Azed 2009 – say a prayer

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A mixture this week of clever clues  and others made relatively easy by their use of 2 or 3 letter words which regular solvers will quickly have recognised (e.g. 12, 16 and 20 across). My favourite clue this week was 34 across. As usual, I attach the pdf of the puzzle for reference.

Across
1 KIDVID KI(n) + I in DVD. What a dreadful word.
8 POP-UP POP + UP
12 ZOIC ZO (a kind of hybrid cattle in the Himalayas) + 1 + C(anine). Zo, or one of its alternative spellings (see under ZHO in Chambers) is a useful word for a setter to have in his armoury.
13 ARAK Hidden in “bar (a keg-ful)”
14 LETTER-PERFECT *(PETER ETC FELT + R)
15 TREETOP TEE in PORT (all rev). Here you have to understand (or discover, in my case) that COMA can mean the crown of leaves at the top of a tree.
16 ISLE I + ELS (rev). Our old friend Ernie Els makes a reappearance. The pdf of the puzzle wrongly indicated 9 letters instead of 4.
18 FELDSHER *RED FLESH.
19 ROSEAL 0 + S(pecial) in REAL. “My love’s like a red, red rose”
20 LURDAN URD (another old favourite) in LAN(yard).
23 KARITANE AN in KARITE (the shea tree).
27 ABUT AB(o)UT.
28 OSMOSIS *MOO’S + SIS.
30 MICROFILAMENT CI in FORM (all rev) + I LAMENT.
31 BLET (ta)BLET. A lovely word, which by coincidence cropped up (as bletting/bletted) in the previous day’s Guardian weekend magazine in an article by Alys Fowler on medlars.
32 KEEN Hidden in like enchiladas.
33 FEESE FEES + E. A version of FAZE, one (dialect) meaning of which is a rush.
34 GENDER END in GER. A lovely & lit clue, referring to the fact that words in German may have a different ending, depending on which (of three) genders they belong to.
Down
1 KULTURKAMPF TURK in KULA (a Polynesian exchange of gifts) + MP + F.
2 DOTERS I’m not entirely sure about this one. I think it’s DO (assault) + TERS(e), as one of the meanings of TERSE in Chambers is “clean-cut”, but it seems a bit weak.
3 VITEX IT in VEX.
4 ICE TEA *ELEATIC, removing L(emon).
5 DURO EURO with D for the initial letter.
6 CAPPERNOITY PERNO(d) in * PAT ICY. It’s in Chambers under CAPERNOITY
7 TREILLE Sounds like “trail”, and is a French word for a trellis.
8 PARED P(riest) + (b)EARD*.
9 PLESH Hidden in “people shun”. A Spenserian word for a pool.
10 UNCLEAN UNCLE + AN(onymous). The surface reading is nicely misleading. The reference to the American use of uncle to refer to a black man is verified in Chambers.
11 PATERNOSTER A TERN in POSTER. I didn’t know this word could mean a harangue. My favourite use of the word is to describe one of those lifts with no doors which don’t stop but go round in an endless loop. I have always assumed that they owed their name to the perceived need to say a prayer before using one.
17 MOABITE A BIT in MOE, which obviously derives from the French word “moue”, meaning a grimace.
18 FLAFFER *(REAL + FFF). It means to flutter. It took me ages to realise that the word in the clue was “fortississimo” and not “fortissimo” (whose abbreviation only has 2 fs).
21 UPMAKE MA in UPdiKE. John Updike died last year.
22 DESEED An obvious compound anagram: take the letters of “a dried sesame” and remove “Marias”, and then rearrange (“possibly” is the anagram indicator). The only alternative is “seeded” but that doesn’t make sense when you insert it in the space provided.
24 RUCHE CUR(rev) + HE.
25 THOLE I think this is T(ea) + hole, where ea is the running water, and cup is used in the golfing sense.
26 NOMEN NO MEN!
29 SLUG Three meanings.

2 comments on “Azed 2009 – say a prayer”

  1. Thanks for the blog, bridgesong.

    In 2dn, I think ‘short’=TERSE with ‘cut’ indicating the removal of the last letter.

    I think 29dn could be four meanings, with ‘short’ meaning ‘a drink of spirits’ and SLUG^4 giving ‘an alcoholic drink’. If this is the case, then there is one meaning from each entry for SLUG in Chambers.

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