Notes for Azed 2,759

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 2,759 Plain

Difficulty rating: (1.5 / 5)

Before I get on to this week’s puzzle, I wanted to say a very big ‘thank you’ to the organizers of Saturday’s Azed lunch, which was a wonderfully enjoyable affair from start to finish. Great job, gentlemen! I also wanted to say how touched I was by the kind comments that several people made to me about this site – that sort of thing makes it all seem worthwhile.

The Tortoise was slow to come out of its shell today, but the correct results for competition puzzle 2,755 did at least appear; as I surmised, the results printed last week were for the ‘drawn at random’ 2,756. This puzzle struck me as being at the lower end of the difficulty spectrum, although it did contain quite a high proportion of relatively obscure words. In the clue for 17d, the repetition of ‘with’ should be ignored.

Although the competition clue word includes an accented vowel and has very specific geographic origins, it should (as confirmed by the unqualified definition provided by Azed) be treated as a word that has been absorbed into the English language and is still in current (if not regular) use, albeit in reference to the past. There is therefore no need to indicate its origins, but I would strongly recommend avoiding the use of the present tense in any definition (as this would suggest that such a person could be found today), just as one would steer clear of, say, ‘he sells liquor to soldiers’ for SUTLER, although ‘seller of liquor to soldiers’ or ‘he sold liquor to soldiers’ would both be fine.

Clue Writers’ Corner: Having just spent a few hours in the company of some of the very finest competition clue writers, it seems appropriate to make a couple of general points about writing competition clues. Firstly, even the most successful entrants will happily admit that they didn’t strike gold straight away; don’t be disheartened if your first few entries fail to find favour with the judge, but look in the slip at the clues which have been well received by him and keep going. And secondly, remember that soundness is of fundamental importance: look at the surface reading of your clue and ‘polish’ it by all means, but then forget about that, break the clue down into its cryptic elements, and view it not as a piece of prose but as an equation in crossword language. Does the wordplay really equal the answer required by the definition? If you’ve got ‘X holds Y back’, that can mean that X contains a reversal of Y, but it can’t mean that X-containing-Y should be reversed – that would need ‘X holding Y back’. ‘Engineers turn’ looks superficially valid for RE reversed, but first translate ‘engineers’ into RE, and ‘RE turn’ doesn’t look so good. ‘Engineers turning’ would be fine. If in doubt, sort it out! Submitting a sound clue won’t guarantee success, but it will ensure that the first hurdle of the judging process is cleared.

Across

11a Against boarding train last again (10)
A 3-letter word for ‘against’ is contained by (‘boarding’) a 7-letter word for a train or body of attendants, the result being one of that large group of verbs using a particular prefix which appear in Chambers without definition, the safe option for setters being to define them as the uncompounded form followed by ‘again’ or ‘once more’, which is just what Azed has done here.

12a Office once close, one’s unhinged (5)
A 3-letter word for a facility euphemistically known as ‘the office’ (and less likely to lead to unfortunate consequences when directing guests inside a house where there is indeed an office), is followed by an obsolete 2-letter spelling of a more familiar (if only in literature) 4-letter word meaning ‘close’ or ‘near’.

16a Around Rex, Basil and ‘Arry there’s some nerve (8)
Around the single-letter abbreviation for ‘Rex’ (in the monarchical cipher context) are to be placed a three-letter diminutive form of the name ‘Basil’ (or for ‘Barrie’, the middle name of Brendon McCullum, known for his particular style of cricket) together with the 5-letter name which in medieval England had the spoken form ‘Harry’ (and belonged to several kings), similarly deprived of its initial H.

24a Fully convinced by marriage, one makes regular deliveries (6)
A three-letter slang word, a shortened form of an 8-letter adjective meaning ‘fully convinced’ or ‘certain’, and a 3-letter word for marriage combine to produce a term which Chambers shows as ‘Scot and Aust informal’, but could be defined where we live in England as ‘habitual wearer of shorts even in the face of grave climatic contraindications’

28a Anger once with upper-class being crammed in carriage (5)
A 4-letter archaic word for injury or anger has the usual single-letter representation of ‘upper-class’ inserted (‘crammed in’).

30a The old practice round lane almost damaged bone (6)
An obsolete (‘old’) 3-letter word for ‘practice’ which will be familiar to regular barred puzzle solvers (and which differs by only its central letter from a common word with a similar meaning) contains (’round’) an anagram (‘damaged’) of LANE missing its last letter (‘almost’).

32a One leaves Rome inspired? (5)
A nice little clue, where  a 2-letter word for ‘one’ is removed from (‘leaves’) a 7-letter word for ‘Rome’ in the sense of ‘the papal authority’.

34a Herring of a kind? Chaps took a measure (8)
A 3+3+2 charade of words for ‘chaps’, ‘took’ and ‘a measure’, the last named being used specifically in the printing trade.

Down

1d What may accompany rape? Crooked idol judge imprisoned (7)
An anagram (‘crooked’) of IDOL has a word meaning (among many other things) ‘[to] judge’ contained within (‘imprisoned’). The definition is along the lines of ‘What might accompany Vera’ for ALOE.

4d Woman, note, wearing medieval-style hat (6)
A charade that starts with a 3-letter (facetious, disrespectful or endearing, according to Chambers, which covers pretty much all eventualities) term for woman or girl, although readers north of the border may also be put in mind of the lanky son of Maw and Paw Broon of Auchenshoogle. The usual abbreviation for ‘note’ and 2-letter word for ‘wearing’ follow on.

10d Poet’s slight one lying in meadow (5)
A 2-letter word for ‘one’ (also featuring at 32a) is contained by (‘lying in’) one spelling of a word for a meadow much treasured by crossword setters. The poet, as so often, is Mr Edmund Spenser.

21d Like a philosopher, even in the course of scrutiny (7)
One spelling of the poetic contraction for ‘even’ is contained by (good to see Azed using ‘in the course of’ rather than ‘during’ – I’m pretty sure he shares my view about the latter as an insertion indicator) a word for ‘scrutiny’ or ‘examination’. The philosopher in question was a Stoic (he needed to be, as things turned out) who was responsible for writing Phaedra, covered almost 2,000 years later by Tangerine Dream (remember them?)

23d Scottish person, that is one who was paid to grieve (6)
A semi-&lit clue, where the whole clue ‘defines’ the answer, but only the first four words constitute the wordplay, a 4-letter Scots spelling of a familiar word for a person (often preceded by ‘poor old’ or similar) and the two letters that frequently answer to ‘that is’.

25d Musical piece, one penned by German singer (not good) (6)
The 6-letter surname which must be shorn of the usual abbreviation for ‘good’ might be associated by some with the American author Susan rather than the 19th century German operatic soprano Henriette, born Gertrude Walpurgis of that ilk, and, after her marriage, styled Henriette, Countess Rossi. A single-letter word meaning ‘one’ is contained (‘penned’) within.

27d Poet, nameless, about due for rediscovery (5)
The two-letter abbreviation for ‘anonymous’ (ie ‘nameless’) contains (‘about’) an anagram of DUE, the result being the name of a well-known British-born poet. Does ‘for rediscovery’ suggest rearrangement? In the words of Doris Day, ‘perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…’

29d King, captivated by love for wee dwarf (4)
The monarchical abbreviation for ‘king’ is contained (‘captivated’) by a word for love in the sense of ‘no score’. I remember the Lancashire cricketer Harry Pilling being described by a radio commentator as ‘the tiny diminutive little Harry Pilling’; at five foot three he was the shortest professional cricketer of modern times, but he’d still have looked out of place among Snow White’s crew. Here, the ‘wee’ is probably de trop, but it does serve to indicate that the answer is a Scots word.

(definitions are underlined)