Assuming that I have parsed everything correctly, I found this Azed less daunting than some of the recent offerings.
I do not believe I have seen the device used for 25D EGEST before. I think that the “reasonably common abbreviation” alluded to in the instructions is “M1,” which I could not find in Chambers.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SAWPIT |
Spotted cavity – it facilitates vertical cutting (6)
|
| SAW (spotted) + PIT (cavity) | ||
| 6 | SCREED |
Jock’s rent, beginning to stretch belief (6)
|
| First letter of (beginning to) S[TRETCH] + CREED (belief), listed in Chambers as “Scots,” thus “Jock’s” | ||
| 12 | CREEPHOLE |
Short letter in pidgin revealing subterfuge (9)
|
| EPH. (“short” letter, i.e., to the Ephesians) inside (in) CREOLE (pidgin) | ||
| 13 | LOGICIST |
One following Gottlob’s theory, gist being involved with loci (8)
|
| Anagram of (being involved with) [GIST + LOCI], referring to Gottlob Frege | ||
| 15 | PASEAR |
Local US promenade in parish bordering the briny (6)
|
| PAR. (parish) around (bordering) SEA (the briny), listed in Chambers as “US slang and dialect,” thus “local US” | ||
| 16 | SYE |
Strain making one sound dejected, audibly (3)
|
| Homophone of (audibly) SIGH (making one sound dejected) | ||
| 17 | AMIGO |
Buddy having a turn involving major artery (5)
|
| A + GO (turn) around (involving) MI (major artery, i.e., “M1”) | ||
| 18 | ROLL-ON |
Strip with lines inside corset (6)
|
| ROON (strip) around (with . . . inside) LL (lines) | ||
| 19 | MEGAGAMETE |
See me, famous Lady, measure female reproductive cell (10)
|
| ME + GAGA (famous Lady) + METE (measure) | ||
| 21 | ULSTERETTE |
Light coat making tête rustle when it’s windy (10)
|
| Anagram of (when it’s windy) TÊTE RUSTLE | ||
| 24 | STREGA |
Liqueur held in utmost regard (6)
|
| Hidden in (held in) [UTMO]ST REGA[RD] | ||
| 26 | DACHA |
Pater locally is given tea in weekend retreat? (5)
|
| DA (pater, listed in Chambers as “dialect,” thus “locally”) + CHA (tea) | ||
| 29 | KAT |
Leaves for chewing rolled from heart of Latakia (3)
|
| Central letters of (heart of) [LA]TAK[IA] reversed (rolled) | ||
| 31 | TABRET |
Feature of Exeter-Bath returning? One gets a beating (6)
|
| Hidden in (feature of) [EXE]TER-BAT[H], reversed (returning) | ||
| 32 | CREEPIER |
Soak on jetty, increasingly chilling (8)
|
| CREE (soak) + PIER (jetty) | ||
| 33 | SABELLIAN |
Follower of Libyan priest as in getting excited about a sanctus? (9)
|
| Anagram of (getting excited) [AS IN] around (about) [A + BELL (sanctus)], i.e., a type of bell | ||
| 34 | TATTLE |
Story about Rechabite, idle chatter (6)
|
| TALE (story) around (about) TT (Rechabite) | ||
| 35 | MALGRE |
Medium and large, mixed, notwithstanding out-of-date (6)
|
| M (medium) + anagram of (mixed) LARGE, listed in Chambers as “archaic,” thus “out-of-date” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SCAPA |
Take off special cloak (5)
|
| S (special) + CAPA (cloak) | ||
| 2 | ARMAMENTARIA |
Mum joins chaps with sailor in song, doctoring equipment (12)
|
| [MA (mum) + MEN (chaps) + TAR (sailor)] inside (in) ARIA (song) | ||
| 3 | WESSI |
German in post-war period, not pro daring, I’ll follow (5)
|
| [PRO]WESS (daring) minus (not) PRO + I (” . . . [will] follow”) | ||
| 4 | PEREGAL |
Royal pursues exercises in old uniform (7)
|
| PE (exercises) + REGAL (royal), listed in Chambers as “obsolete,” thus “old” | ||
| 5 | THORIA |
Oxide turning air hot (6)
|
| Anagram of (turning) HOT AIR | ||
| 7 | CLIP |
Lick prune? (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 8 | RECAL |
Sappers with diminished calibre getting order to retire (5)
|
| RE (sappers) + CAL. (“diminished” calibre) | ||
| 9 | ENISLE |
Like oldie, lid drooping somewhat, maroon (6)
|
| SENILE (like oldie) with first letter moved partway down (lid dropping somewhat) | ||
| 10 | EASY ON THE EAR |
One hearty, sea rolling, chanting agreeably (12, 4 words)
|
| Anagram of (rolling) ONE HEARTY SEA | ||
| 11 | DÉTENUE |
Within charge, string up female prisoner (7)
|
| NETE (string) inverted (up) inside (within) DUE (charge) | ||
| 14 | GORM |
Sticky mass and disposed of by greedy diner (4)
|
| GORM[AND] (greedy diner) minus (disposed of) AND | ||
| 19 | MUSK-CAT |
Shift, the whole lot taken up for courtesan (7)
|
| TACK (shift) + SUM (the whole lot) all inverted (taken up) | ||
| 20 | TEA BALL |
It helps in preparing US cuppas, arrangement of a table line (7, 2 words)
|
| Anagram of (arrangement of) [A + TABLE + L (line)] | ||
| 21 | URTEXT |
Original musical version in court extravaganza (6)
|
| Hidden in (in) [CO]URT EXT[RAVAGANZA] | ||
| 22 | TAKI |
Tie-dyeing technique that’s shown rearing rare wild horse (4)
|
| IKAT (tie-dyeing technique) inverted (that’s shown rearing) | ||
| 23 | ESTEEM |
One of mixed parentage, first to last gaining respect (6)
|
| MESTEE (one of mixed parentage) with the initial M moved to the end (first to last) | ||
| 25 | EGEST |
Discharge from limb in case similarly shortened? (5)
|
| [L]EG (limb) + [L]EST (in case), both “similarly shortened” by omitting the initial L | ||
| 27 | CRAIG |
A corgi running wild but not over feature of Cairngorms (5)
|
| Anagram of (running wild) [A + C[O]RGI minus (but not) O (over)], listed in Chambers as “Scots” | ||
| 28 | ATONE |
Make up in early afternoon? (5)
|
| AT ONE [PM] (in early afternoon) | ||
| 30 | OPAL |
Glass of a kind? It’s got nothing on china (4)
|
| O (nothing) + PAL (china) |
Chambers has “M…Motorway (followed by a number)” which to me is close enough to say that it has the abbreviation for M1. However if “M1” isn’t the “reasonably common abbreviation” referred to in the instructions, I don’t know what it is.
Favourite for me was the lovely succinct CLIP.
EGEST
As Cineraria says in the intro, the device seems fresh (loved it).
EASY ON THE EAR
In sync with nature. Liked the poetic surface.
SYE
Liked it for the ‘making one sound dejected’ bit.
Thanks Cineraria for the excellent blog.
Thank you Cineraria. Azed has been coming up with some quirky stuff in his old age. I will not always forgive him but (L)EG (L)EST is all right by me. I somehow missed the instructions. I often do Azed on Pressreader and it’s strange that it’s different from what people who buy newspapers might see. ‘1’ [‘one’] for I [the letter ‘i’] has always been acceptable and Azed has used ‘M1’ for ‘mi’ at least a few times to my knowledge so I don’t know why he should make special reference to it now.
For me, this was a welcome, straightforward Azed after three weeks of hard work and I was able to get the Sunday roast on in plenty of time.
Stefan
Thanks to Azed and Cineraria. I also found this straightforward compared to recent weeks. Liked the double “L” removal device. Hoping for some rather more eccentric Scottish indicators.
Thanks for the blog, I thought the note referred to WESSI , not in my Chambers93 but could be in 2016 . Could not find MEGAGAMETE either, I do know the term but nearly always called macro…. .
Like Jay @4 I have noticed the Scottish references have been very dull for a few weeks.
LOGICIST I could not resist a smile, poor Frege , his life’s work undone by one sentence.
Roz@5: WESSI is in 2016. MEGAGAMETE is under “mega-” in 2016.
CLIP
Why is there a question mark at the end of the clue?
Grammar: What is correct? At the end of … or on the end of …?
KVa@7: Good question. Normally, I would interpret that “?” as suggesting the whole clue to be &lit, or that “prune” is to be treated as an example of some category, neither of which (to my mind) really applies in this case. I did not mark the “?” in red in the blog, since it seemed superfluous to the clue. Maybe we could treat it as a bit of misdirection? I do not think that it renders the clue unfair at all.
Agree this was relatively straightforward, though I failed to parse ENISLE. Could not think who Gottlob might be, but the solution was obvious and a later check on Google identified him as Frege. 12ac, my linguist daughter distinguishes Creole from Pidgin, and Chambers 14 seems to agree. Thanks to Cineraria, and to Azed for my regular fix.
Thank you Cineraria@6 , it is usually the case. I am still not convinced that the note refers to M1 .
Wessi is in my Chambers ’98 – a rare instance where mine is more up to date than Roz’s. Could the abbreviation referred to be S for special in 1dn? That doesn’t seem to be in C98, although I’m sure I’ve seen it quite frequently used in crosswords.
KVa@7: I would say ‘at’ the end of a clue, but (for instance) ‘on’ the end of your nose. I can’t, however, come up with a hard and fast grammatical rule for selecting one or the other. I think ‘at’ would tend to be used if speaking of a non-physical object (such as a clue, a word, a day), but even then I can think of exceptions.
MunroMaiden @11, s for special is in the current Chambers. I remember using it in a VHC clue for “Fifty Years” a couple of years ago.
‘Major road’ for M1 in MISLED was in Azed 2175. There was no warning then of Chambers not including a “reasonably common abbreviation”, for what it’s worth.
Thanks, Twmbarlwm. I thought it should be there – I’ve certainly seen it used before – but I couldn’t spot anything else that wasn’t in Chambers.