Notes for Azed 2,765

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 2,765 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I got the feeling that Azed had enjoyed setting this one, with very few of the clues seeming unnecessarily laboured. Although there were no particularly chewy ones, there were enough crafty wordplays to elevate it to the middle of the difficulty range.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at 28d, “Druggie turning up to begin again? Not me (4)”. When a piece of text is subjected to two cryptic manipulations, there are times when the sequence of operations is important. This clue combines the deletion of the consecutive letters ME (‘Not me’) from a 6-letter word meaning ‘to begin again’ with reversal (‘turning up’). When the removal of a single letter is combined with a reversal, the order of events is immaterial (the result will be the same), but when a non-palindromic sequence is to be deleted, the sequence is key. That doesn’t mean to say that the solver must be unambiguously told in which order to carry out the manipulations, but they must not be explicitly directed to carry them out in the wrong order. In the clue as written here, it is perfectly reasonable to expect the ME to be removed prior to reversal. If it were written as “Druggie to begin again, turning up without me”, the removal of ME can still take place first. But in the clue “Druggie to begin again, turning up and ignoring me”, the reversal must surely happen first – this means that the letters ME have now become EM, and the wordplay no longer works. By ‘evaluating’ the cryptic version of a clue one step at a time, you will be able to spot problems of this sort – a minor rewording will typically sort them out.

Across

7a Seats arranged back to front in marshy spot (4)
A four-letter informal word for ‘seats’ (as in ‘take a ???’) has the last letter moved to the beginning (‘arranged [with] back to front’), the result being a term for a place in a field where water oozes up (yuk!); the answer is shown by Chambers as ‘dialect’, although Azed has chosen not to indicate this.

11a Dismay to cut from contract (5)
The consecutive letters TO (from the clue) are removed (‘cut’) from a 7-letter word for a contract or monopoly, an import from the Italian language.

16a Former grasp, in that case with shifting of time (4)
A familiar 4-letter word meaning ‘in that case’ has the usual abbreviation for ‘time’ moved within it (‘with shifting of time’).

17a Knight to applaud governor installed (9)
One of those clues where a comma is missing in the cryptic reading, here between ‘applaud’ and ‘governor’. A 5-letter word meaning ‘to applaud’ has the Turkish word for the civil governor of a vilayet inserted (‘installed’).

20a E.g. spoon set (4)
A double definition clue, a couple of other examples to go with ‘spoon’ being ‘mashie’ and ‘baffie’ (aka a baffing spoon, very useful when taking a baff).

23a Achievement indicated by poetry by the sound of it? (4)
A homophone (‘by the sound of it’) for the things that lines of poetry are divided into.

32a Late-flowering rot excised in net (5)
Here again a comma (or equivalent) would be nice between the first two words in the clue, because an 8-letter word meaning ‘late-flowering’ must be deprived of the consecutive letters ROT (‘rot excised’).

33a Sink to invigorate runs away (4)
A 5-letter word meaning ‘to invigorate’ or ‘to begin again’ has the usual cricketing abbreviation for ‘runs’ omitted (‘runs away’, with a preceding comma to be inferred). The answer is classified by Chambers as ‘falconry’, but frankly it’s as old as the hills, and then some. In the intransitive form it refers to a water bird plunging beneath the surface to escape the attentions of a hawk – whether ‘sink’ quite reflects the nature of this action I cannot say because I have never observed such a thing, but in Song 20 of his remarkable topographical poem sequence Poly-Olbion (1612, 1622), Michael Drayton wrote:

The fierce and eager hawks, down thrilling from the skies,
Make sundry canceleers e’er they the fowl can reach,
Which then to save their lives, their wings do lively stretch.
But when the whizzing bells the silent air do cleave,
And that their greatest speed, them vainly do deceive,
And the sharp cruel hawks, they at their backs do view,
Themselves for very fear they instantly ??????.

Down

4d Full ramble by the sound of it (4)
A homophone (‘by the sound of it’ again, as in 23a) of a familiar word for a ramble. I always feel that clues like this are devalued slightly when, as here, an alternative spelling of the ‘soundalike’ is identical to the indicated word – this means that the clue could equally well have been written as a double definition, eg ‘Full pace’.

8d Lassie’s to make trial of grip as I wrestled with late pregnancy condition (12)
A 4-letter Scots (implied by “Lassie’s”) word for ‘to make a trial of’ (especially by tasting or kissing, apparently) is followed by a 5-letter word meaning ‘[to] grip’ and an anagram (‘wrestled with’) of AS I.

9d First of brood prevailed with no outsiders (5)
A 7-letter word meaning ‘prevailed’ (often followed by ‘supreme’) is shorn of its first and last letters (‘with no outsiders’).

14d Very old woman on board sled’s awfully bold (9)
Azed chooses to indicate the obsolete sense, ‘old woman’, of a familiar word for a particular relative by turning ‘old old woman’ somewhat whimsically into ‘very old woman’. This 4-letter word is contained by (‘on board’) an anagram (‘awfully’) of SLEDS.

15d Too much booze, not good, as part of hop (4)
The 5-letter noun for a drinking spree – or conceivably the verb meaning ”[to] booze excessively’ – has the usual abbreviation for ‘good’ omitted (‘not good’).

24d Mature love in Paris, about the first thereof (5)
The French word for what Edith Piaf regretted contains (‘about’) the first letter of ‘Paris’ (‘the first thereof’). I can see that ‘love in Paris’ could be ‘amour’, a direct translation; in the context of tennis scoring, it could also be ‘zéro’. For the word required here, though, we have to turn ‘love’ into ‘nothing’, and then translate it into French. Is that reasonable? Peut-être.

27d Local flat, more than 50% financial support raised (4)
The first four letters (more than 50%) of a 7-letter word for financial support given to those in need is reversed (‘raised’).

29d See duck escape through hedge, giving us the slip (4)
A 6-letter dialect form of a term for a way of escape through a hedge (typically used by hares) sheds the consecutive letters US (‘giving us the slip’). I’m not keen on that isolated ‘See’ at the beginning of the clue, particularly given its similarity to the answer. I would have preferred something like “Duck means to escape through hedge, giving us the slip”.

(definitions are underlined)