A pleasant enough crossword from Azed this week, with no major comments to make, except that it has always struck me that his signposting of archaisms/obsolete words might be more consistent. We usually get things like ‘once’, ‘of old’, ‘no longer’ etc, but not always. Chambers tells us that the word is archaic or whatever but we are left to solve the clue without being aware of this.
Definitions underlined, in crimson. Anagram indicators in italics.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | KALYPTRA |
Female veil Islamic leader surrenders if attending wild party (8)
|
| kal(if) *(party) | ||
| 11 | CO-ROUTINE |
Variable computer program: essential part includes excursion mostly (9)
|
| cor(outin[g])e — I’m a bit vague about the definition, but it’s clearly this | ||
| 12 | DREK |
Rubbish admitted by speaker deserving backing (4)
|
| Hidden reversed in speaKER Deserving | ||
| 13 | LOAFER |
What’s casual female filling a role played (6)
|
| f in (a role)* | ||
| 14 | LAPPIE |
Enfold prize in Cape cloth (6)
|
| lap pie — a S. African word for a piece of cloth — lap = enfold, pie = prize (both look like a stretch but are in Chambers) | ||
| 15 | FALTER |
Flag following change (6)
|
| f alter | ||
| 16 | EPODES |
Old poems to learn taking turn round school (6)
|
| (see)rev. round pod | ||
| 19 | TORANA |
Hanging garland in honour of local prince (6)
|
| to rana — definition 20 of ‘to’ in Chambers | ||
| 20 | MATHS |
What groundsmen will look after, object of many examinations (5)
|
| 2 defs — math = a mowing, and the school subject maths is tested in many exams | ||
| 21 | PUDGE |
Sweet gets half put away? It may call for diet (5)
|
| pud ge[ts] — half of ‘gets’ is put away, although to cage is to put in prison and so to put someone away; I think the first explanation is the simpler and better | ||
| 23 | PAGRIS |
Old man, once grey? We’ll offer protection from Indian sun (6)
|
| pa gris — a pagri is a turban | ||
| 26 | MID-SEA |
Section in media broadcast – it’s far from riviera (6)
|
| s in (media)* | ||
| 28 | RETRIM |
Soak on edge to give a second dressing down? (6)
|
| ret rim — the ‘rebuke sharply’ sense of trim | ||
| 30 | ASSUME |
Suppose problem is in 26, possibly? (6)
|
| sum in (sea)*, 26 being MID-SEA, so sum is in the middle of sea, then sea is anagrammed — Azed has criticised setters who ask for ‘a clue to a clue’, but this looks to me rather as if it’s a clue to a clue — unless there is some other explanation that I have missed | ||
| 31 | TRUISM |
Trite remark that’s right within apostrophe (6)
|
| t(r)uism — tuism = apostrophe, something I needed Chambers for | ||
| 32 | KNUR |
Score 1,000, returning hard ball (4)
|
| (run k)rev. — run as in cricket | ||
| 33 | ATRAMENTS |
Inks start flowing, about to conclude (9)
|
| (start)* round amen — atrament is an archaic word | ||
| 34 | TRESSELS |
Supporting beams left inside locks (8)
|
| tresse(l)s | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | KIDLET |
Infant feeding loaf to small horse? (6)
|
| K(idle)t — I suppose the small horse is the chess piece the knight, which looks a bit like a horse — chessplayers might grumble about this clue: only small children would call the chess piece a horse — however, since the definition is ‘Infant’ then perhaps this a piece of cunning by Azed and he gets away with it | ||
| 2 | A BRAS OUVERTS |
A church plate lying around, unexpectedly trouve with welcoming gesture (12, 3 words)
|
| (a brass) round *(trouve) — not sure about ‘trouve’, which isn’t in Chambers; perhaps it’s the French word trouvé, but the acute accent isn’t in my computer printout | ||
| 3 | LIE PERDU |
Place containing person, deserted, to wait in ambush (8, 2 words)
|
| lie(per. d)u | ||
| 4 | POTION |
Prescribed dose is lifted out of place (6)
|
| position (= place) with (is)rev. lifted out | ||
| 5 | TREED |
King in being ready to drive off, like Charles evading his pursuers? (5)
|
| t(R)eed — if a golfer is teed they are ready to drive off — the reference is to the English oak tree within which the future King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. | ||
| 6 | ROLFER |
Swashbuckling Errol F, one practising therapeutic techniques (6)
|
| *(Errol F) — this is not like those clues of which Azed is occasionally fond, where the answer to the first part might be a word like Robin H (except that in this example Robin H is not a word) | ||
| 7 | STALLAGE |
What market-men may pay, everything being included in platform (8)
|
| st(all)age | ||
| 8 | RIFT |
Right to accept supposition to split (4)
|
| r(if)t — here right = rt, not the usual r | ||
| 9 | SNEESHIN-MULL |
Box for rappee stirred sense with liquid measure to ponder (12)
|
| *(sense) hin mull — rappee is snuff | ||
| 10 | CERRIS |
US oak rising thus, slip planted (6)
|
| (sic)rev. round err | ||
| 17 | PAGURIAN |
Crustacean dad cooked in ragu (8)
|
| Pa *(in ragu) | ||
| 18 | STRAUNGE |
Once borrowed from abroad it’s flaunted in sun – great ! (8)
|
| *(sun great) — in? | ||
| 21 | PORTAL |
Fragment chum’s found gripping in website? (6)
|
| p(ort)al | ||
| 22 | GIMMER |
Totty at St Andrew’s getting easy putt, right? (6)
|
| gimme r — a gimme is an easy putt — ‘at St Andrew’s’ is there to indicate the Scottishism (as well of course as fitting with the surface) | ||
| 24 | ASSOTS |
No longer makes a fool of copper once holding jerk up (6)
|
| (toss)rev. in as — to toss as in to toss one’s head, as = an old coin so can be seen as copper | ||
| 25 | SHERDS |
Pigmen denied wine or scraps (6)
|
| s[wine]herds | ||
| 27 | DAINE |
This old stoop to take food around afternoon (5)
|
| d(a)ine — an archaic version of deign — I suppose Azed didn’t feel that it made sense without ‘This’ at the beginning, but it doesn’t look to me as if it’s now much improved | ||
| 29 | TURM |
Company recipe filling belly (4)
|
| tu(r)m |
The problem with ASSUME is that the clue says “in 26”, but “26” already has mid as an inclusion indicator for the anagram of SEA. Also CERRIS is not indicated as US in Chambers. The Quercus Cerris is the Turkey Oak (or sometimes the Austrian Oak) and is not found in the US as far as I can tell. There is another species of Quercus sometimes referred to as the American turkey oak, but it’s not the Cerris.
Thanks for the blog , for ASSUME I agree with Tim@1 , it would be better without “in” but still not very good . Tim@1 also right about CERRIS , Azed is barking up the wrong tree, Quercus laevis is the US native .
To be fair to Azed we often get puzzles like this after Specials .
In the printed paper in 2 down, trouve is italicised but doesn’t have an accent. I agree that it must have been intended to be Trouvé .
I failed O-level French back in 1968, so I had no idea how trouve should be spelt.
Conversely, I was a computer programmer for 30 years and I don’t recall ever hearing of a CO-ROUTINE.
Agree with Tim@1 and Roz@2. Other quibbles: is 4dn POTION a dose, which my Chambers defines as a measured portion? 5dn TREED: Chambers gives a definition of the verb Tree as “to take refuge in a tree”, which is what Charles was reputed to have done, but it’s an intransitive verb, so I don’t think you can make an adjective “treed” from it. “As Charles did evading his pursuers” might have been better grammatically (but I accept this is a quibble).
I initially put in 1ac as CALYPTRA – and then struggled on 1dn. I did think of “idle”, but CIDLET wasn’t a word and CT didn’t seem to mean small horse in any way I could imagine. Checking the meaning, I thought “female veil” was a big stretch for the botanical word calyptra (a “maternal” hood-like structure); then it finally occurred to me that calif can be spelled with a K. Doh!
Thanks Azed and John. I lost a lot of time in the NW corner for the same reason as MM@5.
4dn: Chambers 2016 p 1214 has potion “a draught of liquid medicine, poison or some magic elixir” and then (p 467) meanings of draught include “a dose of liquor or medicine”. I do not think that chain of definitions involves a change of meaning of draught and so I am happy with it.
5dn: Chambers 2016 p 1662 has tree vt “to drive into a tree, to corner (also fig); to form on a tree”, and then vi “to take refuge in a tree”. Clearly, as noted by MM@5, the transitive meaning is the one required here.
Further to 6 re 4dn, SOED 2007 p 2304 has the first meaning of potion as “A (dose of) liquid medicine or poison”.
A straightforward solve after last week. Thanks to john for the blog.
I caused my self a lot of hassle by having calif in mind, not kalif and so took a while to tidy up the NW corner, so “snap” with MunroMaiden a@5.
Haven’t yet looked at todays but don’t like to be left out of the chat.