Azed No. 2,646 ‘Cherchez la Femme’ – Competition Puzzle

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This is the first ‘Cherchez la Femme’ since Azed 2,515 on August 22, 2020, which was one of the first few Azed puzzles that I ever attempted, and the first Azed “special” that I completed, so it is a particular treat for this to have come up on my turn at the blog.

The special instructions read:

All clues are normal. At eleven intersections (squares at which across and down answers meet or cross each other) it will be found that the relevant letters of the two answers do not tally. In each case solvers should enter the letter midway between the two non-matching letters alphabetically (treating the alphabet as cyclical), the two answers affected becoming non-words. The letter entered may be up to six letters away from the non-matching letters in each case, e.g. X might represent W/Y, V/Z, U/A, T/B, S/C, or R/D.

The eleven letters thus entered, read row by row from top to bottom of the diagram, form the surname of a famous female. No across or down word is affected more than once, and the replaced letters may occur in either order.

The non-matching pairs (across/down) and their corresponding midway letters are, in order of appearance in the grid:

M/O  =>  N

L/F    =>  I

I/E    =>  G

K/E   =>  H

S/U   =>  T

E/M  =>  I

L/P   =>  N

J/D   =>  G

Y/C   =>  A

I/O   =>  L

I/A   =>  E

Referring, of course, to Florence Nightingale, (May 12, 1820 – August 13, 1910), most famous today for introducing reforms providing the foundation of the modern profession of nursing.

Solving notes:

The tricky part of this puzzle lies in the fact that apparent crossers may be unreliable for helping solve crossing clues, until they can be either locked in as “normal” or identified as being part of a non-matching pair. One big help is the instruction that “[n]o across or down word is affected more than once,” so that once a non-matching pair is identified in a word, all the remaining letters must be reliable parts of any crossing clues. The fact that the two twelve-letter solutions on the far right and far left columns each contained part of a non-matching pair helped considerably in this respect. Guessing the famous female surname early on helped me reverse-engineer some answers. If I knew the midway letter had to be “G,” for example, and if I had “D” as one of the non-matching pair, then the other part of the pair had to be “J.” (I mistakenly thought at first that only one non-matching pair could appear on a single row or column, and fortunately, I happened to intuit the theme surname from _ I _ _ _ I N _ A _ E, which was based on my faulty reading of the instructions. I might still be working on the solution if I had not guessed the theme word, in spite of my mistake.) The non-matching letters can be, at most, eleven letters apart, so that the midway letter is uniquely identifiable, once the non-matching pair is ascertained. Also, as a consequence, some letters cannot be part of a non-matching pair for some midway letters. For example, if the midway letter must be “L,” then “T” cannot be part of the corresponding non-matching pair; only letters in the sequence “F” through “R” will work. This helped identify which letters might be part of a non-matching pair. This reasoning helped me work backwards to SUJEE and ORVIETAN, for instance, both of which required a dictionary-bash in Chambers for me to confirm. Finally, as I identified various non-matching pairs, I could surmise that none of the letters in the grid between successive non-matching pairs (reading left-to-right and top-to-bottom) could be part of a non-matching pair.

picture of the completed grid

Letters in non-matching pairs are marked below in FUCHSIA.

ACROSS
1 CHAMISE
Californian shrub maiden made room for in travelling carriage (7)
M (maiden) inside (made room for in) CHAISE (travelling carriage)
6 VELAR
Special letter included with travel arrangements (5)
Hidden in (included with) [TRA]VEL AR[RRANGEMENTS]
12 THEATINE
RC brother making point about passion (8)
TINE (point) around (about) HEAT (passion)
13 TWICHILD
One in second youth rediscovered wild itch (8)
Anagram of (rediscovered) WILD ITCH
14 AT-BAT
Player’s turn to face pitch getting a touch, bowled inside (5)
B (bowled) inside (inside) A TAT (touch)
15 EGRET
Ornamental plume? Lament when front falls off (5)
[R]EGRET (lament minus first letter [“when front falls off”])
16 CORNCAKE
Maize patty rail spits right out (8)
CORNC[R]AKE (rail [i.e., bird] minus [“spits . . . out”] “R” [right])
18 SITAR
Instrument, one held by outstanding performer (5)
I (one) inside (held by) STAR (outstanding performer)
20 TORANS
One of changed gender admits love for garlands (6)
TRANS (one of changed gender) around (admits) O (love)
21 RADOME
Covering for 9 ma rode frantically (6)
Anagram of (frantically) MA RODE, referring to the solution of 9D, i.e.,”antenna”
23 TREMA
Mater looking silly in dotty ‘hat’ (5)
Anagram of (looking silly) MATER, cryptic definition
24 MAIOLICA
Mum bottles mayonnaise, cold, in pottery (8)
MA (mum) around (bottles) [AIOLI (mayonnaise) + C (cold)]
27 SUJEE
What’ll clean the decks? Apply for round nozzle, saving time (5)
SUE (apply for) around (round) JE[T] (nozzle) minus “T” (“saving time”)
29 POSIT
What’s assumed to be valid? It’s introduced by chambers (5)
POS (chambers) + IT, with “is introduced by” indicating the order of the wordplay
30 BAYADÈRE
Dancing girl, naked, enthralling a dey, excited (8)
BARE (naked) around (enthralling) anagram of (excited) A DEY
31 ORVIETAN
Antitoxin possibly or antivenom, name lost (8)
Anagram of (possibly) OR ANTIVE[NOM] minus “NOM” (“name lost”)
32 CAECA
‘Blind’ pouches, each taken into account in turn (5)
EA (each) inside (taken into) ACC (account) all reversed (in turn)
33 ELZEVIR
Special type in reel, viz dancing (7)
Anagram of (dancing) REEL VIZ
DOWN
1 CATACHRESTIC
Cites character without hesitation wrongly showing misuse of word (12)
Anagram of (wrongly) CITES CHARACT[ER] minus (without) “ER” (“hesitation”)
2 HOW-TO
Pair up in moderation, describing handbook? (5)
TWO (pair) inverted (up) inside (in) HO (moderation)
3 OSCAN
This is a kind of Indo-European – do please read carefully (5)
O! SCAN! (do please read carefully, rendered as an apostrophe)
4 SHIKAR
Sport lifted spirits, hearts included (6)
H (hearts) inside (included) RAKIS (spirits) inverted (lifted)
5 EELSET
It traps river fish, lines aloft in flowing Tees (6)
EL (lines aloft, i.e., elevated railway) inside (in) anagram of (flowing) TEES
7 ÉTAGÈRE
Before those paying to attend turned up, stand required (7)
ERE (before) + GATE (those paying to attend) all inverted (turned up)
8 FIAR
Brother, not second, no life-renter in Scotland (4)
F[R]IAR (brother, minus second letter [“not second”])
9 ANTENNA
Number taken in by tragic heroine, a dish? (7)
TEN (number) inside (taken in by) ANNA (tragic heroine, presumably referring to Anna Karenina)
10 RESTAURATEUR
Patron, somehow truest re retaining distinctive character (12)
Anagram of (somehow) TRUEST RE around (retaining) AURA (distinctive character)
11 DÉBRIDE
Remove infected matter from scoff at catching bass (7)
DERIDE (scoff at) around (catching) B (bass)
17 SAMISEN
A stake placed inside tin may be plucked (7)
A MISE (stake) inside (placed inside) SN (tin)
18 SABURRA
Granular deposit – it encases a sweetbread (7)
SA (it) around (encases) A BURR (sweetbread)
19 TOTEMIC
Child trained mice worthy of veneration (7)
TOT (child) + anagram of (trained) MICE
22 MALATE
Wife maybe coating centre of flan in salt (6)
MATE (wife maybe) around (coating) [F]LA[N] (middle letters [“centre”] of flan)
23 TINCAL
Crude mineral, favoured when included in powdered talc (6)
IN (favoured) inside (when included in) anagram of (powdered) TALC
25 PODGE
Fatty school gets reduced by 50% (5)
POD (school) + GE[TS] (“reduced by 50%”)
26 CIRCA
A spasm turning up endlessly and roughly (5)
A CRIC[K] (spasm . . . “endlessly”) all reversed (turning up)
28 DOVE
Pacific type took the plunge across the Atlantic (4)
Double definition

14 comments on “Azed No. 2,646 ‘Cherchez la Femme’ – Competition Puzzle”

  1. Thanks Cineraria. Like you I assumed that ‘read row by row’ implied no more than one misprint per row, and was left scratching my head where the first I in NIGHTINGALE could be in row two when the grid was nearly full. Once I abandonec that assumption it all came good.
    I took the cryptic reading of OSCAN to be ‘zero scan’ to imply careful scrutiny.
    All good fun, thanks as ever to Azed.

  2. Thanks Azed and Cineraria

    31ac and 1dn: We had some discussion in the blog for Azed 2640 about this type of subtractive anagram, which had occurred in a competition clue marked VHC by Azed. A point I could have made on that occasion, and which applies to both of these clues, is as follows. What has to be subtracted is defined rather than stated directly, but the letters forming the anagram appear explicitly and consecutively in the clue, starting at the beginning of a word. I would add that doing this twice in the same puzzle gives the solver two chances to work out what Azed is doing: having worked out the mechanism in one of the clues, the solver can apply it to the other.

    3dn: I took this the same way as Cineraria, with the “O” indicating an exhortation.

  4. Thanks, Cineraria. I was puzzled by the definition of VELAR as “special letter”. I see from Chambers that it can be a noun as well as an adjective, and in that sense can be defined as a “velar consonant” (i.e. a consonant produced in a particular way): but isn’t “special “ doing a lot of heavy lifting here?

  5. Bridgesong: I agree that the definition of VELAR is a bit dodgy. It’s a kind of consonant, but as a sound (or more precisely a type of articulation) rather than as a letter. I’ll be interested to see if this gets mentioned in the Slip.

    I see that Velar is also a type of Range Rover – not sure what they were smoking when they came up with that name…

  6. In 31ac, ‘possibly’ seems to be doing double duty: indicating the anagram in the wordplay, but also part of the definition, since Chambers defines ORVIETAN as a “supposed” antidote to poison. My C98 doesn’t have AT-BAT and Wikipedia gives it as two words – but perhaps the latest Chambers has the hyphenated form?

  7. bridgesong@4, re: VELAR: Yes, but charitably, perhaps, “brevity is the soul of wit”? At least the clue (plus my smattering of linguistics) got me unambiguously to the solution.

  8. MM@6: Chambers (13th) gives “at-bat” (hyphenated) under “at.”

    I agree about “possibly,” but wrote up the solution that way to avoid the ambiguity.

  9. Thanks, Cineraria. My comment about ‘possibly’ wasn’t about the blog (for which, many thanks), but about the clue.

  10. Hello all!
    Thanks to Azed and to Cineraria for the thorough multi-coloured blog.
    I’ve always enjoyed the specials for forcing my ageing brain to readjust and this was a treat. I did it on the day thanks to finding the N very early and immediately thinking of NIGHTINGALE. For PETRONELLA the last Femme to be Cherchez-ed it was a lot more recherche (how do I do accents?)
    Writing a clue was a different matter- all the definitions were too obvious. Shall be interested to see how the stars manage.

  11. A relatively approachable “special” for the reasons so clearly explained by Cineraria, and mostly friendly clueing, though like Gonzo@1 I was struggling to find a correction to I in THEATINE.
    [PelhamBarton@2, as the initiator of the Azed2640 discussion, I have to confess that the instances here passed me by with eyebrows unraised. Hadn’t seen Azed do this before, but this confirms its Ximenean credentials, so a device to expect in future.]

  12. Thanks for the blog,I never send my grid in for the clue-writing so I basically ignored the theme and just entered my answers . When letter clashes turned up I sorted them out, did not mind my grid getting scruffy. I wonder if Azed makes the clues easier when it is a special puzzle ? TWICHILD is a lovely word, SUJEE has turned up a few times in Azed .

  13. I submitted an entry, but how do I find out its fate? Was I highly commended, or just another wannabe? Is there any way to find out, apart from shelling out £16 for the Azed slip subscription?

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