Notes for Azed 2,593

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.

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Azed 2,593 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I thought this puzzle was considerably trickier than last week’s, and considerably more entertaining. I’ve placed it in the middle of the difficulty spectrum, but the relative lack of freebies perhaps even took it a shade past the mid-point. There were some amusing clues in there, with several of Azed’s trademarks on show,

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 6d, “Tail of Moby-Dick and ray no good as source of whalebone? (5)”. The wordplay here involves a charade of the last letter of ‘Moby-Dick’, the letters RE, and the usual abbreviation for ‘no good’, the definition being ‘source of whalebone?’. The point of interest here is the use of ‘ray’ to indicate RE. I once submitted a clue in which ‘a’ indicated AN; I wasn’t too happy about it myself, and the editor didn’t like it at all, on the basis that they are simply two forms of the same word. I don’t think ray/re here is nearly as bad, but I still feel that using one form of a word to suggest an alternative form (eg road/road) is quite different from using a word to indicate an abbreviation (eg road/rd). I’m not suggesting that it is either unsound or unfair, but I do think it’s a bit weak.

1a Blokes in musical genre displaying military headgear (8)
A five-letter word for ‘blokes’ is contained by a three-letter musical genre which has its roots in the Caribbean but became popular in the UK during the 2 Tone revival that began in the  late 1970s. “I’ve just seen Suggs walking up the drive” – “Oh dear, that’s the first sign of Madness.” I’ll get my coat…

10a Broadening on each side, timber tree to work at (10)
A charade of a three-letter word meaning ‘on each side’ in the sense of ‘apiece’ (eg when the two sides contesting a football match have two goals apiece), a five-letter Moroccan timber tree, and a two-letter verb meaning ‘to work at’.

11a Death? Saint accepts short way (6)
The name of a saint who was canonized in 1920 and premiered at the Garrick Theatre in Manhattan three years later contains (‘accepts’) the two-letter abbreviation of a particular type of ‘way’. The sense in which the solution is used here is described by OED as ‘pietistic’ and is a reference to the river that one might look over and see a band of angels heading in one’s general direction.

14a Spiritual leader removing hat for mature lady (in US) (4)
A  seven-letter word for a spiritual leader that is usually associated with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has the letters HAT removed in order to produce a slang word, shown by Chambers as ‘chiefly US’, for a mature woman.

15a Abbey, English, displaying blend of metals (8, 2 words)
The name of a famous Monmouthshire abbey is joined by the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘English’ to produce a (3,5) term for an alloy of lead with a smaller proportion of another metal that was used to coat sheet iron or steel in order to inhibit corrosion.

19a A devil back to front, appearing as heathen in poetry (5)
The last letter of a two-word (2,3) phrase for ‘a devil’ is moved to the beginning (‘back to front’), the result being a Miltonian (hence the ‘in poetry’) spelling of a word meaning heathen or pagan which appears in Paradise Lost.

22a Wine? One’s drunk about a mug (7)
Here we have a single-letter word for ‘one’ followed by a three-letter word meaning ‘drunk’ around a three-letter word for a drinking-mug. I don’t like ‘has’ (or apostrophe-s) being used as a juxtaposition indicator – I have no doubt that there are meanings of the verb ‘have’ in Chambers which could be used to justify it, but that applies to many other verbs. I think something like “Wine one sloshed around mug” would be just as good (modesty prevents me from saying ‘superior’!).

27a The inducement that includes love and opening to heaven for believer in karma? (8)
The letters THE (from the clue) and a three-letter word for an inducement or concession have the usual single-character representation of ‘love’ placed between them and are followed by the first letter (‘opening’) of ‘heaven’.

30a Pearl oyster has borne? Could be this stone, yes? (6)
Azed has been a bit naughty with this one. The composite anagram, where the letters of OYSTER HAS BORNE can be rearranged (‘could be’) to form the solution (‘this’) plus STONE YES, is fine. However, although there are two question marks in the clue, neither of them directly follows the word ‘Pearl’, surely the minimum required to make the ‘definition’ adequate, given that it isn’t even a definition by example, just part of a name. But I’m not bothered, firstly because I enjoyed it, and secondly since I think that 49 years and 11 months of yeoman service gives Azed the right to stretch things a little on occasion.

31a Burning green logs, nip one of them in pieces (6)
The anagram (‘in pieces’) here is of NIP and LOG (‘one of them’), and the solution is a word that I don’t recall coming across before in this particular sense. It relates to a process for purifying copper or tin containing their oxides as impurities, where freshly-cut trees were used to provide the reducing agent (wood gas from the sap) to convert the oxide to the metallic element. Natural gas or diesel are now generally employed for the purpose, but the name of the process has endured.

1d House in Warsaw Susan and James briefly vacated (4)
The standard diminutives (‘briefly’) of the names ‘Susan’ and ‘James’ have their middle letters removed (‘vacated’), the solution being a Polish term for a parliament, and since 1921 the name specifically of the lower house in Poland.

2d WC avoided by women, one in pub like a sewer? (7)
WC (from the clue) without (‘avoided by’) the usual abbreviation for ‘women’ is followed by a single letter word for ‘one’ inside a five-letter term for a pub. The adjective relates to one of those things that the Romans kindly gave us, having already given themselves a ‘Maxima’ one in the 6th century BC.

4d See me going up in plane, one responsible for silverware (8)
The word ME is reversed (‘going up’) inside a six-letter term for a plane – not the sort that leaves the ground, but the sort that might be covered in the former and has its roots in the latter. It is unfortunate that the word ‘plane’ and the solution are rather similar.

5d Unpleasant ooze from Pret à Manager fare, ignoring recipe (6)
A seven-letter informal term for the sort of things that you might get from Pret (perhaps with bacon, lettuce and tomato but without the unpleasant ooze) missing the usual abbreviation for ‘recipe’ (which has already featured at 33a).

8d Naked figure, head out of position, in Italian tourist town (5)
A word for ‘[a] naked figure’, or perhaps more accurately ‘a naked person’ (or a picture thereof), has its first letter (‘head’) relocated (‘out of position’) in order to produce the name of the Italian town, known to me only because the name of their soccer team is that of the town followed by the letters ‘se’.

9d Some spies put out to dry, as victims of hostility (8)
A five-letter term for spies of the type exemplified by Bill Haydon in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is followed by a three-letter verb meaning ‘[to] put out to dry’. In the definition, ‘as’ is used in the sense of ‘like’.

23d Jock’s crested tuft, very soft within (6)
The “Jock’s” in the clue is used to indicate the Scottishness of both the definition (‘crested’) and the element of the wordplay (a Scots word for ‘tuft’) which has the usual abbreviation for ‘pianissimo’ (ie ‘very soft’) within it. I’m not convinced that “Jock’s crested tuft” can reasonably be interpreted as “Jock’s crested, Jock’s tuft”, but we’ll let that pass.

26d Vehicle, we hear, for one-time star of silver screen (5)
A homophone (that old favourite ‘we hear’) for a sort of large motor vehicle (I wonder if Azed considered using ‘Articulated vehicle’ instead of ‘Vehicle, we hear’), being the stage surname of Hungarian actor László Löwenstein. I cannot see it without thinking of Al Stewart’s classic song Year of the Cat, which for many years I believed contained the line “You go strolling through the crowd like Big Dolores”. I blame a poor quality cassette recording and Al’s unusual diction. Anyway, it was actually this fellow he was singing about.

(definitions are underlined)