A pleasant but not a terribly demanding Azed before the trials of next week’s Christmas competition. There are unusually several mistakes, which makes one feel that he’d have benefited from an editor, who could have noticed them. But who’d be Azed’s editor? What he says goes, and it’s amazing that for well over 50 years every week we’ve had a nice crossword with very few mistakes. I shall be surprised if next week we find any, even though it will no doubt be highly complicated.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | AGGIORNAMENTO |
Modernization rendering one strangely agog about international decoration (13)
|
| *(agog) round (i ornament) — i = international, not 1 as I initially thought and raised an eyebrow | ||
| 11 | SOULDIER |
Old serviceman, in essence reverse of free but filled with energy (8)
|
| soul (e in (rid)rev,) — old in the sense of an old spelling | ||
| 13 | CULEX |
Copper with support of law trailing bloodscker (5)
|
| cu lex — not quite sure how lex, which is simply ‘law’, becomes ‘with support of law’ — obviously ‘bloodscker’ is a typo and is meant to be ‘bloodsucker’ | ||
| 14 | ALLUDE |
Hint, reverse of banal, splitting outsiders in audience (6)
|
| (dull)rev. in a[udienc]e | ||
| 15 | VITALISER |
Stimulant that could make one live, astir (9)
|
| (live astir)* | ||
| 16 | TEGMINA |
Forewings become reversed on Asiatic bird (7)
|
| (get)rev. mina | ||
| 17 | SAFE |
Peter keeping folio in cover? (4)
|
| As we are told on Google, ‘Peter is slang for ‘safe’, as in money box. The origin of the word is unclear. Some sources say it comes from the same root as the Biblical St Peter – the Greek word for rock Petra, since safes are supposed to [be] rock solid’ — f in sae (cover as in first day cover, I suppose) | ||
| 19 | CRASS |
He’s freed from road accidents, insensitive (5)
|
| cras[he]s | ||
| 22 | STAIN |
Spot, in short, is endless contamination (5)
|
| ‘s tain[t] | ||
| 23 | LOOS |
Reputation once made in battle (4)
|
| 2 defs | ||
| 24 | GARCONS |
Waiters chatter about recipe to scan (7)
|
| ga(r con)s | ||
| 26 | SCULPTURE |
Piece of art, cup fashioned with lustre (9)
|
| (cup lustre)* | ||
| 30 | NODDER |
One about to drop off? I may be in agreement (6)
|
| 2 defs | ||
| 31 | LAHAR |
Flow of mud? How surprising when it splits both sides (5)
|
| L(aha!)R — left and right side | ||
| 32 | ADAM’S ALE |
Scottish millstream on the market? This’ll be included (8, 3 words, apostrophe)
|
| a dam is a Scottish millstream, and if it’s on the market it can be thought of as a dam sale; and adam’s ale, which is water, will be included in that sale — a rare case of the definition not being at either the beginning or the end of the clue — but why are we told that it’s of 3 words? Surely Adam’s is just one word; if it was an abbreviation of ‘Adam is’ then it would be, but it isn’t | ||
| 33 | PALINGENESIST |
One favouring recreation? Fencing is tense in a way (13)
|
| paling (is tense)* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | GOUGÈRE |
Walter’s wench regarding cheesy pastry (7)
|
| gouge re — Walter refers to Walter Scott, and an obsolete word for a wench in Walter Scott is gouge | ||
| 3 | GULP |
Advertisement boosted big mouthful (4)
|
| (plug)rev. — this is most unlike Azed, who I thought never had an ambiguous clue: this one could be either PLUG or GULP depending on how you read it — the checkers tell you eventually, but one can’t get the answer at first | ||
| 4 | ILEUM |
Enteric region, part of mobile umbles (5)
|
| Hidden in mobILE UMbles — my first thought was that umbles was a rather feeble word to have in a hidden, but in fact it’s a nice &lit (in the Azed sense, ie not a full &lit. but a sort of cryptic hint) since one’s umbles are one’s entrails | ||
| 5 | RICINUS |
Part of spurge family I see among crumbling ruins (7)
|
| (I c) in *(ruins) | ||
| 6 | NECTAR-GUIDE |
It may attract bees, i.e. with garden cut roughly (11)
|
| (ie garden cut)* — but Chambers says that it’s hyphenated so it should be (6-5) not (11) | ||
| 7 | MALL |
Shopping centre making money without limit (4)
|
| m all — one tends to think ‘this is a mistake, since M should be followed by a number’, but in fact M = money is given in Chambers as a simple abbreviation | ||
| 8 | NAUSEA |
Pacific island country and what surrounds it – it’s sickening (6)
|
| Nau sea — but is Nau a Pacific island country? Nauru is, but I can’t find anywhere, either in Chambers or in Wikipedia, support for Nau — however, this is clearly what is intended | ||
| 9 | TIDE |
Early festival, restrained by the sound of it (4)
|
| “tied” — as in Eastertide etc | ||
| 10 | OVERINSURE |
Upper-class in strange reversion to cover unduly (10)
|
| U in (reversion)* | ||
| 11 | SCOTCH SNAP |
Pair of notes of different lengths to frustrate easy task (10, 2 words)
|
| scotch snap — scotch = frustrate, snap = easy task | ||
| 12 | GLIFT |
A bit of Scotch, giving one good boost (5)
|
| g lift — a Scotch word for a moment | ||
| 17 | STARMAN |
Mantras concealed in Bowie hit (7)
|
| (Mantras)* — this David Bowie hit | ||
| 18 | GINGALS |
Such as Brown Bess, girl tucking into strong drinks (7)
|
| gin(gal)s — not sure about the connection since gingals are Chinese or Indian yet Brown Bess is English — I suppose ‘such as’ makes it OK | ||
| 20 | ALUDEL |
Container in chemistry lab due to crack when filling completely (6)
|
| (due)* in all | ||
| 21 | SOLDI |
Trooper former monarch despatched, making money abroad (5)
|
| soldi(ER) | ||
| 25 | CLASS |
Group of fellow graduates displaying quality (5)
|
| 2 defs, one of them as in ‘the class of ’95” | ||
| 27 | CODA |
College harem, wherewith story ends? (4)
|
| c oda — an oda is, according to Chambers, a room in a harem, but a harem is also defined as women’s quarters | ||
| 28 | PEEN |
Alternate bits of sphere on heraldic fur (4)
|
| Or pean? This seems to be quite impossible to decide, because pean is heraldic fur and the wordplay gives peen, and there is not the let-out clause of an alternative spelling: a peen or pean is the end of a hammer head — I’ve opted for peen because of [s]p[h]e[r]e [o]n | ||
| 29 | THAI |
Siamese twins in three pairs? (4)
|
| If one looks in ‘three pairs’ and picks out the right twins, ie successive letters, one gets th[ree p]ai[rs] |
Thanks John.
I took a while with 8 – NAU is the vehicle registration plate for Nauru.
I think the enumeration of 32 and the spelling of 28 are simply errors.
Azed never gives hyphenated enumerations btw.
Oh and the anagram fodder in 15 includes ‘astir’.
Thanks as ever to Azed.
VITALISER
(live astir)*
The clue is a CAD?
Thanks both.
THAI
One question please
How do we pick th and ai from three pairs? Twins in the sense of digraphs? Even then ‘ee’
has to be skipped. Someone may help me understand this please.
Thanks Azed and John
Even Homer…
I ummed and ahhed for a while before sealing the envelope with Peen rather than Pean.
Some lovely clues as always, lots of excellent discoveries of new words, and superb misdirection; just a few bloopers.
KVA- I agree difficult to nail down why Thai
KVa@3 – I thought it was just a rather poor clue! Like John, I queried “support of” in 13ac and I was a bit more censorious about “such as” in 18dn: a gingal is defined as a Chinese or Indian matchlock musket or swivel gun, while Brown Bess is a British flintlock musket. The fact that they are both muskets doesn’t make the words synonymous! I also thought PEEN/PEAN was a definite mistake; the wordplay certainly leads to PEEN, but I couldn’t find anything that supported that being an alternative for PEAN in the sense of heraldic fur.
Additionally, I queried “a bit of Scotch” as a definition of GLIFT; the nearest Chambers comes to “a bit” is “a moment” and the word is marked as obsolete in this spelling.
As I said last week, the wrong paper was delivered so I did this from a printout.
I couldn’t work out whether it PEEN or PEAN, As I never enter, it didn’t matter except for satisfying my own curiosity. I never even noticed the typo at 13ac.
Thanks Azed and John
I agree about most of the issues raised in earlier comments. In 13ac I took “with support of” to mean “followed by”. That would work more naturally in a down clue, but I think it can be made to fit an across clue as well.
Pelham Barton@7
CULEX
copper with support of law trailing
CU followed by LEX trailing
Either ‘with support of’ or ‘trailing’ is redundant in the wordplay.
Thanks Gonzo and KVa @1 and 2 for pointing out my stupidity with 15ac. Blog corrected.
KVa@8: fair point. Thanks.
An editor might have pointed out to Azed that the competition word in the Christmas puzzle is one he has given us before. It’s not the first time this has happened. Presumably he’ll mark down any submissions that are clearly duplicates of successful clues from the previous competition, but that still leaves the possibility of an entirely innocent similarity from a solver who accidentally uses the same device as one that found favour last time.
I’m going to draft my clue without reference to previous entries, but will then check against the list to ensure that there has not been any accidental duplication.
Just what I intend to do. But what will happen if there is a duplication (I doubt it, because the clue I have almost settled on is rather odd) goodness knows.
Just seen these comments. I don’t remember the word occurring before so shall be working on a blank slate, much more fun