Azed has been kind with the vocabulary this week, I did not spend nearly as much time inside Chambers as usual. A very enjoyable puzzle, thank you Azed.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FLESH-PRESSING | One getting around, hard and urgent – feature of US election campaign (13) |
| SELF (one) reversed (getting around) H (hard) and PRESSING (urgent) | ||
| 11 | OOPHORON | Love before work? Honor exercising reproductive gland (8) |
| O (love) then OP (opus, work) then anagram of HONOR. I really didn’t expect this to be a word when I looked it up in Chambers! | ||
| 13 | RUBE | US bumpkin having to get by (just) with little English (4) |
| RUB (to get by, just) then E (Enlish, little=abbrev) | ||
| 14 | ANISETTE | Cordial advance? I arrange to be accepted (8) |
| ANTE (advance) containing (to be accepted) I SET | ||
| 15 | TILAK | Religious decoration once created by Parvati and Lakshmi jointly (5) |
| created by joining pararoTI LAKshmi | ||
| 16 | SATORI | Zoroastrians will have form of this Buddhist aim at heart (6) |
| anagram (form of this) zorOASTRIans (heart of, in the middle) | ||
| 18 | SOPRANOS | Such singers e.g. are deployed in opera songs (8) |
| an anagram (are deployed in) of EG SPORANOS (such singers) might be OPERA SONGS | ||
| 20 | STEEPY | Poet’s lofty look, with little support within (6) |
| SPY (look) containing TEE (little support) | ||
| 21 | DEGAGE | For instance, getting on back is easy (6) |
| EG (for instance) with AGED (getting on) all reversed (back) | ||
| 24 | BREWSTER | Beer maker: soak’s plot is holding recipe back (8) |
| RET’S (soak’s) WEB (plot) containing R (recipe) all reversed (back) | ||
| 27 | TEDEUM | Well-known hymn setting, strangely muted round end of nave (6, 2 words) |
| anagram (strangely) of MUTED containing navE (end of) | ||
| 29 | A-LINE | Dior-esque typically? Braggart may shoot it (5) |
| a braggart may shoot A LINE (describe something in an exaggerated or untruthful way) | ||
| 30 | HILARITY | Merriment? Term restricts it (8) |
| HILARY (term, at Oxford) contains IT | ||
| 31 | ANAS | Making one like gossip aplenty? (4) |
| AN (one) AS (like) | ||
| 32 | BONEDUST | Fertilizer scattered on bed, unserviceable with time (8) |
| anagram (scattered) of ON BED then US (unserviceable) and T (time) | ||
| 33 | DEPRESSED AREA | Papers in fact are acting for slum district (13, 2 words) |
| PRESS (papers) in DEED (fact) then ARE and A (acting) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FORTIS | What’s strongly articulated with respect to rearing brood? (6) |
| FOR (with respect to) then SIT (brood) reversed (raising) | ||
| 2 | LOUIS-TREIZE | Outsize, le roi omits nothing in fashioning of his period possibly (11) |
| anagram (fashioning) of OUTSIZE LE RoI missing O (nothing) | ||
| 3 | SHEAVE | Second upward effort producing slice (6) |
| S (second) HEAVE (upward effort) | ||
| 4 | HOOK-UPS | Nothing mediocre in broadcast push for linked transmissions (7) |
| O (nothing) OK (mediocre) in anagram (broadcast) of PUSH | ||
| 5 | PRAUS | Malay vessels after prize ring Australia (5) |
| PR (prize ring) then AUS (Australia) | ||
| 6 | RONDOLETTOS | Short compositions, sort not played when nursing melancholy (11) |
| anagram (played) of SORT NOT containing DOLE | ||
| 7 | SA SA | What one comes out with when fencing – it holds it up! (4, 2 words) |
| SA (sex appeal, it) reversed (up) inside SA (sex appeal, it) | ||
| 8 | INTONAL | It features experimental music – no Latin involved (7) |
| anagram (involved) of NO LATIN – Intonal is an experimental music festival held in Malmo, Sweden | ||
| 9 | NITROGENASE | Enzyme complex that’s modified generations (11) |
| anagram (modified) of GENERATIONS | ||
| 10 | GLEI | Sticky clay forming g-garland (4) |
| G- LEI (garland) | ||
| 12 | BETA | Not quite scholarship grade in French and interrupting degree (4) |
| ET (and, French) inside BA (degree) | ||
| 17 | SEEDLIP | Sower’s basket: ’ave a care in cast (7) |
| ‘EED (‘ave a care) in SLIP (cast) | ||
| 19 | RELATED | Part of the family, as is told (7) |
| double definition | ||
| 22 | GELADA | Shaggy monkey hiding in a glade (6) |
| anagram (hiding in) A GLADE | ||
| 23 | EGESTA | Body waste gets dispersed in running water (6) |
| ANAGRAM (dispersed) of GETS in EA (a stream, running water) | ||
| 25 | WEAR | Sounds like springtime in Scotland for such clothes (4) |
| sounds like “ware” (springtime in Scots) | ||
| 26 | RAYNE | Yearn misguidedly for old-style rule (5) |
| anagram of YEARN | ||
| 27 | THUD | It’s often dull, day after day (4) |
| D (day) following THU (Thursday, day) | ||
| 28 | URGE | Press to clarify dropping opening page (4) |
| pURGE (clarify) missing Page (opening letter of) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
For some reason, I failed to get 19dn, as simple a clue as you could get in Azed. Total brain failure on my part.
I didn’t know the Scottish homophone at 25dn, but the answer was obvious.
Disappointingly, no mention of goats. End of an era. 😉
I agree this was pleasant, not overly tough. SATORI was a nice spot, and SOPRANOS was clever.
Letters Latent this week. Get the Ibuprofen out.
Michael – what is the goat stuff all about?
Whence, I wonder, comes the convention whereby hyphenation is routinely ignored by the AZED setter or setters? LOUIS-TREIZE is a (5-6) not an (11). The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to HOOK-UPS, A-LINE and FLESH-PRESSING. These four solutions as entered in the grid are all misspellings and Chambers gives the word ‘aline’ (sic) as a US variant of ‘align’. I don’t think of divining where a hyphen is needed for a correct spelling as part of my crossword solving (or crossword-solving) equipment.
Epeolater @4: I don’t think Azed (there is only one of him – Jonathan Crowther) is the only setter of barred crosswords to ignore hyphens. I think the reasoning is that hyphenation varies widely and changes over time, so it’s simpler to just ignore it.
PeeDee: have a look at my blog of last week’s puzzle to pick up the goat thread.
Epeolater – I have forgotten to add the hyphens into the solutions, my mistake. I will fix it ASAP.
From my experience omitting hyphens from letter counts for barred grids and so-called advanced crosswords is normal practice. Something I regularly forget when switching between blocked and barred puzzles. A bit like switching between two foreign languages and getting the words in the wrong order.
Bridgesong – Ah I see, the word CAPRIDAE used in two successive puzzles.
I had assumed that Azed had some hidden joke where he included a goat reference in each of his puzzles somewhere. Only those in Azed’s inner circle would be aware of this, a bit of a secret handshake for the faithful. I started looking back through some of the previous puzzles and a surprisingly high proportion of them either had a goat reference or had the letters “g o a t” embedded somewhere in the clues. It just shows that once one has a conspiracy theory one can always find evidence to support it, whatever it is.
PeeDee, I was just being silly. I think we had a mountain goat three weeks ago, and then it was Caprinae followed by the similar Capridae. I wrote in the comments to Azed 2,360, “I wonder if anyone without Chambers to hand, or in a rush, opted for CAPRIDAE instead of CAPRINAE, the N having no crosser”, and I see Azed in the subsequent report writes: “a surprisingly large minority (including some notable scalps) having CAPRIDAE for CAPRINAE (‘Goats etc jumping apace round Scottish track’)”. http://www.andlit.org.uk/azed/slip.php?comp_no=2360
An enjoyable, leisurely Sunday solve. I’m not that confident that I’d solve Azed without recourse to Chambers, but this was definitely one occasion where less visits were probably required than usual.