It’s always a relief when blogging duty coincides with an Azed plain, because his specials, which are especially good, always take me ages to do. I admire his grid construction: OK some of the words are pretty wild, but they are all there in Chambers so far as I can see, and to fit words into a 12×12 grid where there are four 11-letter words abutting each other in pairs seems brilliant. 5 and 8dn are presenting problems, which I’m sure will be explained to me.
Definitions underlined in crimson. Anagrams indicated (like this)* or *(this), with their indicators in italics.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | IMPROMPTU |
This writer’s put out about lively frolic, unrehearsed (9)
|
| I’m (romp) (put)* | ||
| 11 | SORUS |
Cluster of cells, type wherein time’s passed, American (5)
|
| sor(t) US | ||
| 13 | RUDAS |
Coarse Scots ground-bass regularly missed out (5)
|
| [g]r[o]u[n]d-[b]a[s]s | ||
| 14 | FLOSS |
Fine wastage? (5)
|
| f loss, &lit. — floss could be regarded as fine wastage | ||
| 15 | ARABIST |
Student of e.g. Saudi culture, one twice engrossed in pictures etc (7)
|
| ar(a bis)t — I always have to get myself into Azed mode, where one can equal a; I’m used to The Times, where one is always i rather than a | ||
| 17 | RIPPLER |
One extracting hemp seeds, Jack maybe, bagging pound (7)
|
| Ripp(L)er — ref Jack the Ripper | ||
| 18 | ALALIA |
All confused maid admits being rendered speechless (6)
|
| (all)* in aia | ||
| 19 | MELA |
Fair component of some resins, not mine (4)
|
| mela[mine] | ||
| 20 | MONKISHNESS |
Ikon crafted with silence by number in shared meal? It’s typical of cloistered community (11)
|
| m((ikon)* sh n)ess | ||
| 23 | PEAT-CASTING |
Work in bank, say, gets captain confused (11)
|
| (gets captain)* — the mound sense of bank | ||
| 25 | SOWP |
A wee bittie whiskey imbibed by soak? (4)
|
| w[hiskey] in sop, &lit.— if I’ve understood this correctly there is no need for the slightly cumbersome ‘whiskey’ (NATO alphabet); ‘a wee bittie’ is a Scottish way of saying a little bit, so ‘a wee bittie whisky’ would also indicate w | ||
| 28 | BEAGLE |
An old field having parts switched for hunt? (6)
|
| You regard the parts of ‘a glebe’ as {a gle} and {be} and switch these parts | ||
| 30 | SPIGNEL |
Mountain plant, strangely pleasing, one picked out (7)
|
| *(ple[a]sing) | ||
| 32 | RANKINE |
Scots engineer, no longer vigorous in energy (7)
|
| rank in e — ‘no longer’ indicating an archaism | ||
| 33 | ARIEN |
One born in spring period, English, with rain swirling around (5)
|
| E in (rain)* — the adjective from Aries (21 Mar -20 Apr) | ||
| 34 | ARGUS |
Butterfly? It’s thrown out in air gusts (5)
|
| Comp. anag, where [argus its] … [air gusts] | ||
| 35 | LINGY |
Heather may be so wrinkled around onset of greying (5)
|
| lin(g[reying])y — lingy is a rather odd word, but it’s there | ||
| 36 | THEOLOGER |
Student of religious stuff hereto revised, taking in record of work done (9)
|
| log in (hereto)* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | MOLAL |
Amateur in grip of old pro, substantial? (5)
|
| mol(A)l — the old pro is an archaic word for a prostitute, a moll — substantial in the sense of having substance | ||
| 3 | PROPANE |
Dad’s enveloped by homily as of old, gassy stuff (7)
|
| pro(Pa)ne | ||
| 4 | RUSALKA |
Naiad involving us in a lark, swimming (7)
|
| us in (a lark)* | ||
| 5 | OSSA |
Ribs? Huge, emerging from college shortly (4)
|
| I couldn’t do this and decided to leave it until blogging in the hope that inspiration would strike, and was about to give up but do I now see it? I was misled (?) by OS = outsize = huge; it now seems to be col(ossa)l, with coll the college shortly, but this doesn’t quite explain it, since if huge was emerging from college shortly then colossal would be emerging from coll. So my inclination is to say that the wordplay is very dodgy, but I’m almost certainly not understanding it properly. | ||
| 6 | PERISHABLES |
With HM no longer on board, bales ship out? We’ll go off rapidly (11)
|
| (bales ship)* round ER — ER is Her Majesty no longer | ||
| 7 | TRAPAN |
Old decoy, name separate, inverted (6)
|
| (n apart)rev. | ||
| 8 | EDILE |
Roman magistrate? See special one in seat (5)
|
| Well that’s the definition, but how the wordplay works was beyond me until I consulted a friend, who told me that a sedile is a seat for the officiating clergy, something I never knew: s + edile | ||
| 9 | EASEL |
Contract top to bottom in frame (5)
|
| lease with the l moved to the end | ||
| 10 | ESTRANGER |
Bile after rest’s disturbed – I’ll sever friendship (9)
|
| (rest)* anger | ||
| 12 | PARASCIENCE |
Study beyond traditional methods rate limiting compound of arsenic (11)
|
| pa((arsenic)*)ce | ||
| 16 | CAMASS-RAT |
Rodent fancying sweet bulbs in quantity – once worth trapping it (9)
|
| ca(mass)rat | ||
| 21 | ETAERIO |
Fruity cluster eater demolished with joyous cry (7)
|
| (eater)* io! | ||
| 22 | SIGHING |
Chant involving consecutive trio like wind among the leaves? (7)
|
| si(GHI)ng — G, H and I are a consecutive trio of letters | ||
| 24 | TONISH |
Fashionable number turned up in this cut? (6)
|
| (no.)rev. in (this)* — cut is usually an indicator that the last letter is removed, but the definition of ‘cut’ in Chambers is so long that there is probably something there that makes it an anagram indicator, such as carve, strike obliquely or wound — it’s in the list of anagram indicators in Chambers Crossword Dictionary | ||
| 26 | OP ART |
Duck portion? It may deceive the eye (5, 2 words)
|
| o part | ||
| 27 | WINGY |
Drunk, having imbibed gallon, sky high? (5)
|
| win(g)y — this I think rather than my first inclination, which was wingo (which doesn’t exist) | ||
| 29 | LIEGE |
Subject I sat in e.g. poly, missing pass at first (5)
|
| [col]l(I)ege | ||
| 31 | GALL |
Painful swelling making one miss work in career (4)
|
| gall(op) |
OSSA
A bit of a stretch:
COLOSSAL, emerging from COL L is OSSA (like a chicken from an eggshell).
EDILE
S(pecial) +one (EDILE)—Is this what you say?
The ‘see’ has no role probably. I was trying to link the clergy with it.
SOWP
Apart from being &lit, it seems to have more dimensions (may not be needed for the clue to function. Still felt like sharing these bits and pieces here):
A wee bittie=a little bit/spoonful (in Scottish as the blog says)=SOWP
A wee bittie whiskey=a small drink=SOWP
A wee bittie whiskey imbibed=(a) sip=SOWP.
(to) soak=SOWP.
For me, one of the quickest Azeds in ages although I, too, couldn’t understand OSSA. If KVa is correct, I wouldn’t call it just dodgy, I don’t think it’s valid clue at all.
Stefan
Thanks for the blog, I found the wordplay quite straightforward but a lot of looking up afterwards. I have nothing to add for OSSA .
ARIEN is not in Chambers93 but was obvious.
TRAPAN , C93 gives see TREPAN 1 , which is the saw not the decoy ?? This may have been updated.
EDILE , Azed often uses see to mean “this is how it works ” .
Many thanks for the blog which cleared up a couple of points for me. AIA and EDILE. This competes my first year of Azed and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them all. The new year challenge is now the monthly Magpie puzzles.
I don’t remember too much difficulty with this, apart from 16dn which needed a word search to
finish the puzzle. But there were a few I never got round to parsing,
Roz@4: The Chambers app I use, which is the 2016 edition, has TRAPAN as same as TREPAN 2, the decoy.
Thanks for the blog, John. I got ossa but didn’t know why. In 24d ‘cut’, normally in the phrase ‘half-cut’, can mean ‘drunk’.
Thank you Dormouse@6 I thought it must have been updated.
I am not very impressed with the winning clues for the Spoonerism puzzle, maybe much harder to write in this style.
I, too, found the clues for 5D and 8D pretty opaque, and something about both of them seems “backwards” (or something) to me. Even reading them in Crosswordese does not do much to explain the construction. “If you do X, then word Y will emerge”? Or maybe I am just not tuning in. I guessed from the apparent definitions. Otherwise, good puzzle, good blog.
Roz@4, my C98 gives the same as yours for TRAPAN, so it obviously took a while to be updated.
I was happy with 8dn (S)EDILE, but hadn’t parsed 5dn. I don’t think the wordplay really works for OSSA “emerging from” COLOSSAL; if it had said “Huge, leaving college shortly” (leaving in the sense of leaving out), that might have been better. The definition is quite weak, too – and the surface makes little sense!
Roz@4: of no real consequence, but to maintain Azed’s integrity, ARIEN is in my Chambers under Aries. No further ideas on OSSA, though, I’m afraid.
5dn: As could have been expected, Azed’s note simply says (col)ossa(l), which does not help with the questionable indications for how these parts were to fit together.