Azed 2698

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Slightly harder than some recent Plains, I thought, but not too many problems. Thanks to Azed.

 
Across
1 UMBRELLA‑STAND Bit of hall furniture? Broken tumblers land around one (13, 2 words)
A in (TUMBLERS LAND)*
11 CAREX Sedge plant? Sign of what’s wrong after oversight (5)
CARE (oversight) + X (teacher’s mark on a wrong answer)
12 CHUFF Clown, one of pair in circus to take offence (5)
C (of which there are two in CirCus) + HUFF
13 AT A PINCH An easy shot – check in case of emergency (8, 3 words)
A TAP IN (easy golf shot) + CH[eck]
14 PLUS Additional matter involving lecturer briefly (4)
L[ecturer] in PUS
15 AGUED Cold and shivering egad – that’ll be about the end of you (5)
[yo]U in EGAD*
17 CRETISMS Caught mistress endlessly misbehaving in romances (8)
C + anagram of MISTRES[s]. A cretism is a lie, from the saying “all Cretans are liars”, which leads to the Epimenides paradox
18 FEMUR Bone fragment bird’s broken (5)
EMU in FR
19 HIRES Wages shown in great detail (5)
Double definition, with the answer as either a single word or HI-RES. Wage for “to hire for pay” is flagged as obsolete in Chambers
22 SCENA Corps in Indian army – does it feature in Aida? (5)
C in SENA. A scena is a scene in an opera
24 BEEDI Delhi woodbine? I now hold one lit maybe (5)
Composite anagram – (DELHI WOODBINE)* = I NOW HOLD BEEDI, with lit=drunk
26 RESIANTS Former occupants modified rent as is (8)
(RENT AS IS)*
28 MONAD Crazy, getting tiddly tucking into that spirit (5)
ON in MAD
30 SEGO Attractive Utah native maybe, I’ll follow sun (4)
S + EGO
31 PERCEANT No longer sharp, impudent one covers rampant acne (8)
ACNE* in PERT (an impudent person)
32 GIMME It’s readily conceded in putting immediately (5)
Hidden in puttinG IMMEdiately
33 IMAGE Idol in review that is circulating (5)
MAG (magazine, review) in I.E.
34 NONSENSE VERSE What Lear is known for, not spreading severeness (13, 2 words)
NON (not) + SEVERENESS* – Edward Lear, not the Shakespearian king, as I first suspected
Down
2 MATÉRIEL Equipment left under sacking on lake (8)
MAT + ERIE + L[eft]
3 BRAK End snapped off pump handle in S. African briny (4)
BRAK[e]
4 REPUTE Fame continually rising round venture (6)
PUT (venture) in reverse if E’ER
5 LONGS Fielder removing top to display bags (5)
LONGS[top]
*6 LOCUM TENENS A deputy (11, 2 words)
The competition phrase
7 SHAD Fish and fruit leaving dock (4)
SHAD[dock]
8 TUPLE Set of connected data from page penned in a rush (5)
P in TULE
9 AFLAME A fine fabric with metallic threads, glowing (6)
A + F + LAMÉ
10 DYSCRASITE Silvery alloy transformed a city dress (10)
(A CITY DRESS)*
11 CATCH-BASIN Drain trap giving college malfunctioning cold bath – a pity (10)
C[ollege] + (C BATH)* + A SIN
12 CHEST Tired old joke dispensed with head in treasury (5)
CHESTNUT less NUT (head)
16 MUNTINGS Toby has installed new metal for parts of door frame (8)
N TIN in MUG’S
20 REAGIN Antibody to do with gettin’ older (6)
RE-AGIN[g]
21 GROPE Feel grand and run out before gym (5)
G + R.O. + P.E.
23 CARÊME One’s tucked into rich custard when one shouldn’t? (6)
A in CRÊME. Carême is Lent, traditionally a time not to eat rich food
25 DOOMS Very Burnsian sentences (5)
Double definition
27 SARGE One terrifying rookies, green where rule’s involved (5)
R in SAGE
28 MOME Old nitwit getting parts of note in wrong order (4)
MEMO with its “parts” interchanged
29 MAAR Single explosion creates this damage round centre of volcanoes (4)
[volc]A[noes[ in MAR

32 comments on “Azed 2698”

  1. Thanks Andrew for the crisp and neat blog!
    Top faves: AT A PINCH and LONGS (LONG STOP as a cricket field position wasn’t known to me. I thought I was an avid follower of this game. We learn if we breathe) and CATCH-BASIN.

    HIRES
    As a noun it works, I feel.

  2. I got the perimeter solutions and competition word right away, and then really struggled to fill in the interior. Not sure why, since there was nothing terribly outlandish going on, as it turned out. Elegant blog, as usual.

  3. Thanks for the blog, the perimeter was fairly friendly but quite tricky in parts in the middle. Not a good week for Chambers93 , I could not find BRAK , BEEDI , TUPLE or REAGIN but the wordplay was fine for each. Burnsian is our Scottish indicator.

  4. [ KVa@1 I bow to nobody in my disdain for cricket but I do know about LONG STOP from the sprogs. It is used in school and junior cricket where the wicket keeper may not be very good and it stops the ball going for four all the time. You may not have seen it in higher standard matches. ]

  5. Thanks Roz!

    HIRES
    Forgot earlier to check from dictionaries what I said @1.
    Chambers (App) under hire noun
    Wages for service.
    Collins (online) under hire noun (pl HIRES)
    the price paid or payable for a person’s services or the temporary use of something
    under wage noun
    (often plural)
    payment in return for work or services, esp that made to workmen on a daily, hourly, weekly, or piece-work basis

  6. Definitely on the trickier side compared to recent weeks I thought.
    MOME struck me as an indirect anagram, though I suppose a simple one. FR was new to me as an abbreviation and I wondered in what discipline this is used.
    Burnsian goes on my list of Scottish indicators.
    Thanks to Andrew and Azed.

  7. MOME not an anagram Jay @6, but a cycling of sorts. I hope you’re going to share your Scottish indicator list when it’s ‘complete’! (I quite like Perth as one given its misdirection to an Aussie location)
    This actually struck me as below the average of difficulty Andrew, and the LOCUM TENENS provided so many options my head was spinning at the end. I went for a simple-ish anagram at the end.

  8. I was thinking of you, Roz@3, as my C98 didn’t give any of those words either! I was groaning at myself over the parsing this week: I was slow to see LONGS(TOP) (as opposed to -LONGS), slow to spot HI-RES and baffled for a while over CAREX, as I had CARET stuck in my mind (as a sign of something wrong) and was trying to make either that or Carex fit the clue with a change of final letter. I’m still not sure, though, why there’s a question-mark, as Chambers defines Carex as a plant in the sedge family. The rest of the puzzle was straightforward, though!

  9. A few I couldn’t get this week. I couldn’t get past LUNGS for 5dn. I thought maybe CHAFF for 12ac which stopped me from getting 8dn. 30 years I worked in computing and I don’t think I ever came across TUPLE.

  10. Tim@7, thanks for clarifying MOME.
    Here is my Scottish indicators list. I only started it last year, so I dare say it will grow. Mainly Azed, but one or two may have come from other barred puzzles.

    Sandy’s, Mac’s, Jock’s, Ian’s, Alastair’s, Highland, Fettes, Perth, Troon, in the Kirk, Caledonia/n, Bannockburn, Murrayfield, Glenalmond, Ibrox, the noo, Glasgow, Fife, across border, Burnsian

  11. Pamela: for some reason your comment (and the follow-up) was put into the moderation queue and needed to be approved. This is supposed to be a way to avoid spam, but I have no idea why it happened to you.

    re 25d: Chambers defines DOOMS as a Scots (i.e. “Burnsian”) word meaning “very, exceedingly”, and to DOOM it to sentence (in a court).

  13. Adrian/Peter/Pamela

    Until you open a dialogue with admin, your comments will remain in the approval queue

  16. Apologies to everyone – especially the blogger for “hijacking” this thread.

    Hopefully things will settle down soon. 🔜

  17. Thanks Azed, also Andrew for the blog. I did finish this on the day- not always the case.
    BEEDI, “Delhi woodbine? I now hold one lit maybe” was my favourite, a neat compound.
    Has the Azed slip for last month’s MALIK been distributed- the winners and VHCs appeared in the usual tiny print but no also-rans or Azed’s comments.

  18. Forgot to thank Roz for LONG STOP explanation. That was always my position in my 1940’s schooldays. as I could not bat, bowl or field in a position when quick reactions and unbuttered fingers were needed.

  19. Keith@17 BEEDI was very good , not in my Chambers but no doubt in 2016 , I did know it from an Indian student from many years ago.
    LONG STOP , I think in lower levels of cricket the ball just keeps going for four through the wicket keeper if you do not have one.
    Jay@10 WEE BITTIE turns up quite often you may have seen it .

  21. Thanks Twmbarlwm. Can’t think what happened to mine. Had tried to Google it but with no success

  23. TimC@7, it was good to see a comment on the competition as well as the diagram. LT only really has one rather particular meaning, which limits the scope for picking a misleading definition. It’s foreignness also seemed to me to limit the charade possibilities, though it sounds like you had more inspiration. As you say, lots of anagrams and their variants, which was my choice too.
    Would there be any interest in those who write clues sharing them in this blog?

  24. TimSee, Tim C, Keith et al, re the clue contest, I wish I hadn’t spotted c + Elon Mus(k) as anagram fodder with Ten [X] inside it. I spent a long time trying to get something smooth out of that, but had to admit defeat in the end. I suspect others may have done something good with it though.

  25. There used to be an annual award, passed round amongst a talented few- Morse (Jeremy) and Dexter (Colin) included. Points were awarded for prize/VHC. Whether the tradition is still followed I can’t recall. I always remained in the foothills. I recall being at Ximenes’s 750th- held at the Cafe Royale off Piccadilly Circus. The lovable aspects of the world have shrunk or retreated to Silicon Valley.

  26. Keith @25, there’s definitely still a trophy for each clue-writing winner to keep for a month until posting it to the following month’s victor, so I presume the yearly trophy (a silver salver?) for the one with most points over 13 contests is still being awarded. Last year it was tied between Mark Barley and Richard Heald, so maybe they have it for 6 months each.
    At the current rate of Royal Mail inflation it might eventually be cheaper to drive to the next winner’s house.

  27. Twmbarlm@24, yes, an appealing possibility that I can imagine a prizewinner using to craft a composite anagram &lit.
    Not me though – I came up with “Doctor invents molecule releasing evil replacement’. It’s short, which I like, and I think the wordplay is precise. The subtractive anagram is not bad, if a bit unbalanced, but a better definition would have been nice.

  28. I just thought that the word had a lot of the more commonly occurring letters which made for more anagram possibilities.
    TimSee @23, I did toy with the idea of “G, S, T and P” as a definition, but thought that would be a Ximenean bridge too far. In the end I went with “Temporary relief from massaging one muscle torn or strained”. (anag. less or)

  29. TimC@29, I like your final version – it gets the distance from the standard definition that I failed to find. “Strained” is good as a removal indicator too. Still puzzling over your discarded definition . . .

  30. TimSee @29, Tim C’s “G, S, T and P” took me a while too.
    Think about a common abbreviation for a doctor in the UK, and then what his or her temporary replacement could be described as along similar lines!

  31. Twmbarlm@30, thanks. I think TimC was right to reject this as outside the Ximinean pale.
    This seemed like a useful, if numerically limited, discussion of the competition aspect to me – worth repeating next month?

  32. It could lead to some interesting discussions, but I’m not sure how many entrants actually post here, and how many of them would want to risk becoming a hostage to fortune by revealing their own clue, or commenting critically on someone else’s, especially before Azed himself has passed judgment.

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