A typical Azed experience for me.
As usual for a plain Azed puzzle, I managed to fill the grid. As usual, there are a couple of clues I can’t parse, but as usual, one of the first commenters will no doubt set me right.
Minor quibble – the superfluous “the” in 33ac.
Thanks, Azed.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ENTEROPTOSIS |
Toes treated with proteins for internal displacement (12)
|
| *(toes proteins) [anag:treated]
Enteroptosis is the medical name for downward displacement of the intestines. |
||
| 10 | GEOMANT |
Man admits love with mum – one’s predictions are distinctly ‘earthy’ (7)
|
| GENT (“man”) admits O (“love”, in tennis) with MA (“mum”)
A geomant is someone who divines using shapes formed randomly, for example when earth is thrown on to a piece of flat ground or paper. |
||
| 12 | APSO |
Dog (origin unspecified) needing shampoo, rear half first (4)
|
| SO-AP (“shampoo”) with its rear half first becomes AP-SO
The full name of the dog breed is Lhasa Apso. |
||
| 13 | SERINGA |
You may find gardener is transplanting red one? (7)
|
| *(gardener is) [anag:transplanting] would give “SERINGA red”
Seringa is a name given to at least two different plants, one a rubber tree and the other the mock orange. |
||
| 14 | CATHEDRAL |
Major church chap introducing doctor coming in to cure (9)
|
| CAT (dated word for “chap”) + Dr. (doctor) coming in HEAL (“to cure”) | ||
| 15 | GRYPT |
Once bitten and angry, one disposed of pet, heartless (5)
|
| (an)GRY with AN (“one”) disposed of + P(e)T [heartless]
An old form of the word gripped. |
||
| 17 | FROND |
Leafy outgrowth, tender, round flower’s extremity (5)
|
| FOND (“tender”) round (flowe)R [‘s extremity] | ||
| 18 | BIG TOE |
One of five I begot, developing differently (6, 2 words)
|
| *(I begot) [anag:developing differently] | ||
| 20 | MAKOS |
Some sharks Jock’s to prepare, unusually large (5)
|
| MAK (Scottish form of “make”, so “Jock’s to prepare”) + OS (outsized, so “unusually large”) | ||
| 22 | CHARA |
Coach taken in by rich Arabs (5)
|
| Hidden in [taken in by] “riCH ARAbs”
Think “charabanc”. |
||
| 24 | PRIMER |
Sign of cold weather in part of mid- April? One’ll need a second coat (6)
|
| RIME (“sign of cold weather”) in [part of mid-] (a)PR(il) | ||
| 26 | STAKE |
Risk creating gaffe, avoiding motorway initially (5)
|
| (mi)STAKE (“gaffe” avoiding M1 (motorway) initially) | ||
| 28 | ELAND |
SA creature, not heading for the Cape? (5)
|
| An ELAND is a South African antelope (not sure of the parsing though?) | ||
| 30 | TARA FERNS |
Some bracken from Far East flourishing among lakes (9, 2 words)
|
| *(far e) [anag:flourishing] where E is East, among TARNS (“lakes”) | ||
| 32 | EPILATE |
Hand washer applied to edge of face for shave? (7)
|
| (Pontius) PILATE who, in the Bible, washed his hands before a crowd to signify that he was not responsible for Jesus’s death, so “hand washer” applied to [edge of] (fac)E | ||
| 33 | PEAS |
Vegetables planted among the hippeastrums (4)
|
| Hidden in [planted among] “hipPEAStrums”
I don’t think the “the” in the clue is necessary and hidden clues don’t normally have such “dead” words. |
||
| 34 | LAMBETH |
Borough, it’s origin found in sprawling hamlet (7)
|
| B (the origin of B(orough)) found in *(hamlet) [anag:sprawling] | ||
| 35 | HALTERNECKED |
Prince maybe with bird, English, on deck relaxing, not plunging? (12)
|
| HAL (“Prince, maybe”) with TERN (“bird”) + E (English) on *(deck) [anag:relaxing] | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | NEPHRIC |
Enrich stews with power of kidneys (7)
|
| *(enrich p) [anag:stews] where P is power | ||
| 3 | TOSHY |
Like tripe or trifle mum swallowed (5)
|
| TOY (“trifle”) swallowing SH (“mum”) | ||
| 4 | RABATO |
Old coat mostly turned up with nothing below collar (6)
|
| <=(TABAR(d) (“old coat”, mostly turned up)) with O (nothing) below | ||
| 5 | ONSTREAM |
Aforetimes, quantity of paper in production (8)
|
| ONST (dialect form of once, so “aforetimes”) + REAM (“quantity of paper”) | ||
| 6 | TEREFA |
Arbitrator interrupting meal – it’s not allowed on Jewish menu (6)
|
| REF (“arbiter”) interrupting TEA (“meal”)
Terefa is another word for “not kosher”. |
||
| 7 | OVID |
Old poet, good on love, cause of global upheaval but not the first (4)
|
| OVID wrote Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), but I can’t parse the rest of the clue. | ||
| 8 | SUNROOM |
Fancy urns lifted low parlour, bright (7, 2 words)
|
| *(urns) [anag:fancy] + [lifted] <=MOO (“low”) | ||
| 9 | INGAN |
Gardenin’ has disinterred this local onion, red (5)
|
| *(gardenin) [anag:has disinterred] would give “INGAN red”
Ingan is what my grandmother called an onion. |
||
| 10 | GANGBUSTER |
Cop deployed against mobs, bung deviously secreted in paunch? (10)
|
| *(bung) [anag:deviously] secreted in GASTER (“paunch”, more accurately the abdomen of certain insects) | ||
| 11 | BALDERDASH |
Nonsense (10)
|
| Azed invites us to provide a clue for this.
My effort – Tree in the outskirts of Bedford has tree rot – ALDER in B(edfor)D has ASH |
||
| 16 | EMPYREAN |
The heavens, timeless void about one (8)
|
| [timeless] EMP(t)Y (“void”) + RE (“about”) + AN (“one”) | ||
| 19 | GHARIAL |
Large reptile prowling in Aligarh? (7)
|
| *(aligarh) [anag:prowling] | ||
| 21 | SENSATE |
School’s head called in by governing body showing discernment? (7)
|
| S(chool) [‘s head] called in by SENATE (“governing body”) | ||
| 23 | REFACE |
Put fresh front on shift, turned-up iron plugged in (6)
|
| RACE (“shift” as in move fast) with [turned-up] <=FE (chemical symbol for “iron) [plugged in] | ||
| 25 | RENAME |
Change address for number in former province (6)
|
| N (number) in REAME (old form of realm, so “former province”) | ||
| 27 | TAPPA |
Draw on Press Association for material for paper (5)
|
| TAP (“draw on”) + PA (Press Association) | ||
| 29 | AWEEK |
During normal working days we make out without money (5)
|
| *(we ake) [anag:out] where AKE is (m)AKE without M (money) | ||
| 31 | ALIT |
Settled in a form of worship – any absent? (4)
|
| A LIT(any) (“form of worship” without ANY) |
Thanks loonapick,
re OVID, how refreshing that the C-word doesn’t spring immediately to your mind.
I think ELAND is [for]ELAND.
Thanks as ever to Azed.
Thanks for the blog , a very standard Azed this one. I did like EPILATE for the hand washer. Have heard of GEOMANCY but not seen GEOMANT itself before. INGAN is a great word and a clever clue. I think OVID is the first time I have seen a reference to Covid in a crossword.
I like your clue , very neat but two trees ? The second is essential but a different word for Alder at the start ?
Thanks Azed and loonapick,
Took me a while to spot covid, I had the o and the d so ovid was obviously the answer, although I briefly wondered if the O is love how is vid good?
Apso LOI, the only word I could see that would fit was apse which made no sense at all. Stared at that for at least half an hour before it dropped. I wasn’t going to let one letter beat me
Interestingly rabato could have been rebato as both the solution and tabard have a variant with the e in the right place. I think that’s the first time I’ve had a choice of crossers that genuinely fit both solution and wordplay in an Azed. Obviously geomant solved that.
Nice clue loonapick, I went with a comp anag, that is privately an &lit considering how many times I’ve tried to make a decent comp anag.
Blah adds to error producing nonsense or this rot
It probably won’t even get a mention but I figured it might raise a smile or two here.
Thanks loonapick. I made a good start but didn’t finish this one, so didn’t get round to writing a clue. I like both yours and Blah’s efforts – but agree with Roz that a different word for the first tree would make it even better.
The parsing of OVID came to me with a clunking penny drop – nice to see Azed using such a current reference amid the archaic Scottishisms, even if it’s not a nice thing to refer to.
I mentally cycled through ICELAND, IRELAND and ZEELAND but didn’t get as far as the FORELAND, so thanks for that Gonzo.
Was completely stumped by APS_ even with all the crossing letters in place. Pah!
[Roz @2 – here’s one I wrote a bit over a month ago, admittedly a tad clunky but I think it just about works:
One in five suppressing a furious outburst on first sign of enforced Covid measure (10) ]
APSO came to me fairly quickly, probably because Lhasa Apso is such a really unusual name for a dog breed that it’s stuck in the subconscious.
OVID caused me to pause as I didn’t get the “good on love” and was trying to work ‘g’ and ‘o’ into it, so thanks loonapick for Ars Amatoria, The global upheaval caused me no problem, despite being largely isolated from it (so far) in the penal colony (aka the only third world country where you can drink the water).
Having only started Azed last year I’m finding clue writing (at least good enough to get a mention) to be a lot harder than solving clues, which just reinforces my admiration of setters like Azed and others. For what it’s worth my effort was “Her bad lad’s light eyewash”. Ho hum.
A DNF for me. Couldn’t see TOSHY and I didn’t know APSO. I don’t think of shampoo as soap, it requires rubbing. (I once surprised a Bosnian colleague at work work when I told her that shampoo was one of the many words English has borrowed from Hindi. Turns out they call it shampoo in Serbo-Croat, too.)
[ Blah@3 – very clever indeed, you are lucky to have your name as part of the actual word.
widdersbel@5- it works fine, for Azed I think you would need some indication that quin is a colloq abbrev, but not for normal puzzles.
Tim C@6 not sure that light is suitable to indicate an anagram ?? I like the idea of eyewash with a double meaning. ]
Thanks, Gonzo@1, for Foreland – I’d got the answer, but couldn’t work out the Cape. I did see Covid, but not immediately – and then kicked myself! Re 35ac, I would quibble with the definition of HALTERNECKED as ‘not plunging’. I know it has a question-mark, but I would say halter-necks plunge more often than not? [Blah@3, that certainly got a smile from me – great clue!]
Blah@3, I thought of you when considering using blah as a definition for my clue, with an anagram of eg sadder (or dreads) + blah so that I could have ‘blah blah’ at one end of the clue, but quickly saw that Chambers has it hyphenated, and I think Azed wouldn’t accept part of a hyphenation as a definition.
I wonder if the punctuation error at 34 was Azed’s or someone tinkering around after he’d delivered it.
I was well and truly stumped for a long time by OVID. But why does he say ‘good on love’? OK he wrote various love poems, but isn’t ‘good on love’ a bit odd? He could perfectly well have left it out couldn’t he?
Roz@8, light=answer(balderdash)=anagram indicator.
Tim C @12 I see that but it means a two step process, convert light first then use to indicate the anagram.
Does not matter what I think, Azed might like it.
I doubt it Roz. Now if there were a few pages somewhere that explained the inner workings of Azed’s mind and what he judges to be a good clue…….
I was led to that clue by Azed’s clue for 9 down (mislaid) in 2585 where he uses the solution (this) as an anagram indicator.
Thanks Azed and loonapick
Tim @14: I am not sure if you would count the Azed slips which can be reached through the links from this site as “a few pages somewhere”.
Tim C @ 14 , yes it is similar, Azed generally uses “this” in that type of clue. I do not think he ever uses “light” in that sense.
TimC@12 very clever indeed, I’m not sure the two steps required are entirely fair to the solver. I’m torn between describing it as ingenious or devious. Perhaps both are equally appropriate