Notes for Azed 2,670

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 2,670 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

This puzzle with a slightly unusual grid was certainly harder than last week’s, and the number of clues that I marked for comment led me to conclude that the needle on the difficulty meter was, if not bouncing in the red, at least somewhere past the halfway mark. I didn’t think it was one of Azed’s finest, but it was still a reasonably entertaining solve.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 12d, “Flax-cutter’s tool, form of wand English waved”. The answer is an anagram of WAND ENGLISH, indicated by ‘form of’ – and also by ‘waved’. It is perfectly acceptable to have two anagram indicators in a clue where one anagram is followed by another – if the solution here were DAWN-SHINGLE, the first element could be a ‘form of WAND’ and the second element ‘ENGLISH waved’; however, two indicators for a single helping of ‘fodder’ is one too many. Space is increasingly at a premium for many crosswords published in newspapers, so irrespective of style considerations an editor would almost certainly cut the wordplay here to ‘wand English waved’.

Across

5a Strong drink? After school dozes, having imbibed pastis (not wines) (8)
The usual abbreviation for ‘school’ is followed by a word for ‘dozes’ containing (‘having imbibed’) PASTIS from which a word for certain wines has been removed (‘not wines’).

14a Writer’s hollow task, article for the French (6)
The task is a Scot and N Eng dialect term for a day’s work or other defined quantity of work, while the writer is Sir Walter Scott, who visited the Wicklow Mountains in 1825 and mistakenly assumed that the name of a particular local river was a general term for a glen thereabouts. It appears in this erroneous sense as a hapax legomenon in Scott’s novel Redgauntlet.

15a Almost bare in earth? Treatment with this is useless (8)
A five-letter word meaning ‘bare’ with its last letter missing (‘almost’) is contained by a word for earth. The answer was the word chosen for competition 574, and a look at the successful clues illustrates the point that an obvious clue, even if beautifully succinct, is almost certain to be spotted by several competitors and is therefore unlikely to gain top honours.

19a Seek help with engraving (5)
A clue with two definitions, the second of which struck me as a bit sneaky; however, it does just about pass the substitution test, where replacing the answer with the definition in a real English sentence does not significantly alter the meaning (‘I help with engraving the trophy’). It could, conceivably, be a definition of the third headword in Chambers, but if that had been Azed’s intention surely he would have chosen ‘help with printing’.

25a Drum, one of a pair, is damaged? Could be ear skin (5)
A composite anagram, where a rearrangement (‘damaged’) of the solution (‘Drum, one of a pair’) and IS could produce EAR SKIN.

27a Earl unhappily admitted stress getting faster (10)
If you look at the wordplay in 8d, the two parts of the wordplay are in an unnatural order, but the comma between them provides the necessary pause (‘in the river, a fish’). Here there should be a comma between ‘admitted’ and ‘stress’, since it is a synonym for ‘stress’ into which an anagram (‘unhappily’) of EARL must be ‘admitted’. I meant to mention the definition, but had forgotten about it until reminded by Mark Z – the adjective here can only have the transitive sense of the associated verb, so ‘getting faster’ is no good. Something like ‘quickening’ would work.

31a Surgically remove bit of lump to nullify circles (6)
Here we have an example of the construction which Monk last week christened the CPIW (‘Crosswordese Present Indicative Wheeze’), aka the ‘disappearing relative pronoun’ – the wordplay equates to ‘bit of lump that to nullify circles’, but the word ‘that’ has been omitted, as it often is in spoken English (eg ‘the things he says’ rather than ‘the things that he says’). Here it is the first letter (‘bit’) of LUMP that a word meaning ‘to nullify’ or ‘to moderate’ goes round (‘circles’).

32a State about to welcome European artist (6)
That familiar two-letter bit of commercial jargon meaning ‘about’ or ‘concerning’ is here required to contain (‘welcome’) the surname of a Portuguese-British visual artist, forenames Maria Paula Figueiroa, who was made a Dame of the British Empire in the Queen’s 2010 Birthday Honours.

33a Depots currently fashionable offering protection for banks (8)
A charade of a five-letter word for ‘permanent military stations, depots or training schools’ and an adjective meaning ‘currently fashionable’

35a Title of distinguished Japanese book, short one (4)
The book is the abbreviated (‘short’) name of two books of the Old Testament, and is followed by a single-letter word for ‘one’.

Down

2d Graze by the sound of it in northern pastures(4)
A homophone for a word meaning ‘[to] graze’ or ‘scrape’ produces a Scot and N Eng term which I would have expected to be defined by ‘pasture’ rather than ‘pastures’.

3d What commuter catches in the morning, leaning back (first off) having caught elevated railroad (6)
A single-letter informal US term for an elevated railroad is ‘caught’ by a six-letter word meaning ‘leaning back’ with its first letter omitted, producing a 2-4 hyphenated solution. My immediate thought was that the definition was a good one, but on reflection I feel that while a commuter might ‘take’ the solution it’s unlikely that they would ‘catch’ it.

4d Nasty Aussie insect turned up entirely in belly (7, 2 words)
A three-letter word for ‘entirely’ (already seen in 29a) is reversed (‘turned up’) inside a word which means ‘[to] belly’ or ‘swell’, specifically as a sail might do.

10d Mantle, eastern, in puckered fabric (7)
One of those clues where you need to know either the answer or the six-letter fabric (the French word for ‘pleated’) into which the usual abbreviation for ‘eastern’ is inserted.

20d Trace rigidity without inner depth (7)
An eight-letter word for ‘rigidity’ has the standard abbreviation for ‘depth’ removed from inside it (‘without inner depth’).

22d Old helmet to recognize when lifted (6)
A four-letter word meaning ‘to recognize’ (as in ‘I can recognize a composite anagram at twenty paces’) and a word for ‘when’ are both reversed (‘lifted’).

24d ‘Carry-on’ woman with chaps endlessly is responsible for such a caper (6)
The four-letter (familiar) subject of a 1964 film is followed by a word for ‘chaps’ without its last letter (‘endlessly’), producing the name of a large genus of plants of the caper family. The abiding memory of the film for some may be Amanda Barrie bathing in asses’ milk.

26d A ‘K’ a Singh’s deployed … is this? (6)
Another composite anagram, this time of the &lit variety. The letters of A K A SINGH when rearranged (‘deployed’) can produce IS plus the solution (‘this’), and the whole clue represents a definition (of sorts). You may, like me, applaud Azed’s inventiveness here while feeling that the clue is not of the highest order.

30d What may accompany bill topping millions? It’s grimy (4)
The expression formed when the first part of the answer accompanies ‘bill’ means ‘(of lovers) to kiss and talk intimately together’, while the ‘millions’ supplies a single-letter abbreviation.

(definitions are underlined)