Azed No. 2,652 Plain

13 comments on “Azed No. 2,652 Plain”

1. I had the same question marks as you Cineraria; the ellipses in 17a, 20a which I think are just there for the surface reading, there not being an obvious anagram indicator in TRIREME and what the “from brood” in REPOSIT was doing.
   I also found “advanced instruction” a bit of a strange definition of Uni in ZUNI as I would have thought a Uni was the place rather than the instruction.
   I also wondered whether SEWN could be determined from the clue alone without the crossers.

2. Curiously, I found this one of the more tricky puzzles since I started Azed (about 10 weeks ago) and I came unstuck in the NE corner failing to parse 10d (&lit didn’t occur to me) and 14a (“alien corn”). Confidently writing in TERN for 12a also didn’t help (the other alternate letters), of course that didn’t explain “you probably won’t see” and I eventually realised my mistake.
   I also had ?’s next to “from brood” in 27a and 23a.
   Many thanks to Azed and Cineraria for the helpful blog.

3. Like Jay (@2), I too found this one trickier than most. I believe TERN is a valid answer to the HUIA clue, and I probably would have written that in if I hadn’t already got a crosser for it. I too had a few queries (as pointed out already), the main one being the apparent lack of an anagram indicator for TRIREME. Otherwise this was very much an Azed puzzle, and I enjoyed solving it. NEANDERTHALER coming early naturally helped with several other clues.

   Thanks to Azed and Cineraria.

4. Much as above. I thought 27ac was particularly strange: I’ve never seen the plural ‘poultries’ (and it’s not indicated in my Chambers); ‘pair inside’ is a very loose reference to UL; and ‘from brood’ – even with the question mark – has no explanation. As far as I can see, REPOSIT means to lay away in a similar sense to ‘put away’ – not actually away FROM something. Other than that, I had difficulty with 22dn and 29dn because I’d carelessly pencilled in RETINENT for 34ac (assuming it was linked in meaning to ‘retain’). Having finally reread the clue and noted ‘reverse’, I was able to finish the puzzle!

5. The only other problem with 12 across being Tern rather than HUIA Alan B @3 and Jay @2, is that the alternative letters of “the urinal” either give HUIA or TERNL and the latter doesn’t fit, although I admit I was seduced by Tern at the time. 🙂

6. I came to the conclusion that 27a was REPOSIT, but couldn’t make out how it could mean “lay away from brood”, – glad to find I’m not alone. Still don’t understand why POOP is information from the US: can someone explain?

7. Gladys @6, “poop” in this sense appears to derive from US military slang, a “poop sheet” being a brief containing the “latest information”.
   https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/04/pooped.html

8. gladys@6 and Jay@7: “Poop” does not seem to be as common these days, in that sense, but I am sure that I have heard it used in the phrase “the latest poop,” which is roughly equivalent to “the inside dope.” Jay’s citation is informative.

9. Tim C @5
   I thought, at the time, that ‘appearing regularly in the urinal’ allows us to take from the fodder as many letters appearing at equal intervals as we need, not necessarily all of them. TERN would then be valid, even if it is not the answer that fits. However, I realise this is unlikely to be acceptable to many of us here, and I have my own doubts about it now. (I have never actually encountered such latitude being taken with this kind of device.)

10. Thanks Jay and Cineraria.

11. Thanks for the blog, I had the same issues for the same clues , very unusual for Azed , I suspect that nobody dares to edit his work.
    I have four clues annotated with a question mark , adding STERNED to the list, the word play is fine but a very iffy definition.
    Gladys @6 good to see you persevering, not usually so many dodgy clues for Azed.

12. Roz@11 – I agree that the clues that you, Cineraria and others have noted are less rigorously constructed than usual, but Azed does have his own long-standing checker. I’d assumed that usually helped to achieve the lower error rate than we see the rest of the week.
    As well as the mysterious “brood”, 27A also has more possible constructions of the anagrind than is usual, even if we assume the pair is together. Everyone has their own idea of where the number of possibilities ceases to be acceptable, and calls it “indirect”. I was OK with this one.

13. Tim@12 , if Azed does have a checker they must have been asleep this week. Anyone who solves Azed regularly would find 3, maybe 4 , clues that need attention.

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