AZED 2,276

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A lot easier than the run-of-the-mill.  Almost as easy as this week’s Listener (OK — last week’s).  And Paul’s awesome crossword utility automatically parses the (relaunched) Guardian site’s PDF once again which is nice too.

completed grid
Across
1 CAMASH Member of hyacinth family in clay beside tree (6)
CAM,ASH – a lily which I expect is of the hyacinth family.  CAM=clay.
9 MING Lib Dem familiarly making mark in government (4)
M,IN,G – ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menzies_Campbell — had to look that up but the wordplay was pretty clear.
12 CACHOU Cold cream bun stuffed with a sweetener (6)
C(A)CHOU – bit of a trap here with “gateau” which also fits being a cream-filled cake.  But in this case CHOUs are cream-filled pastry.  Definition is a breath sweetening lozenge.
13 LOONY Crazy John hits Gotham? (5)
LOO,NY – Brit toilet meets US toilet.
14 CONTRATERRENE Far from earthy carrot entrée, pureed with bit of nutmeg in (13)
N[utmeg] in (carrot entree)*
15 KROO Noted seaman in fleece, back to front (4)
W. Africans noted as seamen.  Take rook=fleece (con) and move the K to the front.
16 WOMANLY Female in colourless fashion bagging major award (7)
W(OM)ANLY – OM=major award in wanly=colourless.
17 PUNALUA Quibble with hall given backing for group marriage (7)
PUN=quibble and rev(aula=hall) — “system of group marriage” — backed into this answer.
18 MALAGA Mum holds festivity back requiring sweet wine (6)
rev(gala=festivity) in Ma.
24 TOROSE Extremity, end cut, came up, swelling (6)
TO[e],ROSE – swelling – thanks to Pelham below for pointing out that the wordplay was a lot simpler than my original over-wrought version.
25 DEBORAH Girl getting clothed after retiring – what a surprise! (7)
DEBOR,AH – rev(robed) followed by ah!
26 COONCAN A con twice fiddled card game (7)
(A con, con)* – sounds a bit racist to the American ear probably.  But it’s just a card game.
29 GALL Work off fast run, being sore (4)
GALL[op] – remove op=work from gallop=fast run where gall=sore.  Last wordplay understood.
30 IMPERCEPTIBLE Very small nipper bit peeler with canine badly (13)
IMP followed by (bit peeler + c=canine)*.
31 SPRUE Worried re soup with no love for weedy asparagus (5)
(re s[o]up)* – thin asparagus.
32 SECKLE Leeks cooked with a slice of conference pear (6)
(leeks + c[onference])* – kind of pear.  Alternate spelling is seckel so needed 10D to disambiguate.
33 STOA Visitors to Athens will take in this classical lecture site (4)
Nicely hidden in “Visitors to Athens”.
34 THRENE Small number getting into Trinity? It didn’t sound cheerful (6)
THRE(N)E – archaic (thus “didn’t” instead of “doesn’t”) threnody (dirge).
Down
1 COCKPIT Pile of dung on bed in greenhouse (7)
COCK=pile of dung and pit=BED.  A greenhouse is an aircraft cockpit.
2 ACORUS Pond plants, a body that’s not soft inside (6)
A,COR[p]US – type of lily.
3 MA NON TROPPO Fellow onto tackling prop roughly, but not excessively (11, 3 words)
MAN=fellow,ONT(prop*)O – “but not too much” musically speaking.
4 SHRILLS Sharp screams resulting from short time in rocky beds (7)
S(HR)ILLS – hr=abbrev(hour)=short time.  SILLS=rocky beds.
5 HOAX Gull in trees with aspiration, we hear? (4)
HOAX sounds like h,oaks which is how you’d pronounce “oaks” if you were to aspirate.
6 OUTWARDNESS Not being subjective, used no straw for construction (11)
(used no straw)*
7 CLEOME To arrive holding garland I cut tropical plant (6)
C(LE[i])OME
8 DORM Mark housing the men in small bunkhouse? (4)
D(OR)M – abbrev(dormitory) thus “small bunkhouse”.   OR=Ordinary Ranks thus Britspeak for “men”.  And DM=abbrev(Deutschmark)
9 MORALE Spirits to be taken by mouth swallowed by me (6)
M(ORAL)E – nice semantic shift of spirits between surface and wordplay.
10 INENARRABLE ‘Beyond words’, not applicable in description of papal authority? (11)
I suppose this means “incapable of being narrated” thus “beyond words”.  NA in inerrable=infallible (I don’t think the current Pope still believes that).
11 GOEY Enterprising Gentile, charged with energy (4)
GO(E)Y – Describes a “goer” I suppose.
19 AMBATCH Something like balsa, a near equivalent, black inside (7)
A,M(B)ATCH – a pith-tree which I guess is balsa-like.
20 ATHLETE Runner maybe once obstructed in heat, stumbling (7)
ATH(LET)E – let=obstruction (archaic but still used in tennis in that sense) in heat*.
21 MONERA Somebody cutting limb up reveals primal organism (supposedly) (6)
ONE in rev(arm=limb) but seems like shouldn’t be plural given definition: “(pl monera) the name given by German biologist Ernst Haeckel to his hypothetical simplest protozoan”
22 PEACED Where fencing occurs, in audience Shakespearean was hushed (6)
Shak. verb to silence.  Homophone of “piste=a strip of ground used for some sporting activity, eg fencing”.  My second to last wordplay.  I mentally reviewed possible homophones before guessing and looking piste up.
23 FALLEN Ruined, as everyone in morass (6)
F(ALL)EN
26 CIGS What have some giving in cravenly, initially given up? (4)
&lit – reversed first letters of “some giving in cravenly”.  Ref. stopping smoking.
27 CR,UX Cross wife after credit (4)
UX=abbrev(uxor=Latin wife)
28 SPET What those hawking in the country do, regularly sapient? (4)
Alternate letters of “sapient” — spit (hawk) in dialect.

*anagram

8 comments on “AZED 2,276”

  4. Thanks Azed and Ilancaron.

    I suppose this crossword exemplifies why folk like Azed’s puzzles. Given a copy of the BRB, you can be pretty sure of coming up with the solution; though, for me, sans BRB, it would be impossible.

  5. Being fond of cream buns (choux buns?), I was surprised to learn from Chambers that ‘chou’ is the singular and ‘choux’ the plural.

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