A slightly differently shaped Azed grid this week with 11 rows and 13 columns
There were few Scottish references in the puzzle although TRON got a look-in at the wordplay stage. Although the Scottish quota was down, we had quite a few world references with Australia, France, German [OPEL], Cornwall, and Belgium (MAIGRET‘s creator).
I started slowly but speeded up as I got further into the puzzle.
As usual, there were a couple of compound anagrams, where the entry and one or two other words in the clue forms an anagram of one or more of the remaining words in the clue. I usually find these clues easier to solve than to describe.
There was no shortage of reversals this week. I counted ten in the blog with four of them occurring the wordplay for four of the first five across clues.
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| Across | |||
| 1 |
Harmful larva we curb must mostly drop spreading (13, 2 words) |
Anagram of (spreading) WE CURB MUS SPRUCE BUDWORM* |
SPRUCE BUDWORM (the larva of a North American moth that feeds on conifer BUDs; harmful larva) |
| 10 |
Foreign car, one reversing that, in Paris at the time (8, 3 words, apostrophe) |
(OPEL [German car brand; foreign car] + A [one]) reversed (reversing) + QUE (French for ‘that’) (A L’EPO)< QUE |
A L’EPOQUE (at the time) |
| 13 |
Sex worker’s client, reverse of intelligent, denied win (4) |
KNO GONK< |
GONK (derogatory slang for a prostitute’s client) |
| 14 |
Hill dweller, below par, holding mountain pasture back (8) |
UNDER (below par) containing (holding) ALP (mountain pasture) reversed (back) U (PLA<) NDER |
UPLANDER (hill dweller) |
| 15 |
One returns, having tucked into smack – double needed (6) |
AN (one) reversed (returns) contained in (tucked into) BITE (pungency; sharp taste; smack) BI (NA<) TE |
BINATE (double) |
| 16 |
Stew: bit of chicken put in to marinade and cook (6) |
C (first letter of [bit of] CHICKEN contained in (put in to) SOUSE (marinade) S (C) OUSE |
SCOUSE (stew or hash) |
| 17 |
Singers bagging a mint for ‘The Basket Bearer’ (10) |
CHORUS (singers) containing (bagging) (A + NEP [catmint]) C (A NEP) HORUS |
CANEPHORUS (sculptured figure carrying a basket on the head) |
| 18 |
Working out start of pattern in coarse thread (4) |
GYM (GYMnastics; athletic exercises; vigorous; working out) + P (first letter of [start of] PATTERN) GYM P |
GYMP (coarse thread in lace-making) |
| 21 |
Pages following HM from behind in corduroy (4) |
ER (Elizabeth Regina; Her Majesty [HM] Queen Elizabeth) reversed> (from behind) + PP (pages) RE< PP |
REPP (corded cloth; corduroy) |
| 24 |
A thrash I held in market-place requiring beamed structure (10) |
(A + BEAT [thrash] + I) contained in (held in) TRON (market place) TR (A BEAT I) ON |
TRABEATION (a combination of beams in a structure) |
| 26 |
Candle, unconventional? It’s with tonne van transported (6) |
ULICON (the entry) forms an anagram of (transported) UNCONVENTIONAL along with TONNE VAN (part of the clue) as UNCONVENTIONAL* ULICON |
ULICON (an alternative spelling of EULACHON [the North Pacific candlefish, so oily that it is dried for use as a candle]) |
| 29 |
Large cat, one not old inly, showing spirit (6) |
NE (obsolete [old] form of ‘not’) contained in (inly [inwardly; at the heart of]) PUMA (cougar; large American cat) P (NE) UMA |
PNEUMA (soul; spirit) |
| 30 |
Ingredient of marmalade, British, I rate about first-class (8) |
B (British) + I + (GRADE [rate] containing [about] A [first-rate]) B I G (A) RADE |
BIGARADE (a bitter Seville orange; ingredient of marmalade) |
| 31 |
Woolly Hebrideans making speech about nothing (4) |
SAY (speak; make speech) containing (about) O (zero; nothing) S (O) AY |
SOAY (breed of small, wild, dark-coloured sheep found esp on the island of SOAY in the Outer Hebrides; woolly Hebrideans) |
| 32 |
Pubs idle, unusually? One may be fixing locks (8, 2 words) |
BARS (public houses; pubs) + an anagram of (unusually) IDLE BARS LIDE* |
BARSLIDE (BAR-shaped hair ornament; one may be fixing locks [of hair]) |
| 33 |
Revolutionary in Melbourne witnessbox, a digger? Each may be modified by it (13) |
(RED [revolutionary] contained in [in] PETER [witness box in Australia [Melbourne]) + MINER (digger) P (RED) ETER MINER |
PREDETERMINER (word or phrase preceding a DETERMINER [limiting adjective or modifying word such as any, each, that, my, etc], so ‘each’ may be modified by it)) |
| Down | |||
| 1 |
Squashy floor cushion doubled rising chatter (6, 2 words) |
(GAB [chatter] + GAS [chatter] to give double chatter) reversed (rising; down clue) (SAG BAG)< |
SAG BAG ( large bag filled with a substance, usually polystyrene granules, which allows it to be pushed into any shape and used as a chair, cushion, bed, etc; squashy floor cushion) |
| 2 |
Manoeuvre involving chromosome element, or number of such sets (6) |
PLOY (manoeuvre in a game) containing (involving) ID (in Weissman’s theory, an element in the chromosome carrying all the hereditary characters) PLO (ID) Y |
PLOIDY (the number of chromosome sets in a cell) |
| 3 |
Pass not included in British Rail run formerly (5) |
RENNE |
RENNE (Spenserian [obsolete or formerly] word for ‘run’) |
| 4 |
Queen’s retreat at Versailles? Gate elaborated with coronet (11, 2 words) |
Anagram of (elaborated … with) GATE and CORONET COTTAGE ORNÉ |
COTTAGE ORNÉ (an ornately-designed small country house built in rustic style, which could well have served as a retreat for a Queen at the Palace of Versailles) |
| 5 |
Poet’s rising in a bed I remade, revealing beetles (11) |
UPREST (UPRIST [Shelley’s {poetic} word for ‘rising’) contained in (in) an anagram of (made) A BED I B (UPREST) IDAE* |
BUPRESTIDAE (family of beetles) |
| 6 |
Form of Cornish ingested by girl that’s taken up historical development of language (11) |
Anagram of (form of) CORNISH contained in [ingested by] MAID (young unmarried woman; girl) reversed (that’s taken up; down clue) DIA (CHRONIS*) M< |
DIACHRONISM (historical development of language) |
| 7 |
Woman in love, one often besotted? (4) |
W (women) + IN + O (zero; love score in tennis) W IN O |
WINO (sot; one who is often intoxicated or besotted) |
| 8 |
Rubbish limitlessly poured at edges of road (6) |
O (RD) URE |
ORDURE (dirt; waste matter; rubbish) |
| 9 |
Has sad memories of the boulevardier’s haunts (4) |
RUES (has sad memories of) RUES |
RUES (a BOULEVARDIER is frequenter of boulevards or promenades[ roads] chiefly in Paris where roads are known as RUES) double definition |
| 11 |
Flute? This time it plays in a quintet (5) |
QUENA (the entry) forms an anagram of (plays) A QUINTET with T (time) and IT (part of the clue) as A QUINTET* QUENA |
QUENA (type of bamboo flute from the Andes, held vertically for playing) |
| 12 |
One of the old gods giving a sign I ignored (4) |
AR ARES |
ARES (Greek God of war); one of the old Gods) |
| 19 |
Vegetarian sleuth giving up last bit of meat (6) |
MAIGRE MAIGRE |
MAIGRE (containing no animal flesh; vegetarian) |
| 20 |
Spiteful fellow making a big noise on being had up (5) |
VIP (Very Important Person; big noise) + RE (with reference to; on) reversed (being had up; down clue) VIP ER< |
VIPER (spiteful person) |
| 22 |
Dressing being prepared with bits of palm oil initially (6) |
PO (first letters of [bits of] each of PALM and OIL) + MADE (prepared) PO MADE |
POMADE (ointment for the hair; dressing) |
| 23 |
Track worker, late leaving, one treading the boards (6) |
P PLAYER |
PLAYER (actor, one treading the boards) |
| 24 |
Stop to touch up (4) |
ABUT (join; touch) reversed (up; down clue) TUBA< |
TUBA (powerful organ reed stop) |
| 25 |
Wedge dolmen cover in replacing it (5) |
QUO QUO IN |
QUOIN (a wedge, especially for locking type in a chase) |
| 27 |
One producing pork pies bar served up (4) |
RAIL (bar) reversed (served up; down clue) LIAR< |
LIAR (one producing pork pies [lies]) |
| 28 |
Queen maybe, one taken in by varlet (4) |
R (Regina; queen) contained in (taken in by) CAD (vartlet) CA (R) D |
CARD (a Queen is an example of a playing card) |
Thanks duncanshiel.
In 29 I got the NE from [o]NE – ‘one not old’.
In 8 I had ‘on the edges of’ as the containment indicator, with RD just being ‘road’.
3, when I finally understood it, seemed a bit ‘backwards’ to me in the indication of the deletion.
Pleased to get TRABEATION from remembering TRON.
Thanks as ever to Azed.
This seemed to take me longer than usual, going into Monday.
10ac I not only didn’t know the German car, but also there seems to be a bug in the Windows electronic Chambers app so you can’t actually see the definition of A L’EPOQUE.
I agree with Gonzo about 3 down. It works, I think, but only with hindsight and head-scratching.
The old CD-ROM of Chambers has some problems finding A L’EPOQUE in a search, probably caused by the accent and apostrophe. It’s OK with the app for iPhone.
I found this puzzle harder than usual, but none the less entertaining.
I don’t think 3dn does work. BR is not included in Brenner; to say that that is the same as ‘Brenner is not included in BR’ just seems nonsnse. How on earth does it do so ‘backwards’?
Wil, “enclose” is given in Chambers as one of the definitions of INCLUDE, as in enclosed/included in brackets or quotation marks I suppose. In that sense BRENNER not enclosed/included in BR does give RENNE. I don’t like it much; any clue that needs such a tortuous and clumsy explantation isn’t very good, although perhaps there’s a better explanation than the one I’ve given.
I agree with Wil. That clue just doesn’t work. Also, even if you could work out what’s going on, could it ever be ‘cold solved’ without checking letters? I doubt it.
I agree with Wil that 3D is a turkey. It’s not even as if the tortuous “not included in” to express “not surrounded by” – which might just work for brackets, but scarcely does in most other contexts – achieves a fluent and convincing surface reading. Homer nodding?
I also agree regarding 3dn. I’ve never been happy about, say, ‘unwrapped’ to indicate the removal of the first and last letters of a word (an unwrapped apple is exactly the same apple it was before being unwrapped, while a peeled apple, for instance, has undergone a physical change through the removal of its skin); ‘x not included in y’ to indicate the removal of y from the outside of x seems to me broadly similar to ‘unwrapped’ (or ‘x not wrapped in y’) but rather less defensible. BRENNER is neither ‘included’ nor ‘wrapped’ in BR (it’s RENNE that is so included/wrapped), so it can’t be ‘not included’ in it.
For me this puzzle was most notable for a rare instance of non-Azedian unching in 17ac/24ac, where the presence of four unches in ten-letter words breaks Azed’s own rules.
Well, my weak defence of a weak clue obviously isn’t going to convince anyone; hardly surprising, as it doesn’t really convince me either!
“Unwrapped” to an ends deletion indicator? Depends on whether you consider the wrapper of your Quality Street to be part if it or not. If so, there’s less of it when you unwrap it. If not, not. But I’m not going to try to argue that one 🙂
Thanks to both as always. I am another who only got 3D from all the crossers. I also did the same as gonzo@1 for 29A.
Thanks to duncanshiell and Azed
31a I can’t see “speech” = “say”.
The closest I can come is “have your say/speech” but that seems a bit iffy.
Grateful for any enlightenment.
Re #11, Chambers has say = a speech (noun)
Gonzo is right:
At 29 Ac NE cannot be “not [old]” else “one” is a redundant and presumably deliberate banana skin and not even Azed would countenance that.
At 8 Dn the whole of “at edges of” must be the containment indicator. I can’t recall seeing it before. It can be construed but it seems a bit of a strain to me.
3 Dn is nonsense and no amount of gymnastics or apologetics is going to change that. Honestly: gymnastics—at my age?
Is “w” an abbreviation for “woman”?
Stefan
@12
Thanks, if it’s in Chambers I don’t dispute a setter’s right to use it – but Chambers has form for according unwarranted equivalence to individual words in idiomatic expressions, so I maintain my right to not like it.