Azed gives us these every five years or so. The last (clue-setting competition one, anyway) was in October 2011. So far as I know it is his own idea and must be absolute hell to set. In case you didn’t see the preamble in the paper here it is: ‘Each clue contains a one-word definition of the word required at the number where it stands, but belongs as a whole to a word of the same length elsewhere….’ and he goes on to give some very helpful advice on how to go about solving such a puzzle.
This blog will look decidedly odd: the parsing doesn’t lead to the given answers. It is necessary to go to the position indicated by the ‘[at 27ac]’-type instructions at the end of the parsing. But the one-word definitions are there and they are in italics in maroon. What confuses the issue is that the clue also has a normal definition (not necessarily of one word). These definitions are simply underlined, with no change of colour.
As I solved this I wrote on a piece of paper a whole lot of clue-numbers with arrows and this helped. There were exactly six answers each of lengths 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and in most cases there was a cycle of six, with the last one going back to the first. The 8-letter answers made up two cycles of three.
The clue-word had to be determined by the solver; an added restriction will have been the necessity to give as the clue-word something that, although it has at least one unchecked letter, is unique. He couldn’t have given us DRAW_ because it would have led to DRAWS, DRAWL and DRAWN and possibly others. But there is no doubt with AGRE_ . I think.
A tour de force from Azed. How he manages to set these specials with no apparent mistakes is beyond me.
| Across | ||
| *1 | PATCH | Piece (5) |
| I’m pretty sure that my clue (to AGREE at 31ac) needs a one-word definition of PATCH, but a small part of me thinks that it needs a one-word definition of PIECE, since Azed refers to this as a definition. Surely no… [at 31ac] | ||
| 5 | PSALTER | A small weak brandy drunk polishing off book? Non-sense! (7) |
| (a w{eak}{b}randy)*, the anagram indicated by ‘Non-sense’ [at 24ac] | ||
| 11 | ATHLETA | Character trailing runner, little energy, idled badly? One spins (7) |
| ({runne}r e idled)* [at 32ac] | ||
| 12 | SURYA | Sun high – find a seat (5) |
| s tall [at 34ac] | ||
| 13 | THRO | Greek delicacy among buffet adornments (4) |
| Hidden in bufFET Adornments [at 30ac] | ||
| 14 | RETICENT | Grip umpteenth rally has reserved (8) |
| Hidden in umpteENTH RALLy [at 20dn] | ||
| 15 | TESTON | Coin, not English but one Arabic unit (6) |
| cent Ar with the E replaced by a [at 28ac] | ||
| 18 | ONETIME | A letter in Greek lecturer penned for old Olympian? (7) |
| a th(l)eta [at 11ac] | ||
| 21 | POLYSTYLE | Exit gateway, kind admitting friend, pillared initially (9) |
| s(ally p{illared})ort [at 16dn] | ||
| 22 | SHAMEFAST | Agents, only half modest, age led astray (9) |
| ({mod}est age led)* [at 17dn] | ||
| 24 | NAYWARD | Crooked prelates in denial of English church property? (7) |
| (prelates – E)* [at 5ac] | ||
| 28 | CANTAR | Agitation I have cutting weight, after seconds (6) |
| s w(I’ve)t [at 22dn] | ||
| 29 | PROVIANT | A little butter and any scraps of past tuck simmering in cook’s receptacle (8) |
| pat (any p{ast} t{uck})* [at 1dn] | ||
| 30 | FETA | We could see last bits of cheese butty eaten whole (4) |
| {chees}e {butt}y {eate}n {whol}e [at 9dn] | ||
| 31 | AGREE | What goes to make suit? One likely to bungle height (5) |
| clot h [at 3dn] | ||
| 32 | DREIDEL | Top (not last), I, in test that’s foxed little ones (7) |
| to{p} I in (test)* [at 33ac] | ||
| 33 | TOTTIES | Prompt creating skirt for Earl formerly (7) |
| (on time) round E [at 18ac] | ||
| 34 | STALL | It’s fine to stop one becoming unwell (5) |
| un(f)it [at 25dn] | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PATTYPAN | American vessel in elm tossed in the drink (8) |
| (US cat) in (elm)* [at 19dn] | ||
| 2 | ATHEROMA | Holding back revenue as pouch for decoy (8) |
| re(tice)nt [at 14ac] | ||
| 3 | CLOTH | God clergy ultimately found in part of scripture (5) |
| Sur({clerg}y)a [at 12ac] | ||
| 4 | HERONSHAW | Bird, by the sound of her, with chic resplendent in many columns (9) |
| “Polly” style — I can’t quite see what ‘resplendent’ is doing here: it seems that Azed is including a word as a possible misleader, but that’s not what I’d have expected. Perhaps I’m not understanding something. [at 21ac] | ||
| 6 | SATINY | Smooth glass substitute? Upended reticule yields it (6) |
| Hidden reversed in rETICULe [at 7dn] | ||
| 7 | LUCITE | Plastic set in fashion? A bit (6) |
| (set)* in ton [at 15ac] | ||
| 8 | TREPIDANT | Wader trembling in Rhone wash (9) |
| (Rhone wash)* [at 4dn] | ||
| 9 | EYNE | Two pairs of spectators joined in a minor quarrel(4) |
| The two pairs of spectators are SPectATors and they join [at 26dn] | ||
| 10 | RATH | Hill fort, not badly fortified initially, sacked from end to end (4) |
| (H{ill f{ortified}}ort)* [at 13ac] | ||
| 16 | SALLYPORT | Old hangdog fraud, reverse of secure opening in theatre (9) |
| sham (safe)rev. t{heatre} [at 22ac] | ||
| 17 | DELEGATES | One of the reps in a mood (Scots), worker getting agitated (9) |
| t(rep)id ant [at 8dn] | ||
| 19 | MUSCATEL | Favouring fizzy vin at allowance of food (8) |
| pro (vin at)* [at 29ac] | ||
| 20 | ENTHRALL | Thickening? Misguidedly eat nothing – charm about lost (8) |
| (eat 0 charm – c)* [at 2dn] | ||
| 22 | SWIVET | Covered passage getting a cadre in a tizzy (6) |
| (a cadre)* [at 23dn] | ||
| 23 | ARCADE | Was part of demo before closing of gallery displaying lustrous stuff (6) |
| sat in {galler}y [at 6dn] | ||
| 25 | UNFIT | Disabled chap has time confined to mend (5) |
| (chap)* round t [at 1ac] | ||
| 26 | SPAT | I’ll contain drop of rust thus (4) |
| e(r{ust})go [at 27dn] | ||
| 27 | ERGO | A short spin? So this chariot may appear (4) |
| comp. anag. where [a short] … [so rath], the anagram indicator ‘spin’ (imperative) [at 10dn] | ||
*anagram
I agree that it must be incredibly difficult setting a puzzle like this. It can’t have been easy to write the blog either so congratulations John on coming up with a format that is clear and helpful.
Solving got easier once I had a few entries started. I was hindered at the start by putting entries in the usual place out of force of habit, so I was very glad I used a pencil. Terrific stuff and let’s hope it attracts more interest here than the usual miserly handful of comments that seem to be Azed’s lot these days.
I got of to a slow start as I misread the instructions and thought each clue was in two parts, definition and word play, and the entire definition was for another clue. After I solved a couple of obvious anagrams and hidden words, I realised my mistake. As cruciverbophile says, it got easier as more clues were entered.
I started by making a table of clue lengths against clue numbers and crossed them off as I worked them out.
Wrong Number goes back at least to Ximenes, the Slip for most recent one being from 1968 in John Tozer’s archive. (I see that a certain J. Crowther got a VHC for his clue, with Dexter and Morse merely in the HCs for once.)
Thanks to Azed and John. I have only just started doing Azed, after many years of doing the Guardian, and it took me about 15 minutes just to understand the instructions. But I struggled on during the week and got there, my new Chambers getting a good workout (it sits alongside my battered 1974 edition).
Cruciverbophile @1 – as an Azed neophyte I was going to hold back from commenting for a while, but have decided to respond to your call.
Thanks John, I very much enjoyed this and not an easy one for you to blog either. Well done.
I was defeated by the crossing SURYA and RATH. Thanks to AZED too, he must spend at least a week coming up with a puzzle like this. I can’t understand how he manages to keep it going single-handed for so long.
Forgot to comment in my haste to find other examples of this format (of which RJH sent me two and I found another one). It was new to me and I loved it once I had unscrambled my brain!
Feel I must add a comment- it is a shame Azed’s wonders don’t generate the sort of discussion one finds daily re the Guardian’s mixed bag (today most of the letters page!). “Wrong Number” does need concentration- and a very light hand when putting entries in- am certain I remember it as being in Ximenes. The one-worders here were kinder than sometimes in the past. As was said, writing the right clue with the right one-worder was a further test of concentration. The layout of John’s blog was very neat.
Having had Azed’s slip and admired all the neat winners and VHC’s am still abit bothered as to how “term” is an acceptable synonym for “patch” in Will Drever’s first prize winner. Please someone enlighten me.
keith @8
They both mean a period of time.
Chambers
patch – a period of time
term – any limited period; the time for which anything lasts
Oxford
patch – British informal, a particular period of time
term – a fixed or limited period for which something, for example office, imprisonment, or investment, lasts or is intended to last