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A mostly straightforward puzzle, including some clues that wouldn’t be out of place in a Quiptic. As often with this setter I have some quibbles. Thanks to Anto.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | SYLLABLE | One for sorrow, two for joy? Quite the opposite (8) “Sorrow” has two syllables and “joy” has one |
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| 6 | AUBADE | Gold ordered for morning delivery? (6) AU (gold) + BADE (ordered, past tense of “bid”) |
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| 9 | SPEEDO | It measures your velocity – during swim? (6) (Sort of) double definition |
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| 10 | ROUND TWO | At sea, Tudor won second phase of fight (5,3) (TUDOR WON)* |
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| 11 | ON THE LINE | It’s at risk when making phone call (2,3,4) Double definition |
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| 13 | GIFTS | Latest figures include returned contributions (5) Hidden in reverse of lateST FIGures |
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| 15 | VENICE | Caesar came by empty commune that’s in northern Italy (6) VENI (I came, as in Julius Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici) + C[ommun]E |
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| 17 | BOTTLE | It has neck and defines it perhaps (6) Double definition – a bottle has a neck, and “bottle” is slang for courage, whiich is not quite a synonym for “neck” = cheek, audacity) |
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| 18 | LEVIES | Stretches out to take on regular heavy duties (6) Alternate letters of hEaVy in LIES |
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| 19 | TENNER | Some money to be made from talking about meaning (6) Sounds like “tenor” (meaning) |
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| 21 | LARRY | Chap whose happiness sets the standard for us all (5) From the expression “happy as Larry” – some possible explanations of who Larry was here |
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| 22 | FORTNIGHT | Keep close tabs initially for a couple of weeks (9) FORT (a keep, fortification) + NIGH (close) + T[abs] |
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| 25 | SIT IT OUT | Model has relations banned – don’t get involved (3,2,3) SIT (to model) + IT (sex, relations) + OUT (banned) |
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| 26 | UNPACK | Evaluate what to do after vacation (6) Double definition |
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| 28 | AGADIR | Middle managers trading fabrics from major African city (6) Middle letters of manAGers trADIng fabRics. Why should we take three letters from trADIng and only one from faBRIcs? (Obviously because it’s needed to make the clue work, but it’s a bit unsatisfactory if you ask me) |
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| 29 | BAKELITE | Plastic has affect bordering polluted lake (8) LAKE* in BITE (to affect). Surely “effect” is needed for the surface reading |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 2 | YAP | Settle up for waffle (3) Reverse of PAY (settle) |
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| 3 | LEECH | Freeloader in shelter next to church (5) LEE + CH |
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| 4 | BOOTLICKER | Wild colt I broke becomes servile type (10) (COLT I BROKE)* |
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| 5 | ERRANT | After slip, worker becomes wayward (6) ERR (to slip) + ANT (worker) |
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| 6 | ANUS | Opening of any new unit supplies another opening (4) First letters from Any New Unit Supplies |
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| 7 | BADMINTON | Poor working surroundings for money maker’s game (9) MINT (money-maker) in BAD + ON (working) |
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| 8 | DOWN TO EARTH | Basic requirement for successful parachute jump (4,2,5) Double definition |
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| 12 | NAVEL GAZING | Contemplating part of church windows, learner climbs up (5,6) NAVE (part of church) + GLAZING (windows) with the L moved up |
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| 14 | LOVESTRUCK | Engaged by chance, strove desperately to become besotted (10) STROVE* in LUCK |
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| 16 | NEVER MIND | Retracted study about pests? Not to worry (5,4) VERMIN in reverse of DEN (a study) |
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| 20 | HOT TUB | Excessive deposit in heart may induce sweating there (3,3) OTT (over the top, excessive) in HUB (heart) |
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| 23 | IMPEL | Setter’s pelvis broken in half by force (5) I’M (the setter is) + half of PELvis |
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| 24 | BOOR | Deplore Republican vulgarian (4) BOO + R – any resemblance to real-life Republican vulgarians may be coincidental |
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| 27 | CUT | Refuse to acknowledge reduced reward (3) Three definitions |
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Well this was a breeze (as was the FT’s) I may actually get something done today. Thank you both.
NAVEL GAZING is really good. SPEEDO is really awful.
I liked Syllable and the construction of Navel Gazing.
Aubade is a new word for me.
Thank you to both.
I liked SYLLABLE, NAVEL GAZING, VENICE and LOVESTRUCK (v nice surface), but agree there’s a problem with “affect” in 29a if it’s read as a noun, which is what the surface seems to demand. Enjoyed learning about the possible origins of the happy Larry. Thanks Andrew and Anto.
NAVEL GAZING was a great spot. I had “In The Ring” for a while which seemed a good idea at the time until I had to correct it to the much better ON THE LINE. FORTNIGHT was also clever. I wouldn’t have called SPEEDO really awful PM @2, but not the best. It was good to see the budgie smugglers getting an outing and I was surprised that it’s not found in Chambers or Collins in that sense (it’s in NOAD, ODE, AusOxford and CanOxford but not the SOED).
Liked the surface for 14. Fairly straightforward for a Thursday offering, but held up briefly by entering TURTLE rather than BOTTLE for 17, swiftly corrected by the aforementioned LOVESTRUCK. Thanks to Anto and to Andrew (especially for the reference to the possible happy LARRY).
For me a lot of the definitions were quiptically obvious and much of the wordplay was lacking Anto’s usual trickery
Still an enjoyable start to the day with GOLD providing an opportunity for some lyrical nonsense from Spandau Ballet
Cheers A&A
Thanks Anto and Andrew
I enjoyed this, but found the LHS quite hard. Favourites NAVEL GAZING and NEVER MIND.
As TimC says, SPEEDOS are a brand of brief swimwear, so It’s not such a bad clue.
Thanks to A & A. Enjoyed this – favourites NAVEL GAZING, and FORTNIGHT for the misdirection. Agree with the comments about “affect” and AGADIR – the middle letter(s) device is a regular Anto thing.
This very much felt like Anto in a generous mood throughout. Though couldn’t properly parse TENNER or the tiddly penultimate one in CUT. So thanks for explaining those two, Andrew. Loi was BOOR…
This was very helpful to a newcomer to cryptic, it didn’t require too much intricate puzzling – and I like navel gazing and agadir clues
This was indeed serene by Anto standards, though it felt like doing two separate crosswords given the minimal linking between the two sides. I found the LHS easier.
Faves were SYLLABLE, NAVEL GAZING and LOVESTRUCK. I didn’t much like DOWN TO EARTH, and the surface for BAKELITE is simply broken unless I’m missing something.
I liked the simple FOI “YAP” because the fact that “settle up” could itself mean “pay” (and indeed does, in the surface) made the clue a little misleading. SPEEDO works for me as a “cryptically-hinted definition”-type clue… I don’t know if such things are frowed upon but they do crop up.
My quibbles were more structural than definitional. The HOT TUB, BADMINTON and ANUS clues don’t quite work for me. On the other hand, I have no problem with the device for AGADIR; other setter mix and match in that way too. Heart, centre etc are inherently imprecise.
Thanks both
*setters
An odd mix of some excellent clues (I loved “navel gazing” which put me in mind of Tom Lehrer’s comment about the “US Government Office of Naval (navel?) Contemplation”) and many of the surfaces were very slick. However, too many were just a bit too loose – what is “by” doing in “impel”? Affect or effect? “Caesar came” should be “venit” (He came) – “veni” would be “I came, according to Caesar”. “Middle managers” – I know a lot of setters do this, but “middle of x” and “middle x” are not the same thing. In so many cases a good surface has been constructed by mangling the cryptic grammar, which is a pity.
Thanks to Anto for some gems, and to Andrew for the blog.
Admin, your help may be needed 😉
PostMark@2. I thought that SPEEDO was funny, but maybe I’m being parochial.
Anyway this was very straightforward for Anto, but I liked SYLLABLE, NAVEL GAZING, FORTNIGHT, UNPACK and AGADIR (no problem with that one). Like PM @2, I wasn’t sure about SPEEDO and agree that BOTTLE and neck are not quite synonymous but near enough for a crossword surely?
Ta Anto & Andrew.
i don’t have a problem with BITE meaning affect (as opposed to effect) in BAKELITE.
pm@19, but surely the surface is nonsensical? Looks like a howler to me…
Had a bakelite phone decades ago. Cumbersome, securely attached to the wall in the coldest part of the house. Fortunately, in those days, there were no answering or recording services. You could just pull up the bed covers and ignore it, and plead ignorance.
Oh, I get what you’re saying AP@20. Agree the surface probably needs “effect”.
Surely ’affect’ is a typo – hopefully it’ll be corrected online like 4across was in this week’s Everyman – but especially liked LOVESTRUCK, and UNPACK, a holiday vacation for once. Thank you Anto and Andrew
“…I work all day…
waking at four to soundless dark…
and (sometimes) make a start on the Guardian Cryptic online…”
With apologies to P.Larkin, and prompted by 6ac today…
Slow but steady solve.
[Hadrian @23
That Everyman correction was odd. There is usually an indication that a clue has been corrected, but there’s nothing to that effect on the online version.]
Andrew, have just looked at your link regarding who was the happy Larry. Never knew it was possibly Antipodean.
I have never heard “happy as Larry”–not a thing in AmEng–and with nothing in the clue to help, I was left stranded on that one. That’s the big downside to cryptic definitions: either you get it or you don’t, and if you don’t, tough.
I agree with Andrew about 17a. Couldn’t parse it and still don’t like it.
Surely all parachute jumps, successful or not, come DOWN TO EARTH, though I suppose some unsuccessful ones might end in a tree.
NAVEL GAZING and FORTNIGHT were good.
The inconsistent middles for AGADIR would have made the clue difficult if I hadn’t already got it from def and crossers, the affect/effect business feels wrong, and the clue for LARRY is barely cryptic.
But I did like NAVEL GAZING, SYLLABLE, BOOR and LOVESTRUCK.
Syllable and navel gazing were very good. Unfortunately, Anto’s lax standards made this a frustrating experience thereafter.
Speedo: The swimwear does not measure your velocity, so it’s not an all-in-one clue. “at the beach” does not define ‘swimwear’. Ergo, there is no second definition, nor is there wordplay. It’s a dog’s breakfast.
Anus: ‘opening’ is singular, so the solver does not have accurate instructions.
Agadir: ‘middle’ does not mean ‘middle of’. In any case, ‘middle of’ ought to be middle letter of an odd-charactered word, or the middle two of an even-charactered word. It is I suppose not technically wrong, simply highly imprecise to allow it to provide any number of middle letters.
Venice: Caesar is not adjectival or possessive, so again the wordplay is lacking. This could have been easily changed to Roman to provide coherent wordplay.
Levies: ‘regular’ does not mean ‘regularly’, or ‘regular parts of’. The solver is again short-changed.
Each clue is nonetheless solvable, but that’s the most basic bar for a setter to clear, not sufficient to make a publishable puzzle. The affect/effect confusion is understandable in isolation, but combined with the above, points to a lack of care from both setter and editor.
There are plenty of setters in the Guardian stable and elsewhere who are capable of providing entertainment without sacrificing cryptic grammar. Anto has time and time again shown himself either unwilling or unable to do both, and his editor has proven unable to provide proper guidance or editing or respond to the valid critiques raised here and on the Guardian website. This is the last of Anto’s puzzles I will ever trudge through.
Muggins @31
I don’t understand your “at the beach” reference. Where does that phrase appear?
Anto always comes up with some great and inventive clues and this was no exception. I thought “Keep close tabs initially” in 22a was brilliant.
I agree with Hadrian @23 that “affect” in 29a must be a typo, as “effect” would seem to work both in the surface and cryptically.
28a put me in mind of the AGADIR crisis of 1911 in the build-up to World War 1. Wasn’t there a jingoistic music hall song at the time, Agadir, dear, dear…?
Many thanks Anto and Andrew.
[Lord Jim @33 🙂 ]
I’m glad that Ronald @24 also made the Larkin connection.
[Roses are red,
and violets are blue.
We’re all going to die
Is one thing that’s true.
— not my Larkin tribute, but spot on I think].
I thought that this was the opposite of the Imogen puzzle on Tuesday, witty, elegant clues that weren’t quite accurate. Still it was fun. Thanks all
Maybe it was a wave length thing or I am just tired with the kids home for Easter but I found this the hardest of the week. Really struggled with the right side of the grid. Got there in the end though. I see the other comments don’t agree so maybe I should put it down to the latter. GIFTS was last in which is always frustrating for a hidden. Backs up the theory I perhaps wasn’t at my sharpest.
Some good surfaces. As others have said NAVEL GAZING was my favourite today.
I think it’s great that Anto offers something a bit different. They are one of those setters you know it’s them without reading the name.
Thanks A&A
Thanks Ronald @24 for prompting me to read the poem. Powerful, if depressing.
I entered PUNCH at 21a (as in “pleased as Punch”) until 12d disabused me of that notion and I remembered the happy chappie.
Muggins@31- “Kit outlining equipment to measure velocity” might have been fairer for SPEEDO
AGADIR has been in the news for various reasons over the years: the one I remember is a big earthquake during my childhood.
28A defeated me, never having heard of the city and not getting it from the wordplay either. NHO aubade, and expect never to again.
My problem with the affect/effect debate is not so much the grammar (affect can be a noun, as in “the boy had a flat affect”, effect can be a verb as in “effect change”) as that neither word seems to make sense, regardless of whether one takes “bite” as a verb or a noun. I suppose that “to bite” could be considered a form of “to effect”, but at best it is very loose.
H@39 😂😂😂
Jakob@41, precisely – and the potential equivalence you discuss doesn’t strike me as plausible. The closest matches that I can see are “the recession is starting to affect / bite the industry” (yet “affect” produces a nonsensical surface however one interprets it) and “the recession is starting to have [an] effect / to bite” (which produces a nonsensical cryptic reading since “has effect” would be “bites” not “bite”). I think the problem goes deeper than a simple typo.
As someone who has recently started doing the cryptic moving up from quiptic and everyman, I found this an enjoyable outing from Anto. SW fit together very nicely. TIL what an Aubade is…
Is there a word for clues like 1A (and ANAGRAM in 1A yesterday) where the answer is a bit meta?
Jacob @41 You have heard of AUBADE because Vulcan deployed it almost exactly a year ago, on 08/04/24, and you commented on it as a NHO then @63.
Muggins @31 and others, surely speedo can only describe the vehicle component. Speedos as swimwear is singular, a trademark – one pair of Speedos is not a Speedo.
Methinks Muggins doth protest too much. We all want good surfaces that provide good clues, and your examples (except perhaps SPEEDO) fit that requirement. They are all fair clues that contributed to a fun puzzle.
With reference to AUBADE, I highly recommend Philip Larkin’s remarkable poem of that name which can be found on The Poetry Foundation website. It deals with his fear of death. Not to be read if you are feeling down (!)….SYLLABLE held me up longer than it should have. In any event, I rather enjoyed this. With thanks to Anto and Andrew. PS have just seen that others above have made the same reference to Larkin. I didn’t spot on a first look through.
Some time ago the Radio3 breakfast programme was called “Aubade”.
Let’s be fair to Anto regarding Agadir: R, not BR, is the middle of ‘fabRics’, as the clue suggests.
Puzzle spoiled by too much bad grammar or logic. By biggest grumbles were VENI (see JoFT@14) and DOWN TO EARTH (see poc@28). Too bad (pun intended).
Michael R@46: I thought that too and checked – the company name is Speedo (singular) and some (online) dictionaries seem to give the singular as an alternative. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine anyone using it in e.g. “I’ve packed my Speedo and am ready for the beach” but perhaps I move in the wrong circles.
Adrian @47: Methinks Muggins protests a reasonable amount. Different people want different things from their crosswords and some think accurate and fair cluing is essential, unless the setting is funny and outrageous (i.e. about 50% of a Paul puzzle…)
Fifteen squared contributors have provided many arguments over the years about why e.g. “first off” cannot be “o” but “first of all” can be “a”. When these arguments are reasoned, as above, we can think about them and be persuaded or not, but I don’t think we should ever just reject them as protesting too much. Through these debates and examples my views on what makes a good crossword have evolved. Perhaps yours have developed differently from mine, which is fine, but it does not make you, me or Muggins wrong.
I enjoyed this because I could complete it, with constant use of the ‘check’ button. I did notice some of the imprecision others have commented on – for instance, Caesar came’ would have to be ‘venit’ to be accurate – but it doesn’t bother me. For an inexperienced solver, it was fun.
Isn’t “veni, vidi, vici” “I came, I saw, I conquered”?
JODT@52 I think problems arise when people state opinions as facts. For example there are many definitions of “middle” in the dictionary that would support its use to include any number of letters between two extremes. Many setters like to use “allusive” wordplay as alternative to things being strictly synonymous. Personally I think it all adds to the fun and games but each to their own
[For anyone interested, the earliest example I have found of an AUBADE in English poetry occurs in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Book III, lines 1450-1470, where Chaucer gives Troilus a three-stanza, 21-line aubade when dawn obliges him to part from Criseyde, with whom he has just passed his first night:
`O cruel day, accusour of the Ioye
That night and love han stole and faste y-wryen,
A-cursed be thy coming in-to Troye, …’
With its querulous tone in addressing the sun, it possibly provides a model for Donne’s later and better–known example, ‘The Sunne Rising’.
L’Aubade is also the title of at least two works by Picasso, the best-known painted in 1942. But that is enoug\h from me on aubades today.]
[bodycheetah@55: Agreed – but I do like to see people making the case for why a clue works or does not work for them, as I often learn something from that. Such arguments have made me much more aware of using the correct part of speech in cryptic grammar and that is something I consider important, whereas I see others are much more willing to let such lapses go. I do hope people keep expressing opinions about the puzzles, as well as facts. 🙂 ]
Thanks for the blog , very enjoyable , great start with SYLLABLE , when my nosy students ask about me and Pan’s People I tell them it is a seven magpie story . Good to have a slightly wider range this week , we just need Vlad tomorrow and a newly discovered Torquemada on Saturday although it might lead to a mansplaining singularity .
[ PDM@20 we still have a 1950s green BAKELITE GPO phone with a dial and a bell . Totally original except for the connection into the wall . ]
A musical AUBADE (though in titled in Spanish) is Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso, usually translated by the BBC as the Jester’s Dawn Song. It’s the 4th movement of his Miroirs.
Thanks A and A.
Some good ones here, but alongside the other gripeworthy ones mentioned above, I thought Hot Tub was terrible. A poor surface (what is a deposit in heart?) not alluding to a tub at all, apart from as something that might make you sweat?!
Or am I missing something?
Thanks Anto for the fun, both in the crossword & in the reactions it caused in this blog thusfar. I found the puzzle straightforward except where I failed –GIFTS (embarrassing), LARRY (not embarassing), & BAKELITE (couldn’t get past nonsensical surface). I enjoyed many clues including SYLLABLE, FORTNIGHT, SIT IT OUT, BOOTLICKER, DOWN TO EARTH, and NEVER MIND. In AGADIR I didn’t like the wordplay ‘from’ the definition & in ANUS I felt ‘opening of’ was insufficient for indicating more than one first letter. Thanks Andrew for the blog.
Poor Anto! I imagine him crying on the crossword editor’s shoulder after each appearance in the Guardian. And the editor saying, “that’s nothing to what they say about my Ludwig puzzles.”
I enjoyed much of this, especially my last two in, SYLLABLE and LARRY, and didn’t even bat an eyelid at the middle bits making up AGADIR.
Thanks to Anto (I really mean it!) and Andrew (yes, all right, I really mean it for you too!) .
JOFT@56, I don’t think bodycheetah@54 was complaining about too many opinions; rather he was complaining about too many opinions expressed as facts. As you say, opinions are always welcome, as long as they are expressed as such (and with civility).
In my opinion, Anto is an idiosyncratic setter who produces engaging puzzles, although he might not fit the mould that
some of us have come to expect of our Guardian setters. I for one appreciate the variety that we get in our daily cryptics.
Zoot@58, I too got to 6a AUBADE through music, although in my case it was Poulenc’s Aubade for piano and 18 instruments that came to mind, prompting me to listen to it again.
Thanks, A&A for today’s fun and games.
In Friends, Paul explains to Phoebe the meaning of ‘banana hammock’:
“It’s a speedo.”
Singular.
As an example of the genius of Prokofiev, have a listen to Aubade in his score to Romeo and Juliet.
Bottle may be said to define a neck in the word BOTTLENECK.
Re 21a, “happy as Larry” was unknown to me, so with the crossers it came down to Larry or Harry. I made the alliterative choice, and therefore failed. Too bad that the first letter couldn’t be verified by a crosser.
My friends and I have been giggling at the ANUS clue all day
[Re Bakelite and old phones, the late mrs ginf’s dad, b. 1900, was deputy director of Posts and Telegraphs, and we have his commemorative wooden-box phone with handpiece cradled across the top. RIP Bert!]
“As often with this setter I have some quibbles” ..do pray tell.
[Roz, Lovely image of your green bakelite phone. I like the sound of the bell, not those poor imitations you can choose as a ringtone on a mobile phone.
gif My grandparents had one of those wooden-box phones with the handpiece in the cradle. In my childhood it was on a ”party line”. Everyone could pick it up and listen in but there was a polite and often amusing etiquette that went along with that. Great for having a ”group chat” though, a bit like the ”bush telegraph”. )
I have heard “Happy as a clam” but never happy as Larry, unless Larry was a cartoon clam. I too found the LHS easy and the RHS a little more challenging. AUBADE was a new word for me. Thanks Anto and Andrew!
[ Grant and PDM , I never knew about wooden box phones but it makes sense really , the bell and proper ringing lasted into the 70s here , I can remember it as a child , but then even house phones were given an artificial electronic sound . ]
Missed seven from this easy puzzle. Completions seem hard to come by these days
Nho the phrase in 21a. Had no idea if it was BARRY, GARRY, HARRY, or LARRY. Guessed wrong
29a “affect” was never corrected
Yes, SPEEDO is singular. Think “swimsuit” (singular) rather than “trunks” (plural). The clue works fine