Azed No. 2,670 Plain

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Solving this puzzle seemed a bit harder-going than some recent Plain offerings, and I went to bed with four in the SE still unsolved.

Even though I had guessed CLEOME and OREGON, it took me a bit of sleuthing the next morning to work out the parsing and polish off the remainder of the grid. In retrospect, I suppose the clues seem clear enough (at least, within the Azed orbit), although the clues for UP-LINE and DARGHA were almost incomprehensible upon first reading. I have multiple citations from Chambers in the write-up below, so once again, it has proven to be the indispensable resource.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 DRUB
Knight has king in for wallop (4)
DUB (knight) around (has . . . in) R (king)
5 SCHNAPPS
Strong drink? After school dozes, having imbibed pastis (not wines) (8)
SCH. (school) + NAPS (dozes) around (having imbibed) P[ASTIS] minus (not) ASTIS (wines)
12 SAPUCAIA
Nut tree, source of a cup Asia fashioned (8)
Anagram of (fashioned) A CUP ASIA
13 WILLET
Wader feeble, ailing internally (6)
ILL (ailing) inside (internally) WET (feeble). A large North American wading bird, according to Chambers
14 DARGLE
Writer’s hollow task, article for the French (6)
DARG (task, “Scot and N Eng dialect,” according to Chambers) + LE (article for the [in] French), with “writer” referring to Sir Walter Scott, who evidently coined/misattributed this term for “dell”
15 SNAKE-OIL
Almost bare in earth? Treatment with this is useless (8)
NAKE[D] (bare “almost”) inside (in) SOIL (earth)
16 NON-ALIGNED
Number attached to England, wavering about independence, without agreeing (10)
NO. (number) + anagram of (wavering) ENGLAND around (about) I (independence)
17 GLENT
That old-fashioned twinkle exhibited by man catching first sight of lass (5)
GENT (man) around (catching) first letter of (“first sight of”) L[ASS]. Chambers describes this “as an earlier form of ‘glint,'” thus, “old-fashioned.”
19 CHASE
Seek help with engraving (5)
Double definition
21 LOSTE
Set free once, so let out (5)
Anagram of (out) SO LET, Spenserian for “loosed,” thus, “once”
25 NAKER
Drum, one of a pair, is damaged? Could be ear skin (5)
Compound/composite anagram of (damaged/could be) EAR SKIN = NAKER + IS. Chambers defines this as “one of a pair of small medieval kettledrums.”
27 ACCELERANT
Earl unhappily admitted stress getting faster (10)
Anagram of (unhappily) EARL inside (admitted [into]) ACCENT (stress)
29 HALL TREE
Whereon to park stetsons fixed there, the lot included? (8, 2 words)
Anagram of (fixed) THERE around (included) ALL (the lot)
31 ABLATE
Surgically remove bit of lump to nullify circles (6)
ABATE (nullify) around (circles) first letter of (“bit of”) L[UMP]
32 OREGON
State about to welcome European artist (6)
ON (about) around (to welcome) REGO (European artist), evidently, a reference to the late Dame Paula Rego
33 CAMP-SHOT
Depots currently fashionable offering protection for banks (8)
CAMPS (depots) + HOT (currently fashionable), specifically, river banks
34 DETECTED
With tons etc crookedly caught in the act, spotted by the police? (8)
{T (tons) + anagram of (crookedly) ETC} inside (caught in) DEED (the act), with a facetious reference to “detectives”
35 SAMA
Title of distinguished Japanese book, short one (4)
SAM. (book, i.e., Samuel, abbreviated [“short”]) + A (one)
DOWN
2 RAIK
Graze by the sound of it in northern pastures (4)
Homophone of (by the sound of it) RAKE (graze). Chambers lists this as “Scot and N Eng,” thus, “northern.”
3 UP-LINE
What commuter catches in the morning, leaning back (first off) having caught elevated railroad (6)
[S]UPINE (leaning back, minus first letter [“first off”]) around (having caught) L (elevated railroad). Chambers defines this as “a railway line for upgoing trains (i.e. those going to, not from, e.g. a city).”
4 BULL ANT
Nasty Aussie insect turned up entirely in belly (7, 2 words)
ALL (entirely) inverted (turned up) inside (in) BUNT (belly). “Belly” and “bunt” in this sense mean “to swell or bulge out,” according to Chambers.
6 CATNIP
Many pets love this – cover the top of round tin that’s damaged (6)
CAP (cover the top of) around (round) anagram of (damaged) TIN
7 HIDAGE
Former land-tax kept under wraps a long time (6)
HID (kept under wraps) + AGE (a long time)
8 AGREE
Tally about right, slightly off (5)
AGEE (slightly off) around (about) R (right). Chambers gives “agee/ajee” as “Scot and dialect.”
9 PAGODA
Former idol, a divinity, put in personal appearance (6)
A GOD (a divinity) inside (put in) PA (personal appearance)
10 PELISSE
Mantle, eastern, in puckered fabric (7)
E (eastern) inside (in) PLISSÉ (puckered fabric)
11 SHELTER TENT
Cover for pair of GIs in camp the rest lent out (11, 2 words)
Anagram of (out) THE REST LENT
12 SWINGLEHAND
Flax-cutter’s tool, form of wand English waved (11)
Anagram of (form of . . . waved) WAND ENGLISH. Unless I misunderstand something here, there appears to be an extra anagram indicator.
18 LOVABLE
Bowling ball, over almost attracting affection (7)
Anagram of (bowling) {BALL + OVE[R] (over “almost”)}
20 HARNESS
Trace rigidity without inner depth (7)
HAR[D]NESS (rigidity minus [without] interior [“inner”] D [depth])
22 SALLET
Old helmet to recognize when lifted (6)
TELL (to recognize) + AS (when) all inverted (lifted)
23 HEREAT
The lady’s upset for this reason? No longer (6)
HER (the lady’s) + EAT (upset). Listed in Chambers as “archaic,” thus, “no longer”
24 CLEOME
‘Carry-on’ woman with chaps endlessly is responsible for such a caper (6)
CLEO (“Carry On” woman, referring to the 1964 film comedy “Carry On Cleo”) + ME[N] (chaps “endlessly”). Cleome is a flower in the caper family, Capparaceae.
26 KANGHA
A ‘K’ a Singh’s deployed … is this? (6)
Semi-&lit and compound/composite anagram of A K A SINGH = KANGHA + IS. Chambers defines this as “the comb traditionally worn by Sikhs in their hair,” with “Singh” being a name commonly used by Sikhs.
28 CLAME
Call from a poet arrived with Latin in (5)
L (Latin) inside (in) CAME (arrived). Spenserian for “claim,” thus, “from a poet”
30 COOM
What may accompany bill topping millions? It’s grimy (4)
COO (what may accompany bill, as in the phrase “bill and coo”) + M (millions)

25 comments on “Azed No. 2,670 Plain”

  1. I wasn’t sure what “source of” was doing in SAPUCAIA.
    I agree Cineraria that there are two anagram indicators in SWINGLEHAND which would be OK if it’s two separate anagrams, but in this case there’s only one set of “grist” so it seems unnecessary.
    I thought KANGHA was clever.

  2. KANGHA
    In addition to what Cineraria said:
    A ‘K’ in this clue means one of the five K’s associated with Sikhs (A ‘K’ a Singh has)

    Kesh (unshorn hair and beard since the Sikh decided to keep it), Kangha (a comb for the kesh, usually wooden), Kara (a bracelet, usually made of iron or steel), Kachera (an undergarment), and Kirpan (a small curved sword or knife made of iron or steel).

    ‘aka Singh’ may also work as a wordplay?

  3. KANGHA seems to work as an &lit for me. Let’s hear from others.
    For the def part: A ‘K’ a Singh has deployed is Kangha.
    For the wordplay: A K A SINGH is ‘deployed IS KANGHA'(as mentioned in the blog)

  4. In KANGHA, I wonder why Azed used the past tense, necessitating the possessive S at the end of Singh. Had he said “…a Singh deploys” the S would not have been required, in which case perhaps the clue could be classified as a pure & lit.

  5. Thanks for the blog, I agree with Tim @1 for SAPUCAIA, maybe the friut is cup-shaped?
    We all seem to agree on SWINGLEHAND , Azed seems to have done this a few times lately.
    RAIK , my Chambers93 has pasture, does it also work for plural? Or is ths s a misprint ?

  7. Thanks for the blog. I found this to be one of my fastest Azed solves to date. SAMA was my last one in and I took it to be a shorthand reference to the Hindu text SAMAVEDA (one of the four Vedas). I see this was probably wrong but it worked for me at the time.

    Has anyone tried to print today’s? The pdf seems to be out of focus.

  8. Jay @7, the problem with today’s print is that it’s a jpeg, not the usual pdf, hence the blurriness. They might get round to putting up the pdf tomorrow. Things seems to go wrong on a fairly regular basis.

  9. Tim@8 thanks for the explanation. It will have to wait until tomorrow then. After yesterday’s Maskarade I could do with a day off, and there’s always Mephisto…

  12. Bridgesong@4: good comment re KANGHA. I think if the clue said ‘deploys’, it would be better to lose the ellipsis, to make the anagram sense of deploys work properly. Agree with Roz@5 about RAIK. Jay@7, SAMA is an honorific attached to someone’s name in Japanese, to signify respect. The usual suffix is san – so Smith-san, for example, would be a polite form of address to a Mr or Ms Smith, while Smith-sama would indicate a person held in great esteem.

    Re CLEOME, this wasn’t in my Chambers 98, but Wikipedia suggests it isn’t now viewed as a member of the Capparaceae (though perhaps that’s what it says in C2016).

  14. KVa@13 I suspect they are available somewhere but I do not know. In the paper they are on a three week cycle, it used to be two. Very brief and not much help really, the blogs are far superior.
    MunroMaiden@ 12 , CLEOME not in Chambers93 , I know it as spider-plants and it had to be right. I presume the caper family is quite large.

  16. MunroMaiden@12
    KANGHA
    A ‘K’ a Singh’s deployed is this–Can work without the ellipsis, I guess. That said, I agree that ‘ A ‘K’ a Singh deploys is this’ would have made it a proper def as Bridgesong@4 and you say.

    Roz@14
    The blogs are uniformly excellent. No doubt at all. There are rare instances when a clue or two remain
    unparsed or partially parsed. It will be interesting to know what the setter had in mind.

    Jay@15
    Thanks.
    I will go through the link (this may be the one).

  17. KVa@16 the notes are very brief in the paper. 2668 is in the paper today, only 10 clues mentioned , perhaps 20 words in total. I have noticed that when a clue may have issues it rarely gets mentioned in the notes.
    For this one I think RAIK is singular , the clue says pastures. I do not expect any comment in two weeks.

  18. KANGHA: The “Five K’s” explanation certainly makes this clue much more intelligible. Thanks for that addition.

    RAIK: I saw the possible singular/plural mismatch. There is a small group of nouns for which the singular and plural are (in some contexts, e.g., literary or poetic) somewhat interchangeable, e.g., land/lands, ocean/oceans, sky/skies, and I chalked up this “mismatch” to “pasture/pastures” as conceivably belonging in that class. Or maybe this is a farfetched rationale for a simple typo.

    SAPUCAIA: I took “source of” to function as the cryptic equivalent of “is equal to” or “becomes” or “is.”

  20. Cineraria@18, I did have the same thought @5 but I am not convinced. I agree some nouns have the same singular/plural, fish and sheep for example. I have had a very qiuck scan through Chambers, it seems that when the plural is not (noun)s this is noted . All others with a nomal s added are just assumed. I suspect the plural is RAIKs for pastures and the clue has a misprint.

  21. MunroMaiden @12, Roz @14, C2016 has CLEOME as “any of a large genus (Cleome) of mostly tropical plants of the family Capparaceae….”

  22. Thanks, Tim C@21. Wiki (if correct) is obviously more up to date; apparently, DNA studies have now shown it to be more closely related to Brassicas than capers and it now has its own family, Cleomaceae. The things we learn via Azed! 🙂

  23. Lovely to see so much discussion- I never have time on Sunday, after working on the current wonder to join the blog so hope this isn’t too late.
    Thanks to Azed, as always, and to Cineraria. I didn’t finish this on the day as I’d other preoccupations but don’t recall any especial hitches. Re SWINGLEHAND I did note the double indicator but the smooth finish justifies it.

  24. [At the Azed 50th gathering I said to another guest that I found the notes in the paper never covered the clues I was worried about. They said “try fifteensquared”, since when I have used no other.]

  25. Very late but, for the record, both Azed and Manley refer to them as “composite” anagrams. Manley, Chamber Crossword Manual, quoting Don Putnam, implies they were invented by Afrit. I have said often they are not my favourite type of clue but surely KANGHA is just Azed’s superb out-of-the-hat magic and all is forgiven. (I prefer Azed’s “…[i]s deployed” here to deploys.)

    We learn a lot from Azed but sometimes I’m a little surprised. I didn’t know the artist Rego and had to go rummaging. Likewise recently we had PONTAILLER and SOCOTRA. I thought Azed was giving us another lesson at 14 with his “Writer’s hollow…” Does anyone remember Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill”:

    Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
    About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green
    The night above the dingle starry…

    I couldn’t get it to parse but I failed it away as a possibility—it wouldn’t be the first time Azed’s tripped me up with his tricks and I was right all along.

    Stefan

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