Azed 2668

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A medium-strength offering from the master, challenging and instructive as ever. Thanks to Azed.

Rather unusually, the rubric mentions three “problematic” answers: two that are not in Chambers, and one abbreviation. Azed sometimes also draws attention to proper names in the puzzle, but has not done so this time for the rather obscure island of SOCOTRA (or the much more familiar BARBADOS, which I see is in C as an adjective).

 

Pom perhaps

Across
1 BARBADOS Unkind comments will contain trouble for island (8)
ADO (trouble) in BARBS
7 SEPT Part of tribe, group retaining power (4)
P in SET
10 OVERCOMES Shiftily move and score wins (9)
(MOVE SCORE)*
11 BABOO Student gaining qualification, part of reading list unfinished, only partly educated (5)
BA + BOO[k]
13 ICONS Fashionable idols I embarrass leaving train (5)
I CONSTRAIN less TRAIN. Strangely, Chambers has constrained=embarrassed and constraint=embarrassment, but not specifically constrain=embarrass
14 BRUMMIE Mime urbanites? Mixing in a —— set possibly (7)
Composite anagram: MIME URBANITES is an anagram of IN A BRUMMIE SET. Brummies could indeed be described as urbanites: I’m not sure if there’s more to the definition than that
16 LOTH Lose head in sin – hateful (4)
SLOTH (one of the seven deadly sins) minus its “head”
17 INERTIAL In trail, running with little energy, sluggish? (8)
(IN TRAIL E)
18 SEMITERETE Israelite maybe chopping tree, half tubular in shape (10)
SEMITE + TREE*
20 COLUMELLAR Neckband securing fidgety mule, touching on small ear bone (10)
MULE* in COLLAR
22 AMARINES Flowering bulbs, for instance fringing seascape (8)
MARINE in AS. Amarines are a cross between the Amaryllis and Nerine, as the portmanteau name suggests. As the rubric says, the word is not in Chambers
24 WELT Dry lake surrounded by the opposite thereof (4)
L in WET
26 DEFACER Vandal turned bloodshot going round snack bar (7)
Reverse of CAFE in RED
28 STONE Pit? It may be precious (5)
Double definition
29 EMOTE Some hate to mention retiring, or to make feelings plain (5)
Hidden in reverse of hatE TO MEntion
30 DIVERSELY Idles, very out of sorts in various ways (9)
(IDLES VERY)*
31 HAET A straw for Scotch? That’s funny, and foreign (4)
HA (that’s funny!) + ET (French “and”)
32 TIDELESS Sits idly round scrub, typical of lakes? (8)
DELE (delete, e.g. in a proofreader’s marks) in SITS*
Down
1 BUBBLE CAR Form of blue cab seen in Britain, very small vehicle (9, 2 words)
(BLUE CAB)* in BR
2 ACARODOMATIA Aroma coaita’d spread around, wherein mites flourish? (12)
(AROMA COAITA’D)*
3 REBUTS Disproves puzzle, including short form of it (6)
T (shortened “it”) in REBUS
4 BOOM Chest without central square beam (4)
BOSOM less the central S[quare]
*5 DEFINIENDA Headwords (10)
The competition word, from a Latin gerundive meaning “[things] to be defined” (in a dictionary)
6 SCID Deficiency in immune system causing slipped disc (4)
DISC* – and abbreviation (or acronym) for Severe Combined ImmunoDeficiency, a rare condition also called “bubble baby disease”, from the precautions taken to protect young sufferers from infection
7 SOCOTRA ME island dwelling (small) protected by rail (7)
COT (cottage, small dwelling) in SORA (type of rail – a bird). Socotra is politically a part of Yemen, though it’s closer to Somalia, and geographically part of the continent of Africa
8 EMOJI Jem and I, besotted about love pictogram? (5)
O in (JEM I)*. This is the ‘familiar recent coinage’ mentioned in the rubric. Despite their similarity in both spelling and meaning, the words emoji and emoticon are not related: the former comes from Japanese and means “picture character”.
9 PENTATHLETES Writer on that steel that’s activated versatile sports competitors (12)
PEN (writer) + (THAT STEEL)*
12 BEETLE-EYED Scuttled round mine entrance, unable to see (10)
EYE (the entrance to a mine) in BEETLED
15 ELECTRESS Kay’s neighbour sitting on strange secrets – she has voting rights (9)
EL (the letter L, which is next to K = kay) + SECRETS*
19 EURONET Link between databanks, true one possibly (7)
(TRUE ONE)* – a long-obsolete European telecommunications network, superseded by the Internet
21 RECODE Change characters in company appearing in old tale (6)
CO in REDE (archaic word for a tale)
23 ABOVE A member of the herd has dropped in as mentioned before (5)
A BOVINE less IN
25 PERT Saucy ex not appearing in buff (4)
EXPERT (buff, as in “film buff”) less EX
27 AMYL Radical may when confused with Liberal (4)
MAY* + L

15 comments on “Azed 2668”

  1. Thanks Andrew (this blog hasn’t been tagged as Azed btw).
    Thanks as ever to Azed – some lovely new words.

  2. On the (slightly) easier side for me although I found the writing of a clue for Definienda hard.
    Someone much better than me pointed out that the word in the clue for RECODE is part of the definition as code is a transitive only verb, so it’s not just a ‘link’ word.

  4. Thanks, Azed and Andrew!
    BRUMMIE
    Wiki talks about ‘BIRMINGHAM SET’. Their contribution to visual arts is significant.
    Can we describe them as ‘Mime Urbanites-The Brummie Set?’ Is this the possible
    reference in the clue?

  5. I don’t have a hardback 2016 Chambers, but EMOJI is definitely in the 2014 edition, and I can’t imagine it’s gone from the later one (it’s in the e-version I use).

  7. Thanks for the blog, I only know EMOJI from other crosswords but a very easy clue. I did know AMARINES , a new hybrid and a big advance, they are very popular and in fact hard to buy , always out of stock. I did wonder if SOCOTRA was an actual island or a word for islands in the ME , again the clue was very fair. There seemed to be a lot of very standard clues for very ordinary words, perhaps we have something very tricky coming up.

  8. I wouldn’t have called EMOJI a ‘recent’ coinage (especially not if it’s in C2014). As for ELECTRESS, I think that’s very definitely outdated! Although Chambers defines it as the female form of elector, I’ve only ever heard it used in relation to the Electors and Electresses of Hanover – so I think “She HAD voting rights” might have been a better definition. I notice Azed quite often uses -ess words, although most have now fallen out of use or are on their way out.

  9. I overthought 22ac and missed the bleeding obvious. I did find AMARONE, a red wine, but couldn’t fit that with the definition.

    EMOJI is also in the electronic version of Chambers, which is the 2016 edition, but as the answer was so obvious, I never bothered to look.

  10. I agree with MunroMaiden , HAD would be better. I do not mind Azed using -ess endings , it must be so hard to fit words into the grid sometimes. I suspect he will not indicate they are out of date until Chambers does, so probably never.

    The answer KIEV is in the paper today, the brief notes say – i.e. ‘ key F ‘ . This is where we started and went all round the houses .

  13. Thanks for the update on “Key F”. Good to know what was intended. Enjoyed this one and the grid made it particularly accessible (as was the case today, I thought). Thanks to Azed and Andrew for the detailed blog.

  14. Thanks, as always for the puzzle and blog.
    Worth noting in this blog as well that BARBADOS was the in-word last weekend.

  15. Jay @14 a good point about the grid, I tell people that in one way Azed can be easier because you get so many letters to help , the trouble is it can be hard to get started to get some letters in the first place.
    For many grids 1Ac and 1D are very useful giving first letters to many others, I always try hard to solve those clues first. I do not solve in order like for normal puzzles.

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