A fairly standard Azed completition puzzle.
The right hand side of this went in quite quickly, but the left hand side held out until I got the scorpion’s belly clue, then the rest sort of feel into place. I had to check a few in Chambers, but there wasn’t anything too difficult to parse.
Thanks Azed.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | OFFY |
Somewhere to buy drinks from yard (4)
|
| OFF (“from”) + Y (yard)
Offy is short for off-licence. |
||
| 5 | SPANGLY |
Glittering Scotch stuff – secretive about that (7)
|
| SLY (“secretive”) about PANG (“Scottish” word for “stuff”) | ||
| 10 | PAIR-ROYAL |
Couple of queens or a threesome? (9)
|
| A PAIR ROYAL could be a couple of queens, but with the hyphen PAIR-ROYAL is three cards of the same denomination in certain card games or three dice turning up the same number. | ||
| 12 | INVERTIN |
Sugary enzyme contained in blood vessel, right inside (8)
|
| Rt. (right) inside IN VEIN (“in blood vessel”) | ||
| 13 | STENO |
Secretary in US office inundated by post – enough! (5)
|
| Hidden in [inundated by] “poST ENOugh”
Short for “stenographer”, although I wonder how many offices still use stenographers these days. |
||
| 14 | REACT |
One entertained in clergyman’s home (briefly) has to behave (5)
|
| A (“one”) entertained in Rect. (rectory, so “clergyman’s home”) | ||
| 16 | STRIDENT |
Harsh tax north of the border about clear (8)
|
| STENT (Scots word for “tax”, so “tax north of the border”) about RID (“clear”) | ||
| 18 | HEART |
One in suit showing the human body back to front (5)
|
| EART(h) (“the human body”, with its back (H) to front becomes H-EART | ||
| 19 | EDIBLE |
Call at table sent back, tucked into cooked eel, nourishing (6)
|
| <=BID (“call at table” when playing cards, sent back) tucked into *(eel) [anag:cooked] | ||
| 22 | O GRADE |
Raged wildly after bottom mark in 4th-year exam? (6, 2 words)
|
| *(raged) [anag:wildly] after O (zero, “bottom mark”)
O Grades no longer exist in Scotland, where they were roughly equivalent to O Levels, but they may still exist elsewhere. |
||
| 23 | AVOIR |
System for weighing left page caught in publicity (5)
|
| vo. (verso, so “left page”) caught in AIR (“publicity”)
Avoir. is short for avoirdupois |
||
| 24 | SUBTENSE |
What chord may be, but roughly dividing opinion (8)
|
| *(but) [anag:roughly] dividing SENSE (“opinion”)
In maths, a chord subtends the arch of a circle. |
||
| 27 | ORRIS |
Iris, not the character to lead in folk dance (5)
|
| [not the character to lead in] (m)ORRIS (“folk dance”) | ||
| 30 | AGLET |
Ornamental tag made of silver, an impediment? (5)
|
| Ag (chemical symbol for “silver”) + LET (“impediment”) | ||
| 31 | TINSTONE |
Mineral dioxide preserves depth of colour (8)
|
| TINS (puts into tins, so “preserves”) + TONE (“depth of colour”) | ||
| 32 | AMOURETTE |
SA chap involved in disturbed matter with English, a minor affair (9)
|
| OU (South African slang for man, so “SA chap”) involved in *(matter) [anag:disturbed] with E (English) | ||
| 33 | DISEUSE |
She entertains, putting energy into being careless (7)
|
| E (energy) in DISUSE (“being careless”)
A diseuse is a female raconteur or entertainer. |
||
| 34 | SKER |
Will’s beetle we released from prong? (4)
|
| WE released from SKE(we)R (“prong”) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | OPISTHOSOMA |
E.g. scorpion’s belly poisons moth without number fluttering on one (11)
|
| *(poisos moth) [anag:fluttering] on A (“one”) where POISOS is POISO(n)S without N (number) | ||
| 2 | FANTEEG |
Start of hole in tooth causing anxiety (7)
|
| TEE (“start of (golf) “hole”) in FANG (“tooth”) | ||
| 3 | FIVE-BAR |
Note Mac’s ball comes in – it’s not appropriate for wicket (7)
|
| BA‘ (“ball’ in Scotland, so “Mac’s ball”) in FIVER (£5 “note”)
A five-bar gate is probably too big for a wicket (a small gate) |
||
| 4 | SAROS |
Lung infection about over – it lasts a very long time (5)
|
| SARS ( “lung infections”) about O (over, in cricket)
Saros is either a period of about 20 years in astronomy, or in Babylonian times, an era of 3,600 years. |
||
| 5 | SITH |
Time to take exam, hard (4)
|
| SIT (“to take exam”) + H (hard) | ||
| 6 | PRIORESS |
Abbot’s equivalent offering religious teaching with love crowd embraces (8)
|
| PRESS (“crowd”) embraces RI (“religious” instruction (“teaching”)) with O (love, in tennis) | ||
| 7 | NOSEDIVE |
No belly flop? I do seven, floundering (8)
|
| *(i do seven) [anag:floundering] | ||
| 8 | GYNAE |
Angy suffering with a spot of eczema – in this specialist department? (5)
|
| *(angy e) [anag:suffering] where E is [a spot of] E(czema) | ||
| 9 | LAIC |
Non-professional, i.e. amateur, I’ll appear in left centre (4)
|
| A (amateur) + I will appear in L (left) + C (centre) | ||
| 11 | LITTERATEUR |
Bookish person (11)
|
| Azed wants us to come up with a clue for this one.
My (poor) effort would be: Bookworm’s issue with director snubbing a university (11) |
||
| 15 | PRATIQUE |
Resentment about wretch getting trading licence (8)
|
| PIQUE (“resentment”) about RAT (“wretch”)
A pratique is a permit given to a ship to trade following a period of quarantine. |
||
| 17 | TRENDIES |
The in-crowd attempts to grasp ambition (8)
|
| TRIES (“attempts”) to grasp END (“ambition”) | ||
| 20 | BOLLOCK |
Give a ticking-off for singular mess (7)
|
| BOLLOCKS = mess, so BOLLOCK may be a “singular mess” | ||
| 21 | LISENTE |
Some African tin, curiously tensile (7)
|
| *(tensile) [anag:curiously]
Lisente is the plural of “sente”, a unit of currency in Lesotho. |
||
| 25 | BROOS |
Liquors (Scotch) making pound by the sound of it (5)
|
| Homophone [by the sound of it] of BRUISE (“pound”) | ||
| 26 | EASTS |
Heads for the Levant, food containing hint of spice (5)
|
| EATS (“food”) containing [a hint of] S(pice) | ||
| 28 | RAMI |
I make a mess of turning up garment made of oriental material (4)
|
| <=(I MAR (“I make a mess of”), turning up) | ||
| 29 | ANTE |
Wager soldier maybe placed on ending of warfare (4)
|
| ANT (“soldier maybe”) placed on [ending of] (warfar)E |
Thanks loonapick. I too struggled with the lhs, eventually resorting to electronic help.Took a long time trying F or U in 22 as the bottom mark.
I carelessly started with BARRACK for 20, but it made for awkward crossers. Not sure how ‘disuse’ is ‘being careless’ – anyone?
LITTERATEUR looks odd with that TT.
Thanks as ever to Azed.
Good blog. I was a little unclear from the clue what Azed had in mind for FIVE-BAR, besides some sort of distinction between types of gates.
Chambers gives “neglect, desuetude” among the definitions for “disuse,” but I am not sure that is equivalent to careless[ness] in that sense.
Loved PAIR-ROYAL, SUBTENSE and BROOS.
BOLLOCK
As bollocks itself is singular, should there have been a whimsy indicator like a ? at the end?
DISEUSE
Couldn’t find anything to justify carelessness=DISUSE (agree with the commenters above).
Thanks Azed and loonapick!
Thanks for the blog, I thought disuse= neglect was close enough once I checked.
Perhaps wicket refers to cricket, the wicket is essentially 3 bar.
I have heard of PAIR-ROYAL but usually prial in cribbage.
SITH reminded me of the Star Wars film with an anagram in the title.
FANTEEG was very devious.
Agree with KVa@3; I thought “singular mess” was inaccurate as a definition of BOLLOCK, but a question-mark would have acknowledged that. I liked “Will’s beetle” as a misleading definition of SKER, which is a Shakespearian version of scurry. Re DISUSE in 33ac: Chambers offers “neglect” as one definition and defines neglect (as a verb) as “to treat carelessly”, so I guess that’s ok, in an extenuated way.
I was another not very happy with “disuse”. Does anyone else think that Azed, fine setter as he continues to be, is slightly more prone to slips these days? The other week he required us to assume that the UK had been in the “Eurozone”, which was never the case, the Eurozone being the countries which use the Euro, not the EU as a whole: it was perfectly soluble, but factually wrong.
Good comments, and thank you, loonapick. I had not come across “inundated by” as a hidden indicator before but I think it’s fine, as in “swamped by”.
Azed has used “singular” like this before. I’m not so sure about it. A “mess” is, to all of us singular, so it must mean an extraordinary, or peculiar mess, in that definition of singular. The inverse is a bit like Azed suggesting that we’d go around saying “What a load of rubbishes!” and the construction of the clue doesn’t work for me.
I had double question marks against disuse = being careless. It’s a noun. It’s possible that the verb “to disuse” could mean “to be careless” but that is not what Azed is saying. MunroMaiden has pointed out something important which appears in crosswords by lesser setters. “Rid” can mean “clear” and “clear” can mean “approve”. But “rid” does not mean “approve”. So I’d go: slightly dodgy.
And strange that a few of us got the right side done in no time, then struggled.
Stefan
Stefan@7 – you’re quite right and make an important distinction. Neglect – or disuse – may be the result of being careless, but is not itself being careless – that would be negligence and there’s no suggestion in Chambers that disuse = negligence.
There do seem to be more slips or question marks over clues these days, as Perplexus@6 suggests – or are we just getting more finicky?!
Talking of ‘slips’. I see there was no explanation of 17a “TIERCET” in the solution for 2,708 this week.
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