Azed 2166

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As Don Manley pointed out in a comment on Nick’s blog last week, Azed’s sound clueing often means that you can often work out what the answer must be from the wordplay, even if the answer itself is not a word you know – though often it turns out to be a variant of, or related to, one that you do. This principle very much applied to my solving of this puzzle, where I managed to complete most of it quite quickly, being just a bit held up in the NW corner, where there’s perhaps more of a concentration of obscurities than elsewhere. As always, explaining the detail of some of the answers tends to bring up some complications that aren’t always obvious at solving time.

 
 
Across
1. BARESARK Worn Scottish chemise? It makes one simply furious, being non-standard (8)
BARE (worn) + SARK. A non-standard spelling of “berserk”
7. CRUX Key to problem in sound pairs of bent roof timbers (4)
Homophone of “crucks”, a cruck being “one of a pair of curved timbers supporting a roof”
10. OPANICUS Work containing one particular tailless heraldic beast (8)
A NIC[E] in OPUS
11. ARNA Buffalo Indians rear: is diner treated with this? (4)
Composite anagram – (INDIANS REAR)* = IS DINER ARNA
12. BONAMANI Reverse of a toff, servant I’ll give tips (8)
(A NOB)< + MAN (servant) + I
13. REIN Control held back by carabinieri (4)
Hidden reversed in carabiNIERi
15. UNGOT Tricky tongue (not English) that one has failed to master? (5)
TONGUE* less E
17. DISCANDIE Melt like old sugary stuff I once examined closely in cube (9)
I SCAN’D in DIE
18. DIPSLOPE Fool imbibing Pils, drunk – it shows comparable decline on the rocks (8)
PILS* in DOPE
21. STANNARY What’s alluring about thrash in mining area? (8)
TAR in SNARY (i.e. like a snare, or alluring)
23. ORDINAIRE Plonk mixed in red Rioja judge dismissed (9)
(IN RED RIOJA)* less J
25. BLESS Be thankful for being born younger (5)
B + LESS
28. ALIT Descended from a string of socialites (4)
Hidden in sociaALITes
29. ERASTIAN One who’d limit the Church’s rights, a long time before punishment of antis (8)
ERA + ANTIS*
30. TOLA Indian weight much brought from the east? (4)
Reverse of A LOT
31. GADO-GADO Malay dish, good one to cook twice (8)
G + A + DO, twice
32. HALS Painter of royal prince? (4)
HAL’S = “of royal prince”. The painter is Franz Hals, whose best-known work is probably “The Laughing Cavalier”
33. CLOSE-SET It may go to a tie-breaker, with little separating viewers (8)
Double definition – a close set in tennis, and describing eyes that are close together
Down
1. BOBS Antique pendants, what your uncle may be after! (4)
Reference to the expression “Bob’s your uncle”
2. APOMICT Result of virgin birth, a topic strangely absorbing maiden (7)
A + M in TOPIC*
3. RINGSHAKE Fault in wood is round lower part of door (9)
RINGS (is round) + HAKE (also spelt heck, which is indeed “the lower part of a door”)
4. SIMP Kin left out bubbly cokes (as of old) (4)
SIMPKIN (an Anglo-Indian word for champagne, aka bubbly) less KIN; a simp is a simpleton, as is a cokes (obsolete word)
5. ACAPNIA Lack of CO2 causing wild panic among drivers? (7)
PANIC* in AA (Automobile Association)
6. RUNED Old Scots, rather uneducated? Some but not all (5)
Hidden in ratheR UNEDucated. The definition refers to the language, which according to Chambers seems to be one possible meaning of the word
7. CARNELIAN Fine quartz or nacre fashioned inverted stud maybe (9)
NACRE* + NAIL<
8. UNION Students’ club, where they study getting squiffy (5)
UNI (where students study) + ON (drunk)
9. XANTHENE Article in annex deployed source of dyestuffs (8)
THE in ANNEX*
14. ICONOSTAS I study letters of Tasso littering church screen (9)
I CON + TASSO*
16. GLOXINIAS Tropical blooms, neat, I put in as ling withered (9)
OX (neat) I in (AS LING)*
17. DUST-BATH Bud that’s crushed as means to get rid of bird’s fleas? (8)
(BUD THAT’S)
19. PRIVADO Prince’s confidant? Four admitted to gallery (7)
IV in PRADO (art gallery in Madrid)
20. PERVADE Abroad, dad gets voluntary nurses in to transfuse (7)
VAD (Voluntary AID Detachment) in PERE (French “father”)
22. ALLOA Athletic location, quite ordinary, attended by amateur (5)
ALL (quite) + O[rdinary] + A[mateur], with the definition referring to Alloa’s football team
24. DURAL Strong but light alloy forming centre of bridges over river (5)
[bri]D[ges]. “Ural” is more familiar as the name of the Russian mountain range separating Europe and Asia, but it’s also a river that rises in those mountains
26. DSOS Crosses depth, leading search and rescue alert? (4)
D + SOS. DSO is on of the many spelling of the Himalayan hybrid cattle also called the zho; I wonder if it might also be referring to the Distinguished Service Order here, as that medal is in the shape of a cross
27. SNOT Drunk around noon, he merits contempt (4)
N in SOT

3 comments on “Azed 2166”

  1. Got up early to watch the cricket. Just before I go back to bed and pull the duvet over my head, could I point out a minor typo – 2D is APOMICT
    Thanks for the usual entertaining blog.

  2. Thanks Azed for the puzzle and Andrew for the blog. I too got stuck in the NW corner and ended up with a solving time at the maximum end of my normal range for a plain puzzle.

    As well as the one pointed out by RichWA@1, there are also a couple of small typos in the blog for 12ac: the I is missing from the wordplay and “sevant” should of course be “servant”. Dare I say very minor blemishes on an excellent blog?

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