Azed No. 2,660 Plain

7 comments on “Azed No. 2,660 Plain”

1. 

   Phi

   #1 - Sat 17th Jun 23, 23:31

   
   

   I believe that one of the chefs on the series Two Fat Ladies was called Clarissa. Years ago now (and I didn’t watch it at the time)…

2. 

   Roz

   #2 - Sun 18th Jun 23, 05:07

   
   

   Thanks for the blog, Phi@1 has the right series, Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson , apparently the title was their own idea so a neat reference from Azed.
   KILLADAR was in very recently, I remember looking up the month of ADAR ,
   OTAKU is not in my Chambers 93 but I only had one letter missing and had to be the K .
   TIMARAU , do we need “a miniature?” ? I wondered if it was going to be a compound anagram.

3. 

   bridgesong

   #3 - Sun 18th Jun 23, 07:09

   
   

   Phi @1: many thanks for the explanation. I do vaguely remember the series, but wouldn’t really expect Azed to refer to a TV programme, so perhaps that’s why it didn’t come to mind.

   Roz@2: I also wondered about “miniature “ in the clue for TIMARAU.

4. 

   Marmite Smuggler

   #4 - Sun 18th Jun 23, 08:31

   
   

   The story goes that the production company came up with the title. Dickson Wright and Paterson looked at each other: “Two—yes, that’s right.” “Fat—yes that’s right.” “But ‘Ladies‘?!—You make us sound like a toilet.”

   Azed does use popular culture—sometimes too often for me. I have no idea who’s who in British politics (and no wish to) and hardly any idea about sport. I had never heard of the recent BIBA. It makes it hard to make up topical clues so I don’t usually enter the competitions.

   Stefan

5. 

   MunroMaiden

   #5 - Sun 18th Jun 23, 12:48

   
   

   If you did a straw poll of the British public, I imagine there would be rather more who had heard of Clarissa Dickson Wright than had heard of Samuel Richardson’s novel. It’s easy to be sniffy about ‘popular’ culture (I’m certainly guilty of that myself sometimes), but is it less legitimate than other kinds? Shorter-lived, probably, but still impactful.

   I, too, thought ‘miniature’ was otiose in 15ac. According to Wikipedia, adults can be about 40″ to the shoulder and 7.2′ long with a 2′ tail, weighing up to 300kg. Everything’s relative, but that’s not exactly miniature in my book!

6. 

   Alan B

   #6 - Sun 18th Jun 23, 15:15

   
   

   Another Azed – another lesson in English vocabulary (16 new words or meanings to learn). But I’m not complaining. Given clues like these, I found this to be another weekly treat of crossword-solving. (Although I too baulked a bit at KILL/’still’.)

   Starting with BUCKBASKET, then KREMLIN, I slowly filled the top right and left before tackling the bottom half, which for some reason was a bit more challenging.

   I agree with your observation, bridgesong, on the Observer’s typeface and font size on the crossword page: 1a is a prime example of the problem, and I have good eyesight. Also, in 15a, the first word Philippine almost looks as though it is misspelled (with a double l). It helps, of course, that the context almost always forces the right choice, but an improvement in clarity is called for, up to, say, the standard of other printed crosswords that I see every week.

7. 

   Keith Thomas

   #7 - Mon 19th Jun 23, 09:57

   
   

   Helllo! Good to see a few joining in. Thanks to Azed and to bridgesong for the analysis.
   Re “two fat ladies” they originate in Bingo (88) an the TV cooks were echoed in the later bikers.
   Re print versions I have had to scan and enlarge but still find lower case rn (RN)and m (M) indistinguishable even in larger fonts. In the days of hot metal the en and em prevented this.

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