Notes for Azed 2,589

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.

While I – of course – believe that the views presented are valid, I realize that (i) I am not infallible, and (ii) in the world of the crossword there are many areas where opinions will differ. I say what I think, but I don’t intend thereby to stifle discussion – I would encourage readers who disagree with the views that I express, whether in the blog posts or in response to comments, to make their feelings known…I shall not be offended!

Azed 2,589 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

I thought this puzzle sat a little below the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There were considerably fewer contentious points than last week, but at the same time I felt that the joie de vivre that infuses Azed’s very best puzzles was somewhat lacking.

Nothing to do with Azed, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to mention the marvellous story of the robotic vacuum cleaner that escaped from a Travelodge in Cambridge last Thursday, having failed to stop at the lip on the hotel’s front door. After staff used social media to alert the public to the situation, they received many reassuring messages regarding the absconder, with people saying that it was unlikely to come to harm as it had no natural predators. However, one dissenting voice suggested that it was very much at risk, since ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. I wish I’d said that. The fugitive was recaptured on Friday, having been found by a (human) cleaner under a hedge near the front drive. It was apparently unharmed, if a little dirty, and following a dusting down has been reunited with its family.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 6d, “What sounds like thug, unruly youth with a quiff? (6)”. As regular readers will know, I have no grate affection for clues that involve homophones, but I’m quite prepared to accept them when Chambers indicates that the pronunciation of the words involved is the same. In recent times I have become rather alarmed by the rise of the ‘partial homophone’, where the wordplay suggests a word which sounds like part of the solution, the remainder being indicated by other wordplay elements, eg “Strong chain, we hear, broken” for ROBUST. In this example (which was painful for me to write), the homophone leads to a non-word, RO, and the positioning of the ‘we hear’ makes it clear that the BUST is entirely separate. In Azed’s clue, the homophone for ‘tough’ leads to a non-word, TUF, but could the wordplay involve only a homophone, ie ‘tough ted’ = TUFTED? Not in my view – the pronunciations are different, and if Azed had meant the clue to be read that way he would surely have indicated ‘tough ted’ by a phrase, eg ‘callous unruly youth’. Conclusion: I don’t much like this clue.

4a Zero stake for Jock in grave, borrower’s bond (8)
The usual single-character representation of ‘zero’ and a four-letter Scots (‘for Jock’) word for a stake or stub are contained by a three-letter word for [a] grave, the solution being hyphenated (4-4).

11a Printing plate? Choose what’s right for printers (7)
A five-letter word meaning ‘choose’ is followed by a two-letter abbreviation of the term used in printing for the right-hand page of an open book.

15a Having lost new exhaust, was over the limit (4)
The old ‘missing comma’ returns (well, you know what I mean) – the wordplay here is really ‘Having lost new, exhaust’, where a five-letter word meaning ‘[to] exhaust’ has had the usual abbreviation for ‘new’ removed.

17a Shakespearean company, as is fitting, seen in flickering strobe (6)
Chambers gives the solution (an anagram of STROBE) as ‘suitable company’, and when combined with its Shakespearean provenance this has produced a challenge for Azed. Something like ‘Suitable Shakespearean company’ wouldn’t be valid, so Azed has decided to use a postpositive adjectival expression to get round the problem. I did briefly wonder whether ‘flickering strobe’ carried a whiff of tautology, but I concluded that the strobe might be malfunctioning and therefore flickering randomly rather than flashing regularly.

21a Crown appearing in bowlers? They’ll end in headlines maybe (9)
A two-letter abbreviation for ‘crown’ appears inside a seven-letter term for a particular class of cricketing bowlers, the result being a word applied to sensational headlines; I don’t think the ‘maybe’ is strictly necessary.

27a PC goes off, having written off expenses briefly (4)
An eight-letter word for ‘goes off’ has an informal contraction (‘briefly’) of ‘expenses’ removed (‘written off’), two letters going from the start and two from the end. The PC in question appeared in Enid Blyton’s Noddy books, and quickly became synonymous with the police force generally. Despite being kindly disposed towards Noddy, he has locked him up on at least one occasion and at other times has threatened him with imprisonment. He demands the attention of miscreants by blowing his whistle and shouting ‘Halt in the name of ***!’ before pursuing them on his trusty bicycle as a prelude to feeling their collars and putting them in jail. The character was apparently based on PC Christopher Raymond (‘Ray’) Rone, who was at one time the beat bobby for the village of Studland in Dorset. Blyton used to stay regularly with her husband at the old golf club there, where Ray, an avuncular character and archetypal village policeman, would come to visit her on his bicycle. It seems that he rarely mentioned Blyton to his family, although many years later he let slip that he “didn’t think she liked children very much”.

1d Taipan e.g., from east in occupation on body of water (8, 2 words)
A nice definition by example that has been integrated deceptively into the clue, the wordplay involving the usual abbreviation for ‘east’ inside a three-letter word for an occupation being followed by a four-letter term for a body of water. The solution divides (3,5) and is Australian rhyming slang for the sort of thing you don’t want to find in your dunny.

6d What sounds like thug, unruly youth with a quiff? (6)
A three-letter (non-word) homophone for ‘thug’ is followed by a word for an unruly youth which makes frequent appearances in crosswords.

7d Finest trimmed bonnet made to order (7)
A four-letter word for ‘finest’ missing the last letter (‘trimmed’) is followed by a term for the projecting rim on the front of a bonnet, or a bonnet with such a feature.

9d Former paddock, area enveloped in bushy creeper (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘area’ is contained (‘enveloped’) by an old word for a bush, especially of ivy (and also the name of a fox about whom a tale was written). The defining word in the clue (not the solution) is given by Chambers as ‘archaic and Scot’, hence the qualification ‘former’, but should be familiar to aficionados of the Sunday Post’s Oor Wullie cartoon strip, either in the spelling seen here or with a U replacing the A.

18d Raised perched hawks – male ones (8)
A three-letter word meaning ‘perched’ is reversed (‘raised’) and followed by a word meaning ‘hawks’ in a vending sense; the ‘ones’ in the definition refers back to the ‘hawks’, but in a completely different sense.

22d Lave flow from volcano’s centre almost at an end – shelter (6)
A charade of the central letter of ‘volcano’, a three-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘at an end’ missing its last letter (‘almost’), and a word meaning ‘shelter’.

26d Demonstrative term from character, first to last (5)
A five-letter word for distinctive character or moral significance has its initial letter moved to the end (‘first to last’).

27d Teacher offering improvement when it’s lacking (4)
A six-letter word for improvement or benefit is deprived of the consecutive letters IT (“when it’s lacking”).

28d Parched by a desert? Thus beset possibly (4)
A composite anagram to finish, where the words BY A DESERT can be produced by a rearrangement (‘possibly’) of the letters of the solution (‘thus’) plus BESET.

(definitions are underlined)