I started doing the Azed puzzles when I was a first-year undergraduate; I solved this one on the day before I qualified for my state pension. Tempus fugit indeed. The Right & Left format (which Azed has occasionally varied as “Up and Down”) is even older, going back to Ximenes in, as far as I can tell from the archives, at least 1952 and possibly 1948. As usual, the “spanning” answer at 1a had a relatively straightforward clue, and once it was in the place the rest of the puzzle yielded quickly: in fact I think it took me less time the finish than many “normal” puzzles. As always, one has to admire the skill shown in joining the pairs of unrelated clues seamlessly and with no padding. Thanks as ever to Azed.
I’ve shown the answers below, and their explanations, in the order they appear in the clues, with a slash in the clues showing the division. To avoid overcrowding I’ve tried to keep the explanations to a minimum this tine. There’s an image of the completed grid at the end in case there’s any doubt (numbers not shown for technical reasons).
| Across | ||||||||
| 1. | HITHER AND YON | Greetings to those who are excited about how remaining clue answers are distributed? (12, 3 words) HI + THE RANDY + ON (about). As usual in R&L puzzles, a reasonably straightforward clue to a phrase that is vaguely relevant to the theme. |
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| 6. | ANYONE/CERISE | Scots one grabs stocking left out, no matter who / is getting in wax, reddish (6, 6) NY[L]ON in ANE / IS in CERE |
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| 7. | TAUPIE/SYRIAC | Clumsy lassie, cross with pastry, / is going wild with racy language (6, 6) TAU + PIE / (IS RACY)* |
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| 8. | IN-TOED/TATAMI | Like a pigeon that is dead, not twitching inside / mat – cheers me (6, 6) NOT* in I.E. D / TATA + MI (= me as the third note of the scale, as in do-re-mi) |
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| 10. | SCERNE/PAELLA | The old spot censer boiling / seafood dish from Spain wrapped in sort of mantle (6, 6) CENSER* – old variant of discern / E in PALLA |
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| 11. | T-CROSS/AMATOL | Honouring saints, returning Catholic installed sort of crucifix / explosive priest clutching part of scripture sent back (6, 6) Reverse of RC in TO SS (I think the definition is inaccurate, as a crucifix includes the crucified body)/ Reverse of (OT in LAMA) |
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| 15. | SORROW/CROOVE | Rolls over squashed by occupant of sty, causing distress / or turns in bloke supplying Jock’s sty (6, 6) RR (Rolls-Royce) + O[ver] in SOW / Reverse of OR in COVE |
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| 16. | HASSAR/NONAGE | One fish tolerates another / being immature, number wrapped in furled genoa (6, 6) HAS SAR / N in GENOA* |
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| 17. | YUKATA/IMAGER | Tay auk flexing light coat / gobbled maigre – one records pictures (6, 6) (TAY AUK)* / MAIGRE* |
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| 18. | PYRENE/STYLES | Combustible pile requiring little gas or coal extract / fashions eyesores round centre of village (6, 6) PYRE + NE (neon) / [vil]L[age] in STYES |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | HASTY/ACTIN | Suffers extremes of tummy rash / takin’ part of muscular protein (5, 5) HAS (suffers – with a similarity to 16a) + T[umm]Y / ACTIN[g] (taking [a] part) |
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| 2. | NEANIC/INYALA | Adolescent canine savaged / antelope – part of destiny, alas (6, 6) CANINE* / hidden in destINY ALA – not the (related) NYALAS, as I first thought |
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| 3. | DRUTHERS/TYRTAEAN | Choice groove in broken sherd / penned by martial poet, start of epode a tyrant ordered (8, 8) RUT in SHERD* (from the US expression “if I had my druthers”, derived from “I’d rather..”) / anagram of E + A TYRANT |
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| 4. | OSIER/EN AMI | One ’awking footwear, sallow / chap, eastern, turning up, I treated as a friend (5, 5) [h]OSIER; osier = willow = sallow) / E + reverse of MAN + I (this is the two-word answer mentioned in the instructions) |
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| 5. | RECITAL/NEEDLES | Performance that’s authentic involving townie / is irritating, mostly gratuitous (7, 7) CIT in REAL / NEEDLES[s] – a very familiar construction |
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| *9. | ALTARAGE/PROPOSAL | Church offerings; / plan (8, 8) The competition words |
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| 10. | PARSNIP/STACHYS | Salmon with cut veg, / labiate plant Cathy cooked in steamer (7, 7) PAR + SNIP / CATHY* in SS |
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| 12. | SAVATE/OROGEN | Kick boxing set crazily imbibing narcotic stuff / ergo dizzy with close to round delivering massive belt? (6, 6) AVA in SET* / ERGO* + ON (close to) |
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| 13. | KRAUT/COOMY | Offensive term for foreigner upsetting a Turk / (‘smutty’) that surprises me twice over (5, 5) (A TURK)* / COO + MY |
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| 14. | ‘TWERE/TERAS | Conditionally it was part of contract we reckoned / a monstrosity, combining short time and very long time (5, 5) Hidden in contracT WE REckon / T + ERAS |
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I agree that this seemed easier than many plain puzzles, though it was still a good challenge. Even if you don’t get the spanning answer right away (I didn’t) you can get started by lightly pencilling in the first answer you get on one or other side, then as you get more answers you can assign them to left or right according to whether they cross with your first answer. You’ll soon realise whether the letters in the top row contribute to a potential word, or whether you need to swap the sides round. This time my guess was lucky, but it isn’t always; after all there’s a 50% probability of getting it right!
The one drawback with these puzzles in my view is that even though Azed combines the halves of the clues seamlessly, you get long sentences that tend to fall apart as you read them so that the surface reading can be rather stretched. It’s inevitable I suppose and Azed minimises this as well as anyone. A nice way to spend a Sunday morning.
What I did was to print off a copy of the grid from the website so that if I made a mess of filling in at my first attempt, I could go back to the grid in the paper. As it happens, I got both halves of 1dn fairly quickly and I made a guess that the “Greetings” in 1ac corresponded to HI- and used that as a working hypothesis. After that, it all fell out fairly quickly, although I had trouble with the right half of 9dn and needed to do a word search to get that. 1ac I’m more familiar with the phrase “hither and thither” and I had to get a number of the crossing letters to get that.
The spanning answer was actually my LOI. I’d got 1D quite quickly, and hypothesised that the most likely patter was
_ the _ , so I guessed the laterality wrongly, but the hold-up was minima;, fortunately.
Of the “specials” this is probably my favourite format.
@3 One of the answers to last week’s Mephisto was GOUJEERS, and hitherto I’d had no idea what it meant…!
Thanks, as always, to Azed and to Andrew for a clear blog. Am not sure what age a state pension means now after 25 years of mine but do enjoy it.
This was a treat and I was one of the lucky ones who got HITHER-AND-YON first: “those who are excited”=”the randy” is fairly standard crossword sauciness. We all know have our Donald McGill side.
I counted the number of words in each clue and was daunted by the concise range (8-17) Azed had managed when I was trying to cobble something together.
As I think I’ve blogged before, at Ximenes’s 1,000th lunchon a little entertainment for the diners involved a mini-Left/Right puzzle in which Sybil won a Cherry brandy (Red for Port) and someone else a Chartreuse. I think we have the bottle still!