Azed 1956

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Solving time: 35 minutes without Chambers, but with one mistake

A fairly straightforward Azed this one – I managed to invent all the right words without help except for 30A.

Across
1 ARCHIBALD = (a bar, child)* – Archibald is military slang for an anti-aircraft (=AA) gun
11 POLYP – reverse hidden – easy to see if you’ve had an op to remove nasal polyps.
13 LET-OUT = escape clause – remove “que” from Le Touquet
14 SOAPER – guessable N Amer. slang for a soap opera – Aussie equiv. “soapie”. A=one in rev. of repos = repossessions
15 MEGA – swap the two halves of “game”
17 OUTBRAG = excel in beauty/splendour (Shak) – ut = as (Latin, e.g. in ut supra = as above), in rev. of Garbo – a retiring screen goddess in two ways!
18 SINOLOGICAL = (Saigon co I’ll)* – think of SINO-something or something-LOGICAL, spot the anagram, and the rest should be easy
19 TENNIS = “anyone’s game” from “Anyone for tennis?”. INN in SET, all rev.
20 PE(r)CH = to pant (Scots), and an “Example of Scots pants” because another “Scots pant” might be pegh, pant or something else.
21 RICE – move the E in Eric (Idle)
24 R(euters),I,ALTO – from “Now, what news on the Rialto?” at the beginning of Act 3 of The Merchant of Venice
26 CROWN = swaggered,ANTLER=learnt*
28 PRONAOS = vestibule – NOR = and not, in SOAP=women, all rev.
30 HOUF – first letters of “hearty old usquebaugh”,F=forte=strong. I mistakenly went for HOUS – first letters of “hearty old usquebaugh strong” and suffered from the unchecked S.
31 S(URE)TY – ure = use = operation, sponsor = obscure def. of surety
32 (t)ENSILE – to store as silage and/or in a silo, I’m guessing without bothering to check
33 SINE=without,W=weak
34 BYSTANDER – Stan = laurel, in Derby*
 
Down
2 ROOF=upper limit,i.e.=”that is”. ROOFIE is slang for Rohypnol, a sedative
3 CLAG – remove “I’m in” from “claiming”
4 HYP(NON)E – had to guess here that a hype is an addict (from hypodermic) – the drug name rang a vague bell
5 B(U)ROO – marvellous Scots name for the dole office
6 A(LB.)U,GO = leucoma = an opacity of the cornea – I was a bit lucky here, as this word was new, and go = “to bet” wasn’t exactly a banker
7 LENTIGINOUS – GIN = Geneva, in (outline’s)* – remembered “lentigo” as some skin condition
8 MO(ERA)E – remembered Moira = a fate, and gambled on moe = same as moue
9 JU from juju (W Afr fetish/charm),GAL – guessed from “conjugal”, full wordplay only seen while writing this
10 STAGSHORN – ‘S, gash* in TORN
12 PEEL,i.e.,WA(LL)Y, with way=very. Minor diversion here into looking at pelt=skin until checking letters eliminated it
16 A,STROPHE,L – must be some plant from legend or literature? Yes – Spenser
20 PA(TAR)IN – another of those names for heretics, named after a district of Milan. Solved from wordplay
22 CROUSE = lively (Scots), = “crews”. Minor trouble here after guessing at “cruise” as a possible Scots word
23 SNOKES – remove flaw* from “snowflakes” = winter blanket – also done from wordplay
25 TEETEE – version of TT=teetotaller, and “tuberculin tested”
26 C(R)ONK – minor trouble here from “the bonk” = fatigue of a cyclist, but only wrote BRONK next to the clue (good thing too – BROWN ANTLER might have looked quite convincing!)
27 AS = e.g., SET = T.V. – though I can’t resist pointing out that “as seen on TV” might have been just as misleading as “e.g. shown on TV”
29 VEND – hidden in “seven days”

12 comments on “Azed 1956”

  1. I fell for HOUS too, couldn’t parse CLAG so thank you.

    I don’t understand the “? Not quite.” in the clue for BUROO, they seem redundant to me.

  2. Guardian site a bit slow this morning. No AZED 1957 posted as yet.

    I thought 8d on 1956 was a tough one- memo to self, must get Brewer’s.

  4. Sidey: “not quite” is an Azed version of “just the reverse” as seen in some Times clues. Really, the “containter” clue should be “Glasgow dole office is socially acceptable inside Scotch liquor”, and I should have mentioned the point.

  6. Thanks, Pete. I failed on MOERAE, I’m afraid. Having now seen the blog I find that it is in Chambers (2006), but not at its alphabetical position – it’s only under ‘Moira’.

  7. Pete, thanks again, I am now kicking myself. Finding fault with Azed’s constructions is almost an impossibility. [smiley face]

  8. Thanks, Peter. I was another one who put HOUS for HOUF. The other one I failed to get was SNOKES, although I was thinking along the right lines.

  10. (Any puzzled readers: “dorsetjimbo” is a blogger at the Times for the Times site, who writes about Mephistos as well as the daily.) I’ll point out this message, but it’s really up to Jimbo to volunteer for Azed blogging – we have about eight people in the current team, so all Azed blogging is “occasional” – I’ve had two goes recently because of a change in the schedule.

  11. And you all blog excellently, I should add. No criticism intended, it’s Jimbo’s sometimes trenchant views I enjoy on ‘Times for The Times’, especially his views on homophones and scientific clues.

  12. Tom on Moerae: Chambers doesn’t always put things like moerae under their own head-words – one reason why my copy has accumulated pencil jottings collected over time. You just have to guess connections like moira/moerae, or look around – not always easy to do. I think I’ve seen some claim about the right place being only up to N column inches from the “missing” headword, but can’t remember what N was supposed to be.

    Andrew – no criticism understood either.

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