A very straightforward plain Azed this week, after the previous week’s Carte Blanche.
A puzzle whose references span from Greek mythology to Radio 4. As always, I learned something from my explorations into the depths of Chambers.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | STAGE WHISPER | Part of journey by ship leaderless crew ruined – most of us are meant to hear this (12, 2 words) |
| STAGE *(SHIP (c)REW). | ||
| 9 | PAPISHER | Devotee of Rome rudely person holds silly (8) |
| APISH (silly) inside PER(son). | ||
| 12 | AROMA | ‘Car club accepts caravanner,’ one’s noticed with a sniff (5) |
| ROM (a Gypsy, hence a caravanner) inside AA. | ||
| 13 | DONSIE | Luckless Scot that is having to trail behind college staff (6) |
| DONS (college staff) I.E. | ||
| 14 | DOUCHE | Monkey, male, gives you a squirt (6) |
| DOUC (a variegated monkey from SE Asia) HE. | ||
| 15 | UNTOLD | Without number one receding group died (6) |
| UN, LOT (rev) D. | ||
| 16 | TROD | Path no longer in use, ivy bush enveloping centre of spurway (4) |
| (spu)R(way) in TOD (a bush, especially ivy). It’s an obsolete term for a path. | ||
| 20 | CANAL | Last bit of humour drained from bodily duct (5) |
| CA(r)NAL. Arguably, a canal is only a duct in a biological sense, so “bodily” could also form part of the definition. | ||
| 22 | LEMMATA | Themes in novel, first of them set in Louisiana (7) |
| EMMA (novel by Jane Austen), T(hem) all inside LA (Louisiana), | ||
| 23 | ELECTED | Voted in strike, and other things included, all retrograde (7) |
| ETC in DELE (strike) (all rev). | ||
| 24 | JULEP | Lacking ice, a fruit drink to skip? (5) |
| JU(ice) LEP (leap or skip). Ice is a key ingredient of this American drink. | ||
| 26 | SIND | Have a rinse up north in basin with 14 (4) |
| I think this parses as “baSIN Douche”: a sort of hidden clue by inference. | ||
| 28 | BESEEN | Better rooms round bishop’s place, furnished in the old style (6) |
| SEE (bishop’s place) inside BEN (a Scottish term for the inner or better rooms). | ||
| 30 | TIDIES | Desk ‘furniture’ I had wrapped in ribbons (6) |
| ID (I had) in TIES. | ||
| 31 | ENWRAP | Pen empty, half ewes, half rams, wandering fold (6) |
| *(P(e)N, EW(es), RA(ms)). | ||
| 32 | DANAE | Much-abused princess, one appearing in Hamlet? (5) |
| A (one) in Dane (Hamlet). The daughter of King Acrisius in Greek mythology. | ||
| 33 | SPRANGLE | Glitter surrounding Republican presenting struggle for Trump (8) |
| R(epublican) in SPANGLE. It’s an American term which can mean to struggle. | ||
| 34 | PEN-FEATHERED | Head and tail of porcupine: fear the end after playing around with quills (12) |
| P(orcupin)E, *(FEAR THE END). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SPADICES | Floral spikes grooms fixed round soft saddle (8) |
| PAD (soft saddle) inside SICES (grooms). | ||
| 2 | TAROK | Alternative to crystal ball? Rating: satisfactory (5) |
| TAR (sailor, or rating) OK. It’s a less familiar version of Tarot. | ||
| 3 | GIMCRACKERY | Tawdry MG car Ricky scrapped around life’s end (11) |
| E in *(MG CAR RICKY). I didn’t know that “tawdry” could also be a noun, but it’s there in Chambers. | ||
| 4 | WHEEDLER | Cyclist round Germany? One employs cogs regularly (8) |
| D (Deutschland, or Germany) inside WHEELER (cyclist). “Cog” can mean deception. | ||
| 5 | IRONS | Actor offering help for those finding movement difficult (5) |
| Double definition; referring to the actor Jeremy Irons. | ||
| 6 | PESO | Coin, part of nose-piece that’s turned up (4) |
| Hidden and reversed in “nose-piece”. | ||
| 7 | EPILATE | Poll, one notoriously washing hands after minimum of exposure (7) |
| E(xposure) (Pontius) PILATE. | ||
| 8 | RUED | Changed one’s mind? Rough, by the sound of it (4) |
| Sounds like “rude”. | ||
| 10 | POUT NET | Setting out to punt round Tweed’s mid point, here’s some fishing tackle (7, 2 words) |
| *(TO PUNT) round (Tw)E(ed). | ||
| 11 | ANTEMUNDANE | Queen comprehends what’s untamed in chaos, predating our planet (11) |
| *(UNTAMED) in (Queen) ANNE. | ||
| 17 | REDSTART | Bird from street protected by shopkeeper, given lift (8) |
| ST(reet) in TRADER (rev). | ||
| 18 | BALDING | One known for rambling with less and less on top (7) |
| Double definition: Clare Balding is an English broadcaster, who presents a programme called Ramblings on BBC Radio 4. | ||
| 19 | RAPESEED | Yield from cash crop takes off in the grass (8) |
| APES (mimics, or takes off) inside REED. | ||
| 21 | AL DENTE | Heat and leave simmering? Have a ——, not overcooked (7, 2 words) |
| Compound anagram: remove the letters HAVE A from HEAT AND LEAVE and rearrange for the solution. | ||
| 25 | MEASE | Five hundreds? Twice that, with rest to follow (5) |
| M (a thousand), EASE (rest). A mease is a measure of five “hundreds” of herring. | ||
| 27 | VEALE | Historical wimple come to light, without red binding (5) |
| (re)VEALE(d). A Spenserian form of “veil”. | ||
| 28 | BEEP | Sound of horn number one one tone above tuning note, rising (4) |
| PEE (number one – childish term for urination); B (note above A, traditionally used for tuning an orchestra) (all rev). | ||
| 29 | SWAN | Trumpeter maybe showing off when king’s gone (4) |
| SWAN(k). | ||
Thanks, Azed and Bridgesong. After moaning about how impossibly hard I had found the previous week’s puzzle, I was surprised to finish this one in one sitting, albeit with a few question marks on the parsing. For 33A: If SPRANGLE is an American term, I have never heard it. I did find it in my Scottish dictionary,though.
Also, I parsed 24A slightly differently, as “juice leap lacking ice a.”
Yes, a pleasingly easier one.
But you are right, bridgesong, how much poorer would our lives be if we didn’t learn something from Chambers, and Azed, every Sunday?
Stefan
Cineraria: Chambers labels SPRANGLE as “now US and dialect”, which was the basis for my comment and presumably also for Azed’s reference to Trump. However the OED gives a slightly more nuanced picture. For the sense of “struggle” (or sprawl) the examples cited in the OED (of which there are only three) are either Chaucerian or Scottish, the most recent being dated 1825. For the related sense “to straggle; to spread out the limbs” the three examples include just one American one, from 1896: “The Mississippi sprangles as it nears the Gulf”. Makes you wonder what the word is doing in Chambers at all.
No memories of doing this. There were a couple which I couldn’t parse so thanks for all the explanations. 24ac I couldn’t see what the definition was but I see it could be considered an & lit. 18dn I did wonder if it was some reference to Clare Balding but I didn’t know about Ramblings. Maybe I should have googled her.
Many thanks to both for the usual dictionary tour. I parsed JULEP the same way as Cineraria@2 but I could not really see a definition for it. That had to be the answer but I am unhappy with the clue. With an AZED puzzle there is usually no doubt when you get there but something seems missing here.