How Azed produces these grids I just don’t know. He doesn’t so far as I know use technology but compiles them neatly in an exercise book, something that I would find virtually impossible. He sticks comfortably to the Ximenean advice about unchecked letters in words and both grid and clues are full of words that require a close examination of Chambers. Amazing, week after week.
Definitions underlined.
Across
1 Fit to hang, feu being exercised? It could clobber distant felon (12)
OUTFANGTHIEF
(fit to hang feu)*
10 Con, after running free, in shrine (8)
FERETORY
(free)* Tory
11 Source of ghee? You’ll find this is used in Asian recipe (4)
ARNA
An arna is an Indian water buffalo and ghee is clarified butter, esp made with milk from the Asiatic buffalo, so there is nothing of g{hee} in this — it’s a comp. anag. where [arna is] … [Asian r]
12 Soak imbibing litre in bar…; (4)
SLOT
s(l)ot — is that semicolon meant to be there or is it a misprint?
13 …Soak similarly drunk with slops meant to minimize wastage? (8)
STOP-LOSS
(sot slops)* — normally we are given the letters when we have to form an anagram, but here ‘Soak similarly’ indicates the sot from the previous clue
14 Pudding, alternative to pie in a covering, rolled round (7)
TAPIOCA
pi in (a coat)rev. — pi and pie are alternative spellings in one sense of the word pie
16 Bushy plant amateur removed from Uncle Sam (5)
ERICA
{Am}erica
18 Goldsmith’s vessel made of copper I can cut from alembic (5)
CUPEL
cu pel{I can}
19 Troubled type makes case for it before submitting formal request (8)
PETITORY
(type)* round (it or) — or = before
22 Place between Tay and liner at sea (8)
INTERLAY
(Tay liner)*
24 Wild Asian water plants (5)
NAIAS
(Asian)*
27 Honours school half-heartedly? (5)
FETES
Fet{t}es
29 Cracking eight’s about No. 1 in Henley, pre-eminently placed (7)
HIGH-SET
H{enley} in (eight’s)*
30 Saw inside their eggs what may be fatal for fish (8)
ROTENONE
ro(tenon)e
31 Amateur given saddle in system leading to contracts? (4)
ACOL
A col
32 Masquerade displaying fizz (4)
MUMM
2 defs
33 Stand for casks badly stored in shelf (8)
STILLAGE
st(ill)age
34 Strong teamsters organized in wily Chicago-style know-how (12, 2 words)
STREET-SMARTS
str. (teamsters)*
Down
1 Watchdog ‘ad position in chair, fine inside (6)
OFSTED
‘o(f)sted — to host is to be chair(man)
2 Responding to stimulus, I mostly remain after drink’s served up (9)
TROPISTIC
(port)rev. I stic{k}
3 Obsession one’s trapped by was effective endlessly (7)
FETICHE
fet(1)che{d}
4 Denial of liability in brief letter left involving children (7)
NOTCHEL
not(ch)e l
5 Old-style fourpenny one’s attack catching Bunter’s rear (5)
GROAT
That definition isn’t quite right: the ‘s is not meant to be underlined but I can’t avoid doing so — where ‘one’ comes in at all I can’t see because ‘one’ doesn’t seem to be a word for a coin — g({bunte}r)o at
6 Representative showing selection of pretty pictures (5)
TYPIC
Hidden in pretTY PICtures
7 Holy place I do out in straw (4)
HALM
hal{I do}m
8 Pen’s translated Irish Gaelic? It exists purely in the mind (8)
ENS PER SE
(pen’s)* Erse
9 A stone inset by fashionable American firmly (old) (6)
FASTLY
f(a st)ly — it looks as if it’s a st inset in rather than inset by fly, but I suppose ‘inset by’ means that it is the fly that is doing the insetting
15 Morgan maybe having to exhibit evidence of injury (9, 2 words)
SPORTS CAR
sport scar
17 Light car leaked fluid around autobahn (8)
RUNABOUT
run (ab) out — to run out is to leak fluid
20 Oily pastes from sea fish containing measure of fluid (7)
TAHINIS
ta(hin)is
21 ‘Turkish delight’? Watchful when it comes up to grab centre of that! (7)
TREHALA
{t}ha{t} in (alert)rev. — I’m not sure why Azed both italicises ‘that’ and uses an exclam
22 Like wee one belonging to a besotted Mrs (6)
IN ARMS
in a (Mrs)* — but Chambers gives this as two words, (under ‘arm’ not ‘in’) so should we not be told this? — nothing to do with urination as I immediately thought
23 Plant fibres nursed by botanist Leschenault (6)
ISTLES
Hidden in botanIST LESchenault
25 Since old, presiding over English faculty (5)
SENSE
sens E — sens is an obsolete version of since
26 Hot and very dry around watercourse, shallow (5)
SHOTT
s(h)o TT — the three letters h,o,t in the answer mislead with the clue a bit: here hot = h not hot
28 Classical township is wiped out in the end (4)
DEME
dem{is}e
*anagram
Thanks John, I agree completely that Azed’s productivity is amazing together with the quality of his clues, always too many excellent ones to really pick a favourite. Thanks for parsing SHOTT, obvious now.
Thanks for the blog, John. I wondered about IN ARMS too, but didn’t look it up at the time, thinking that maybe you could use a hyphenated version in “an in-arms babe”. However Chambers only seems to give the two-word version.
I remembered OUTFANGTHIEF from its appearance in 1066 and all that, in some “Danish epic poetry”, quoted here.
The Guardian site is reporting that “technical errors” are preventing the appearance of this week’s Azed. I learn from Another Place that you can find the PDF at http://static.guim.co.uk/ni/1405788570333/2,198_july-20.pdf
Thank you Andrew. Their Lead Design Architect needs a few grams of lead somewhere.
5d I maked this as goat < (bunte)R.
from the fact that Bunter's first name is Billy (a goat)so the only thing catching bunters rear (name)is his first name Billy
Or is it something else
It is GO AT, which is ‘attack’, ‘catching’ the last letter or ‘rear’ of Bunter. Using Bunter to clue Billy to clue clue ‘goat’ would be too indirect.
Too many clues.
It’s not even indirect: Bunter is called Billy, and a Billy is a goat, but that doesn’t mean that Bunter = goat; Sidey’s parsing is correct (as is John’s of course).
“A fourpenny one” can mean a punch or blow (in Chambers), or (say) an ice-cream, costing fourpence; I agree it’s a bit dodgy to use it to to define a groat.
One, from the OED “A note or coin worth one unit of a currency, esp. one pound or one dollar” Hmm, that doesn’t work. Just slipped in for the reading perhaps…
On Bunter > Billy > goat, although it can’t possibly work it is the sort of pitfall that is easy to fall into. Azed is much more straightforward than that, it may take a lot of teasing to work out exactly what is going on, SHOTT is an example, cunningly making the unwary think there’s an anagram of ‘hot’ involved.
Maybe it is GO AT, yes?
Normally I’d say yes of course it is and quietly think that I’m talking to a new solver. But the source of comment 9 leads me to wonder if I’ve got it right. I think I have, but …