Posted by Colin Blackburn on 30th September 2007
A possibly error-free Azed! The usual mix of obscure words in both the grid and word play, some unusual devices and some great surfaces added up to a typically enjoyable Azed plain puzzle.
| Across |
| 1 |
BLABBERMOUTH — LAB + BERM + OUT in BH — BH is the IVR for Belize (formerly British Honduras). |
| 9 |
OUTERWEAR — (UAR WE TORE)* — off was a popular anagrind in this puzzle, here it adds to the brevity of the clue. |
| 11 |
BLOOD SUGAR — BLOOD + SUGAR |
| 12 |
BUND — BUN + D — BUN is a term for a young squirrel or rabbit. |
| 14 |
URDE — R in UDE (= hUnDrEd) — clever use of numerals to hide the three letters required. |
| 15 |
ALHAGI — HAG in ALI — there’s a good chance an Arab will be Ali! |
| 16 |
TAIAHA — AIA in (HAT)* — an AIA is a nursemaid in India during the Raj. |
| 19 |
PALADIN — LAD in PAIN — here the surface suggests the reading that gives the insertion indicator. |
| 21 |
SNOTTER — (RN SET-TO)* |
| 23 |
LEGGED — EGG in LED — This is very neat. The question mark naturally follows from the question in the surface but in the word play “Was leader” isn’t a question and the question mark hints at a slightly cryptic definition. |
| 25 |
TROADE — ROAD for IM in TIME — this device of replacing a bit of one word with another is used a couple of times in this puzzle; here it leads to a very clean surface. |
| 26 |
ENVY — ENV(o)Y — duck = O and another fine surface. |
| 28 |
NEEM — AS MEDICINE = (NEEM IS ACID)* — a classic Azed composite anagram. “This” does duty for the answer. |
| 30 |
SEAKEEPING — AKEE in (EG NIPS)* — one of those clues that has you reaching for the dictionary for the clue rather than the answer. Skeely = skilful. |
| 31 |
CRABEATER — BE+A in CRATER |
| 32 |
STENTMASTERS — (TR MEANS TESTED)* — a very neat anagram. |
|
| Down |
| 1 |
BOAB — BOA+B and A in BOB — two sets of word play here just add to the initial confusion though both are simple in the end. |
| 2 |
LUPULINE — UP in bLUe + LINE |
| 3 |
BELDAM — BEDLAM with LD< — simple but effective. |
| 4 |
BROUGHT — ROUGH for A in BAT — the definition is simply “Caused” which had me for a while. |
| 5 |
REDSTARTS — RED STARTS — a slightly inexact snooker reference as this isn’t true of any break! A break can start with a colour if all the reds have been potted or if a colour is potted in lieu of a red following a foul. Still, it’s a very nice idea. |
| 6 |
MASSA — ASSAM< — Assam is a tea-growing area of India. |
| 7 |
UPGRADE — G in (A PRUDE)* |
| 8 |
TOAD — “towed” |
| 10 |
CREANCE — (NACRE)* in CE — hobby here is the bird of prey, falco subbuteo. Incidentally this bird’s Latin name gives us the name for the popular “flick to kick” table-top football game. |
| 13 |
PIPE DREAM — A in (ME RIPPED)* |
| 15 |
AUSLESE — (USES ALE)* — nicely observed anagram. |
| 17 |
HINDERERS — RED< in (RHINE)* |
| 18 |
DOGVANE — (GAVE NOD)* |
| 20 |
LORRIES — O+RR in LIES — RR = roller = Rolls Royce. |
| 22 |
DONNAT — N in DONAT — Dotheboys was the fictional school in Nicholas Nickleby, it was in Yorkshire and so here is used to qualify DONNAT as a Yorkshire word as well as creating a good surface. |
| 24 |
EXERT — X in TREE< — TREE is a form of cross |
| 27 |
NEXT — sectariaN EXTremist |
| 29 |
MARS — MARSPORT - PORT — a MARSPORT is the same as a spoilsport. The definition is a reference to the old Mars Bar adverts, “A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play.” |
Posted in Azed | 1 Comment »
Posted by rightback on 29th September 2007
Solving time: 15:23
Not for the first time, a puzzle based on the works of Lewis Carroll, specifically Through the Looking-Glass (TTLG) and its chess ‘match’ between the White and Red pieces. About average difficulty overall, provided you knew a little about the book.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across |
| 1 |
FIGHTER (= FREIGHT*) + COMMAND - strictly something like ‘once’ is needed here. |
| 8 |
E VITA - which very plausibly means ‘is life’ in Italian.
|
| 9 |
NO SLOUCH; OSLO in [N for S]UCH - a hard answer phrase. Luckily short capitals are few and far between; Lima springs to mind, but not many others. |
| 11 |
CELESTE (double definition) - refers to the Mary Celeste. |
| 12 |
ERNES + TO - a very innocent looking ‘to’ in the clue proves crucial. Clever, but less so coming from Araucaria as his clues contain so many superfluous words. |
| 13 |
W(HIT)E - the first of many references to TTLG in this puzzle, though I don’t fully understand the definition (”…came from much reflection”). |
| 15 |
LASER DISK; (AS RED SILK)* |
| 17 |
NOVE[mber] + LETTE[r] |
| 20 |
DO YEN |
| 25 |
MITI (”MITTY”) + GATE |
| 27 |
IN(DI)STINCT + NESS |
| Down |
| 1 |
FRENCH WIN (= ‘Victoire’) + DOW - the best I can offer for the last bit of the wordplay is that ‘door opens’ might indicate DO[or]. |
| 3 |
T (= ‘model’) + EAR’S + HE’LL - a shell that dispenses tear gas. I hate ‘model’ for T (as in the Ford Model T). |
| 4 |
RENDELL - refers to Ruth Rendell. The ellispes in this and the previous clue are crucial; take TEAR SHELL, remove SH (’abandon silence’) and change ‘tear’ to ‘rend’. |
| 5 |
OYSTERS - cryptic definition, referring to the scene with the Walrus and the Carpenter in TTLG. |
| 6 |
MY OWN INVENTION - again the ellipses matter, and again a Carrollian reference; this clue refers to the phrase ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ and to the White Knight in TTLG who claimed that his upside-down box was his “own invention… so that the rain can’t get in”. |
| 7 |
NE(CESS[p]IT)Y |
| 10 |
LOO + KIN + GG + LASS |
| 16 |
RED KNIGHT; (KEND)* in RIGHT - another reference to TTLG. |
| 18 |
T(EST)ACT - I should really be wise to things like ‘intact’ in the Guardian by now, but this took me a couple of looks. |
| 19 |
E(ASTER)N - refers to the Great Eastern, built by Brunel. |
| 22 |
[go]BLIN + I - I didn’t understand this while solving. |
| 24 |
BRUCE[llosis] - my last entry, by a good couple of minutes. I was initially sure that the answer was B[atman] + (word for cattle) = (word for disease), but when I finally looked for something else I remembered that Batman’s alter ego was Bruce Wayne, and the cattle disease ‘brucellosis’ which I think I made a hash of in a Times Jumbo recently. Perhaps not the fairest wordplay. |
Posted in Guardian | 4 Comments »
Posted by Colin Blackburn on 29th September 2007
The theme required solutions to be adapted before entry but said nothing of the clues. Noticing that the answer lengths were one or two less than the grid lengths this suggested some addition to each answer as it was entered into the grid. Treating the clues as normal I solved a few intersecting clues cold. After three of four from the top corner it stood out that each answer so far contained a double-you and that the only way to get the words to fit the grid was to do something with these double-yous. Unfortunately 1a and 1d both went in, and remained real words, if the W became a QU. This didn’t work for the next couple of answers!
I then thought about the title, EMPLOY. Then it dawned, EMPLOY = use = yous; so, turn a double-you into two yous. Then the answers fitted perfectly and a few modified letters even checked against single occurrences of you in crossing words. Once I had this it became straightforward to solve. The only complication was whether to interpret a you in the grid as a you or part of a double-you.
The cluing was generally sound with some good surface reading. There is one answer that I have tentatively put in which follows from the word play, vaguely, but doesn’t seem to be a word. I may be wrong!
| Across |
| 1 |
WAYSIDE — (DAISY)* in WE — straightforward clue with a good surface to start the puzzle |
| 5 |
WOOED — OO in WED(nesday) — (a pair of) spectacles is what a batsman gets when he gets two ducks in the two innings of a match, ie two zeroes. |
| 9 |
IPSWICH — (tr)IPS + WI + CH — some to mean three letters might be frowned upon but as trips appears in the clue it isn’t so heinous. |
| 10 |
RENEW — seRENE Weather |
| 11 |
WIN HANDS DOWN — W + IN + HANDS DOWN — 19 = endows. |
| 14 |
WRAP — “rap” — the completion of filming is a wrap. Great use of the film title for the homophone part of the clue. |
| 15 |
DHOW — D + HOW — how is a Scottish hollow. Oddly it’s also a word meaning a small hill! |
| 16 |
WAVE — cryptic def. |
| 17 |
TWEE — TWEED - D |
| 20 |
WEAL — E in LAW< |
| 22 |
WILD CREATURES — (WALTER CRUISED)* — a French definition here referring to the art movement known as Fauvism. |
| 24 |
SNOWY — double def. — Tin-Tin’s dog was called Snowy. Strange surface though. |
| 25 |
CUTE BOW — (CUBE TWO)* — I can’t find CUTE BOW in a dictionary but it fits the grid. I may be misinterpreting the word play. |
| 26 |
SWASH — double def. |
| 27 |
BYE-LAWS — BY + (WALES)* |
|
| Down |
| 1 |
WIT — (TIW)< — ref is to the Norse god Tiw. |
| 2 |
ANSWER — americANS WE Rejected |
| 3 |
SEWN UP — double def. |
| 4 |
DECLARE WAR — cryptic def. |
| 6 |
WEEDED — “we did” — Hmmm. |
| 7 |
ONE-TWO — double def. — one possible score for an away win in football. |
| 8 |
DOWN QUILT — D + OWN + (L in QUIT) |
| 12 |
DRIVES AWAY — DR + I’VE + SAW + AY |
| 13 |
WET NURSES — (WESTERN US)* |
| 18 |
WIDOW — WINDOW - N — a widow is a short line appearing on the next page separated from the rest of its paragraph; or is that an orphan? |
| 19 |
ENDOWS — END + WO< + S(tatue) |
| 20 |
UNWELL — jUNe + WELL — sounds like Doc’s writing about this year! |
| 21 |
ERENOW — hoW ONE REckoned< |
| 23 |
WAS — W + A + S |
Posted in Guardian | 3 Comments »
Posted by smiffy on 28th September 2007
The only real stumbling block today for me was 18A, which took me several minutes of plodding through the alphabet until I could find an answer that justified the clue. 10A doesn’t work, in my opinion, but I’ll gladly stand corrected.
Across
1 P(ai)R,ECIN,CT - “over exact?” indicating the reversal of nice.
6 BOWSER - (rows be)*; I recall this word cropping up only a couple of months ago. It’s a petrol pump Down Under.
10 THO,ROUGH - Interesting anagrind comparison between this clue and 17D. Here we have “Somewhat” which seems flaky to me (doesn’t it mean partially?), whereas in 17D we have “Somehow”, which doesn’t bother me. Are the two equally (in)valid?
11 SETA (hidden)
18 VISA - As mentioned, I had to take a trial and error approach to this one, being confronted with _I_A. The preposition here certainly helps the ambiguity, as “get one in a state” rather than “…into a state” certainly had me foxed.
26 PORT,I,A - The only Portia I recall is from The Merchant of Venice. I suppose she was acting as a “lawyer” with that whole “Quality of mercy is not strained…” spiel.
27 C(Y)P,HER - First time I’ve encountered CP as an abbreviation (for “Communist Party”).
28 ENSILAGE (gleans ie)*
Down
2 RE(E)VE - Unusual to see a foreign language element of the wordplay clued so directly (”French dream” = reve).
5 TOTAL ABSTINENCE - a succinct and effective cryptic treatment.
6 B,L,OTTO - Only when writing this, did I remember which Emperor was called Otto (Bismarck).
8 EIGHT,SOME - Not sure how to classify this type of clue. It’s along the lines of “take the wordplay elements and switch them”.
15 IN,I,T(I)ALLY
17 EXCERPTS (R in expects)*
25 NO,H - a useful three-letter word to bear in mind, as it can occasionally be seen as a sub-component in its own right
(e.g. “play”) in barred puzzles.
Posted in FT | 6 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 28th September 2007
I found this very easy - no Chambers or Bradford needed. There were some difficult words in the puzzle (31A,19D) but I was helped on these by checking letters and the straightforward clueing.
Note: this is will be the last Beelzebub blog for a couple of weeks as I shall be away and won’t have much time for solving/blogging. Expect normal service to resume around puzzle 921.
| Across |
| 10 |
SOD,I in EPIC - SOD for “fellow” was new to me. |
| 12 |
initial letters of “BMW, And Porsche Satisfactory” - “rolls” is the definition nicely hidden amongst those other luxury cars. |
| 13 |
DECADE,NT |
| 16 |
L in C[-o]ULCH - which is “the stones, old shells, etc., forming an oyster bed and furnishing points of attachment for the spawn of oysters”. |
| 20 |
(TOO IRASCIBLE)* - BOROSILICATE. |
| 25 |
RIG,EL - “footie star” is the full definition as RIGEL is so called from its position on the left foot of the figure of Orion. |
| 28 |
(LOCAL BEE[-s])* - ECOLABEL. |
| 30 |
G in ALL,ONES |
| 31 |
(REACTION CAN)* - ANACREONTIC. |
| |
| Down |
| 1 |
BLUBBER,E in BED - which describes the appearance of the eyes or cheeks after you’ve been crying. Had to double-check when I got this though as BEBLUBBERED also sounds like it could be a definition for “fat”. |
| 3 |
R in DEEP,PIN (going up) |
| 6 |
I,CH in MELANGE,LO - MICHEALANGELO |
| 9 |
LANCE,TED |
| 11 |
(TEACH LIMITS)* - ATHLETICISM. |
| 19 |
AS,in Z,T,RUG,I - probably the toughest word in the puzzle for me but the wordplay makes it gettable. |
Posted in Beelzebub | No Comments »