Notes for Azed 2,732

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 2,732 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I would put this one right in the middle of the difficulty range, and I got the feeling that Azed had enjoyed setting it. The general knowledge requirements were modest (just 16a and 11d, I think), but there was a high proportion of obscure, or at least unfamiliar, words as well as one or two tricky wordplays. The word ‘cheers’ appears in three clues, but each time it leads to a different word, albeit two of these words are rather similar.

Setters’ Corner: Two for the price of one this week. Firstly, I want to look at 31a, “In the mood for the Highlands traveller enters, resolute (8)”, and 14d, “This metal’s like pewter, a battered tin in a bar (9)”. In the former a three-letter term for a (commercial) traveller is contained by IN (from the clue) and a three-letter Scots word, while the latter involves an anagram (‘battered’) of TIN IN A BAR. There is an acceptance that definite and indefinite articles can be included or excluded in clues at the setter’s discretion when there is no effect on the cryptic interpretation, so ‘end of August’ and ‘the end of August’ are interchangeable for ‘T’. However, the setter must not include or exclude an article in order to deceive (rather than misdirect) the solver. In 31a, the Scots word is shown by Chambers as meaning ‘a mood’, so this clue should begin “In mood for the Highlands…”, while in 14d the ‘a’ following the comma is an unwelcome addition, “This metal’s like pewter, battered tin in a bar” being the fair version.

Secondly, we have 4d, “Money useful for competitor in Parisian paralympics? (6)”, a simple charade of the usual abbreviation for ‘money’ and a word meaning ‘useful’. The word lists that I use when getting electronic help to fill a grid are subject to pruning whenever the program suggests a word that I think it might be prudent not to include; beyond that, I personally always aim to use words that are verifiable in Chambers, although I have no problem with proper nouns being used by setters as long as they are not too obscure. I studiously avoid anything that requires a special note, such as the ‘It [Chambers] does not give the French word at 4’ here. It’s usually possible to get round a potential problem like this – here it would just have needed the entries at 1a and 3d to be changed such that a ‘Chambers word’ could have come in at 4d.

Across

1a Way of analysing a person’s speech? Copper’s given chief points (5)
The chemical symbol for copper is followed by a word meaning ‘chief points’ or ‘the whole’. I don’t recall previously coming across the answer before, and I’m not convinced that Chambers is accurate in its definition. As far as I can see, it’s a statistical technique developed by the computer scientist ES Page in the early 1950s which is still used today in a wide range of quality control and monitoring applications to provide early warning of (typically unwelcome) change.

12a Transport missing last bend in part of Sussex (7)
Flanders and Swann’s title Transport of Delight traded, as does this clue, on two significantly different senses of the noun ‘transport’. The wordplay here has a four-letter word for a bend deprived of its final letter (‘missing last’) being contained by the term for one of the six historical divisions of Sussex, each represented on the county’s flag by a martlet [the WordPress spellchecker suggested that I might have meant ‘tartlet’, which was a nice thought].

13a No longer recognize Tiny Tim? I’m excluded (4)
Nothing to do with Dickens or tiptoeing through the tulips (remember him?), a three-letter (Scots, but surely familiar to all) word for ‘tiny’ is followed by TIM from which the letters IM have been removed (“I’m excluded”).

16a Cheers speedster at the wheel I lapped? (6)
I seem to see more and more ‘missing comma’ clues in puzzles, and here’s another one – there needs to be something between ‘wheel’ and ‘I’, either a comma (indicating a pause) or a word such as ‘with’. The speedster was famed for his rivalry with Ayrton Senna.

17a Problem striking hour? It’s not typical of Big Ben (4)
The sort of problem that occurs in phrases like “There’s just one ?????….” has the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘hour’ omitted (‘striking hour’) to produce the sort of sound more likely to come from Tiny Tim(epiece) than Big Ben. 

32a Old duke? This duke misbehaving may be fined (4)
A compact and bijou composite anagram where the solution (‘this’) and the usual abbreviation for ‘duke’ can be rearranged (‘misbehaving…may be’) to form FINED. The ‘duke’ in the definition is one of a pair that those being invited to participate in fisticuffs would be advised to put up.

33a Raven, bloodied, tucking into pastry (7)
The definition here is not, as it might appear from the surface reading, a noun, rather it is a verb. The answer is produce by tucking a three-letter word meaning ‘bloodied’ into a word which is now associated with a paste, often involving meat, but formerly described a pie, pasty or patty.

35a One meandering widely in Asia cheers king (5)
A four-letter word for ‘cheers[!]’, a doubling of the one found in 15a, is followed by the monarchical abbreviation for ‘king’. I’ve heard quite a few epithets applied to Genghis Khan and his hordes, but I don’t remember ‘meandering’ being one of them.

Down

3d Half a day given over for follow-up to festival (4)
The first half of the name of a particular day is reversed (‘given over’) to produce a term which originally designated the eighth day after an ecclesiastical festival (both days being counted in the eight, so the ????, or ‘octaves’, would always fall on the same day of the week as the festival itself).

7d Water pot in India, inclined to crack, so it’s said (6)
The ‘crack’ in this homophone clue is of the prattly/gossipy sort.

10d For instance record university kept in the main turned up pastoral poems (9)
A two-letter abbreviation meaning ‘for instance’, a three-letter word for ‘record’ and the usual abbreviation for ‘university’ are contained by (‘kept in’) a reversal (‘turned up’) of a more prosaic word for ‘the main’.

11d White wine TV chef preferred to ale, reverse of gross bottled (11)
The surname of a TV chef particularly associated with what might be described (referencing the clue above) as ‘main dishes’ is followed by a four-letter word for ‘ale’ within which a reversal of the standard abbreviation for ‘gross’ is contained (‘bottled’).

19d Following a close trim, rising fashion (3)
Impossible without checkers to know what is ‘rising’ (reversed) here; it turns out to be the French fashion rather than the adjective meaning ‘with close-cropped hair’. My thanks to a correspondent for gently pointing out that in my original annotation I’d got it back to front, thus – one might say – proving my own point!

22d Conserve container for litter (6)
A three-letter word for a conserve and another one for the sort of thing that you might make it in combine to produce an Indian sedan chair which was carried by four men.

25d Drug kept in heroin pouches (5)
The word for heroin in which a single-letter drug is ‘kept’ has only relatively recently been introduced to Chambers, and it’s hard not to feel that we managed quite well without it.

28d Fish basket made of young animal skin on edge of watercourse (4)
One of those clues where both the answer and the key element of the wordplay may well be unfamiliar. A three-letter word for the skin of a young animal (which could also be indicated by ‘snooze’) is followed by the last letter (‘edge’) of ‘watercourse’. The answer is a dialect word for an osier basket used for catching fish.

(definitions are underlined)