Notes for Azed 2,724

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,724 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

Having clearly underestimated the difficulty of last week’s puzzle, I would suggest that this week’s offering is at a similar level, so I have given it a rating just above average. It was an enjoyable solve, even if a few of the clues struck me as being a little lacking in inspiration.

I would strongly urge those who don’t usually enter the competitions to start having a go. The August comp received only 116 entries, of which 56 received recognition in the form of a prize, a VHC (Very Highly Commended) or an HC (Highly Commended). These days there are usually a few unfamiliar names in the lists, so it’s surely worth buying a ticket. I would suggest that with a word like this month’s, the key is to come up with an interesting definition (not necessarily cryptic, but at least somewhat oblique), and then support it with a sound wordplay which contributes to the overall story, which will ideally bear no relation to the actual meaning of the answer. If you were looking for a model, you could do no better, I think, than Richard Heald’s winning clue for HACKETTE (AZ 2014) – it’s a conventional wordplay + definition clue with a straightforward cryptic interpretation, so no pyrotechnics, just a clue that ‘ticks all the boxes’. I would suggest that for new or relatively new entrants, keeping the structure simple is a good plan.

Clue Writers’ Corner: When clueing answers which are hyphenated or consist of more than one word, such as MAIL-ORDER or HARD COURT, it is generally considered weak to simply indicate the component parts individually in the wordplay, eg ‘armour arrangement’ or ‘tough date’ for the foregoing. Similarly, where the answer is a derived form where the parent is followed by a suffix which is itself a word, eg MILDNESS, I would always try to avoid having the division in the wordplay coinciding with the natural division in the answer – better, I think, to treat this as, say (SEND in SLIM)<, rather than just MILD + NESS, which in a clue writing competition falls into the ‘obvious treatments’ category, with something like ‘head on beer’ likely to be a regular selection.

Across

1a Humourless plug after theatre? (6)
A nice little clue to get things going, a charade of a two-letter crossword staple for ‘humourless’ and a word meaning ‘[to] plug’ producing the word which answers the nicely deceptive definition.

14a Wine from Greek island on occasion? Not me (7)
A five-letter word meaning ‘from [a particular] Greek island’ (the fifth largest, known as ‘the Mastic Island’ on account of its principal export) is followed by (‘on’) a four-letter word for ‘occasion’ deprived of the consecutive letters ME (‘not me’).

16a Cat giving a bit of a hallo close to king (4)
I’m not convinced that ‘a bit of a hallo’ can equate to H, since ‘a hallo’ is quite different from ‘hallo’ on its own, but that’s what it does here, being followed by a two-letter word meaning ‘close to’ and the chess/cards abbreviation for ‘king’. The definition related to the last sense given in Chambers for the verb ‘cat’.

20a Enlarge spreading Indian tree? It denotes environmental acceptability (10, 2 words)
An anagram (‘spreading’) of ENLARGE is followed by a thorny Indian tree (often spelt with four letters) which you may need to work back from having identified the (5,5) answer.

21a What’ll go into the making of breakfast – toast mostly? (10, 2 words)
Could we be about to receive Gesg? Well, not quite, but in this companion piece the (6,4) answer tells us how the first four letters (‘mostly’) of TOAST might be cryptically indicated.

25a Hessian got from textile dealer without hesitation? (4)
The British secured the services of around 30,000 German troops to fight in the American War of Independence, the majority being from the state of Hesse-Cassel. As a result, the term ‘Hessian’ came in the US to describe a military, and subsequently also a political, hireling. The wordplay here has a six-letter textile dealer losing an abbreviation that will be familiar to all crossword aficionados.

27a What Puck gets up to in moderation after endless ill-will (7)
A two-letter word for moderation follows a six-letter word for ill-will from which the last letter has been omitted (‘endless’). The presence of Puck in the definition serves two purposes – both to indicate the sort of thing he got up to and the fact that the answer is a Shakespearean word. It occurs only in a single passage from Hamlet, “Marry this is Miching ???????, that meanes Mischeefe” in the original folio, with the first two quartos having ‘myching’ and ‘munching’ for ‘Miching’ as well as different spellings for the answer here. The expression is considered to be ‘of uncertain form, origin, and meaning’, but apart from that it’s all pretty clear.

29a Half of copies switching places in exedra (4)
A four-letter word meaning ‘copies’ has the second pair of letters reversed (‘half…switching places’).

30a Roofing suppliers, not generally viewable in French palace (8)
The palace here is a royal French one, originally the home of Catherine de’ Medici, which stood on the right bank of the Seine and had a somewhat chequered existence until it was gutted by a fire started by twelve members of the Paris Commune in 1871. Its name loses the single letter designating a film that is suitable for all audiences.

31a Tendril revel damaged in … (8)
Usually when Azed includes ellipses at the end of one clue and the start of the next, the two need to be considered together. In this instance, the second clue stands alone, but the first needs to share the word ‘trap’. Thus an anagram (‘damaged’) of REVEL is contained by a synonym for ‘trap’.

33a Cash joints, by the sound of it recipients of gifts? (6)
A homophone for a pair of words, each of five letters.

Down

1d Hole with siliceous rock containing scheme for growing type of insectivore (12, 2 words)
A three-letter hole (possibly leading to a seam of coal) is followed by a five-letter rock of cryptocrystalline silica containing a familiar four-letter word for a scheme. Note that helpful first word in the definition of the (7,5) solution.

5d Ploughman’s spade, dry, kept in enclosure (6)
There’s a pretty good chance that ‘dry’ in an Azed clue will lead to the abbreviation for ‘teetotal’, which here is contained by the sort of enclosure that forms a figurative boundary beyond which behaviour must not pass if it is to be acceptable.

6d Jest, according to hearsay, the latest from Ireland (5)
This is a very weak homophone clue, not helped by the fact that it is ambiguous.

8d Radical acid, denoting ornamental fabric first to last? (4)
A word meaning ‘of or like a particular delicate ornamental fabric’ has its first letter moved to the end, producing a term which perhaps more accurately is an acid radical rather than a radical acid, although the latter sounds more fun.

10d Church leaders, tense before spring festival with company in suits (12)
The usual abbreviation for tense, a four-letter Hindu festival, and the usual abbreviation for ‘company’ are contained by a five-letter word for suits of the legal kind.

15d Buses out of order, bulb once left over as before (9)
Hands up if you found yourself with all but one letter (the penultimate one) in the answer here. Yes, I’ve got my hand raised. The anagram (‘out of order’) of BUSES should be no problem, but the archaic (‘once’) term for a small bulb may prove trickier, being a variant spelling of the name of a familiar herb. The answer (itself ‘obsolete or rare’, hence the ‘as before’) seems to have appeared largely in combination with ‘hours’, the combination denoting spare time.

17d Bird spotter in Scotland interrupting one starting game? (8)
I got a little concerned when three consecutive, identical checked letters appeared in this light, but I needn’t have worried, the (3-5) hyphenation making this possible. A two-letter Scots form of ‘eye’ (‘spotter in Scotland’) is contained by (‘interrupting’) someone employed to rouse game from their hiding-places.

22d Lacking colour inside, cook up what’s iridescent (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘lacking colour’ is put inside a reversal (‘up’) of a word meaning (among many other things) ‘cook’.

24d Old soldier, last sent to the front as a favour? (5)
The ‘Old soldier’ takes us back to Roman times, and appears in Chambers only as part of an expression describing a vainglorious soldier. Its last letter must be moved to the beginning, the result being a familiar word, albeit perhaps not the most obvious sense thereof.

26d Good spirit States wasted is shocking (4)
A ten-letter word meaning ‘is shocking’ has the consecutive letters STATES removed (‘States wasted’).

28d Pigment, topping subject (4)
One of those wordplays where we must imagine either the answer or the solver being the actor removing the first letter from (‘topping’) a five-letter word for a subject.

(definitions are underlined)