Notes for Azed 2,761

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 2,761 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

There were several very straightforward clues in this one, but also a few tricky wordplays, so overall I felt it was probably around the middle of the difficulty range. Some of the surface readings did feel a little ‘clunky’, and would perhaps have benefited from a little extra polishing.

Setters’ Corner: It struck me a little while ago that it might be worth taking some of the topics that I’ve covered in Setters’ Corner over the last few years and working them into some sort of structure. The result is a new area called The Setting Room. This can be accessed directly from the top menu, or via the post on the home page. I’ve tried to include as many topics as possible, but there will inevitably be gaps, and some errors as well! I’d really appreciate feedback so that I can improve the facility, whether that’s covering additional topics, expanding on particular points, addressing specific questions, including content submitted by readers, correcting errors…or anything else.  It is definitely not meant to be a set of hard and fast rules – the solvers of different puzzles have very different expectations, so a clue that would be instantly rejected by the Listener editors might very well be published in any UK back page puzzle, and vice versa. It is more of an attempt to present a set of broadly Ximenean principles as they relate to the crosswords of today. It’s very much a work in progress, and input of any kind will be gratefully received.

Across

1a Useless male welcoming lives being a fop? (6)
A 3-letter word meaning ‘useless’ (often applied in ‘the old days’ to cheques which bounced) and the usual abbreviation for ‘male’ are set around (‘welcoming’) a word meaning ‘lives’. The ‘being’ in the definition is a gerund, so ‘being a fop’ indicates a noun, in the way that ‘being reserved’ could lead to ‘modesty’ (‘Being reserved could be considered an appealing trait’/’Modesty could be considered an appealing trait’).

11a Unfit, I note? Then one has something to deal with that (5)
The rather strained wordplay here has I (from the clue) being followed by the single-letter abbreviation for ‘note’, a single-letter word for ‘one’, and the abbreviation for ‘physical training’, the last being ‘something to deal with that’, ie something to deal with a lack of fitness.

15a She pursues would-be partner of herself, plaited hair trailing (8)
A 3-letter word meaning ‘of herself’ (or himself etc) is followed by a word for ‘a plait or braid of the hair of the head’. The answer is classified by Chambers as ‘rare’, so something along the lines of ‘She rarely pursues…’ would have been preferable.

19a To make romantic love (in Rome) I’ll get caught in entwining of legs (9)
The Latin (‘in Rome’) word for ‘love’ and the letter I (from the clue) are contained by (‘caught in’) an anagram (‘entwining’) of LEGS.

23a Old angler having roll round depth (7)
A 6-letter word for a roll of names or a list of employees with assigned duties is put round the usual abbreviation for ‘depth’, the result being an archaic term which might also be how the singer Mr Stewart is known to his friends.

26a Gutter for Jock, first to last? That’s wallop for you (4)
One of the alternative spellings of the Scots word for a roof-gutter has its first letter moved to the end (‘first to last’), producing a term for a heavy blow (ie “That’s [a] wallop for you”).

28a Dry measure in set? It protects against chromosomal deterioration (8)
A 4-letter Hebrew dry measure equivalent to just over 5 imperial pints is contained by an informal term for the sort of set that used to stand in the corner of the living room, on occasion hiding rather incongruously behind the doors of a fine wooden cabinet, but now more often takes up most of one wall (despite weighing a lot less!)

30a I count beads as transferred in junior church offices (13)
I’m far from convinced about ‘transferred’ as an anagram indicator – it doesn’t seem to carry any sense of rearrangement. The answer (in the singular) appears in Chambers without explicit definition – the Chambers entry for the word without the prefix confirms the required meaning, but does raise the question of whether it could ever be used in the plural.

32a Feature of spore, section thrice stripped from libido (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘section’ is removed (‘stripped’) three times from an 8-letter word which I think has a meaning closer to ‘sensuality’ than ‘libido’, and was a quality which Mr Stewart (see 23a) asked us in 1978 whether we thought that he possessed.

33a Heading for the deep drainage channel in green turf (7)
A 2-letter dialect word for a drainage channel in the Fens is contained by a word for green turf almost always seen in a poetic 10-letter compound starting with ‘green’.

Down

1d Annoyed with rejection of excuse treated with contempt (6)
A 10-letter word meaning ‘annoyed’ is deprived (‘with rejection’) of a word for an excuse or a defendant’s answer to a charge.

2d Straighten end off hook right and left (6)
A 5-letter word for a hook, missing its last letter (‘end off’), is followed by the single-letter abbreviations for ‘right’ and ‘left’. I don’t think the cryptic reading quite works as the clue is written – there needs to be a comma either between ‘off’ and ‘hook’ or, conceivably, between ‘hook’ and ‘right’.

3d A clique involved in reverse of occasional bravado (8)
The letter A (from the clue) and a 4-letter word for a clique are contained by a reversal (‘reverse’) of a word meaning ‘occasional’, as in ‘I make the occasional mistake in these blogs’.

21d Bad fall in the night? Catch one deprived of oxygen (6)
If you managed to solve this one ‘blind’, kudos! A 4-letter alternative spelling of a word for the catch ‘which engages with the notches of the tumbler in order to keep the hammer at full or half cock, and which is released (at full cock) by pressure upon the trigger’ is followed by the word ONE (from the clue) from which the chemical symbol for oxygen has been removed (‘deprived of oxygen’). The answer is an interesting word (the obsoleteness of which Azed has chosen to ignore), describing a light fall of moisture or fine rain after sunset in hot countries, formerly regarded as a noxious dew or mist. John Bullokar in An English Expositor: Teaching the Interpretation of the Hardest Words Used in our Language explained it thus:

A foggy mist or dampish vapour falling in Italie about sunne set, at which time it is vnwholesome to be abroad especially bareheaded

25d Wee Catherine, Gaelic style, centre of cortege trailing (5)
The central letter (‘centre’) of a 5-letter word for a cortege is moved to the end (‘trailing’), producing a diminutive (‘wee’) version of the Gaelic form of the name ‘Catherine’.

27d Old cow? Pat mounts under one (4)
A 3-letter word for a ‘pat’ in the sense of a small, soft mass (but more often associated with the sort of thing that Harry Enfield’s plasterer Loadsamoney was wont to wave proudly about) is reversed (‘mounts’) after a single-letter word for ‘one’. The verb which forms the answer is obsolete, hence the ‘old’; like a number of such words, it is given by Chambers as Spenserian, although Spenser was neither the first nor last person to use it.

29d Mild expletive to render en clair, without extremes (4)
A 6-letter word meaning ‘to render en clair’ or ‘to turn into readable text’ is shorn of its first and last letters (‘without extremes’). The answer sounds like some sort of robotic fish.

(definitions are underlined)