Azed 2650

12 comments on “Azed 2650”

1. Thanks, Andrew. I also initially had AMBUSCADE; ANTIPASTO also offered a similar trap – it would be easy to enter ANTIPASTI if you didn’t check the parsing.

2. A few of these were so “whimsical” that I did not get the joke, so had to rely on the definitions ro complete the grid without being able to parse, including UH-UH, PRESS OFFICE, and FADE-UP. It is fun to get the really farfetched ones when I can, and none of these is a “bad” clue, but it is less fun for me to fill in the spaces with guesses. Thanks for the clarifications.

3. Thanks for the blog, I had a good look for ambe with no success before checking and finding AMBUSCADO. UHUH is not in my Chambers93 but the word play was clear. FADEUP was a very clever clue.

4. Thanks Azed & Andrew.
   Sorry to see so few comments. I was busy in Holy Week so didn’t get round to entering a clue- shall be fascinated to see what the experts produced.
   I remember reading Somerset Maugham’s “Cakes and Ale” in my late teens- a first shot at a grown-up novel- so the competition word was one of my first entries. Knew AMBO from visits to Greek orthodox churches round the Mediterranean so 1 across was a write-in.
   We saw “Twelfth Night” (in French, needless to say) at the Comédie Française but can’t recall what Sir Toby said in that version. Almost certainly brioches (not gateaux) et ??

5. UH-UH isn’t in my C98 and nor is MORCHA (unless I missed it), but clear from the clue and crossing letters. For AMBUSCADO, I was initially thinking AM was the ‘American’ in the clue and was debating BUSE and BUSO, until I spotted AMBO. Bridgesong @1, wouldn’t ANTIPASTI be plural? Or were you thinking ‘appetizer’ could be taken as a collective noun?

6. Well, I had a completed grid for this but with a number of uncompleted parsings, including 11d “swindled twice out of depth” and 24d “a deux” both subtractions which I missed, but good to learn from. Got held up in 26d thinking “originally Roman” must point to R. Very much enjoyed though, thanks Azed and Andrew for the blog.

7. I love the way simple letters can nuance meaning and AZED has opened the many possibilties for us – well me at least.
   UH-UH meaning no (B-RB 16 and earlier back to L-RB 77) but UH-HUH meaning yes way back to my L-RB 77. Grateful as always for blog, reading comments and of course AZED.

8. MunroMaiden @5: yes it is a plural and yes “appetizer” could, just, be a collective noun, but really it was the fact that these Italian plural forms are often mistaken in English (E.g. “a panini, please”).

9. I must be getting accustomed to the standard and style of clueing in this series as I now pick up the crossword with every expectation of both enjoying and finishing it. This one, naturally, followed that pattern.

   The long answer PISSASPHALT took a while for me think of, work out and confirm, even though after pencilling in ASPHALT there was very little choice in how to arrange the other letters. Naturally, the word is derived from ‘pissa’ (pitch). That corner (the NW) was my last to complete.

   I liked the 4-way symmetry, which was not a feature of the three previous puzzles.

   Thanks to Azed and Andrew.

10. UH-UH is in my Chambers 2016 (Is that what you mean by B-RB 16 Tyro @7?) and not in Chambers 1983. It seems a bit weird to have two very similar sounding words, uh-huh and uh-uh, to mean the complete opposites of yes and no.
    I had what I thought was a moment of inspiration this time for the clue, which probably means that 50 other people had the same idea. 🙂

11. I agree Tim , always thought of uh-(h)uh with any spelling as yes, a-a (no idea how to spell it) as no. More important seems to be a nod or shake of the head as you say it.

12. Bridgesong @8 – thanks for the explanation. (Rereading my post now, it looks a bit sarky – it wasn’t meant that way!) I must admit, I’d never thought of ‘panini’ as being a plural (singular panino?), so I’ve learned something!

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