A good puzzle for those who haven’t tackled an Azed before, with several clues that wouldn’t be out of place in a daily cryptic puzzle.
I solved this puzzle while on holiday in Zambia with the aid of my Chambers app. The pdf, which for some reason I can no longer access from the website, did have one error in the clue numbering, but it was pretty clear what was intended. Although many of the answers are entirely normal everyday words there are of course several involving obscure words for which research is required. Unusually, all of the four 12 letter answers were everyday words or phrases, which made completing the puzzle very much easier than usual. However there is one clue (30 across) where the wordplay has entirely defeated me. As usual, * indicates an anagram, and definitions are underlined.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CHEST FREEZER | Unimpeded zone in county town, wherein food can be long stored (12, 2 words) |
| FREE Z(one) in CHESTER. An easy clue for 1 across, helping to get the first batch of down clues. | ||
| 9 | ALULA | Small group of feathers, every one containing a dash of umber (5) |
| U in ALL A. | ||
| 11 | SPATE | Flood bringing core of slurry to the fore? (5) |
| PASTE with S (the middle or core letter) brought to the beginning. | ||
| 13 | PROPENAL | Pungent alcohol derivative for getting plane in motion (8) |
| PRO *PLANE. Nothing to do with attitudes to criminal justice. It is this word which is only found in Chambers at the entry for a word beginning with AC – but I don’t know which one! With only two unchecked letters this has to be correct, I hope. | ||
| 14 | PROIGN | Old-fashioned groom, puritan about love, note (6) |
| 0 in PRIG, N(ote). “Groom” in the clue is a verb. | ||
| 15 | CAMBIA | What’ll determine root growth in agronomic ambiance (6) |
| Hidden in “agronomic ambiance. | ||
| 17 | TWEAK | Bit of fine tuning, unconvincing after time (5) |
| T WEAK. | ||
| 18 | REHEEL | Service (as in some bars) male getting into dance? (6) |
| HE in REEL. A beautifully misleading definition. | ||
| 19 | SORTED | Strode out in good order maybe (6) |
| *STRODE. An easy clue for an easy word. | ||
| 20 | BROWST | What’s brewing in Scotland? Run in home of old runners! (6) |
| R in BOW ST(reet). Only worked this one out when I came to write this blog. The Bow Street Runners were the predecessors of the Metropolitan Police. | ||
| 24 | BARSAC | Sweet wine estaminet preferred to dry one mostly (6) |
| BAR SAC(k). | ||
| 27 | ARETE | Ridge, part one’s cut off in etc, coming from behind (5) |
| (etc)ETERA (rev – coming from behind). This word last cropped up in Azed puzzle 2029, in April 2011, where the clue was completely different. | ||
| 29 | TRITON | Rum tot (RN), one taken aboard ship figuratively (6) |
| 1 in *(TOT RN). | ||
| 30 | ABADAN | Oil city of the Middle East, not good for grain harvest? (6) |
| I’m afraid I can’t explain the wordplay here: any suggestions? | ||
| 31 | ATRAMENT | Octopus ink people consumed in a Neapolitan eatery? (8) |
| MEN in A TRAT(toria). | ||
| 32 | ORION | One belted in ring turned black (not English) (5) |
| 0 NOIR (rev). | ||
| 33 | ENEMA | Soldiers given backing in each purge (5) |
| MEN (rev) in EA(ch). | ||
| 34 | MASTERSTROKE | Term OK to adapt when accepting flowers for exceptional performance (12) |
| ASTERS in *(TERM OK). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | COPPER-BOTTOM | Bogy with base metal underneath (12) |
| COPPER BOTTOM. “Metal” here is being used as a verb. | ||
| 2 | HARRY | Pester prince, roller in the grass? (5) |
| RR (Rolls-Royce or Roller) in HAY. Two definitions here made this a write-in. | ||
| 3 | SUPINE | Indolent skiver maybe appearing in court once (6) |
| PIN in SUE. “Skiver” here is a variant of “skewer” or “pin”. | ||
| 4 | FANNEL | Maniple made of woollen fabric, length short inside (6) |
| F(l)ANNEL. | ||
| 5 | REACTS | Takes part in rerun of Cresta misguidedly (6) |
| *CRESTA. Another very easy clue, although the definition uses a less familiar sense of “reacts”. | ||
| 6 | EPIMER | Chemical compound finished holding them up (6) |
| EM in RIPE (all rev). | ||
| 7 | ZAIBATSU | Big business in Japan or South Africa, one mad on uranium (8) |
| ZA (IVR for South Africa), 1 BATS, U(ranium). | ||
| 8 | REMAND CENTRE | Place of detention can render me unsettled, tense inside (12, 2 words) |
| T in *(CAN RENDER ME). | ||
| 10 | LEGGE | Rabble as of old support rising for example (5) |
| LEG, E.G.(rev). | ||
| 12 | TRIKE | Coup, leaderless, yet solvent (5) |
| (s)TRIKE. | ||
| 16 | CHORISIS | In emergency, stop multiplication of parts (8) |
| HO in CRISIS. | ||
| 21 | RARER | What gets back up, having to accept recipe less well cooked (5) |
| R in REAR(rev). | ||
| 22 | WET ROT | Wife’s sweet cake brought up form of decay (6, 2 words) |
| TORTE W (all rev). | ||
| 23 | TENTER | Thoroughly soak mesh climbing frame for drying (6) |
| RET NET (all rev). | ||
| 24 | BLARES | Bits of Bach, ludicrous on war trumpets (6) |
| B(ach) L(udicrous) ARES (the Greek god of war). | ||
| 25 | AMBAN | Manchu minister, a chess piece capturing bishop (5) |
| B in A MAN. | ||
| 26 | ROAMER | Ranger, me, captivated by crowd noise? (6) |
| ME in ROAR. | ||
| 28 | KANAK | Melanesian canoe, character amidships making way for number (5) |
| N for Y in KAYAK. | ||
Thanks for the blog, bridgesong. In 30a, you need to take the definition as just “Oil city”, and then it’s ARABIAN (“of the Middle East”), with RABI (“the spring grain harvest in India, Pakistan, etc”) replaced by BAD.
PROPENAL is listed in C under ACROLEIN (thanks to the Chambers iPhone app for that, though I see it also comes up as the first Google hit for PROPENAL).
Thank you for the explanation of 30a Andrew and bridgesong for the blog.
Andrew, thanks very much for those two explanations. In fact I now see that PROPENAL is also in my Chambers app (which is in need of an update since IOS 8 seems to affect the display in some strange ways).