Azed No. 2,765 – plain

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A plain puzzle from Azed.

I worked my way around this puzzle in a clockwise fashion starting with the northwest corner and finishing in the southeast with ENEW, with crossing letters making most answers pretty straightforward to work out, although as usual I had to check in Chambers to make sure what I had worked out was actually a word.

Thanks. Azed.

ACROSS
1 GASWORKS
Waffle is effective in council factory? (8)
GAS (“waffle”) + WORKS (“is effective”)

I assume “coucil factory” is meant to be a cryptic definition.
7 SPEW
Seats arranged back to front in marshy spot (4)
PEW(S) (“seats”) arranged back to front becomes (S)PEW

 
11 APPAL
Dismay to cut from contract (5)
TO cut from APPAL(to) (“a contract”)
12 OLEARIA
Evergreen shrub in a role I distributed round area (7)
*(a role i) [anag:distributed] round A (area)
13 THOUSAND-LEGS
One of the Chilognatha like this round Ohio dangles oddly (12)
THUS (“like this”) round O (Ohio) + *(dangles) [anag:oddly]

Chilognatha is the order that includes millipedes.
16 HENT
Former grasp, in that case with shifting of time (4)
(T)HEN (“in that case”) with T (time) shifted becomes HEN(T) (an old word for “to grasp”)
17 CHEVALIER
Knight to applaud governor installed (9)
CHEER (“to applaud”) with VALI (“governor”) installed

A vali or wali is a governor in certain Muslim contexts.
18 GUAN
Noisy bird from Australia caught by rifle? (4)
A (Australia) caught by GUN (“arm”)

Guans are South American game birds.
20 CLUB
E.g. spoon set (4)
Double definition, the first referring to an old-fashioned golf club with a slightly hollowed wooden head.
22 REPO
Traveller with ordinary recovery of property (4)
REP (“traveller”, esp. a travelling salesman) with O (ordianry, as in O-level)
23 FEAT
Achievement indicated by poetry by the sound of it? (4)
Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [by the sound of it] of FEET (“poetry”)
25 STRONGMAN
Circus star, no good with arms not waving around (9)
NG (no good) with *(arms not) [anag:waving] around
26 PION
Power attached to charged particle, source of nuclear force (4)
P (power) attached to ION (“charged particle”)

Pion is short for pi-meson, the source of the nuclear force that holds protons and neutrons together.
30 APPLE-BLOSSOM
Orchard’s beauty, boor’s deprivation a Brit admits (12)
A POM (“a Brit”) admits PLEB (“boor”) + LOSS (“deprivation”)
31 CELESTE
The church is installing form of steel piano pedal (7)
CE (“the church” of England) is installing *(steel) [anag:form of]
32 SEINE
Late-flowering rot excised in net (5)
SE(rot)INE (“late-flowering”) with ROT excised
33 ENEW
Sink to invigorate runs away (4)
(r)ENEW (“to invigorate” with R (runs, in cricket) away)
34 SEWERAGE
Draining jug held by pundit (8)
EWER (“jug”) held by SAGE (“pundit”)
DOWN
1 GATH
Section of raga, this (4)
Hidden in [section of] “raGA THis” and &lit.

In Indian music, the second section of a raga is a gat or gath.
2 APHTHAE
Signs of thrush in a path he retraced (7)
*(a path he)

Aphthae (sing:aphtha) are small ulceratons on the surface of a membrabe, typical of the disease thrush.
3 SPOKESPEOPLE
Mouthpieces disturbed pope less inserting jab (12)
*(pope less) [anag:disturbed] inserting POKE (“jab”)
4 WAUK
Full ramble by the sound of it (4)
Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [by the sound of it] of WALK (“ramble”)

To wauk is another word for to full cloth.
5 ROAD
A dividing shaft in mine-passage (4)
A dividing ROD (“shaft”)
6 SEDGELAND
Country with irises etc gleaned wild in South Dakota (9)
*(gleaned) [anag:wild] in SD (South Dakota)

As well as its usual meaning of a plant of the Carex family, sedge is apparently also used to include other plants such as irises.
8 PRE-ECLAMPSIA
Lassie’s to make trial of grip as I wrestled with late pregnancy condition (12)
PREE (a Scots word for “try”, so “Lassie’s to make trial of”) + CLAM (“grip”) + *(as I) [anag:wrestled]
9 EIGNE
First of brood prevailed with no outsiders (5)
(r)EIGNE(d) (“prevailed” with no outsiders)
10 WASTE BIN
Refuse container maybe doubles up in dray (8, 2 words)
<=BETS (“maybe doubles”, up) in WAIN (“dray”)
14 DAUNTLESS
Very old woman on board sled’s awfully bold (9)
AUNT (“very old woman”) on board *(sleds) [anag:awfully]
15 BINE
Too much booze, not good, as part of hop (4)
BIN(g)E (“too much booze”, but not G (good))

The stem of a hop is called the bine.
17 CARAPACE
Part of heat-resistant layer in saloon at speed? (8)
(saloon) CAR + APACE (“at speed”)

A carapace is a heat-resistant layer of tiles on a spacecraft.
19 AFRO
Thick and bushy part of leaf, rosy (4)
Hidden in [part of] “leAF ROsy”

I had to check to see if Afro could also be an adjective.
21 UP-ALONG
On the way home, mounted on trotting nag, look in (7)
UP (“mounted”) + LO (look) in *(nag) [anag:trotting]
24 RIPEN
Mature love in Paris, about the first thereof (5)
RIEN (nothing in French, so “love in Paris”) about [the first] of P(aris)
27 FLEW
Local flat, more than 50% financial support raised (4)
[more than 50% of] <=WELF(are) (“financial support”, raised)

Flew is a dialect word for “shallow or flat”.
28 USER
Druggie turning up to begin again? Not me (4)
[turning up] <=RESU(me) (“to begin again”, but not ME)
29 SMEE
See duck escape through hedge, giving us the slip (4)
SME(us)E (“to escape through a hedge”) giving US the slip

13 comments on “Azed No. 2,765 – plain”

  2. Thank you Azed, and loonapick.

    Amusing, to me, and probably quite a few others, to see ‘a Pom’ in there. It has never bothered me.

    And the ‘Australian’ at !8 Ac. It is misleading, of course. But it sent me to Chambers and Chambers is wrong, again. Even when I was growing up in England our teachers, mostly WWII veterans, taught us that a ‘rifle’ is not a ‘gun’ and a gun is not a rifle.

    Azed speaks French and he should know well that the French do not use ‘rien’ for ‘nothing’ at tennis.

    Stefan

  3. Thanks for the blog , clues to the longer answers were very friendly and gave a lot of structure to help . Lassie’s…. a nice indicator for PREE . For SMEE we use (s)meuse , what a brilliant word , how can there be a term for escape through a hedge ?
    PION(s) predicted by Hideki Yukawa in 1935 , first from Japan to win a real Nobel Prize in 1949 . The theory still works in low-energy approximations but has been replaced by QCD .
    “Source” completely the wrong term but Chambers gives cover for Azed .

  4. Enjoyed this one. I can add “lassie’s” to my list of Scots indicators. I haven’t had a new one in a while.
    Thanks to loonapick.

  5. No comments on this from memory, but I note the announcement with today’s crossword that “as of 6 July 2025, solvers will be able to submit their completed grids for all Azed competitions online…..paperless entry is encouraged, postal entries will still be accepted.”. The new owner seems to have brought a broom with them.

  8. I failed to get BINE, thought it might be NINE, as in one over the eight. Couldn’t parse SEINE and SMEE.

    I haven’t entered a crossword competition since the eighties; I kept getting book tokens and I already had too many books.

  10. I found this pretty straightforward, but just had a few quibbles. 14dn: AUNT is defined in my C98 as (among other things) “old woman (obs)” – is the “very” supposed to indicate that “old” applies twice over? 23ac: since when did “feet” mean “indicated by poetry”? I get the connection, but it’s a bit of a stretch as a definition. 33ac: C98 defines ENEW as to drive or plunge into water, whereas “sink” is a passive action. But there were high spots, too: like Roz@3, I enjoyed learning s(meuse). Almost as good as taghairm, which has to be my all-time favourite word.

  11. MunroMaiden@10 I agree for AUNT , very giving old old woman perhaps . I had the same thoughts for ENEW and I thought of battleships , checked sink and it has – to cause to sink – which I think is okay .
    Dormouse@8 , I like having book tokens and you can’t have too many books .
    Tim@7 please tell me you are not really that naive .

  13. I managed to do this one on the App. Not quite as user friendly as The Times, but not bad.

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