Azed 1973

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For me, this was very much at the easy end of the Azed spectrum, though I needed a dictionary to check a few words. No special favourite clue this week, though there are several I like.

Time to go and get some gardening done…

Across
1 SCOTCH DRAPER SCOTCH = put an end to; *(pedar), i.e. pedlar without L for ‘line’. An itinerant dealer differing from a pedlar in not carrying his goods about with him; a credit itinerant draper.
10 BOZO BOO = show contempt for; Z = last, literally
11 COMP First letters of ‘clues obviously meriting prizes’, as do the winners in the regular Azed competition.
13 VILLAGIO VILLA = holiday home; GIO = creek. Shakespearean spelling of viliaco, a coward. Cowards are sometimes said to be yellow-bellied, (as are people, like me, from Lincolnshire), but I can’t find (on very cursory searching) any reference to them being painted yellow.
14 CUESTA *(S acute). Especially in SW US, a hill ridge having a steep scarp on one side and a gradual slope on the other, caused by denudation of gently dipping hard rock strata.
15 MOANED MO = doctor; A = appendix initially; NED = Edmund
18 CALOTTE A LOT = plenty; in CTE = etc, backwards. A skullcap worn by students at catholic universities in Belgium.
19 STURT ‘Tuts’ reversed; R = king.
20 RIVALS R = run; IS; VAL, referring to Val Gielgud, brother of Sir John.
22 LOGGIA OGGI = Italian for ‘today’; in LA. A covered open arcade.
23 TENET Hidden in ‘elaborate netting’, whether read backwards or forwards. Latin for ‘he/she/it holds’, any opinion, principle or doctrine which a person holds or maintains as true.
24 ISOSPIN I; SOS = appeal for help; PIN = personal identification number. In particle physics, a quantum number applied to members of closely related groups of particles to express and explain the theory that such particles (e.g. protons and neutrons) are in fact states of the same particle differing with regard to electric charge (also isotopic spin).
27 DUST-UP DU[o] = loveless couple; STUP[id].
29 TAHINI ‘HAT’ backwards; IN (verb) = to take in, to enclose; I. Sesame seed paste
31 LOLLIPOP PILL = lozenge; in POOL = reserve; all reversed.
32 REAP ‘Reappraise’ without ‘praise’
33 AXON A X = a cross; ON = beside. An axon is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron’s cell body or soma.
34 NEVERTHELESS *(seven L threes)
Down
2 COQUITO COO = “Crumbs!”; QUIT = desert. A Chilean palm (Jubaea spectabilis) with edible nuts. From the linked reference, it looks like it may be extinct.
3 TOISE IS; in TOE = kick. An old French lineal measure equivalent to 6.395 ft (very nearly 2 m).
4 COLT Double definition
5 HALACHA LAC (lakh) = In India and Pakistan, the number 100,000, especially in referring to rupees, an indefinitely vast number; in HA-HA, a ditch or vertical drop often containing a fence, e.g. between a garden and surrounding parkland, forming a barrier without interrupting the view.
6 DRAM Anagram of ‘Armenian dosh’ minus ‘In one has’. This is also an &lit, because ‘Armenian dosh’ is the definition — the standard monetary unit of Armenia (100 luma).
7 REGOLITH RE = the second note of the scale in sol-fa notation (also anglicized in spelling as ray); Goliath, minus A. A layer of loose, heterogeneous material covering solid rock.
8 POONTANG POON = Indian tree; TANG = pungent smell. The definition is ‘the other’, in the sense of sexual activity. I note that the second track on Ted Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever album is called ‘Wang Dang Sweet Poontang’. See also Snatch and the Poontangs.
9 EMMET *(met); ME = the fringes of Mount Hawke. An ant; in Cornwall, a tourist.
10 BACKSLIDER *(lacks bride)
12 PEDESTRIAN P-EDEN; STRIA = furrow
16 JUGOSLAV JUG = prison; OS = extra-large; LAV = facilities. Alternative spelling of Yugoslav.
17 STIPULAR *(arils put). Describing a stipule, a paired, usually leafy, appendage at a leaf base.
20 RUNTISH RUN = roll; *(this)
21 LEAN-TOS LEAN = spare; TOS = ‘sot’ reversed.
25 SUJEE JE = French for ‘I’; in SUE = court. Soogee, a solution of soap, soda, etc for cleaning the decks and paintwork of a ship.
26 SHOAL SAL = salt; HO = obsolete verb meaning ‘stop’.
28 PLAT PT = small port; LA = Louisiana.
30 APSE Hidden in ‘infinite space’ reversed. An apsis, in an orbit, the point of greatest or least distance from the central body.

3 comments on “Azed 1973”

  2. Thanks, Jetdoc. This wasn’t as fiendishly difficult as some, but again I messed up one of the easier clues — I had BOYO at 10ac even though I knew it wasn’t right.

  3. As others have said, nothing too taxing ere but plently to relish. Favourites were 34ac and 6dn, both very elegant I felt.

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