Azed 2686

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For grid-spotters, this one is slightly unusual in having 90-degree rotational symmetry, though that doesn’t seem to have any special significance. Just another quality puzzle from the master. Thanks to Azed.
Across
1 ASHTORETH Mound in burnt remainth revealing Semitic goddess (9)
TOR (mound) in ASHETH (“ashes” with a lisp) – Ashtoreth, aka Astarte, not to be confused with Astaroth, is a goddess in old Semitic mythology
11 SCARPA Mark beside the old man in bunk? (6)
SCAR + PA (father, old man)
13 RHINE West-country watercourse, river he goes round in (5)
IN in R HE – a Somerset word for a ditch or watercourse; not (or at least not obviously) related to the name of the European river
14 CUNETTE Defensive ditch, astute, with fish in? (7)
NET in CUTE
15 INNIT Filler? It provides finishing touch to hotel (5)
INN + IT – slang version of “isn’t it”, often used as a filler word in speech
17 ACTS Collaborative Scottish church group producing short prayers (4)
Double definition – for the first, an initialism for Action of Churches Together in Scotland
18 CLIENT Hanger-on exercising legal right in court (6)
LIEN in CT
19 ELCHEE Senior diplomat from China welcomed by Robert maybe? (6)
CH[ina] in E LEE, as in General Robert E Lee
20 PROTOCOLIST Clerk to tease, made to fill small Italian register (11)
ROT (to tease) in POCO (Italian “small”) + LIST
22 PRECAUTIONS Safeguards as on picture being newly framed (11)
(AS ON PICTURE)*
26 PITURI Aboriginal narcotic? Spicy cake is filled with it (6)
IT in PURI (Indian spicy cake)
27 ON-SITE Like builders at work, unit about to take a rest (6)
SIT (to take a rest) in ONE (unit)
30 EMIR Ruler recalling wrongdoing, not the first (look in the mirror) (4)
Reverse of [C]RIME
32 LOTTO House in favour of abstinence in the toilet (5)
TT (teetotal, in favour of abstinence) in LOO; Lotto and House are both alternative names for the game of Bingo
33 LIE-ABED Late sleeper bailed out around middle of elevenses (7)
[elev]E[nses] in BAILED*
34 LULUS Half sin? More than half – they’re humdingers (5)
Half and then more than half of LUST
35 ASLANT Canting character chronicled, first to talk? (6)
ASLAN (lion in the Chronicles of Narnia) + T[alk]
36 COUNTERED Edward goes after frisky courtesan lacking sex appeal, frustrated (9)
Anagram of COURTESAN less SA + ED
Down
2 SCULL Sons to select fish basket for small rowing boat (5)
S + CULL, and two definitions
3 HANGI Downcast, no good going off for alfresco nosh (5)
HANGING (downcast) less NG
4 TREK Stage that’s divided in theatre (kabuki) (4)
Hidden in theaTRE Kabuki – “divided” because TRE and K are separated. Trek is “a journey or stage”
5 OPTANT One exercising choice, apt to dither about last of ten (6)
[te]N in (APT TO)*
6 RATATOUILLE Vegetarian dish with frills unlimited, including an armadillo! (11)
A TATOU in [f]RILLE[d] (with frills)
7 TRILLO French painter losing head? It often ends in a turn (6)
[U]TRILLO – I didn’t know that Utrillo was French, though his first name of Maurice might be a clue. A musical trill (a rapid alternation of adjacent notes) often ends with a figure called a turn
8 KINCHIN Family feature apparent in crook’s young offspring? (7)
KIN + CHIN
9 UNITES Jaunty tune is suitable for couples (6)
(TUNE IS)*
10 JET-SETTER Black dog suitable for member of high society? (9)
JET (black) + SETTER
12 REFECTORIAN Mass out of the way, I cater for men in mess? (11)
Anagram of I CATER FOR MEN less M, &lit
16 A CAPPELLA A covering on skin, formerly one with no accompaniment (9, 2 words)
A + CAP (covering) + PELL (old word for skin) + A (one)
21 RETITLE Change heading for letter rewritten about the first person (7)
I (first person pronoun) in LETTER*
23 RIMOUS Ring in NZ trees covered with cracks (6)
O in RIMUS (New Zealand coniferous trees)
24 ARIOSO Melodious Italian poet of yesteryear, not tense inside (6)
ARIOSTO less T[ense]
25 INGEST Swallow on the spot to discern about summer’s start (6)
IN (on the spot) + S[ummer] in GET
28 IMBAR The old shut in pulpit, not initially mobile (5)
[M]IMBAR (a pulpit)
29 TEENE What Scottish seers use to penetrate extremes of terrible grief as before (5)
EEN (Scots “eyes” in T[erribl]E
31 WALE The best of north England timber part of the kingdom cut (4)
Two definitions, and WALE[s]

22 comments on “Azed 2686”

  1. Thanks Azed and Andrew

    30ac: I nearly missed the second wordplay here (look in thE MIRRor).

    17ac/29dn: Azed has used “Scottish” twice to indicate Scottish things. We have also had “in Scotland” twice in recent weeks. Has Jock retired, or is he just on leave?

  4. Thanks for the blog, TATOU for armadillo has been in a few times before, Azed and Brummie recently. I only got PROTOCOLIST by spotting protocol in the letters, did not know poco or this meaning of rot. HANGI not in my Chambers93 but I have seen it before.
    Interesting point from Pelham Barton@1 , perhaps the first time really does need Scottish but not the second. Azed has a wide range of indicators including Jock plus at Murrayfield/Ibrox/Fettes etc.

  5. Enjoyed this one. I also had ticks against EMIR and REFECTORIAN. I started a list of a Scottish indicators earlier this year when I started doing Azed. There have been a couple of interesting ones in recent weeks including “the noo” and “Bannockburn”.
    Thanks to Andrew and Azed

  11. By way of an entry in the pedant of the year competition, I don’t think the definition of CUNETTE quite works – a cunette is a trench to drain a dry ditch or moat, not the ditch or moat itself. Suppose I’d better get a life. Otherwise all fine and up to the usual standard.
    [Tim C @7. This week’s puzzle is now available as normal.]

  12. Perplexus@11, I thought the same about CUNETTE when I looked up the definition.
    19ac: I was previously familiar with the spellings ELCHI and ELTCHI, but ELCHEE was new to me (however, obvious from the wordplay). Also had to check the dictionary to see if 28dn was IMBAR or INBAR, since the wordplay could have led to either.

  13. 14ac: Interesting thoughts from Perplexus@11, but I think they can be answered if we look at the definition of ditch n in Chambers. This begins “a trench dug in the ground for drainage or irrigation, or to serve to mark a boundary”. When a cunette is used, we have two levels of digging, the dry ditch or moat and then the cunette going deeper. It seems to me that each of these fits the definition of ditch that I have quoted – the original dry ditch or moat presumably for the “irrigation” or “mark a boundary” part, and the cunette for the “drainage” part. I am therefore happy with “ditch” being used to cue CUNETTE.

    [Roz@8: Just over forty years ago, I would go to meetings in London on some Saturdays and occasionally catch a train back to Manchester after 8pm. I do not know if this still happens, but in those days the early editions of the Sunday newspapers were on sale at Euston Station from around 8pm, so I could buy one to read on the train. I can thus honestly claim that my earliest finishing time for an Everyman crossword is around 8.40pm on the day before the date of the newspaper.]

  14. [Pelham Barton@13: When I moved to Guildford back in 1995, they were still selling Sunday papers at Waterloo on Saturday nights. I can’t remember when it stopped, but it doesn’t happen now.]

  15. Pelham Barton@14: ingenious as always, but I would still incline to maintain that if the cunette is the “drainage” part of the ditch, it is a bit of a stretch to describe it as “defensive”. Not going to lose sleep over it, though.

  16. Perplexus@15: The definition for cunette is marked “(fortif)”. I think the “Defensive” from the clue fits in there. Alternatively, we could take the definition of defensive as “attempting to justify one’s actions” and apply that to the frame of mind in which I am writing this comment.

    [Dormouse@14: Thanks for that.]

  17. [ I used to deliver papers when I was young and the Evening Sentinel on a Saturday would reach the shop about 5.30pm and have all the football results and match reports. Pretty incredible in the days of manual type-setting. I think that now there are just a few places printing all the newspapers so they need to travel long distances.
    Did the London newspapers have their own on-site presses ? In Fleet Street even ? ]

  18. [Roz@17: As I remember it, the Times was in Gray’s Inn Road, which I have just checked on a map and is further away from Fleet Street than I thought it was, but I think most of them were in Fleet Street itself with the presses in the same building as the editorial staff. The Telegraph printed in London and Manchester. Some others may also have done this, but I do not think the Times was printed anywhere other than London.]

  21. [The Guardian always used to be printed in Manchester. The London office used to be in Farringdon Road, while the FT was (and I believe is) in Bracken House. So even before the papers moved out to Wapping etc, they weren’t all in Fleet Street.]

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