Azed 2041 – a hard Trek

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Azed has been producing some tricky puzzles lately, and this continues the trend (at least it did for me), with I think rather more obscure words and references than usual. I’ve had to admit defeat on two words in the SE corner (31ac and 25dn), and also on the explanation of 28ac. 1dn is quite hard to find in Chambers and might have benefited from a note pointing this out. Definitions are underlined in the clues below.

 
 
 
Across
1. Old Scots major maybe switching two thirds of zigzag (4) 
GIZZ Anagram of ZIGZ[ag]. Gizz and major are both types of wig.
4. Whimsical trifles, a handful, wrapped in stale pancakes (8) 
FLAMFEWS FEW in FLAMS. This is flam2 in Chambers, a variant of “flawn”, an archaic word for a pancake
10. Trees yielding valuable drugs – ideal stream ME state sent westwards (9) 
RAUWOLFIA A1 (ideal) + FLOW (stream) + UAR, all reversed
11. Edentate mammal keeping nuts in a small trench, round (9) 
ARMADILLO MAD in A RILL O
13. What may have started auction, no longer tolerated (4) 
ABID A BID may start an auction. ABID is an arachaic past tense of ABIDE)
14. Craft this tune? Croat folk dancing (4) 
KOLO Composite anagram – (CROAT FOLK)* = CRAFT KOLO. Chambers defines this as “a Serbian folk dance or dance tune”; knowing the sensitivity about nationality in that area I hesitate to call this an &lit.
15. House for soldiers cheers when filled with variegated bloom (7) 
TOMBOLA BLOOM* in TA. A for of bingo (aka house) played by soldiers.
16. Red colouring: funny nose is infused with one (5) 
EOSIN I in NOSE*
17. Place for money – rest’ll get confused therein (10, 2 words) 
WALL STREET REST* in WALLET (a place for money)
20. Fruit trees may form this ring with garden designed round court (10) 
ORANGE-WOOD O + WOO in GARden8
23. Cup game’s header missed by troubled footie player after time (5) 
TAZZA T + GAZZA less G[ame].
24. Like food a pub’s cooked with reduced fat (7) 
PABULAR (A PUB)* + LAR[d]
26. The old quit part in play, a part requiring backflip (4) 
APAY Hidden in reverse of plaY A PArt. APAY has an obsolete meaning of “to repay”, which “quit”can also mean
27. Tiresome nipper, imp at large round heart of latifundium (4) 
PIUM [latif]U[ndium] in IMP. It’s “a small but very troublesome Brazilian biting fly”.
28. E.g. crocus leaves, length reduced among long-stemmed climber (9) 
CHARLATAN A crocus can be a quack doctor, but I can’t see the wordplay.
29. Weatherproof coil rolling? (9) 
WINDTIGHT WIND (coil, verb, to rhyme with “rind”) + TIGHT (drunk, rolling)
30. Journey burden? One has fewer cases than usual (8) 
TRIPTOTE TRIP + TOTE. A triptote is “a word used in three [grammatical] cases only”.
31. Probe sink: end of blockage follows (4) 
POTE? I’m not at all sure about this: POT (sink [a ball], as in snooker etc) + [blockag]E, and POTE means poke or thrust, which I suppose could be “probe”.
 
Down
1. Mods preceded this, at being clothed in hooded jacket (7, 2 words) 
GREAT GO AT in GREGO. This is well hidden in Chambers, being listed only under GO, but with a cross-reference from LITTLE GO, which I had heard of and checked after guessing the answer. Little Go and Great Go were exams at Cambridge University, Great Go (now “Greats”) is an Oxford term for finals, so they are preceded by [Honour] Mods, which are first-year exams (in Chambers under “moderate”.)
2. Versifier of a kind cobbled a rhime about lav chat (12) 
IAMBOGRAPHER BOG RAP in (A RHIME)*. Rhime is an obsolete form of “rhyme”, which must have come in handy for the construction of this clue.
3. What’s shot replacing pair in centre of zoom? Bits of old Palestine (5) 
ZUZIM UZI (what’s shot) replacing middle letters of ZOOM. The “bits” here are coins.
4. Antiseptic, type mostly superseded (6) 
FORMOL FORM + OL[d]. Variant of “formalin”
5. E.g. Nigerian tree, a long way off No. 1 in arboretum (5) 
AFARA AFAR + A[rboretum]
6. Snotty Scottish brat, extremely undersized one (6) 
MIDGET MID (a midshipman, aka a “snotty”) + GET (Scots brat).
7. Emerged from egg, eyes initially shut (7) 
ECLOSED E[yes] + CLOSED
8. Maggie T’s vital prop (‘Anything for a slug of Scotch‘)? (12) 
WILLIEWAUGHT WILLIE W[hitelaw] (as in Mrs T’s famous remark “Every Prime Minister needs a Willie”) + AUGHT (anything). It means “a deep draught”, apparently from “a misunderstanding of Burns”
9. Dover in Scotland now, so you must relocate (5) 
SWOON (NOW SO)*. Dover is a Scots word for a doze or swoon.
12. Grand French cereal crop, tons cut (5) 
MILLE MILLET less T. Mille in French = 1000 = a grand
17. Your setter, adult, in contest, one getting almost top score (7) 
WAZA-ARI AZ[ed] A[dult] in WAR + I. A good but not maximum score in judo.
18. Under sun, skin tumour becomes malignant (5) 
SWART S + WART
19. Isopteran, half to take note of, millions disposed of (7) 
TERMITE TERM (see “half” in Chambers) + ITEM (take note of) less M
21. Girl with oomph veils hint of sexiness under mantle? (6) 
GASLIT S in GAL + IT
22. Duck on table specially cooked – suggesting orange? (6) 
OBLATE O + TABLE*. Chambers gives “shaped like an orange” as a definition of OBLATE
23. Not speaking? It’s what mastication holds up (5) 
TACIT Hidden in masTICATion reversed
24. One in leg before, no score – could be grand (5) 
PIANO A in PIN (old name for leg) + O
25. The one familiar to Trekkies gets one in knots! (5) 
LI?G? No idea here – if I’m right about 31ac then it’s LI?GO, which could be LINGO, but as a non-Trekkie I can’t make sense of it.

8 comments on “Azed 2041 – a hard Trek”

  1. Great Go! Not a great clue (definition). Especially for those of us not steeped in the peculiar traditions of Oxbridge.

  2. 25 down: I understood it (as much as I could) as a language familiar to Trekkies (although they prefer Trekkers) is Klingon = lingo inside Kn for knots.
    28 across. I’m a puzzled as you, the only thing I could find is that a Charatan is a cigar. Could it be this with length reduced (l) inside it?

  4. Yes, LINGO is kLINGOn. They had a ‘Trekkie’ on R5 live last year, which caused much amusement to the presenters (Peter Allen and Jane Garvey, I think). They asked him what the ‘Klingon’ for ‘Goodbye’ was, and he said “A Klingon just turns his back on you” causing suppressed guffaws in the background. Amazing to think there is a language based on a 1960s tv series

  6. I had WILLIEWASHER at 8d for a while, but AZED would never allow himself such vulgarity, would he…?
    There’s a whole opera in Klingon, put on by a Dutch director, and I think some Shakespeare has been translated

  7. Thanks Andrew. I usually complete the Azed Plains but 25dn and 31ac also held me up. Probably should have seen that sink=pot but don’t think I would have ever gotten the Klingon reference. Agree that his puzzles seem to be getting harder or more likely I’m getting denser.

    Cheers…

  8. Thanks, Andrew, especially for explaining ‘Craft’ in 14. I found KOLO but wondered what ‘Craft’ had to do with it.

    6. I didn’t look up ‘Snotty’, so couldn’t think where the MID came from.

    Thanks, Phi, for explaining CHARLATAN and – goodness me! – I definitely should have seen Klingon.

    @Norman L in France – I was tempted to put WILLIEWARMER – bonne soirée. 🙂

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