized my error.

   JIM CROW has an altogether different meaning in the US.

2. Thanks for the blog, Azed immaculate as always except possibly 11ac? Not totally happy with this unless I am missing the point . Crow is a short form of crowbar, James is a jemmy which is a short type of crowbar . Jim is a not a crowbar, Jim-crow is a type of tool which may be a jemmy ? Is Jim being a short form of James relevant ? Please enlighten me if you can explain this better.

3. …yes indeed. First of all, the tool known as a “Jim Crow” is not a crowbar or crow, james or jemmy. Plenty of images online. I can’t find a reference to the tool Jim Crow being allowably shortened to “Jim” although labourers likely do shorten it. I think Azed intends Cineraria’s interpretation.
   If we have any marine biologists among our number, I’d be interested to know if a sea fir really is a jellyfish. I don’t think it is.
   The use of “patrol” as a container indicator in 21 Dn doesn’t work for me. To “go the rounds of an area…”?—Come on. It’s worse than “touring Ulster”, about which I know you feel strongly, PeeDee. See the comments on Fifteensquared to Azed 2452.
   But yes, another fairly straightforward Azed. We’ve had a few recently and they are enormously reassuring for those of us who wonder where on earth we could have put our slippers…
   Stefan

4. Not really a jellyfish. A sea fir is a Hydroid, a jellyfish is member of the Scyphozoa, both of these are in the phylum Coelenterata. Not really the same.

5. Thanks to Azed and PeeDee

   I too found this reassuringly straightforward: there comes a point with Azed where you have completed enough clues to know you will get there in the end. I held myself up in the end though by rather stupidly entering “anarchic” for 8dn.

   I too thought the reference in 11 across was to Jim Crow, although I was aware of neither the racist depiction nor the segregation laws until I looked it up.

6. Hi Marmite Smuggler – I have given up trying to convince anyone that tour, patrol etc. means to travel inside an area not outside the area. I chuck them all in the bucket of “crossword conventions”, an arbitrary collection of items that for some reason are allowed less scrutiny than normal.

   I used to get worked up about it, but the older I get the more I realise that the entire English language is just one big arbitrary convention, based on historical accident and personal opinions. Any justification or refutation will be a house built on sand anyway.

7. I have misread the dictionary in my explanation of Jim Crow. I thought a tool for straightening iron bars might be a form of crowbar, but a glance at Google shows this is obviously not so.

   I steered away from the racial slur definitions as I thought Azed would probably have avoided this in a liberal newspaper in 2021.

8. Thanks for the details, PeeDee. I guessed my 22d was wrong — “ESATET” comes up surprisingly often as a typo for “estate”, so I wondered if it had maybe once been an accepted alternative spelling. For 5d, I had KIUGH, as I’d found “kiaugh” on DSL, and already knew of “KI” (Chi, Qi) for spirit/life force.

   I assumed 11a was an intentional reference to the slur, even if there may be more innocent definitions, because this kind of edginess is par for the course.

9. Really couldn’t get to grips with the parsing of CROW, and couldn’t get SEARATS – like Cineraria @1 I plonked in SECRETS, but I never got any further. Apart from that, had a fine time as usual, although my notes say “hard work”! Many thanks to Azed and PeeDee.

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