Azed No. 2,584 ‘Christmas Cut & Paste’ – Competition Puzzle

17 comments on “Azed No. 2,584 ‘Christmas Cut & Paste’ – Competition Puzzle”

1. Found this far from ‘business as usual’ and made a lot of botches on the way. I remember pencilling in Hero for 32d, thinking Ro seemed reasonable for Room, but fortunately caught it on my second run-through.
   A very clever and entertaining idea for a Special though. Is it something Azed invented?

2. HERM is perhaps a more precise answer for that clue, but I am not persuaded that HERO should actually be considered wrong. Maybe “a bit of room” instead of “little room” would more conventionally produce HERO, but that is a close call for me.

3. Initially daunting but remarkably straightforward in the end with only a few unknown words.

   Tinnie raised a smile but herm vs hero is, I agree, ambiguously clued.

   Thanks Azed and PeeDee.

4. Well, I apologise. First to Azed and then to Azed’s followers, of whom I’m one.

   I found this boring.

   We don’t expect Azed to glitter week in, week out but this was not difficult. Some very fair clueing led to CHRISTMAS CARD and CHRISTMAS TIDE. ARMALITE and other clues leapt off the page. I had a couple of downs from 1 Ac. AEROLITH and DEPLETE. So GIFTWRAPPED was looking good. What’s all this “verb form, to be deduced”? Is Azed trying to lead us astray.—And not very well?

   I tinkered for half an hour, generated no enthusiasm, and set the thing aside. I came back and tinkered a couple more times and, the next thing. I know, it’s done.

   No sense of satisfaction at all. No challenge. What’s “Cut and Paste” got to do with Christmas anyway?

   Stefan

5. Thanks Azed and PeeDee. Unlike Marmite Smuggler, I enjoyed this – probably because it was easy! And I enjoyed the cut and paste aspect of it too. I did give myself some problems by thinking the “growing medium” must be COIR (there is an RCO orchestra, I looked it up) which meant I couldn’t work out for ages why SEITEN wouldn’t fit… (I’m more familiar with the spelling SEITAN, which didn’t help.)

   MS, presumably “verb form” was specified because the noun form with an R on the end also fits (although I treated it as an adjective for my competition entry – which I didn’t get round to sending off).

6. Another one with HERO instead of HERM which is disappointing for me. Favourite was TINNIE although it’s becoming a bit obsolete these days here in Oz.

7. I started this on Sunday, full of enthusiasm, but got very little done. Not helped by cutting and pasting 36ac at the wrong place. After a couple of more days without getting much else, I gave up.

8. Stefan@4: As I recall, last year’s gimmick involved multiple nonwords constructed from random obscure tree names plus random obscure synonyms for “present,” indicated by very abstruse clues, a task which I found frustrating and unsolvable. Reviewing the blog on that grinchy puzzle, I had the demoralizing feeling that I would never have completed it without improbable brainstorms, no matter how much time and eggnog I might have allowed myself to ponder over it, although there were predictably comments extolling how fun and easy that one was. (If you say so.) HERM/HERO aside, I found this year’s offering challenging but at least solvable, with a reliable structure that did not demand inspired guesses. Plus, I think this year’s would have been fiendishly difficult to set, what with all of the answers but one being nonwords.

9. I thought it was going to be harder than it proved. Most went in fairly easily, but I struggled with 35ac (I knew it would be a psalm -E-I-E with the I then replaced by S, but VENITE was a long time coming!) and 22dn, as I was convinced it must contain an anagram of something (“working”). Re HERM/HERO – not sure that HERO fits the definition of “Greek bust” (though I’m sure there were busts of heroes).

10. Thanks Azed and PeeDee.

    Following earlier comments, Azed’s Christmas specials seem to vary between really complicated ones and ones that are close in difficulty to plain puzzles. I have enough other interests in my life that I prefer the simpler ones, and was glad to finish this within the same time frame as I take for a plain puzzle. It followed on nicely from the Letters Latent a few weeks back. I greatly prefer the approach that Azed has continued from Ximenes (and, doubtless, others) that the subsidiary indication gives the mutilated word for the grid entry. I have no quarrel with those who prefer the alternative, but this preference is sufficiently covered by others and the world of crosswords is big enough to accommodate both styles.

    32dn: Azed has a good track record of considering answers that were not his intentions as acceptable for entry to the clue writing competition. Setting myself up for a fall, I suspect that in this case he will decide that “little” requires a recognised abbreviation rather than a simple shortening of the word. Had he written “reduced”, the argument for allowing HERO changed to EROH would (I think) be stronger.

    It looks as though no one was caught out by the technical error in the rubric, which I think Azed should have started with “Every unmutilated entry”. Following a recent discussion, note the difference between this and the standard rubric, which merely recommends Chambers, and thus allows well known proper names to be used without needing special mention.

11. Further to comment 10 re 32dn, I should have noted that a similar remark was made by Cineraria in comment 2.

12. I’m quite unconvinced by the hero-worshippers. Azed would never have had such a loose definition as Greek bust = hero; nor would he have equated little room to ro.

    Most of these fitted in quite nicely, but when it was a full anagram one could trip up: I did at first with the long across clue at the bottom because ST appears twice in the answer and I didn’t notice that.

13. I agree with Munro @9 that the clue for HERM/HERO wasn’t ambiguous at all, just a trap for the unwary. I know I was doubtful about the definition when I pencilled Hero in which is why I came back to it and confirmed that Ro in Chambers wasn’t Room and amended my answer.
    A bit embarrassing that I hadn’t heard of Herm as a bust/statue, but we live and learn. [I also learned through Google Images about a common feature of the pillars on which the busts rest, which people apparently stroked for luck!]

14. I too initially wrote HERO in the blog for 32dn, but I was very unhappy about it. I think I added a “can anyone do better” comment or some such. Fortuitously I happened to stumble across the word HERM in a completely different context a few days later, so I had a chance to update the blog before it went live.

15. Happy New Year
    I thought this was less difficult than some past Christmas specials. 1 across and 1 down were both quickies and thereafter it was surprisingly smooth going. HERM seemed obvious but perhaps not so if you’ve never been to Greece- every site is spattered with them, sometimes X-certificate.
    Thanks to Azed and PeeDee

16. The above sounds a bit condescending but I now recall being stuck in the NE corner by OSSIA and SEITEN, the shorter words are usually sticking-points in these.

17. It took me four hours to complete. I thought it rather easy compared to the usual Xmas fare. Having Christmastide and Christmascard as answers is not very imaginitive.

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