Azed No. 2,684 – Plain

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A 13 by 11 grid this week.

I did have a number of queries but managed to resolve most of them while writing the blog, just leaving a couple of clues where I have raised issues. As always, I look forward to being shown the error of my ways!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 GRASS STAGGERS
Males round Germany after greens getting bad indigestion (13, 2 words)
GRASS (greens), GER(many) inside STAGS (males). It’s an animal affliction, only listed in Chambers under its second component, something I’m surprised Azed didn’t mention.
10 ROSET
Fiddler’s stand-by found going off in store (5)
*STORE. It’s a Scottish variant of rosin.
12 CARNET
Speed trap, one assumes, offering a bunch of tickets (6)
A simple charade of CAR NET.
13 OUTGOER
Poet’s finished after gout spread – he’ll reach the end (7)
*GOUT, O’ER.
14 ECCO
Bagging hundreds in gambling game, see (4)
CC (hundreds) in EO (an old gambling game).
16 CRUBEEN
Trotter, crude fellow occupying centre of scene (7)
RUBE (North American term for a country bumpkin, hence “crude fellow”) inside (s)CEN(e), I was also surprised to see no indication of the American usage.
17 WELLIE
Boot that is put on easily (6)
WELL (easily) I E (that is).
18 HAME
Part of collar? Pity front’s dropped off (4)
(s)HAME.
19 SPIDER SPANNER
Versatile tool spread variously to open rotating display stand (13, 2 words)
*SPREAD inside SPINNER (rotating stand).
23 FRET
Ripple that’s turned land surface as of old (4)
TERF (rev). This sense of TERF is a Miltonian spelling of “turf”, nothing to do with the more recent acronym.
25 WRETCH
Scoundrel making woman throw up (6)
W(oman) RETCH.
28 ACARINA
Top-class star group earning ticks and suchlike (7)
A (top-class) CARINA (a constellation in the Southern hemisphere). I was very confused by “earning” but it seems just to be an unusual link word: had Azed used “producing” I probably wouldn’t have noticed it.
30 RITE
Run shortened newspaper piece revealing part of mystery? (4)
R(un) ITE(m).
31 VOUCHEE
One quoted as authority giving famous sign including old cameo (7)
OUCH (an archaic word for a brooch) inside VEE (famous sign).
32 ANANKE
Being gripped by pain as before granny must (6)
NAN (granny) in AKE (old spelling of “ache”). The word order in the clue strikes me as odd, and gives a surface reading that suggests that something has been left off the end.
33 TETRA
Replete trap may disgorge this tropical fish (5)
Hidden in “replete trap”.
34 HELTER-SKELTER
Heading from cover, kestrel flies in confusion (13)
(s)HELTER, *KESTREL.
DOWN
1 GROG
Finding one’s way without pin in brickie’s rubble (4)
GRO(pin)G.
2 ROUGE
Touchdown in Eton footie making one turn red in the face (5)
Double definition.
3 SEGOL
Boxes turned up language symbol (5)
LOGES (theatre boxes) (rev).
4 STOGIE
Cheap cigar – it goes when lit (6)
*(IT GOES).
5 TORCH-STAVES
Stove got going with charts, or old cresset-holders (11)
*(STOVE CHARTS).
6 GARUM
Sauce popular in Rome, grand when accompanied by a strong drink (5)
G A RUM.
7 ENCEINTE
Enclosure knocked up (8)
Another double definition, the first from the language of fortifications, the second being the French word for “pregnant”.
8 RECEDE
Decline chapter in old-fashioned tale (6)
C(hapter) in REEDE (a Spenserian spelling of REDE).
9 STONG
Knight’s end in poem, once wounded (5)
(knigh)T in SONG.
11 DEFERENCE
Submission on being accepted by one party in court case (9)
RE (on) inside DEFENCE.
12 CARAP-WOOD
Tropical timber vehicle a POW fashioned on demand (9)
CAR *(A POW) O(n) D(emand).
15 CLIMATAL
Weather’s dull, penetrating wild lilac (8)
MAT in *LILAC. You have to include the ‘s in the definition (it’s the possessive apostrophe, not a shortening of “is”)  as the answer can only be an adjective.
20 PICINE
Confused state of film, flicker-like? (6)
PI (confused state) CINE (film). A somewhat loose definition (PICINE refers to the woodpecker genus), hence the question mark.
21 ARGUTE
Shrill dispute, tense within (6)
T(ense) inside ARGUE.
22 MARAH
Sarcasm? A cheer follows its conclusion (5)
(sarcas)M A RAH. I do question the accuracy of the definition here. I believe that MARAH is an alternative spelling of MAROR, a Hebrew word meaning bitterness, now used in the Passover meal to refer to the dish of bitter herbs eaten as a symbol of the time spent by the Israelites in Egypt. I can find no evidence that the word has ever acquired any other metaphorical meaning, and I’m not sure that sarcasm equates to bitterness anyway.
24 RILKE
Harry embraces king as author of poetical pieces (5)
K(ing) in RILE (harry). This is a reference to an Austrian poet.
26 EXCEL
To become leader in Times Chancellor appearing in twelfth letter (5)
X (times) CE (Chancellor of the Exchequer) all inside EL (twelfth letter of the alphabet).
27 CHERE
Louis’s beloved, a female’s central to his this (5)
HER in CE (French for “this”).
29 GEAR
Clobber section of siege army (4)
Hidden in “siege army”.

17 comments on “Azed No. 2,684 – Plain”

  1. Thanks bridgesong.
    The etymology of ‘sarcasm’ as given in Chambers does suggest bitternes.
    23 works equally well to clue TERF I think.
    In 32 you could add a comma after ‘before’.
    Thanks as ever to Azed.

  2. Thanks Azed and Bridgesong.

    23ac (FRET): I agree with Gonzo@1 that this clue could equally well have given TREF as its answer.

    3dn (SEGOL): This could equally well have given LOGES. I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when Azed gave us one of these classic ambiguous reversal clues. This week there are two of them.

    22dn (MARAH): I think Gonzo@1 is right to note the etymology given for sarcasm. I agree that the definition is a bit loose, but I think the question mark is there to show this.

  3. 23ac: I meant to put TERF as the alternative possibility for the answer, as correctly noted by Gonzo@1.

  4. Thanks for the excellent blog Bridgesong!
    ANANKE: Yes. The clue seems to stop abruptly (unless it means ‘granny is a must’. Quite colloquial and not acceptable, I guess!)
    MARAH: As PB@2 says, the ? may be indicating something. Not clear to me though.

  6. Thanks for the blog , I agree with all the points raised. I think 1AC could have had an extra note, this sort of thing usually does. FRET and SEGOL have the same issue, unusually lazy setting for Azed and as Pelham Barton @2 notes it also occured very recently.
    Bill@5 I did look up flicker and it is in Chambers93.

  7. I agree about the reversal issue; I think I was the blogger in the recent puzzle mentioned by Pelham Barton @2, so I should have spotted these two examples. Obviously you can work out the right orientations by reference to the crossing letters, but that shouldn’t be necessary.

    Thanks to Bill Beedie and Roz for putting me right about “flicker”, which I admit I hadn’t bothered to check in Chambers.

  8. Thanks to bridgesong for the blog and to all subsequent commentators who have cleared up the one or two queries I had. Good fun I thought.

  9. First one in a while where I haven’t mucked anything up, hooray.
    I particularly liked the two surprising double definitions, ROUGE and ENCEINTE, and the clue for WELLIE.
    Don’t understand why clues like those for SEGOL and FRET are thought faulty – what’s wrong with just waiting to see?

  10. James @9: the problem is that such clues breach one of Azed’s own maxims, namely that “when the penny drops the clue must be seen to lead unmistakably to the answer” (my emphasis).

  11. Well, it depends how much you read into that. I’d say all it means is that there must be wordplay that can be clearly shown to work that leads to a definition that clearly matches the solution. That is satisfied for both the clues in question.
    I agree that it’s possible to draw your additional inference, but it’s unnecessary. You’re guessing Azed’s intention. As evidence of my more limited interpretation, I can point to these clues!

  12. I have been solving Azed crosswords on and off for over forty years. It has always been my understanding over that time that Azed firmly believes that all clues should be written with the intention that they only have one possible answer. I have commented on the two clues today and the other recent example precisely because they appear to me to run counter to Azed’s long established policy and practice.
    I have never seen any indication that Azed reads these blogs, but he does invite solvers to his clue writing competitions to include comments not only on the specific puzzle but on the Azed series in general. I very much hope that this issue will be raised by some of the entrants in today’s competition and that there will be something on this matter in the next Azed slip.

  13. Yes, let’s hope so. Though I still won’t agree with the people who think they’re faulty clues, even if Azed turns out to be one of them.

  14. James@13: it is clearly a matter of opinion, and of legitimate expectation rather then any externally imposed rules. Again I am relying on long term memory, but mine says that forty years ago the view that clues should have unique solutions in themselves was the overwhelming majority view if not quite universal at that time.

  15. Thanks bridgesong and Azed.

    Just wondering how PI = “confused state”? I had PICKLE buffed in for this for a long time causing mayhem n the SW corner. Eventually put in PICINE (confession: word search) because nothing else fit.

  16. Epeesharkey@15: PI here is an alternative spelling of pie², which was originally a printer’s term. The definition in Chambers 2016 is “type confusedly mixed (printing); a mixed state; confusion”.

  17. Greetings!
    Must join in as I claim to have solved every Azed (and many Ximenes’s before that)
    Thanks to himself and to bridgesong.
    Re “which way round” I certainly sensed which was correct and think there might have been commas to indicate if it was the other,
    “Boxes, turned up language symbol” & “Ripple that’s turned, land surface as of old” would give LOGES & TERF whereas SEGOL & FRET seem natural.
    Now to the Comp.

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