This is my last post of the year and my 700th post overall for Fifteensquared. I found it hard! I spent a lot more time stuck than usual, several times I was left trawling the dictionary in the hope of stumbling across something relevant. At the end it was very satisfying to finish and to have an explanation for everything.
Season’s greetings to all and a big thank you to Azed.
| ACROSS | ||
| 2 | PARKLEAVES | Sidewalks fringing legendary mount and woodland shrub (10) |
| PAVES (sidewalks) contains (fringing) ARKLE (famous racehorse, legendary mount) | ||
| 10 | SAROD | E.g a this, when played … does raga perhaps (5) |
| EG A SAROD (this, the solution) is an anagram (when played) of DOES RAGA – definition is &lit | ||
| 12 | RECTO | Take against second half of spread (5) |
| REC. (recipe, take) TO (against) – the right-hand page of a spread (a double page, printing) | ||
| 13 | STEMPLE | Timber support back to front in places of worship (7) |
| temples (places of worship) with letter at the back moved to the front | ||
| 14 | GREEN | Meagre encouragement – only a bit of it – making one sick-looking (5) |
| found (inside only a bit of it) meaGRE ENcouragement | ||
| 15 | CLEAVERS | Instruments for cutting clinging weed (8) |
| double definition | ||
| 16 | MOON RAT | Nocturnal mammal ran amok in former meeting-place (7, 2 words) |
| anagram (amok) of RAN inside MOOT (former meeting place) | ||
| 18 | BLUID | Macbeth’s recurrent theme? His heart leads us into drama initially (5) |
| macBeth (his heart, middle letter of) then first letters (initially) of Leads Us Into Drama | ||
| 19 | BELIED | Recline where one often does? It’s declared to be false (6) |
| LIE IN BED (recline, where one often does) | ||
| 20 | LARDED | Youngster devouring red bananas stuffed with bacon? (6) |
| LAD (youngster) contains (devouring) anagram (bananas) of RED | ||
| 23 | PRASE | Green mineral: it’s taken from mine to level (5) |
| Pit (mine) missing IT then RASE (level) | ||
| 27 | WAKENER | We’ll be roused with naker for reveille? (7) |
| anagram (roused) of WE with NAKER | ||
| 28 | STAGNATE | Food stuffed with strong flavour about to turn foul (8) |
| EATS (food) contains (stuffed with) TANG (strong flavour) all reversed (about) | ||
| 29 | HANOI | Reversal for monastic centre following end of faith in Asian capital (5) |
| IONA (monastic centre) follows faitH (end letter of) | ||
| 30 | VOLUTIN | Cell may include this lout after breaking wine bottles (7) |
| anagram (after breaking) of LOUT inside (…bottles) VIN (wine) | ||
| 31 | ONCUS | Having clubs in charge, not good for the Aussies (5) |
| C (clubs) inside ONUS (charge) | ||
| 32 | HI-TEC | I etch transfers using industrial equipment (5) |
| anagram (transfers) of I ETCH | ||
| 33 | TETE-A-TETES | French season in gallery put back private interviews (10) |
| ETE (summer, French) inside TATE (gallery) then SET (put) reversed (back) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ASSEMBLY SHOP | Where things are fitted together, boss helps Amy getting sorted out (12, 2 words) |
| anagram (getting sorted out) of BOSS HELPS AMY | ||
| 2 | PATROL | Bit of butter on some bread cut for scout (6) |
| PAT (bit of butter) on ROLL (some bread) missing last letter (cut) | ||
| 3 | A REBOURS | Contrarily heading for exposure in pergolas? (8, 2 words) |
| Exposure (first letter, heading for) inside ARBOURS (pergolas) | ||
| 4 | ROMANI | Traveller from Indonesia going round ME sultanate (6) |
| RI (Indonesia) contains (going round) OMAN (Middle East sultanate) | ||
| 5 | LOLLARD | Titled chap holding everything up, an idle fellow (7) |
| LORD (titled chap) contains (holding) ALL (everything) reversed (up) | ||
| 6 | ARGAN | Snake climbing, right inside tree (5) |
| NAGA (snake) reversed (climbing) contains (with…inside) R (right) | ||
| 7 | VERVEL | Go left for The Falconers’ Band (6) |
| VERVE (go) L (left) | ||
| 8 | STERVE | Diet no longer, getting stuck into Easter venison (6) |
| found inside eaSTER VEnison | ||
| 9 | CONSIDERANCE | Opposed to team bar? Careful thought formerly required (12) |
| CON (opposed to) SIDE (team) RANCE (bar) | ||
| 11 | DEET | All ready (one assumes) for anti-mozzy stuff (4) |
| DEET is TEED reversed, or put another way TEED UP (all ready) | ||
| 17 | PIANETTE | I’m anything but grand – with hole in it the pantie needs mending (8) |
| ThE missing one of its letters (with hole in it) then anagram (needs mending) of PANTIE | ||
| 19 | BEAT OUT | Bash maybe to flog tickets at inflated prices (7, 2 words) |
| BE A TOUT (flog tickets at inflated prices) | ||
| 21 | ACTANT | Noun phrase: shortened form of it occurs in a peculiar talk (6) |
| ‘T (it, shortened form) in A CANT (peculiar talk) | ||
| 22 | DEGOUT | Repugnance I displayed in endless deference (6) |
| EGO (I, Freud) inside DUTy (deference, endless) | ||
| 24 | REDUIT | Fortified retreat, separate, to leave when Queen’s gone (6) |
| RED (separate) then qUIT (to leave) missing Q (queen) | ||
| 25 | SERIES | Geological formation is scorching – I kept inside (6) |
| SERES (is scorching) containing I | ||
| 26 | ANISE | Cocktail ingredient man gives me when this (5) |
| MAN gives ME when AN is E | ||
| 27 | WAVY | Snow goose, like a whitecap? (4) |
| WAVY is like a wave (whitecap) | ||
I don’t recall too much trouble with this – I certainly completed it in good time Sunday night – but I couldn’t parse 12ac and 27dn, so thanks for that. (Quite why I didn’t think to look up WAVY in Chambers I can’t recall. Maybe I was getting tired.)
I do have a quibble about 2ac. Certainly PAVE is given in Chambers as an American term for pavement, but pavement and sidewalk are not synonymous in US English. Pavement means the road surface. So I think it unlikely that Americans would use pave to mean sidewalk. (Curiously, the day before this crossword came out, I’d been having a discussion on this very matter. A friend told me a story of an American woman who got caught up in some sort of police incident in the UK. A policeman shouted at her to get on the pavement. As she was standing in the road, she stayed where she was, and the police got very angry.)
Thanks PeeDee. In 33 I think you want ‘private’ underlined too.
In 17, I parsed the ‘hole’ as applying to ‘the’ only, which is fairer. 26 is very clever – thanks Azed.
Perhaps Azed is using the French pave (I won’t attempt the accent) which is in Chambers for ‘pavement’.
An interesting story dormouse – I didn’t know that. When solving the puzzle my thoughts on paves were akin to Gonzos, the word has an acute accent and comes from the French word for pavement. I thought this was fine at the time, but now you have got me wondering. Does the French term pavé really mean “cobbles”, and the French use is closer to the US pavement and indicates “a stone road surface” in general rather than specifically a pedestrian walkway? In either case, what really matters is what the word pavé means in British English and Chambers is not clear on this.
We seem to have been given a non-competition puzzle today + the instructions for the Christmas Puzzle
Gonzo – when blogging I avoid accents wherever I can, there are so many ways it can go wrong.
When writing the comment @4 I figured out that on my Windows PC pressing Ctrl+Alt+E outputs an é into the text.
Sorry about comment 4. I misread the instructions.
I didn’t see the entry for pavé in Chambers. (I was using an electronic version as my paper copy has fallen to pieces.) But my old pocket French dictionary defines un pavé as a paving stone or a cobblestone.
Looked up pavé in the complete OED, and it says a paved road, street or path, most recent citation 1888.
My reading of the clue was “sidewalks” indicated an Americanism, and pave as a noun is given in Chambers as US.
I thought at the time that PARKLEAVES rang a bell, and indeed I have now confirmed that Azed used it earlier this year in puzzle no 2,445 with a rather similar clue: Woodland shrub famous racer planted in sidewalks. Nobody commented on it (I was the blogger that week).
So – I think that by Azed’s very strict standards sidewalks isn’t an indication for pavés. In the absence of question mark or other indication of definition by example, pavés (a plural noun indicating any traversable way with a paved covering) isn’t a definition of sidewalks (a noun that indicates specifically a pedestrian walkway). Whether any of this matters is another thing entirely!
And I appear to have commented on that puzzle without mentioning that clue. But it was the Easter weekend puzzle and I’d been away for Easter and didn’t start it till mid-week. I was probably in too much of rush to stop and think about individual clues.
I wonder how often he recycles clues like this. Or does he just not remember he’s used that one before? The Indie once or twice reprinted an earlier puzzle and I (and several others on fifteensquared) never noticed..
I don’t have any problem with pavé. (Just buy a Mac). How come I couldn’t understand DEET? We had an Australian query last week but we do also call the stuff DEET.
Stefan
I suspect there may be a minor typo in clue 40A in today’s Xmas Special.
Please can we all leave comments on the details of this week’s Azed until the blog is published. Thanks.
Many thanks to both. I agree with PeeDee in that this seemed to take longer to get through. And congratulations on post 700. The work of the bloggers is always appreciated.