Azed No. 2,744 Plain

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A 13 x 11 grid this week, but no 13-letter words.

I found this easy to start with, but it took a while to finish it, and I was left with one clue (for GISMO) that took a long time to parse.

 

Not much else to say about this puzzle but I thought I’d comment on the results of the Christmas Playfair competition, with DOUBLE-PARKING as the competition word. As was mentioned in the blog for that puzzle, that word had been given us to clue by Azed in a previous competition in 2015. Azed has resolved the dilemma by marking this competition blind, without looking at the slip for the previous entries, awarding prizes but excluding the results from the annual competition, which will now be extended by a month. This seems an eminently fair way of dealing with it. As it happens, some of the successful clues this month are quite similar to some of the successful ones from 2015 but that may be entirely coincidental.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 UPBRAST
Put out about underwear once split from below? (7)
BRAS (underwear) inside *PUT. It’s a Spenserian version of the past participle of the verb “upburst”.
9 RUMP
Remnant remaining when US leaves disturbance (4)
RUMP(us) (disturbance).
12 CURACAO
Treat sick pig, we hear? Strong medicine! (7)
A homophone of “cure a sow”. It’s an orange-flavoured liqueur.
13 AROBA
Carriage, one strong wind overturned (5)
A BORA (a strong wind, rev).
14 PRETOR
Old-time magistrate punished toper introducing rule (6)
R(ule) inside *TOPER.
15 VALINE
Dietary necessity, volume taken before a course (6)
V (olume) A LINE. It’s an essential amino acid.
17 DEEP-LAID
Damn Highlander plotted cunningly? (8)
DEE (damn) PLAID (a Highlander).
18 SPRUCE
Dead-head around entry to cottage, neat (6)
C(ottage) inside SPRUE (dead-head: see SPRUE¹ in Chambers).
19 CROON
Vocalize from bottom, cutting up (5)
CRO(up)ON: the buttocks.
21 SPET
Once ejected, so plenty reduced regularly (4)
Alternate letters in So PlEnTy.
23 VIOL
Old instrument I found in small book? (4)
I in VOL.
26 COIGN
Without pressure coping reformed keystone (5)
*CO(p)ING.
28 PEENGE
Carp, English, no good in water (6)
E(nglish) NG (no good) all inside PEE (water).
29 TRICHITE
Small distorted crystal struck in a jiffy (8)
HIT in TRICE.
32 CALAIS
Drive from Scotland, then sail at sea for ferry port (6)
CA (Scottish word meaning “drive”), *SAIL.
33 RUG RAT
US crawler chewed rag, in the groove (6, 2 words)
*RAG in RUT. A charming Americanism.
34 MODEM
Maiden following fashion? Data converter (5)
MODE (fashion) M(aiden).
35 OSSUARY
Vault, as ours, say, when vandalized (7)
*(OURS SAY).
36 PAVE
Set with stones? Almost half disappear from the back (4)
EVAP(orate) (rev).
37 LEERY OF
Wary regarding most people turning weird inside (7, 2 words)
EERY (weird) inside FOL(k) (most people, rev).
DOWN
2 PURI
Zealot does without brown bread, fried (4)
PURI(tan) (zealot).
3 BREARE
Wild bush, old, live, about erect (6)
REAR (erect) inside BE (live). It’s a Spenserian spelling of brier.
4 ACOUCHI
Rodent I found under a bed (7)
A COUCH I. Appears to be related to the more familiar agouti.
5 SARDEL
Salt nets form of red tiddler (6)
*RED inside SAL (salt). A sort of sardine.
6 TONE CONTROL
Radio lever maybe, one clot adjusted, torn off within (11, 2 words)
*TORN inside *(ONE CLOT).
7 TAVER
Wander about for Scotch, last to leave pub (5)
TAVER(n). Azed has used Scotch here for the surface reading: many Scots (according to Chambers) regard this usage as confined to products of Scotch, like whisky, whereas here it is being used to denote a Scottish word.
8 FRAP
Fix with lashes following criminal charge (4)
F(ollowing) RAP (criminal charge).
9 ROLLOVER
Register concerning deferral of payment (8)
ROLL (register) OVER (concerning).
10 MANIS
Philanthrope keeps this anteater in hut (5)
(hu)MANIS(t). An unusual clue, with the definition inside the wordplay, not at one end of the clue.
11 PREDILECT
Rarely favoured Communist dividing fortune before court (9)
RED (Communist) inside PILE (fortune) CT (court).
14 POSSET CUP
Large bowl to spoil pet Spooner-wise? (9, 2 words)
Spoonerism of COSSET PUP.
16 AUTOCADE
Procession showing a barrel’s rolling out within (8)
*OUT inside A CADE (a barrel).
20 OVERUSE
This syndrome afflicts musicians? It’s universal in love poetry (7)
U(niversal) inside O (love) VERSE. Overuse syndrome was formerly known as musicians’ cramp.
22 A-PER-SE
American bluish cloth – it’s uniquely excellent (6)
A(merican) PERSE (blue cloth).
24 IN-TRAY
Train bursting with start of year? It’s likely to be full early on (6)
*TRAIN, Y(ear).
25 DRAMA
Theatrical entertainment? Take a tipple before one (5)
DRAM (tipple) A.
27 GISMO
Gadget? Force opening for one (5)
GISM (force) O(ne).  It looks like a typical Azed construction: G IS MO, but proved to be quite straightforward, as long as you’re familiar with the American expression (often spelled with a j).  I also misled myself initially by assuming that G was the force.
30 HIED
Passed quickly over cache? Sounds like it (4)
Sounds like “hide”.
31 FARO
Jumbled mess cheap paper abandoned – it’s a betting game (4)
FAR(rag)O.

18 comments on “Azed No. 2,744 Plain”

  1. Thanks Azed and Bridgesong

    14ac: I parsed this the same way as in the blog, but it could equally well be *TOPER followed by R.

    35ac: This needs to be *(OURS SAY).

  3. My only question about this was how you get from “small distorted crystal” to the C2016 definition of “a hairlike crystallite”. Why would hairlike=distorted?….. Oh, okay, I’ve just looked at the definition of crystallite which I didn’t do at the time.

  5. Tim C. That was my my problem wth Trichite too. Fortunately the rest of the clue made it clear – but odd. I wonder if a definition changed and we’re on different sides of the alteration

    Thanks as ever to Azed and to Bridgesong

  7. Unfortunately chamber dictionary app (which I believe is a modified C2016) has:

    trichite /trik’īt/
    noun
    A hairlike crystallite
    ORIGIN: Gr thrix, trichos hair
    trichitic /-it’ik/ adjective

    Which from a lay perspective is neither small or misformed. Seems rough to clue to an example of such an arcane term ( a crystallite is in turn defined as small and misformed in c2016)

  8. 29ac: We have trichite = “a hairlike crystallite” (2011 p 1665 or 2016 p 1665) and then crystallite = “a small, imperfectly formed or incipient crystal” (2011 p 375 or 2016 p 374). That seems clear enough to me.

    35ac: Thanks Ken for correcting what was indeed a typo in the original blog.

  9. I was wondering why so many question-marks had been used in the clues. 25dn – “theatrical entertainment” seems a reasonable definition of DRAMA, as does “set with stones” for PAVE in 36ac. Even 20dn seems ok – my Chambers defines overuse syndrome as an issue for musicians specifically.
    I also had a quibble on 19ac – croupon is shown in Chambers as obsolete, which isn’t indicated in the clue.

  10. Thanks for the blog, the lack of long entries will often make it harder but not this time . After this one and today I suspect we are in for a very tough Special soon.
    MunroMaiden @ 9 has raised my points and I agree with Pelham Barton @8 , we often have to go from one defintion to another in Chambers.
    [ Someone will be very pleased with 17D today . ]

  12. Aaron J @11: the same thought occurred to me. Azed’s grids are all hand-drawn by him in the process of composition, not downloaded from a template, so I suppose that he simply didn’t notice that those two bars could be deleted.

    And if 8 down were TRAP instead of FRAP, we could have had TRUMP, with all its possibilities!

  13. ^ That would have left FRAP and HIED totally unchecked, a transgression of Ximenean protocol that Azed prefers to avoid.

  14. Twmbarlwm @13: no, they would then both be fully checked, something that Ximenes requires for 3 letter words, so why would it be a breach of protocol for a four letter word?

  15. Sorry, meant to write checked. I might be misremembering, but I thought 4 and 5-letter solutions had to have one unch.

  16. On reflection, Twmbarlwm, you’re quite right. Ximenes does say that every word should have at least one unch, although he also says that “three-letter words are rarely used: when they are, it is perhaps fairest to leave them fully checked”.

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