A rather tough puzzle that I just spent 2 hours solving in the lounge at Heathrow. On a hand-drawn grid. Not a pretty picture. I thought this was rather difficult and I think I left a wordplay or two behind.
Across
1 AFFENPINSCHER – Dog having half of life in Spain, French mongrel? (13)
([li]fe) in (Spain, French)*
11 BORGO – Returning lift from activity in market town (5)
rev(rob=lift),go=activity. Italian market town. Very obscure (but that’s hardly a valid complaint wrt an Azed).
12 JOIST – Beam one’s seen with sun briefly appearing in Whit (5)
Didn’t understand one whit of this at first… JO(I,S)T – where jot=whit
14 IGUANAODON – Dung, complete, in rings, identifying prehistoric creature (9)
Don’t quite see wordplay though guano=dung must play a part as must id=identifying.
15 TOSH – Jock’s intimate friend (4)
Two meanings – one Scots.
16 BISECTOR – ‘E cut ice sorbet roughly – it makes equal halves (8)
(ic[e] sorbet)*
17 EPIGENE – Sow maybe in even earth, at the surface thereof (7)
E(PIG)’EN,E where e’en=even and e=abbrev(earth)
19 EQUANT – Point in Ptolemaic system? Riding excludes it (6)
equ[it]ant where equitant=riding. I remember spending an hour in the Science Museum or in the Metropolitan Museum trying to make head or tail of ptolemaic astronomy. Definitely a violation of Occam’s razor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equant
21 SHIITE – Welcome in place for Islamic adherent (6)
S(HI)ITE
22 RIMSHOT – Is it beyond tiro jazz drummer? Sort him out (7)
(sort him)* — don’t understand drumming but I suppose a rimshot is not for beginners.
25 PASHMINA – Turkish bigwig has invested money, wearing fine fleecy stuff (8)
M=money IN=invested PASHA yields pashmina. At first tried to make Aga and angora work.
28 TOSE – Opponents at table following in sequence turn over card (4)
TO=turn over,SE – where S and E are N and W’s opponents in bridge. Tose=tease=card.
29 SMARTARSE – Clever dick getting sailors into singular calamity (9)
S,MAR(TARS)E – where mare=calamity (apropos nightmares).
30 TELLY – Box, mostly flat these days, still contains will shortly to be read back (5)
‘ll=will in rev(yet=still). Indeed the era of the boxy CRT TV is a thing of the past.
31 OSCAR – Capital in Oz yielding ready money there once (5)
Definitely obscure for me at least. Take the capital letter of Oz for O and use the phonetic alphabet to get OSCAR which happens to be (rhyming) slang in Oz for cash.
32 GREEN SEAWEEDS – Seed grew, seen spreading round area – higher plants evolved therefrom (13, 2 words)
a=area in (seed grew, seen)*
Down
2 FOGOU – Scottish drunk about to relieve himself in chamber (5)
FO(GO)U – where fou=Scots drunk (those crazy Scots!)
3 FRUSTUM – Bathe upside down, stomach showing slice of solid body (7)
rev(surf=bathe),tum=stomach. Frustum is a geometric term.
4 NON-U – Nancy scorned such marriage (not I), coming up (4)
Nancy either indicates a French term or Nancy Mitford (in the UK). In this case, the latter: rev(un[i]on). She didn’t really like the peasants I suppose. But flirted with you know who… from Germany.
5 PROBIT – Statistical unit to stick up in den (6)
P(ROB)IT – rob=stick up shows up again with the same meaning as 11A.
6 INDIGO SNAKE – US creeper, i.e. mixing with a King’s don (11, 2 words)
Not ivy but a snake. (i.e., a King’s don)*
7 NOOSE – Twitch head of orchid in bouquet (5)
N(O)OSE – turns out twitch=noose.
8 CONCEIT – Vanity formerly admitted by one who was no gent (7)
C(ONCE)IT – formerly actually means once this time and isn’t an archaic indicator. CIT=derogatory term for a city dweller who wasn’t a gentleman.
9 HIST – Dictionary label to summon, so described (4)
HIST is annotated in Chambers as hist.=historic (term for summon).
10 ESCORT – Attend to tight corset (6)
corset* – an easy clue. Finally.
11 BITTER-PIT – It may threaten production of cider or beer, mine (9)
A disease affecting apple trees. BITTER=beer, PIT=mine.
13 TARGETEER – Shield-bearer showing urge of old to learn, always (9)
Indeed a shield-bearer. TAR=incite=urge,GET=learn,E’ER=ever=always
17 EARHOLE – Lug Scots viewer round modernist artist (not No. 1) (7)
Struggled here — eventually realized that earhole=lug and our artist is Warhol and a Scots viewer is an eye=ee. So… E([w]ARHOL)E – where the [w] is removed by “not No. 1”. Tough clue.
18 DIVORCE – Old poet read up Latin and English, separate (7)
rev(Ovid=old poet),RC=Roman Catholic=Latin,E
20 QUAVER – Trembling state after two successive helpings of liquor (6)
[li]QU[or],AVER=state – not terribly fond of “two successive helpings of liquor” indicating “qu” specifically.
21 SHARIA – Strict legal tradition has broken song up (6)
has*,rev(air=song)
23 MIMUS – US birds, youngest dropping in (5)
m[in]imus – mockingbirds and minimus=youngest. Also a bit too obscure for the likes of me.
24 ASSAD – Head of state? One such, causing sorrow? (5)
&lit. A,S,SAD
26 SOLE – Exclusive floor (4)
two meanings – one is the “floor of an oven…”
27 STOW – Make room for five-letter sequence (4)
Yes… S to W is STUVW which is five-letters. I think this was my last clue solved.
That’s pretty good going under pressure. I found this much tougher than the average Azed but well worth the slog. In 14A ‘do’ = ‘complete’.
14 ac is, I think, GUANO + DO (“complete”) inside IN (“in rings”). On 4dn, wasn’t it Nancy’s sister who “flirted with you know who – from Germany” – indeed rather more than flirted? Thank you for explaining this clue. It had me completely flummoxed, not helped by my concluding that the answer must be NONG (= Nancy) – though I couldn’t, of course, then make any sense of the rest of it.
Sorry. Bob’s comment had not come up on my screen when I submitted mine.
Yes, I think in the comment in the blog on 4D, Nancy may have been mistaken for her sister Unity. Also not sure if it’s right, as the clue maybe seems to suggest, that Nancy scorned NON-U, but she certainly invented the term which endures today.
Definitely the hardest Azed we’ve seen in a while, though always gettable with a little patience.
@robin: thanks for clearing up 14A. And I suppose I tarred Nancy’s reputation based on both her sisters (Unity and Diana).