Notes for Azed 2,752

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 2,752 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I was a little jaded this morning and probably made harder work of this than I needed to, but I would place it pretty close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. It was a pleasant solve, though perhaps lacking the verve of Azed’s very finest.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 29d, “Failure just after being backed repeatedly (4)”. The wordplay has two instances (‘repeatedly’) of a two-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘just after’ being reversed (‘backed’), and the answer is hyphenated, 2-2. The point of interest here is the use of ‘backed’ to indicate reversal in a down clue. Some editors don’t like this, and I was very disappointed a few years ago when a down clue of mine, “Arsenal backs drank hard and often (5)”, was rejected for just that reason. It seems entirely reasonable to me that a reversal indicator like ‘rising’ is accepted only in down clues, but since all clues are printed horizontally, I see no reason why the answer cannot be assembled in the same plane before entry in the grid. I am confident that ‘left bit of broccoli’ would be accepted in a down clue for B, although it seems to me to have exactly the same ‘fault’, and I believe that the only limitations on reversal indicators should apply to across clues.

Across

10a Insinuate love in writing (5)
The usual single-letter representation of ‘love’ is contained by an informal term for handwriting (and a term for the hand itself in a particular configuration).

14a Dark blue adroitness to surpass in play? (6)
The wordplay here has to be read in its entirety, leading to a (2,4) phrase which might describe the sort of adroitness that is displayed in Azed’s (academic) neck of the woods. I thought that perhaps the question mark at the end of the clue was to be applied to the wordplay, but the digital versions of Chambers don’t include the answer. I’m away from home at the moment and don’t have access to the Big Red Book itself, but I suspect that it’s not in there either (though I did come across a word the other day which has got ‘lost’ from the digital implementation of Chambers). Please let me know if it does feature in the BRB, but otherwise there really should have been a note along the lines of ’14a is in Collins’.

17a Certain interference in constellation, a watery condition (8)
A three-letter abbreviation for interference of the electromagnetic kind is contained by the name of a large constellation, as well as the lethally halitotic, many-headed monster which Heracles was tasked with seeing to after successfully dispatching the Nemean Lion.

18a Bird limps back to front (4)
The last letter of a word meaning ‘limps’ is moved to the start (‘back to front’), producing an ‘old slang’ term for somewhere also known in certain circles as ‘bird’; based on the rhyming slang which gave rise to the latter, it would logically apply only to time spent in the place, rather than to the place itself, but it’s in Chambers with that meaning, so who are we to argue?

25a Euro we Scots will go after completely gripped by conflict (8)
A two-letter Scots form of ‘we’ follows (‘will go after’) a three-letter word meaning ‘completely’ contained (‘gripped’) by a word for conflict. The ‘euro’ here is less European, more antipodean.

28a Oriental without a name, fellow that’s very hard up (8)
A six-letter word for ‘oriental’ deprived of the letters A and the usual abbreviation for ‘name’ (consecutively) precedes a four-letter ‘fellow’, probably a decent type.

32a Fond couple displaying reverse of prudence mostly (4)
The answer, a familiar term, is formed by reversing a Greek ‘personification of prudence’ without her last letter (‘mostly’). The first wife of Zeus, she provided him with wise counsel, not to mention giving him a hand to release his five siblings from the stomach of his father, Cronus; he’d eaten them all in an attempt to defy the prophecy that he would be overthrown by his own children, but Zeus’s mum had got wise to what was going on and given Cronus a swaddled stone to devour rather than the baby Zeus. Litholologists will be relieved to learn that the stone was also disgorged, apparently unharmed, and placed by Zeus at Delphi.

34a Like a silky old dress? Far away from famous range (6)
A nine-letter obsolete word for a ‘dress of silk with wool or hair’ has the consecutive letters FAR removed (‘far away’) in order to produce the answer, a less common spelling of an adjective relating to a ‘famous range’.

Down

2d Hooligan that is found under gutter, block knocked off? (7)
The usual abbreviation for ‘that is’ follows a six-letter word for a gutter, or a vessel in which water or food is provided for animals, from which the first letter has been deleted (‘block knocked off’).

5d Snobbish but not completely, a matter for regret (4)
A six-letter word meaning ‘snobbish’ is shorn (I’m starting to run out of synonyms for this process) of a two-letter word meaning, inter alia, ‘completely’.

7d Hazel’s bits, tons seized by Leo, causing wailing (11)
A six-letter word for catkins (ie “Hazel’s bits”) and the usual abbreviation for ‘tons’ are contained by a four-letter word equating to ‘Leo’.

8d Second-year student in theological college, missing second half (4)
An eight -letter word which could also describe the sort of place that three little maids unwarily came from surrenders its last four letters (‘missing second half’). The answer is a shortened form of a (4-5) ‘old’ term for a second-year student in Scotland. As James Fowler Fraser wrote about Aberdeen University in his book Dr Jimmy: Some Reminiscences:

First year students were bajans and bajanellas, second year students were ????s and semolinas, third year students were tertians and tertianas, and fourth year honours students were known as magistrands. The only class that had a name at Marischal [College] was the first year medicals, i.e. lambs.

9d Trickster that was displaying range in turn of work (9)
A five-letter word for ‘range’ or ‘extent’ is contained by a term for a turn of work which can also describe a period of military service in a particular location. The ‘that was’ in the definition is there because the answer is shown by Chambers as ‘obsolete’.

11d Internal inflammation: chloride is restricting whistling sound with one (11)
A four-letter word for something of which a chloride is an example (or a term specifically for sodium chloride) and the letters IS (from the clue) are put around (‘restricting’) a four-letter ‘sharp ringing or whistling sound, eg of a bullet’ and the Roman numeral for ‘one’.

19d Wearing royal headgear, acted to contain an ancient township (8)
A three-letter word for ‘acted’ contains the letter A and a word for a Greek township.

23d Trees dad’s planted round another one child removed (7)
A four-letter alternative for “dad’s” is placed (‘planted’) round a five-letter tree (‘another one’, ie another tree) from which the standard abbreviation for ‘child’ has been lost (‘child removed’).

31d Heater turned up? It’s a gamble (4)
A vessel for heating liquids that is named after a famous volcano is reversed (‘turned up’) to produce a word that certainly describes a stake that is placed when gambling, although whether ‘a gamble’ (‘a transaction depending on chance’) is quite the same thing is perhaps a moot point.

(definitions are underlined)