Azed 1937/plain sailing

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Only realized this morning (Friday) that it was my Azed turn this week. A couple of hours of quality time spent with Chambers led to a full grid and a short list of partially understood wordplays.
Across

1 OBSESSIONIST – (is it, one’s boss)*
10 PRESTIGIATOR – gits in (a pierrot)*.
11 S,OAK – oaks with S moved to the front (lush and soak in the alcoholic sense).
12 REED[it]
13 MERI – hidden in “consuMERIsm” — it’s a Maori club.
14 C(O,O)EE – odd letters of ObOe in CEE=C.
15 FI(AS)CO – FICO is archaic fig – turkey is a US bomb, FIASCO.
18 T,RUSTED
19 GLAU(M A)T – MA in (a glut)* – Scots grab.
23 PAR,ANY,M – a kind of euphemism that sugarcoats a meaning: e.g. calling a cryptic clue a clue!
26 ‘UNG,REEN – It’s uncool to be UNGREEN – REEN is a ditch.
29 ME(E,T)LY – ET (first/last letters of element) in rev(YLEM) which is Greek matter.
30 YENTA – compound anagram: (YENTA, rant)* = (any natter)*
31 B[l]OKE – vomit
32 LOLL[y] – Lolly is Brit slang for cash=dosh.
33 ZEAL – ([b]laze[s])*
34 OUTRAGEOUSLY – (too grey, various)* — not sure about the Tunbridge Wells allusion — “The Importance of Being Earnest” maybe?
35 STONED,R(ESSE)R – RR is our bishop and “being” is our essence is ESSE.

Down

2 BROO,L – BROO is “liquor that comes off from anything…” i.e. stock (in Scotland) and BROOL is a deep murmur (also Scots).
3 SEA-ORANGE – it’s a kind of “sponge” — don’t understand the corruption allusion: “Not all the colour of incorruptibility, famously? Sponge required”
4 ST(R)EW – poetic “level”
5 SIESTA – afternoon nap = arvo kip. Hidden.
6 O(I)DIUM – yes, it’s a fungal stage.
7 N(A,MASK)AR – A,MASK in rev(ran) – it’s the same as namaste.
8 SOR(CE)RY
9 TRIODE – compound anagram &lit: (Ah, TRIODE)* = (the radio)*
11 SCAG – hidden. It’s slang for heroin as is snow.
16 S(TO,NINES)S – recall that “on board” cryptically indicates containment in SS.
17 QU(ART)ERN – QUERN is a millstone – and QUARTERN is archaic quarter.
20 LINE,O,UT – ref. rugby. UT is archaic “as”.
21 B(UMBO)S – a cocktail. UMBO is a boss (on a shield).
22 CELLAE – rev hidden – Latin for rooms=chambers.
24 ANTLER – learnt* – under the head word “right” in Chambers, there’s a reference to antlers if anyone cares to unravel the definition.
25 MYA,L – African magic and MYA are molluscs, or gapers.
27 KY(LO)E – KYE are Scots cattle and KYLOE are shaggy (Scots) cattle!
28 S,TALE

9 comments on “Azed 1937/plain sailing”

  1. 24dn. rights are antlers (re anagram as shown), so I guessed ‘rights’ are a pair… so ‘include’ = just one ANTLER. This was a new meaning of the word for me, and the last entry.

    34ac & 3dn – I have the same observations on these clues too.

  3. Isn’t 34a a reference to newspaper letters pages? A famous signature being ‘Outraged of Tunbridge Wells’.

  4. Yes, disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. I needed som help with this one, as opposed to the previous week’s clue competition puzzle, which was my first solo solve for AZED.

    3d is referring to a quote by Thomas Carlyle of the French revolutionaries I am told, and it is NOT that colour, therefore look for SEA plus another colur meaning a sponge.

    It was beyond me, but is all there in Chambers 2008.

    This clue mucked up the left side of the puzzle, but I got the right side correct!

  5. Thanks for the blog. I got this one out with no mistakes, thanks to getting the long ones top and bottom fairly early on.

    Thanks for explaining ANTLER, which I didn’t understand, altho it had to be that from the checking letters.

    BUMBOS was the tricky one for me and held me up. Had to hunt through Chambers for that one.

  6. 3dn : it could be that “orange” is the opposite of “green” because you go on green, but you’re supposed to stop on orange.

  8. I’ve never heard of 11d ‘scag’ being spelt this way, unless it’s an archaic. I’ve heard the street term ‘sKag’ and I’d wager money on ‘snow’ as cocaine (similarities), not heroin? Unless they’re mixed together to make ‘snowball’ Can someone explain why scag is snow?

  9. Jake, Chambers lists SCAG or SKAG as N. American slang for heroin – and lists SNOW as slang for cocaine, morphine and heroin.

    So I guess there is an association there as both mean heroin.

    Nick

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