Azed No. 2,500 ‘Half and Half’ – Competition Puzzle

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A very satisfying puzzle. It took me several sittings to complete which made it all the more enjoyable. Congratulations to Azed on reaching another milestone, and may there be more to come! Thank you indeed.

As usual with Azed I found the instructions a little confusing and the “helpful” hints only added to that. No complaints though, in my opinion it is all part of solving the puzzle. If I wanted the easy and obvious I would not come to Azed.

image of grid
No. Entry First half Second half Comment
ACROSS
1 STERNWWGRASS STERN WHEELER SPARROW GRASS Paddle boat with twice getting into unyielding reedy stuff ‘speared’ delicacy (12)
W W (with, twice) inside STERN (unyielding) GRASS (reedy stuff)
9 PASATE PASEAR BERATE Severely criticize constitutional activity when limited by the crown (6)
AS (when) inside (limited by) PATE (the crown)
11 DUEVET DUENNA TRIVET Hot-food stand governess, English, wrapped in quilt (6)
E (English) inside DUVET (quilt)
12 LAURGLER LAURASIA WRIGGLER Ancient landmass, one shifting evasively, almost regularly shifting (8)
anagram (shifting) of REGULARLy (almost)
14 REBA REKE PEBA The old care about armadillo – it’s trapped in wire basket (4)
found inside wiRE BAsket
17 RAPO RAYS PEPO Beams rattle round fruit (4)
RAP (rattle) O (something round)
18 GHDO GHEE REDO Processed butter to cook freshly butchered hog with date stuffing (4)
anagram (butchered) of HOG contains D (date)
19 ARIN ARIS AGIN Bum opposed to active Scottish race (4)
A (active) RIN (race, Scottish)
20 MAILELYING MAILED FIST UNDERLYING Posting round Cambs city military force that’s present but not obvious (10)
MAILING (posting) contains (round) ELY (city in Cambridgeshire)
22 OVERSERING OVERSLEEPS WEATHERING Love poet, gin drunk, ignores the alarm? Effect of the elements (10)
O (love) VERSER (poet) then anagram (drunk) of GIN
25 LING LIRK RANG Called ‘a wrinkle’, loveless language (4)
LINGo (language) missing O (love)
26 PEDY PEBA TODY Plated creature, small bird, ends in cheap pie, cooked hastily (4)
last letters (ends) of cheaP piE cookeD hastilY
27 TOEE TODY GHEE Oil for cooking kingfisher’s cousin, to set alongside peeled neep (4)
DO (to set) then nEEp (peeled, no outer letters)
30 PERE PEPO LURE Berry, an enticement for each guest’s centrepiece (4)
PER (for each) then guEst (centre of)
31 TEGUASIA TEGUMENT LAURASIA A suit, ragged with age, covering a large expanse of old (8)
anagram (ragged) of A SUIT with AGE
32 TRINNA TRIVET DUENNA Chaperone returned one behind threefold grate bracket (6)
AN (one) reversed (returned) follows (behind) TRIN (threefold?). My explanation does not quite work – according to Chambers TRINE is threefold, TRIN is a triplet (by birth)
33 SAKAHE SAKERS TAKAHE Flightless bird, a jackdaw seized by female falcons (6)
A KA (jackdaw) inside SHE (female)
34 ESPAGNTHENER ESPAGNOLETTE STRENGTHENER See preamble (12)
competition clue
DOWN
1 SPARROOLETTE SPARROW GRASS ESPAGNOLETTE Vegetable box – loot tree scattered – catch (12)
SPAR (box) then anagram (scattered) of LOOT TREE
2 TAKEAR TAKAHE PASEAR Stroll secure, beside a river rail (6)
TAKE (secure) with A R (river)
3 RAGA RANG GUGA King with commander called ‘The Toothsome Gannet’ (4)
R (king) with AGA (commander)
4 WEATHLEEPS WEATHERING OVERSLEEPS What lie-abed often does: cries about almost all the suffering, coming safely through (10)
WEEPS (cries) contains (about) anagram (suffering) of ALL (missing one L, almost) and THE
5 GURK GUGA LIRK Fold edible wee seabird – champagne served up? (4)
KRUG (champagne) reversed (sereved up)
6 REGA REDO RAGA Go over Indian piece as encountered in heart of Kerala (4)
EG (for example, as encountered) inside keRAla (heart of)
7 SEELIN VIOLIN SEETHE Fiddle churn almost tilting over suddenly (6)
SEELINg (tilting over suddenly, almost)
8 STRENGHEELER STRENGTHENER STERN WHEELER What powers US vessel? Catching fish herring set I released (12)
EEL (fish) inside (catching…is…) anagram (not indicated?) of HERRiNG SET missing (released) I
10 SUBPMENT SUBPOENA TEGUMENT Muddled up barristers gutted, document half missing: writ case (8)
anagram (muddled) of BarristerS (gutted, no middle letters) UP then docuMENT (half missing)
13 UNDERDFIST UNDERLYING MAILED FIST Military might find rudest scrapping fundamental (10)
anagram (scrapping) of FIND RUDEST
15 AGIS AGIN ARIS Contra behind start of attack on US troops? (4)
Attack (first letter, start) on GIS (US troops)
16 WRIGOENA WRIGGLER SUBPOENA I age, worn out, one trying to evade summons? (8)
anagram (out) of I AGE WORN
21 LIYS LING RAYS Heather? Day going, idyl’s dispersed sunlight (4)
anagram (dispersed) of IdYL’S missing D (day)
23 VIOERS VIOLIN SAKERS Kit? Old cannons, strength about over (6)
VIS (strength) contains (about) O’ER (over)
24 BERTHE BERATE SEETHE Dress down, get agitated with rage, almost put to bed? (6)
BERTHEd (put to bed, almost)
28 LUNA LURE PUNA Old trumpet, one in middle of flat wind, far from warm (4)
‘UN (one) inside fLAt (middle of)
29 RANG RAGA LING Sitar performance, maybe, new in jazz style, Scottish row? (4)
N (new) in RAG (jazz style)
30 PUKE PUNA REKE Concern for the old round our country is exercising bleak elevated region (4)
UK (our country) inside (round…is…) PE (exercising)

30 comments on “Azed No. 2,500 ‘Half and Half’ – Competition Puzzle”

  1. Personally, this was a complete disaster.  I just couldn’t get my head round it.  By the end of Sunday I’d got a couple of clues, but then I got stuck.  I did look at it again during the week but got no further.  I couldn’t adapt my solving style to this type of puzzle.

  2. Thanks PeeDee. As you say, the rubric allowed for the possibility that, say, an 8-letter light consisted of half a 6-letter word plus half a 10-letter word, so it was a relief to find they were indeed split 50-50. The 4-letter words were the way in.
    I was similarly puzzled by the lack of anagrind in 8d, and TRIN, and surprised that Krug is not in Chambers.
    Still, a tour-de-force of setting from the master. More power to your elbow Azed.

  4. I’ll concur with comments above, but not PeeDee’s: I didn’t find it particularly satisfying or enjoyable.

    But this is no time for carping. What an achievement!—for this we should be dancing. I remember the announcement in the Observer that Ximenes had gone and we would be getting some new wallah. Was there huffing and harrumphing among the old hands? I was a very young hand and looking forwards. I have not been let down.

    I got the instructions and started well. Excellent, and typical, obvious leads from Azed: REBA, cheaP piE cookeD hastilY, “Cambs city”, E in doona or duvet, GHEE (is it really an oil?), “ancient landmass” just had to be Gondwana or Laurasia. It was the longer words which led me off. And, as Mr Thomas had suggested, the four-letter words which brought me down.

    I put it aside, came back, misread the instructions. When I’d finished, I was unhappy. A double-check and Azed had been either naughty or extra-misleading. “Bum” = anus, rear, arse; “contra” = agin, anti. But it must be arse because there’s a BISE, cold wind, to fit in. “To set” = do, and we’ve got to fit in a REDO somewhere, but that can’t be DOEE because it’s the second half. Wrinkle is not only fold and line: it is, new word for me, lirk! And it was only when I got that that I saw I was trying to fit together all the wrong words.

    So: frustrating and unclear. TRIN is obviously an oversight but let’s allow him that. If we continue our ornithological investigations, I’d guess that a GUGA is not “wee”.

    Stefan

  6. The 4 letter words was the way in for me too. I got stuck around the 3 hour mark though after cracking a few answers to see where the would fit, as I assumed the two halves in the double clues were swopped – but after a few beers, saw the light.

    Having to cold solve definitions though made this tough. Took me about 7 hours on and off.

  7. I presume others have noticed the article by Azed on page 46 of today\’s paper.  It says it\’s an extract from a longer article in the Oxford Times, only googling tells me it\’s actually the Oxford Mail.  I\’ve found the article although it doesn\’t seem to format properly.

     

    https://tinyurl.com/yd34nyum

  8. I wonder what Azed’s attitude to the preamble is. Solvers of Listener crosswords regard deciphering it as part of the game, but I don’t think Azed does: he wants to explain things as neatly as possible and enable the solver to get cracking. For this crossword either he or I failed, for it took me hours to discover what was going on.

    Surely the instructions could have been clearer. But to attempt to rewrite them and offer them to him for a future crossword of this type would I fear be pointless, because he seems to like to stick with those he has used before (as witness those he uses for his PD puzzles).

    However, it was a wonderful puzzle. Took me ages, but well worth it. How he produces such grids defies comprehension.

  9. Wil – I thought something similar.

    My thought what that Azed wants his preambles not to be neat necessarily but to be precise.  Like his clues, there should be no ambiguity.  As you say, unlike the Listener, Enigmatic Variations, or The IQ where deciphering a vague preamble might be part of the fun.

    The irony for me is that Azed’s convoluted wording attempting to eliminate ambiguity and help the solver often makes the instructions harder to decipher, not easier.

  10. Many congratulations to Azed on reaching this remarkable milestone, and more yet for having produced a series of puzzles of unparalleled quality. To have come up, every week for 48 years, with a beautifully-constructed crossword wherein the clues are scrupulously fair, witty and innovative is, frankly, phenomenal. That among the 2,500 were a healthy number of ‘specials’ requiring considerable additional setting effort is the icing on a huge and truly scrumptious cake.

    Full marks to Azed for eschewing here a theme based around MMD. Beyond that, I’m afraid that I thought this puzzle was, as they say, something of a damp squid. The ‘helpful hints’ suggested that there was some greater significance to the first half of an entry, when in fact the solving process was perfectly symmetrical – 36 words, each split in half, and each defined in the two places where its halves appeared; solving a clue opened up two chains for the solver, based on linking the definitions of each of the two hybridized words. As for the clues, the ‘two definitions + (necessarily) relatively simple wordplay’ structure just doesn’t lend itself to entertaining clueing. I hoped that some sort of message would be revealed by the final marriage, but unless I’ve missed something it wasn’t. An individual puzzle that will not linger long in my memory, but you need to have the odd disappointing meal to truly appreciate the good ones – this was an opportunity to reflect on the achievements of the master chef and the joy which his creations have brought.

  11. It’s something of a relief to discover that my completed grid is the same as yours, PeeDee, and a greater one that it wasn’t my turn to blog the puzzle this week!  I’m another who wasn’t particularly assisted by the recommended method of solving, although the basic structure seemed clear enough from the preamble.  Quite why the last sentence of the preamble was in bold (or even included at all) seems a mystery.

    I think you’re right about TRIN, although perhaps Azed was confused (as I was) by the fact that both TRIN and TRINE can mean a triplet.

  12. Many thanks to Azed for the countless hours of pleasure and congratulations on another milestone.

    After the initial period of struggling to engage with the format I found this pretty tractable.  Once the clues became familiar the double definitions helped a lot with splitting the clues up.  Only one point I didn’t understand: the bold part of the instructions that says two letter pairs forming the second halves of entries are shared.  There are letter pairs forming both the first half and second half of solutions that are shared, so presumably the instructions mean something else.  Is it that there is not a unique letter pair in the grid for every second half of every four letter solution?  I am afraid I did not fully cross-reference all the solutions after completing the grid, but maybe someone more diligent than me did so and spotted the duplication.

    Thanks also to PeeDee

  13. A delight to lose oneself in at these dark times. Thanks to Azed and congratulations on his staying power. So sad the celebrations had to be postponed.

    Thanks too to PeeDee for clear layout of the complex ideas,

    The cycles created by following the first parts were interesting. The 12-letter, 10-letter and 8-letter words each formed a complete cycle of four. Of the 8 6-letter words six formed a cycle and the other two DUENNA/TRIVET were a pair.

    The sixteen 4-letter words took a while to solve, consisting of one twelve word cycle and two pairs RENG/RAGA and AGIN/ARIS

    I just don’t know how he does it!

  14. James – as it was my turn do blog I did cross-reference all the entries.  A lot of highlighter ink got used up there!  I don’t think I would have bothered if I were just solving.

    I think “less is more” would have been a good maxim for setting these instructions.  That some letter-pairs were repeated did not change the final grid.  Trying to explain the existence of something that didn’t matter did not make the process any clearer.

  16. It looks like this was a ‘Marmite’ puzzle – you either like it or not.

    Just to clarify my earlier post – I got stymied in assuming that the swopped halves were symmetrical in the grid.

  17. I realised  very early that I would not be able to solve this. For those of us approaching senility short-term memory is an issue. I simply could not keep the instructions in mind long enough, .

  18. Bob, I too had terrible issues remembering what went where and if I had already entered it – a real brain pain. With 4 left to crack I got the ‘scots line’ clue = ling and then all the rest fell in place as the only way to put the letters.

    After solving, a bit of back engineering was involved to try to ensure I got it right.

    Also nobody’s mentioned the letters to clue…

    …then gran pees all over the shop…

  19. I enjoyed the marmite. Congratulations to AZED.

    Unlike others, I found the four letter answers the most difficult to deal with and check.

    I had little difficulty with any of the longer answers and had got all these in correctly before concentrating on the fours.

    Like Keith (#13) I looked for cycles in the words of four letters –

    but I found

    One 2 word cycle ARIS/AGIN

    One 3 word cycle LINK/RANG/GUGA

    One 11 word cycle REKE/PEBA/TODY/GHEE/REDO/RAGA/LING/RAYS/PEBO/LURE/PUNA

    Each entry was a mix of words from only one cycle.

  20. Typo: LINK should have been LIRK.

    Entries are mixtures of ADJACENT words in each cycle.

    and they are CYCLES: REKE would come beyond PUNA etc

     

  21. re @19/@20

    Not my day

    Yet another typo found

    One 2 word cycle ARIS/AGIN

    One 3 word cycle LIRK/RANG/GUGA

    One 11 word cycle REKE/PEBA/TODY/GHEE/REDO/RAGA/LING/RAYS/PEPO/LURE/PUNA

     

  22. Thanks PeeDee.

    I went back and checked the four letter ones and got the same 3 cycles as Norman.  There is a separate pair of letters in the grid for each pair in every four letter solution, so really no idea what the instructions mean but as you say, no effect on the result or on solving the puzzle.

  23. Thanks to PeeDee and Azed

    There were letter pairs missing from the on-line instructions until I clicked on “click here to access the print version”. I don’t know how long these typos persisted (they’re not there now), but they made me think “this is going to be a pig, put the kettle on and take the phone off the hook”.

    Unfortunately the challenge wasn’t quite what I had hoped for but it was still different and enjoyable.

    After 11a I was waiting for “trivet” to appear and when it did I assumed that “tri” could mean “threefold”, and that “ann” might be an archaic form of “one”, and didn’t bother to check.

    My only real gripe was with the use of “called” to define “rang” twice.

    I took the “two letter-pairs ….” to refer to 3d & 6d, and 25a & 29d

    I didn’t read beyond ” Method recommended”, if I had the puzzle would have been more difficult.

     

  24. The double use of ‘called’ that Dansar refers to was fine with me, especially considering Azed’s ingenuity in finding different definitions for the same word in all other clues. It didn’t jump out at me when I was solving, anyway.

    It also gave an excuse for a struggling nit like me to use Azed’s ‘catch’ again in his clue for Espagnthener, although that may well be bad form. (I wonder when my brain will consign Espagnthener to oblivion. I still haven’t forgotten Sowpiastreens!)

    A virtual hearty handclasp to Azed for passing another impressive milestone, and thanks for all the fun.

     

  25. Unlike most here, apart from my namesake Norman, I left the 4-lettered ones to the end. I started on the 10’s because they were overlapping then the 8’s, the 12’s, and the 6’s. The 4’s proved to be the most difficult, mainly because of the preamble in bold. I had RAGA and REGA for the 2nd half pairs, but thought the preamble was suggesting there were no other pairs, and I had LI, RE, and RA all as 1st half pairs. Then I was toying with LING and RANG, more 2nd half pairs.
    I felt the recommended method of solving was totally unnecessary.
    Having moaned enough, I must now say I enjoyed solving the puzzle, and I did complete it successfully. Thanks to PeeDee and congratulations to Azed on reaching this milestone. I can still remember doing No. 300, chilli con carne.

  26. I think a dose of senility, present or imminent, nitwittery also, may really be requirements to solve puzzles like this. Sensible (boring) people would not bother starting.

    The responses here are clear: there are people in the world important to us: we have ours—the Donald Trumps and Boris Johnsons may have their news bulletins six days a week but we live for Sunday morning!

    I have never dined on guga but I have had its “cousin” yolla. The yolla is taken from the nest, posing risk to apprentice catchers, because it is by no means “wee”: it is very large indeed. If it’s not to your taste, you will struggle to eat a whole one (as I did). Do we have someone who can indicate the size of a guga?—Is it truly “little, tiny”?

    Stefan

  27. A guga is certainly little in comparison to its parents – “ma wee granny” or “ma wee nephew” are similar indications of relative smallness.

  28. Well I thought this was marvellous. The instructions were (as is often the case) a bit hard to follow but solving a couple of the 4-letter clues got me on the right track and I took it from there. I wouldn’t want (or have time for!) puzzles like this every week but once in a while they’re a bit of a treat. And what a phenomenal milestone.

  29. We don’t normally tackle Azed puzzles but saw the title when we visited the site and decided to give it a go.

    We are pleased that we did – it took quite a few sittings over coffee, lunch and tea but thought the construction was very interesting. We’ve not seen anything like it before.

    Thanks to S&B.

  30. Thanks Norman for putting me right on the 4-letter cycles. It was of course an 11 and a 3. I suspect a warning about the NGs was te purpose of Azed’s final note. My diagram was correct and the LING/RANG/GUGA sequence in my notes. I did blog last week that the 4’s looked a strain. Thought 2501 wa a nice come-down.

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