A plain competition puzzle this month from Azed.
Not much to say about the puzzle, except that I have two little quibbles at 14 and 30 across, and there’s a misprint at 16 across. I particularly liked the subtlety of 7 down.
| Across | ||
| 2 | CUNCTATORY |
Country worried about act being modified, showing procrastination (10)
*ACT in *COUNTRY. |
| 10 | XANTHOCHROIA |
Cross worker, this, hair in a tangle about nothing, giving jaundiced look? (12)
X ANT HOC O in*HAIR. |
| 11 | TRIG |
A bit of advanced maths, old stuff (4)
Double definition; Chambers defines the second meaning (a verb) as obsolete (except dialect). |
| 13 | WEET |
Old soak, in avoiding wine etc, missing clubs (4)
W(in)EET(c). |
| 14 | RASCAL |
Rogue sailor on junk possibly mixing up his port and starboard? (6)
LASCAR with the left and right hand letters exchanged. It seems to me that there isn’t much difference between this and an indirect anagram. |
| 15 | TOUSLE |
Untidy mass to observe (old-style), Latin included (6)
TO L in USE. |
| 16 | SPIRES |
Oxford dreamers heading for renown in M16? (6)
R(enown) in SPIES. I assume that Azed intended to put MI6: M16 is an American army assault rifle. It was Matthew Arnold who devised the phrase “city of dreaming spires” for Oxford. |
| 17 | VEXT |
No longer disturbed old soldier with cross engraved? (4)
X in VET. |
| 18 | ESKIMO |
Huge –‘s whizzing? ‘See me go with huskies!’ (6)
Compound anagram; take the letters of HUGES from ME GO HUSKIES and you’re left with an anagram of the answer. |
| 21 | ALDINE |
Celebrating early printer, date’s given in a piece of type? (6)
D in A LINE. It refers to the Venetian printer Aldus Manutius. |
| 23 | GOAF |
Head for the rear, taken short, wherein waste is stuffed (4)
GO AF(t). It’s a coal-mining term. |
| 26 | URTICA |
Last bit cut from a lemon? Give it a twirl in stinger (6)
A CITRU(s) (rev). |
| 28 | AVOCET |
Viv failing oral, tense? ‘My beak’s flexible‘ (6)
(viv)A VOCE T. |
| 29 | TOGATE |
Like M. Antony addressing crowd? (6)
TO GATE. It’s an old Shakespearean term meaning clad in a toga. |
| 30 | NOME |
Ancient Greek department? Sign’s back to front (4)
OMEN with the last letter put at the front. Chambers defines this as an ancient Eygptian or modern Greek department, so I don’t understand what “ancient” is doing in the clue. |
| 31 | PLEA |
Suit cut from cheap leather (4)
Hidden in “cheap leather”. |
| 32 | ZWINGLIANIST |
With being gripped by spirit, I instal converted anti-Lutheran? (12)
W in ZING *(I INSTAL). |
| 33 | SCANDALISE |
After close inspection, artist’s extremes of sauvagisme shock (10)
SCAN DALI S(auvagism)E. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | EXTRAVAGANZA |
One in film crowd unsettled without Bond, New Zealand one – some show! (12)
EXTRA VAGA(bond) NZ A. |
| 2 | CARAVEL |
Light sailing-ship from Sri Lanka with a party on board (7)
A RAVE in CL (IVR for Sri Lanka). |
| 3 | UNISEX |
Wife admits rising naughtiness with Evelyn initially, i.e. non gender specific? (6)
SIN (rev) E in UX. |
| 4 | CHEAPEN |
Almost give away? Ha’pence is silly (7)
*HAPENCE. |
| 5 | TOILINETTE |
Tottie unusually bags particular product in waistcoat material (10)
LINE in *TOTTIE. |
| 6 | THROE |
Pain in extremity, short time bandaged (5)
HR in TOE. |
| 7 | ROESTI |
R. Blanc’s art goes into exotic bread and potato dish (6)
ES (French second person singular of the verb meaning “to be” e.g. “thou art”) in ROTI. The reference is presumably to the well-known French chef Raymond Blanc, although rösti is a Swiss dish. |
| 8 | YIELD |
Give catch? (5)
Double definition. |
| *9 | GATES OF DEATH |
The end of life (12, 3 words)
The competition phrase. |
| 12 | STRELITZIA |
Street with posh hotel, international one containing wing for showy plant genus (10)
ST(reet) EL in RITZ I A. |
| 19 | SECONAL |
Barbiturate blade’s given up, swallowing none (7)
O in LANCES (rev). |
| 20 | MALTESE |
Islander met sea raging round end of atoll (7)
(atol)L in *(MET SEA). |
| 22 | DROMIC |
I’m among string taking jump reminiscent of Aintree? (6)
IM in CORD (all rev, or jumping in a down clue). |
| 24 | OXALIS |
One of the sorrels is following ring, reverse of slack (6)
O LAX(rev) IS. |
| 25 | AVOWS |
Maintains a car with interior nothing special (5)
O in A VW S. |
| 27 | REIGN |
Sway, getting going again, but only half there (5)
I think that this must be REIGN(iting). |
Thanks Azed and bridgesong
14ac: I took this as exchanging the letters L and R, rather than the first and last letters of the word LASCAR. In either interpretation, once you have found LASCAR, you are given exact instructions on how to transform it, whereas an indirect anagram would require you to choose from a number of possibilities (360 in the case of a six letter word with one letter duplicated, but of course only a tiny fraction of these are possible words, let alone actual words).
Many thanks, bridgesong and Azed. Yes, in RASCAL, I agree anagrams are not involved – just swapping the two letters. I think the blogger may be referring to indirect anagrams just for comparison, i.e. saying the that the word itself (LASCAR) is not given in the clue, but IMHO no problem really.
I think 14a is rather a good clue, as it works in two ways. You start with “lascar” and either exchange the right hand and left hand letters, or exchange R (right) for L (left) wherever they occur.