Most of this was quite routine and the usual satisfactory product, but one or two gave me a lot of trouble. One was a complete mystery until I looked up one of the words, which was new to me. I’m still unsure about one of the others and would welcome explanations, since mine is a bit tenuous.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Anagrams shown (like this)* or *(like this), depending on where the indicator (in italics) is.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | APHTHA |
Feature of graph that shows what accompanies thrush? (6)
|
| Hidden in grAPH THAt | ||
| 6 | WOTCHA |
Two brewed tea – hi! (6)
|
| (two)* cha | ||
| 11 | CASUARINA |
Mostly unforeseen rain damaged Aussie tree? (9)
|
| casua[l] (rain)* | ||
| 12 | CRONET |
Trot, end of it? It may have obscured hoof (6)
|
| crone [i]t | ||
| 13 | GELATI |
Grand euphoria on leaving for Roman holiday treats? (6)
|
| g elati[on] — Italian ice creams | ||
| 15 | GAMUT |
Range a goat mounts skipping every other (5)
|
| [a] g[o]a[t] m[o]u[n]t[s] | ||
| 16 | SILICONE |
Component of lubricant since oil’s mixed in (8)
|
| (since oil)* — I can’t understand why Azed says ‘in’; it could perfectly well have been left out and looks like a gratuitous attempt to mislead | ||
| 18 | TENON |
Less of frequently broadcast Lewis! (5)
|
| 20 | STRUM |
Vamp, cocotte, favourite dropped (5)
|
| strum[pet] — ‘vamp till ready’, which just about passes for Chambers’s ‘simple and uninspired’ | ||
| 21 | RUMBO |
Odd guy giving one a punch (5)
|
| rum bo | ||
| 23 | OSCAR |
Old mark: it was spent abroad (5)
|
| o scar | ||
| 25 | PANCHION |
Pressure cracked china? No piece of coarse earthenware (8)
|
| P *(china No) | ||
| 27 | MARON |
River level reduced? Chap’ll net that sort of yabby (5)
|
| man round (r o) — I’m a bit lost here: r = river, but how does o = level reduced? O[K]? | ||
| 30 | ELOHIM |
Almighty breach reversed, I married (6)
|
| (hole)rev. I m | ||
| 31 | OVIBOS |
I exude strong odour – nothing against lives containing that (6)
|
| 0 v i(b.o.)s | ||
| 32 | ADENOSINE |
Nucleoside dealt with in inane odes (9)
|
| (inane odes)* | ||
| 33 | T-SHIRT |
Slip-on, dry, puckering in the middle (6)
|
| T(shir)T | ||
| 34 | SWEDES |
What’ll get such root veg in flourishing – dewiness? (6)
|
| Comp. anag.: [swedes in] …[dewiness] | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ACCUSTREMENT |
Exploit including Custer being trounced with soldiers in old uniform (singular) (12)
|
| ac((Custer)* men)t — hardly trounced, since just two letters are swapped | ||
| 2 | PARTITUR |
Rubinstein often includes it added to page in Bach’s score? (8)
|
| P Art(it)ur — I think this is a reference to the great pianist Artur Rubinstein; what does the ‘often’ mean? Does it mean that there are probably lots of people called Artur Rubinstein, or is it just there to indicate that the reference is to A. R.? | ||
| 3 | TUNE IN |
Get required channel to preserve containing French article (6, 2 words)
|
| t(une)in | ||
| 4 | HAEM |
Red pigment Spain injected in meat? (4)
|
| ha(E)m | ||
| 5 | ART-SONG |
No folksy number square disciple included in mixed rag (7)
|
| (t son) in *(rag) | ||
| 6 | WIGAN |
Stiff fabric, one under rug (5)
|
| an under wig | ||
| 7 | TALANT |
Historical ogee in oriental antechapel (6)
|
| Hidden in orienTAL ANTechapel | ||
| 8 | CHAMFRAIN |
Protection for warhorse farm fashioned in links (9)
|
| (farm)* in chain | ||
| 9 | HUTU |
Sort of rondavel, universal for Bantu-speaker (4)
|
| hut U | ||
| 10 | AVITAMINOSES |
A raincoat inside a vest is hiding dietary shortages (12)
|
| (a mino) in (a vest is)* — in one of his slips Azed said that he was very concerned with the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs; Chambers gives ‘hide’ in a transitive sense (‘to flog or whip’), but I can’t see how the anagram indicator works unless it’s intransitive — on my printout the word ‘inside’ in the clue is in italics (although not here): Azed does this sometimes and I can never understand why: what is so special about the word? | ||
| 14 | ALEMBROTH |
Alchemist’s compound friar briefly included in hot meal, cooked (9)
|
| Br. in (hot meal)* | ||
| 17 | EUROZONE |
Endless fresh air in French region, what some of us regret leaving (8)
|
| (ozon[e]) in Eure | ||
| 19 | PONTONS |
Barges, heavy weight, opening connecting part (7)
|
| pon(ton)s — a peculiarity of Chambers on my phone is that when I do a search it doesn’t give pontons (presumably since it is a variant of pontoon, and doesn’t have its own heading), so I spent ages trying to make all sorts of weird things work | ||
| 22 | BOOHAI |
A hobo, vagrant, on island, remote spot down under (6)
|
| (A hobo)* i | ||
| 24 | CHAISE |
Something to recline on I chucked in quarry (6)
|
| cha(I)se | ||
| 26 | ARMET |
Helmet cast in iron or in similar metal (5)
|
| Hidden in similAR METal | ||
| 28 | ALAS |
Harrow, as of old, finally ends off (4)
|
| a[t] las[t] | ||
| 29 | AVOW |
Maintain wife after eggs inverted (4)
|
| (ova)rev. w |
Thanks John.
For 16, I read it as “…of which ‘since oil’ is an anagram”.
27 O-level (the former qualification).
2 dn perhaps because his name was otherwise anglicised to Arthur.
10 dn I assumed ‘hiding’ meant ‘in disguise’. The italics are just a comment on the bizarre image I think 🙂
TENON kept me puzzled for a long time too – I parse as you do.
Thanks as ever to Azed.
Gonzo@1
MARON
O being the reduced form of Ordinary, Azed says ‘reduced’?
AVITAMINOSES
Thanks. Didn’t think of that angle.
Agree with the rest.
Thanks John for the excellent blog. Double John today. Great!
Or a reduced level because it’s a low level?
For CRONET the final ‘t’ could come from the end of “trot” or the end of “it”. The clue is ambiguous but it matters not.
I took the O in MARON to refer to the O-level, reduced because it would normally be referred to as an O level not an O.
I agree with Gonzo @1 that Artur in PARTITUR was his birth name but he was referred to as Arthur as well, hence Artur often but not all the time.
I’d agree with you John about hiding meaning “to go into, or stay in, concealment” in AVITAMINOSES although I don’t find it convincing as an anagram indicator. It’s not listed as such in Chambers Crossword Dictionary. I hadn’t noticed the italics.
Good blog. I agree with the added remarks from Gonzo@1. I also had a ? next to MARON, but also assumed that the “O” came from “O-level.” Chambers says that OSCAR is Australian and New Zealand rhyming slang for “Oscar Asche” (rhymes with “cash”), which I found laudably obscure.
So laudably obscure Cineraria @5 that I’ve never heard it in my 40 years of living in Aus.
We have learnt some Cockney rhyming slang. Nice to learn some Oz rhyming slang (well. I will forget it soon!). 🙂
Thanks for the blog, italics for “inside” in the paper, I thought the same as Gonzo @1 , the raincoat would normally be outside the vest so it indicates surprise. Did not like hiding.
I was the last year to do O levels, O ( and A ) were occasionally used as a reduced form.
Rubinstein often = ARTUR I took as meaning sometimes it is Helena.
TENON had neat wordplay but I do not like the capital for Lewis, I know that conventionally it is “allowed” but I am not fond of this.
Interestingly in relation to capitals Roz @8, the Azed slip just out for RATTY has the winning clue “Thames water vole? One’s seen in River Tees and then Wye!” with a comment by Azed “Mr Price Jones’s excellent winner shows what could be done with this approach without giving the game away too readily. (Its use of capital initials doesn’t bother me.)”.
Tim @9 I am less than impressed with the winning entries this week , perhaps RATTY is hard to clue. The capitals in the one you quote are not too bad as they are just part of the wordplay .For this puzzle, Lewis can have many meanings but TENON is always lewis. However , there is only one rule, the setter sets and we try to solve.
I didn’t think RATTY was hard to clue. If anything I thought that there were a lot of possibilities for it. I ended up with “Leading role among tiny tot’s yarn” which I thought at the time was probably too simple and it didn’t get a mention. I see Keith Thomas who at the time commented that “short words present fewer possibilities” ended up with an HC. Congratulations to him.
I guess our view on capitalisation differs. In the case of TENON, to me it was a misdirection (broadcast) to the TV show.
If you want to misdirect with Lewis put it at the front.
I have no issues with capitalisation anywhere in the clue as a device to misdirect. However, I will give more marks to the clue if it is constructed as Roz@12 suggests.
I see from my notes that I also thought Custer wasn’t given so much of a ‘trouncing’ as a wee tweak. I liked ‘Bach’ as a German indicator, but no appearance from Jock this week.
Thanks to Azed and John
That sounds like a challenge Roz@12 and KVa@13, feel free to contribute a clue….. “Lewis………” = Tenon?
Maybe “Lewis broadcast on net”? Or should that be “Lewis broadcast on Net”
I still don’t mind Azed’s clue
KVa @13 , setters should mislead us with clever wordplay , sticking in a fake capital is just lazy .
Tim C@15
I still don’t mind Azed’s clue Of course, I agreed with you and I still agree with you on that. Just shared an opinion. Didn’t challenge anyone.
Or should that be “Lewis broadcast on Net”
LOL
KVa , Tim just meant setting a clue with Lewis at the front was a challenge.
Roz@18
feel free to contribute a clue
Wanted to be sure I didn’t end up offending Tim C.
Your post makes it clear what he meant by ‘challenge’.
Thanks.
You will have a hard time offending me KVa @19. I’m old enough now that barbs just pass me by. 🙂 Roz has my meaning that clue writing is difficult and sometimes making sure that a capitalisation is at the start of a clue is a real challenge. 🙂
Thanks. Got it Tim C!
And you took up that challenge successfully and playfully.
Azed has explained his position on capital letters in A–Z of Crosswords and periodically mentions it in slips:
“I… reject the notion that the capital initial of a proper name can be downcased in a clue because it suits the setter to do this. (The converse of this—upgrading a lower-case initial to a capital one—I regard as acceptable, just.)”
I don’t really agree with Azed but, if he’s consistent, I’ll let it go. Tim C’s already mentioned one problem: is it Net or net? Who wears Nylons or carries tea in a Thermos? Who does the hoovering in your house? Chambers sits gloriously on the fence.
Stefan
20ac: my Chambers ’98 defines vamp (in a music sense) as “to improvise crude accompaniments” and strum as “to sound the strings of a guitar etc with a sweep of the hand; to play in this way”, which don’t seem to equate. I assume from John’s comment in the blog that more recent editions have a slightly different definition for one or the other?
Marmite Smuggler @22 There are plenty of people who can’t decide when to use a capital at times, including me. I’m coming to the conclusion than capital letters are a legitimate form of misdirection cryptically speaking.
MunroMaiden @23, C2016 has “vamp 2vt….to improvise inartistically (music)…vi to improvise crude accompaniments…” which to me is close enough to “to strum”. Think what the guy next to Django Reinhardt was doing when Django was weaving his magic. It is a bit of a longish bow though.
My guess, TimC@11, is that Azed rejected your clue because the intention is clearly to pick the leading letters of the following words, yet ‘leading’ on its own doesn’t really indicate that. I think.
You may well be correct John @25. I’m still learning a lot.
Stefan@22 Azed’s position seems to be the general convention for most crosswords, I do not see why one direction is “allowed” and the other is not.
For me a capital should always be there if genuinely required and never there if not.
Tim C and John, I agree that Azed would not like “leading” as a first letter(s) indicator, although I’ve seen it get through in The Guardian. (Leaving aside that WitW isn’t a book for ‘tiny tots’ either!) Just in case it comes in handy in future, two other points where I know Azed differs from crossword editors is his not accepting ‘extremely’ for first and last letters, and not accepting ‘oddly’ for alternate letters in positions. 1, 3 etc.
I agree with Azed’s and others’ policy on upcasing being fine. Solvers see a conspicuous capitalised word in the clue (and it doesn’t happen that often) and they’re on the alert for the possibility that it might be a deceptive device. If the opposite were allowed, we’d have to be looking at every word in the clue for a potential downcasing, which I think would be too much to ask and pretty tedious too.
I think for most clues the chance of downcasing is very rare , hardly any contain a word that should have a capital but is still a normal word without it.