I solved this rather quickly (for me) and didn’t find myself abusing Chambers. A relatively healthy number of &lits but I struggled to understand the definition of DAFT until an email friend helped me out of my misery.
Azed
AZED 2,221
Something very odd has happened this week. The paper and originally the website printed a totally irrelevant clue for 20ac, with Azed’s clue provided (hastily?) after a day or two. Also the website had some extraordinary glitches: it put (5) (5) after 25ac, (7) (7) after 18dn, and (6) (6) after 22dn. Also, 10dn was given as (7) instead of (5), and — at any rate by Tuesday — this hadn’t been corrected.
Which didn’t detract from the usual pleasant solving experience. Everything was straightforward enough and it was obvious what the mistakes were. Azed’s clues are in retrospect nearly always easy to solve: they are difficult simply because they use words that are, to say the least, outside one’s normal experience. This doesn’t take away from their quality, though.
As usual some dictionary research will be needed by you, dear reader, if you are to understand eveything about all the clues. I have underlined the definitions.
Azed 2220 – Christmas Crackers
In six-and-a-half years of blogging Azed, this is the first time the luck of the draw has brought me a Christmas puzzle. …
Azed 2166
As Don Manley pointed out in a comment on Nick’s blog last week, Azed’s sound clueing often means that you can often …
AZED No. 2,165 Plain
Nick: Fairly straight forward Azed this week. I found nothing too taxing, although there are some gotcha’s unless the clues are parsed …
AZED 2,164 Playfair
I admit to a slight feeling of trepidation when I opened my Observer last Sunday and noticed that it was a Playfair …
Azed 2163
Azed, as usual, has given us a master class in precise cluing., where it is always clear when you have derived the …
Azed 2162
Not sure how hard this actually was since I solved it over several days in between various meetings. Found TBRB quite …
AZED 2,161
The usual very pleasant workout from Azed. I always find that I make steady progress and then reach an impasse, when I …
Azed 2160
I found this mostly pretty easy, finishing it (so I thought) without aids in about half an hour, greatly helped by getting …