Azed No. 2,617 ‘Jigsaw’ – Competition Puzzle

29 comments on “Azed No. 2,617 ‘Jigsaw’ – Competition Puzzle”

1. Thanks PeeDee – ICU have perpetuated the enumeration error in 2 🙂
   I think ‘the go-by’ is the noun from the verb in 13.
   And ‘awfu’ would be a Scotticism in 29 🙂
   Nearly gave up on this puzzle, but once ALINEATION fell to a dictionary trawl (as EUTHYNEURA had before) and I had all 5-letter answers and three 10-letter ones I managed to make a start and get some hints for the 16 clues still unsolved. Tougher than a normal jigsaw I’d say.
   Thanks to Azed as ever.

2. Oh and I so wanted 28 to be GREENSAND, but wrong part of the alphabet!

3. I spotted the enumeration error fairly early so it didn’t hold me up.
   I didn’t look up GOBY at the time, just assuming that it was like “pass by”. Cambers 2014 has it as “any intentional disregard, as in give someone the go-by”. I also took awfu as Scottish like Gonzo @1, to go with the tatties and the Scottish SHAW, but I’m surprised it’s not in C2014 (but awfy is).
   I got held up with RHUS, initially writing down Rose as a shrub, with Brose as “a food made by pouring boiling water or milk on oatmeal or peasemeal, seasoned with salt and butter”. Sounds like porridge to me.
   Thanks PeeDee and Azed

4. Thanks PeeDee and Azed,
   My first Azed, about half done.

   Finding 5 clues with enumeration of 10 and only 3 of 9 added to my misery, ALLEY CATS clue is indicated as 10! Since only 4 10s were possible in grid, I wondered if a 5-5 and/or 5-4 split may be warranted, as in normal crosswords.

   Still, getting the hang of it. Will try again.

5. Thanks for the blog, fortunately ALLEY CATS was pretty easy and very early on, so I checked the 10s finding 5 in the clues and 4 in the grid , solving the mystery. I agree the grid was friendly for a jigsaw, low numbers of each length with the 10s and 5s fitting together almost unambiguously. I never send off when we have to write a clue so I am not worried about messing up my grid. I confidently entered the top left corner and it flowed from there.

   Very, very minor typo, first clue , the 1=i for the anagram.

6. ilippu@4 a tough one to start with and the error did not help, ALLEYCATS is actually one word in Chambers, Azed seems to ignore hyphens anyway.
   Definitely try again, Azed is a matter of practice , more so than normal cryptics even. Most Azed puzzles are “Plain” .

7. As this was a competition puzzle, can I repeat my plea for information on the slip for the July puzzle? The results were published in Sunday’s Observer, so normally I would expect the slip to be published around the same time. That would normally be on the &lit website, but John Tozer is still recovering from the heart attack he suffered in May, so Derek Harrison arranged to publish the slip on his crossword centre site: http://www.crossword.org.uk/
   The June slip is there, but not the July one.

8. Thanks Gonzo @1 for clearing up those loose ends.

   I never noticed the enumeration mistake at all. I solved the clues and filled the grid in happy ignorance.

9. How many clues do you have to solve cold to start working out where the answers go? By Monday night I had eight answers and did see a possible arrangement for three of them but couldn’t get any further. And I now see that my guess was mostly wrong.

   Not a type of puzzle that I can do. I can stare at a blank grid for only so long.

10. bridgesong @7, no news that I’ve heard on the Azed slip, except to say that I tried to register on the crossword.org site a month ago and it didn’t work as planned. Apparently you have to sign up to their Google Groups site first, which I did, and then the email addresses (as usernames) are copied across to the crossword.org site. It didn’t work and after a few email exchanges with Derek Harrison/Robert Teuton, it seems they can’t work out how to add new members in the absence of John Tozer. No big deal for me, but I think a few things have gone awry there. Not sure if the late slip is related.

11. Dormouse@9, I had solved at least half the clues before I could get anything in the grid on this one! It didn’t help that I couldn’t work out the anagram of EUTHYNEURA without help from crossing letters and I struggled with ROUNDHOUSE as well, even though I’d worked out the parsing. I eventually got going with 10/4 combinations. 13 GOBY – I didn’t understand why the clue was “Intentionally disregarding” rather than “Intentionally disregard”, which would have made as good surface sense. Small quibble on 21 – I think it’s an anagram of WENT containing an anagram of SNAG + E (from trade), rather than *WENT followed by *SNAG containing E.

12. Tim C@3 – porridge is cooked, with the oatmeal being stirred in boiling water/milk. With brose, the boiling liquid is just poured over the oatmeal and left to stand briefly. Personally, I prefer Athole brose, which involves whisky 🙂

13. Very enjoyable. I have to say I found it easier than I thought it would be. Dormouse, I had exactly half the clues coldsolved when I thought I’d have a go at the grid. In fact, it was ALLEYCATS which was the key. I’d narrowed it down to either 5 Dn or 15 Dn and 5 Dn would have required an impossible seven-letter word starting with ‘T’. From there, the grid and the other solutions came easily. I didn’t watch the clock but I suspect this was quicker than most of the plains.

    Both explanations for NEWSAGENT work for me.

    Stefan

14. Cheers MunroMaiden @12, the Athole brose sounds delicious.

15. Dormouse @9 I tried to cold solve them all in order and I found that the 5s were all solved, only four of them. They cross the four 10s in one place only so I then focused on the 10s, each could only go in one place . Once that structure was in I found most of my other solutions would fit .

16. Dormouse @9 – the important thing is not how many clues you have cold-solved but which ones. There are 3 double-headers in the gird (crossing words starting with the same letter) and their enumerations are all different: (8,4) (7,4) and (8,7). You need to look for pairs of clues that are close together and match one of these enumerations.

    Those are the clues that you have to direct your energy towards cold-solving. Solving only three or four clues might be enough to get you started filling the grid.

17. Dormouse @9 – in addition to the logical methods deducing the only place each entry must go, one shouldn’t discount guesswork and intuition as very viable alternatives.

    One has an amazingly powerful neural network in ones brain that is capable of very sophisticated pattern-matching and creative thinking. In comparison the conscious-thought process of logic is grindingly slow and hard work. Having said that there is some satisfaction to be had by refusing to enter anything without a watertight logical reason for it to be there, but this is far from the quickest way to get to a completed grid.

18. Bridgesong @7, if that was 2,612’s winners in Sunday’s paper (I didn’t manage to get one), it’s possible in the circumstances that the slip isn’t yet ready and the top 3 prizewinners were prioritised for the Observer because it’s their staff who issue the book token prizes. The ongoing league table for this year’s scores has to be adjusted for publication with the slip as well.
    I’m staying indoors in the meantime in case the cup turns up unexpectedly. 😀

19. Tim C@10: thanks, that’s interesting. I wonder if Derek Harrison is away, as he doesn’t seem to have updated his site at all in recent weeks: there is still a link to the July puzzle, although the closing date has passed, and he hasn’t responded to my post on the message board.
    Twmbarlwm @18: it wasn’t just the three prize winners whose names appeared in the paper, but also the VHCs. That suggests the judging is probably complete.

20. I’m not one of those people who go through the clues in order, I keep getting distracted when I get an answer and look at the crossing letters. That’s where I use pattern recognition. But with no idea where to put the answers I had, the strategy failed. Turned out it was actually nine answers I got – exactly one quarter. I couldn’t read my own notes.

21. bridgesong – the Azed slips are also published on The Guardian website https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/series/azed-slip

    The slip in question is not there either, so perhaps slip has just not been published yet.

22. Received my July Slip by post on Friday but haven’t checked if this is on-line yet. It is an indication of how over-dependent we are becoming on the wondrous internet. John Tozer’s illness has meant someone’s having to master how he did things if the whole beautiful edifice he created isn’t to be lost.. Dealing with so much now is deprived of the personal but programs, websites etc are produced by people.
    Regarding the “Jigsaw”, long experience meant my first step was to count the word-lengths and the anomaly for clue 2 was spotted at once as ALLEY-CAT was straightforward. It was sneaky to have the competition word at 1 across but Azed’s clueing is so precise it was not a great slog. So pleased to see some newcomers. I would remind them that Azed’s are a lot easier then many weekly tests. How often there do you find 4 letters out of five checked. Usually it is just TWO. Likewise for 7-letter words (Azed 5, weeklies 3).
    Thanks Azed (now over his Covid) and PeeDee. Keep cool.

23. Thanks, bridgesong @19. Obviously the judging is complete or we wouldn’t have a top 3, but maybe the slip isn’t. Anyway, I can only speculate like anyone else.
    DH is currently tweeting, although he could also be away, of course. As he’s hosting the slip as a temporary favour, I guess all he can do is wait for Azed to send it to him. It’s not up on the online Guardian crossword page yet either.

24. ^^ Ah, Keith’s post clears up whether the slip’s done yet anyway!

25. Bridgesong@7: I have had the slip for 2612 as an e-slipper so I would expect it to be on the usual sites soon.
    Ilippu@4 – I reckon solving half of a special as your first Azed is pretty good. You will find the blog useful in understanding the parsing as you get used to the clueing style: more so than the notes on the solutions, which are brief and partial.
    Solved 14 cold or using the emerging initial letter constraints – ALLEYCATS first so the typo was resolved quickly – but without much progress on the entries with shared initial letters. A few more followed from an incorrect initial attempt. Then realised that 7 and 28 could only be placed one way and the rest followed steadily. Clues I thought were generally easier than a typical plain.

26. Should have added – Azed writes that his (and Alison’s) COVID symptoms were mild, and he was clear in time to go on holiday.

27. Cannot believe that I completed this one, and feeling very chuffed to have done so. Lovely puzzle, of a sort which I do not usually finish. I think I had about 4 after my first sitting, then the alphabetical listing helped me to crack a few more at the second, then at the third I was able to put one or two in the grid, from where things started to fall surprisingly quickly. Having been utterly convinced early on that I might complete half a dozen clues at best, it was really pleasing how it gradually fell.

28. Well done Firey Jack! Good effort.

29. Well, needless to say I didn’t rate a mention again with “Badenoch, Mourdant forfeited round and orchestrated great public sacrifice”.

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