After the hours I spent on the Christmas crossword two weeks ago, this one came as welcome relief. Not that it was easy: Azed never is, for me at any rate, but this I found no harder than his usual plains.
This is the first Azed puzzle where he has recommended the 12th Edition of Chambers. I solved the puzzle using the new dictionary and will do the blog using the old one and see if there is any difference. (And after doing it I can see nowhere that Azed has used the new dictionary — I looked up all the words except the very common ones in the old Chambers and they were all there. Perhaps he is giving us an easy few weeks so that everyone can buy the 12th Edition. I needn’t have paid the extra to Amazon to get it delivered in time. But then if I hadn’t I’d never have known this.)
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 4 | CHIYOGAMI — (chi (= X) mi (= me, the musical note)) around yoga |
| 11 | SARCONET — (ancestor)* |
| 12 | RU(I)N — as in mother’s ruin etc, roulade = run |
| 13 | T{hat} ROW — that lacking e.g boater is that lacking hat, or t |
| 14 | S(HAL)OT — a shalot is an unusually-spelled shallot — onions make one weep — but why is Prince Hal ‘(his?)’? — [Drunkard embracing prince (his?) in tear-jerker, possibly] |
| 16 | RAZZIA — (a ziz)* in RA |
| 18 | {Su}PERST{ar} — ‘perst’ is a Spenserian (strange that it’s Spenserian but (usually I think) Shakespearean) spelling of ‘pierced’ |
| 19 | S(TING)O |
| 20 | COMPTE RENDU — (Tom Prudence)* |
| 22 | DERMESTIDAE — of which I’d never heard — had expected ‘Coleopterae’, those being the only beetles I knew |
| 26 | MINO AN |
| 28 | EATEN — “Eton” |
| 31 | N(IRL)IT |
| 32 | ASEITY — (is yet a)* |
| 33 | WAD I |
| 34 | SWAN{K} — the trumpeter swan or a South American bird |
| 35 | PE(TERM A)N — a peterman is a safe-blower and so a cracker |
| 36 | SUPERSEDE — perse in (used)* |
| Down | |
| 1 | ASTROCOMPASS — PA in (cosmos star)* |
| 2 | PARAPODIA — (I do para)rev. in Pa |
| 3 | CROZE — “crows” |
| 5 | HO(L)IST — why does Azed italicize ‘must’ here? I can’t see what’s so special about this word as opposed to almost any of the others in the clues. The website even tells you that the word is in italics [Left in lift, one must believe in complete systems] |
| 6 | INMATE — n/a separated inside |
| 7 | YESES — (see)* in (man{y} debate{s}) |
| 8 | GRADINI — d in grain 1 |
| 9 | vALUAtions — hidden reversed |
| 10 | INTROVERTING — tin in (Vortigern)* |
| 15 | HET E — obsolete Scottish word |
| 17 | IGUANIDAE — (a guide)* around ani |
| 21 | PRO LINE |
| 23 | MATT — the Book of Matthew |
| 24 | S(E{ducatio}N)ATE |
| 25 | TAI LED |
| 27 | NOYES — n.o. (as in cricket) yes — a Spenserian spelling of ‘noise’ |
| 29 | HandEL-A-MIserere |
| 30 | HEAP — a comp. anag., so beloved of Azed competition clue-setters: [The Adelphi] … [It held heap] and the word ‘production’, whose presence I couldn’t understand at first, is there as an anagram indicator; the def is ‘this Shakespearean company’ |
Re 5 Down a person cannot be a holist without believing in complete systems, it is a necessary condition.
Thanks Azed for yet another enjoyable puzzle and John for the blog.
14ac: I think the “(his?)” is a reference to Sir John Falstaff as the drunkard and Prince Hal (later King Henry V).
6dn: This should be n/a separated in (time)*.
15dn: I had HOTE here. On re-reading Chambers, I see that is the past tense, so HETE must be correct.
Thanks Azed and John. I notice that this week’s puzzle (2066) is back to recommending Chambers 2008, at least in the PDF version – presumably just a mistake? (I haven’t done the puzzle yet to check whether there are any 2011-only words in it.)
8dn: GRADINI is plural. I would have expected the definition to be “Altar decorations.
Thanks, John. After 25 years of using the 1983 edition of Chambers, Santa dropped the new edition down the chimney. The hearth may never recover – what a weight! But I finished the puzzle much more quickly. I didn’t have to go a-googlin’ to confirm definitions of words not included in my old faithful.
35a – I’m still not sure where ‘half’ = ‘term’ comes from. Am I being dim (probably) or is it a reference to half-term?
Chris @4, I, too, wondered, then decided that one could say, “The altar decoration was flowers.”
Jan – “half” is the name of what most people call a term at Eton (and perhaps also elsewhere). Yes, they have three halves in a year…
I agree with Jan, candlesticks are altar decoration too.
Thanks, Andrew. I would never have thought to check ‘half’ in the dictionary but, as you say, there it is: ‘term’. Well I never!
Bob Sharkey@1: yes you’re probably right that this was why Azed italicised ‘must’. But what is the meaning of ‘must’, as opposed to ‘may’, in this context? It indicates necessity, so there is no need for the italics.
People may remember that Richard Whiteley used to refer to the thirds of the programme Countdown as halves. Silly perhaps, but not without justification.
John, In the case of the definition of HOLIST, the reading addressed in my first comment, there’s no ‘may’ about it, surely. I’m rather taken aback by your question, to be frank. But let’s consider the surface reading by way of a counter argument. Imagine a person stuck in a lift. His immediate response is to regard his imprisonment as being a fact for the (now very short) remainder of his life. From a psychological perspective, is that a likely reaction? I’d say no, very rare indeed – he simply must believe that systems are in place to ensure his rescue, and that nothing has been left to chance.
On the general question of the punctuation of clues, I have long been an advocate of its use to render surface readings as intelligent pieces of prose. Azed is amongst the very best setters in this regard.
I’m sure Bob Sharkey is right @11 that the italics are there for the surface; and John is of course equally right @10 that “must” doesn’t require italics to convey necessity.
Re 35a – FWIW “Half” meaning “term” originated, I believe, not at Eton but at Winchester, where the Autumn Term is still called Short Half and the former “Long Half” is now divided into Common Time (the spring term) and Cloister Time (the summer term).