Azed No. 2,685 Plain- Competition Puzzle

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I was relieved that this was just a ‘plain’ Azed crossword, because his specials often take ages. In the event it was one of his easier ones I thought. All made sense and I felt as if everything was parsed OK. You may have different opinions. It seemed there were quite a lot of anagrams: I counted ten clues in which there were whole or part anagrams. Some of the definitions are a bit dense, but will be there in Chambers.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Anagram indicators shown like (this)* or *(this).

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 SCRUBS
Missing the cooler theatre garb (6)
Under SCRUBS in Chambers is an entry for Wormwood Scrubs, and it says that it’s colloquially known as ‘The Scrubs’, so the wordplay is ‘The Scrubs’ missing ‘The’. The theatre is an operating theatre.
7 CUSEC
Exercise in cricket club? This’ll measure rate of flow (5)
C(use)C
11 ALABASTER
A workshop plant, showy: it has ornamental use (9)
a lab aster
12 SACCULI
Clues 1 Ac., wasting energy and wrongly, as ‘aural pouches’ (7)
(Clu[e]s iac)*
13 URVA
I love crabs included among four varieties (4)
Hidden in foUR VArieties
14 APAY
The old make up for being left out of a stage piece (4)
a p[l]ay — an obsolete usage of ‘make up for’
15 STROOK
Once smitten, is briefly captivated about Romeo (6)
‘s t(R)ook
16 TESTUDO
Against including arrangement for duets for classical lyre (7)
*(duets) in to
18 AT ONE’S ELBOW
Blow nose, tea being laid out and ready (11, 3 words, apostrophe)
(Blow nose tea)*
20 EURO-DOLLARS
Soldo a ruler changed in what’ll enable international finance (11)
(Soldo a ruler)*
26 HAIR OIL
Conditioner, mostly smooth, seen in greeting (7, 2 words)
iro[n] in hail
27 ALCAIC
Amateur non-professional clubs accepted, such as Horace often (6)
A l(c)aic
29 OPEL
Foreign vehicle making sign when reversing about parking (4)
(Leo)rev. round P. Not driving, I was under the impression that Opel had disappeared (not that it would have mattered anyway), but I see that is not the case.
30 URIM
One of oracular pair having half of us on edge (4)
u[s] rim
31 BATTELS
What buttery chalks up, splurged in lab test (7)
*(lab test)
32 SHEBEENER
Target of pussyfoot, using more than half vigour in pursuit of society cupbearer (9)
s Hebe ener[gy] — it’s not clear from Chambers (which just says that it’s a noun) whether a shebeener is another name for a shebeen, or someone who frequented shebeens. It doesn’t matter, because either of them could be targets for pussyfoots.
33 SERON
This crate with lid we’ll get adapted for older wines (5)
A comp. anag. where [seron lid we] … [older wines]. Azed has used a comp. anag. in 1 out of 36 of his clues (and he seldom has any more). In his competitions significantly more of the published answers are comp. anags.
34 GROSET
Got up in good time? Just the thing for fool in Scotland (6)
g (rose) t
DOWN
1 SOSATIE
In due course composer skewered tasty dish (7)
so Satie
2 CHAPEAUX
Fellow taking the waters abroad in local headgear? (8)
chap eaux — one has to be careful about eaux/eaus and chapeaux/chapeaus, but chapeaux is an entry in Chambers.
3 RECAST
Given different part on acts being moved about (6)
re (acts)*
4 BLUT UND EISEN
One involved in unsubtle end suffering relentless force (12, 3 words)
i in (unsubtle end)* — the clue also leads to the equally acceptable Eisen und Blud, so we need to use the checkers, something Azed seldom requires.
5 SALADE
Helmet like this at Bannockburn, say, protects youth (6)
sa(lad)e
6 IBIS
Bird revered in Egypt raised hiss, not recently (4)
(sibi[late])rev.
7 CATTLE-LIFTER
Rustler (12)
The word clued by a straight definition, for which we ‘must’ produce a cryptic clue. My all-too-frequent experience is that I agonise over it for ages and eventually produce what seems to me to be a good clue, which has little or no success.
8 USURY
American panel having ditched judge lost interest (5)
US [j]ury — lost interest in the sense of an archaic use of the word interest.
9 STROMB
Large mollusc from Mediterranean isle yielding form of oil (6)
Stromb[oli], the oli being *(oil) — is this ‘a clue to a clue’, something that Azed has criticised in the past? Or is something else going on?
10 CRAKE
Sound like hoodie from e.g. Dundee retaining right (5)
c(r)ake — Dundee cake
17 ROSIE LEE
Tea consisting of eggs Elsie’s brought in, scrambled (8, 2 words)
(Elsie)* in roe
19 WELL-SET
Measures taken in the rain, firmly fixed (7)
w(ells)et
21 RACIER
With increasing pluck I’ll get bitten by American snake (6)
rac(I)er
22 LALANG
Grass, coarse and long (not on) Titchmarsh cuts? (6)
Alan in l[on]g — ref. Alan Titchmarsh
23 ROPERS
Decoys run over individual on leaving (6)
r o pers[on]
24 GAUSS
Mathematician enveloping us in boastful talk (5)
ga(us)s
25 SAMBO
Grappling like this involves a medical man (5)
s(a MB)o
28 CBER
Private radio operator linking Alec with Beryl (4)
Hidden (sort of) in AleC BERyl — at first I couldn’t believe there was going to be a word CBE_, but there is and it’s a person who uses Citizen’s Band radio.

16 comments on “Azed No. 2,685 Plain- Competition Puzzle”

  1. In 5 down, I suspect that ‘helmet’ on its own is the definition; the rest is SAE (Scottish form of ‘so’ (‘like this’)) around LAD

  4. Thanks Azed and John

    4dn: We have had three ambiguous reversal clues in recent weeks, and now this. Either Azed has relaxed his policy on ambiguous cluing recently or he has become careless. It is very much to be hoped that he will discuss the issue in the Azed slip that goes with this puzzle.

    9dn: I think this can be compared with 17dn. In the latter case, we are asked to form an anagram and insert it into a defined word. In my view, it is equally valid to ask us to form an anagram and remove it from a defined word.

    24dn: I believe Gauss also dabbled in some minor subject as well, but he was undoubtedly a mathematician first and foremost.

  5. Thanks for the blog, I prefer the competition puzzles because I can solve without Chambers , just put my ideas in and check later , does not matter if the grid gets messy. I thought SCRUBS was very neat , SOSATIE not in my Chambers93 but was very clear, I did not notice BLUT AND EISEN was careless because I had the B , if it had been 1AC it could have caused problems.
    GAUSS of course was really an astronomer, with typical generosity he would sort out problems for trivial subjects in his coffee breaks, a bit like Newton. It is fortunate that crosswords were not around earlier or some hobbies would still be in the dark ages.

  6. I was intrigued by the helpful juxtaposition of ARSE and ELBOW in the completed grid. Perhaps Azed isn’t so impressed by our submissions after all.

  7. I agree with Pelham Barton@4: equally valid in my opinion, although Azed doesn’t seem to think so. What I’m saying, KVa@2, is that a clue to a clue is one where you have to work something out before you can solve the clue. In the case of anagrams I think there is general agreement that the clue is faulty if it doesn’t give all the letters of the anagram and you have to work out what word is to be anagrammed. But what about those clues where you have to abbreviate something before you can do the anagram? And then what about clues like the STROMB one where you have to work out an anagram of oil before you can do the clue? Actually my feeling is that a clue to a clue is OK, because if one starts to say this is no good one outlaws any number of clues: consider 1ac in this crossword: it’s fine in my opinion, but you could argue that the clue to a clue is to work out that the cooler is Wormwood Scrubs (not Pentonville or Broadmoor etc).

  10. Thanks Azed and John for the blog.I comoketed this on the day- not always the case at a busy time of year. I entered BLUT UND EISEN quite early and was puzzled when several cited it as ambiguous. I had certainly never heard of it the other way round, though the original was indeed “iron & blood”
    My favourite was “Tea consisting of eggs Elsie’s brought in, scrambled” for ROSIE LEE though I’ve never heard anyone actually use rhyming slang.

  11. Keith@10: With regard to ROSIE LEE, I suspect that you have probably heard quite a lot of slang that has entered that language which you may not have known was rhyming slang. Those of us who do the FT crosswords have been having a bit of a run on it over the last few days.

    With regard to BLUT UND EISEN, if you have a butcher’s at page 168 of Chambers 2016 (presumably different pages in other editions) under the headword Blut, you will find an entry for Blut und Eisen, at the end of which it says “Also Eisen und Blut“.

  12. Certainly, my maternal grandmother (born about 1900) used rhyming slang. Can’t remember for sure if she ever said rosie lee, but I do remember her telling us at night it was time to go up the apples and pears. And, for that matter, I often say I’m going to have a butchers.

  13. John@7: On the issue of indirect anagrams, Azed’s views are not quite as strict as you suggest. The quotation from Azed’s book reads “The component letters of the anagram, or an unequivocal indication of them, must be given explicitly in the anagram-based clue”. I am indebted to bridgesong for digging this out in a discussion we had just over a year ago in relation to Azed 2633
    https://www.fifteensquared.net/2022/12/06/azed-2633/
    Start with the answer to 28ac and then read from comment 3 onwards, but please note that the final paragraph of my comment 6 was an attempt to remember the sentence I have quoted above, and it would be wrong to quote my inaccurate version as representative of what Azed actually said.

    With regard to 9dn in the current puzzle, it has occurred to me to that, once we have got Stromboli, we do not need to choose an anagram of “oil”: it is there in front of us. I have tried to put this thought into more coherent words, but was not satisfied with what I have managed so far. If anyone can get the point I am trying to make, and put it into better words, I will be grateful.

  14. PelhamBarton@4, I raised the question of ambiguous reversal with my submitted clue so we will see if Azed responds. Ambiguity is a danger of anagrams, easily missed when setting, although 4D was a particularly unfortunate example.
    John@7, the examples of unfair indirectness always seem to be anagrams, and I agree that clues in general would be very dull without indirection. For anagrams , it’s a spectrum from “every letter in the clue” to “anagram of a synonym”, with abbreviations etc in between and a boundary set by personal taste. Azed goes as far as “subtract a synonym” provided its letters appear in the right order in the rest of the anagrist – which is quite far enough for me

  15. BLUT UND EISEN – Chambers 93 has it under the headword Blut as B U E OR E U B , so clearly both are valid. It also has a separate entry for Eisen Und Blut just saying – see B U E. I agree with Pelham Barton @4 that Azed has been careless here.
    STROMB – I have no problem with this , the letters of OIL are there and we are told exactly what to do. I am not really sure about ” a clue to a clue ” , I think many clues involve doing several things.

  16. It’s a bit late but I feel like putting in my penn’orth.
    I’d never heard, in English use, anything but BLUT UND EISEN, although Bismarck’ original was E U B. No ambiguity as far as I was concerned.
    One pattern which seems regular with recent Azed’s is STOA (S to A) TASS (T as S) and several other four-letter words. In each a change between two other, given, words in the clue describes the “change.
    It may be just long experience of the setter’s preferred style but I always know which is the right way round.

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