Azed 1875
Posted by John on 10th May 2008
Azed produces these nice puzzles from time to time, although this is the first of this type I’ve seen: usually the anchor-word is vertical at the left and the two grid patterns are translations of one another. Here they were rotations.
I was lucky: having drawn the grid on a piece of paper, prepared to change things if necessary, by happy chance I plumped for the correct positioning of my first answer.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1,37 | ‘Refuse crowd getting round for example/old monarch like this, king in carriage’: MEGASS (1) - eg in mass; SO V(R)AN (37). |
| 6,36 | ‘Ominous creature rams end of cart/in a way that’s precise yet lax oddly, having injected cocaine’: BARGES (car)T (6). I found this very hard for two reasons: it looks as if ‘Aries’ is in the word, and it wasn’t clear just where the split occurred. And I wasn’t sure if the definition of the second word needed ‘in a way’, although in retrospect I should have been - Azed isn’t going to make such a grammatical slip; EXACTLY (36) - c in (yet lax)*. |
| 12,35 | ‘Wordly quality I noted in wild lusty Acer/undoing the grub in a climbing evergreen’: SECULARITY (35) - I in (lusty Acer)*; THUNBERGIA (12) - (the grub in a)*. How people do these crosswords without Chambers to hand I just don’t know. |
| 14,34 | ‘Unshorn locks etc gathered in makeshift/tuck or good hitch’: maKESHift (34); G RUB (14). |
| 15,33 | ‘Old secret, beloved’s name/time inscribed in ancient spot, hard rock?’: DEAR N (15); ME(T)AL (33) - as in heavy metal I suppose. |
| 16,32 | ‘Gold Sun on tree is grabbing universal favour of the people/to dovetail in total rescue with replanting’: AU RA POP(U)LAR IS (32); INTEROSCULATE (16) - (in total rescue)*. |
| 17,31 | ‘Power invested in law English brought back to discharge/relief pocketed by varlet upstart’: EXPEL (31) - p in (lex E)rev.; LET-UP (17) - varLET UPstart. |
| 18,25 | ‘Serving girl’s painful separation losing child,/priest in a jiffy giving brief description of requirements’: WREN(ch) (18); S(P)EC (25) - yes P for priest is in Chambers, although one expects ‘pr’. |
| 19 | PRESSURE GAUGE - (ups are eg surge)*. When ones sees that something isn’t in Chambers one expects the worst, but in this case all was I think obvious. My SOED gives it as two words rather than hyphenated, so shouldn’t we have been told that in the clue? Or perhaps my edition is the wrong one. |
| Down | |
| 1,24 | ‘Artist’s medium in representation making most of gold-coloured/hydrant in fuzzy lines - it’s boring’: ME(GIL(t))P (1). I suppose that MEP is ‘Member of the European Parliament’, but is this in the plural so that the ‘body of representatives’ meaning can be used? Otherwise I can’t see how an MEP is a representation rather than a representative; ELSHIN (24) - h in (lines)*. An awl bores, ho-ho. |
| 2,23 | ‘Profitable scheme? Student losing head/disguised his age as professional companion’: (l)EARNER (2); GEISHA (23) - (his age)*. |
| 3,22 | ‘Drop; raise’: GOUTTE (3); UPREAR (22). Our clue-setting words. Even here Azed is cunning, leading one to think that ‘drop’ is a verb somehow allied to ‘raise’. The difficulties in setting these double clues, only some of which Azed usually overcomes, are to produce a clue which is not too long and rambling, with a coherent surface, a well-hidden split, and a seamless connection between the two parts. |
| 4,21 | ‘Belt up then spar wildly in serious sword-fighting/activity holding story up, Neapolitan speciality?’: SHARPS (4) - sh (spar)*; GELATO (21) - tale rev. in go. I’m not quite comfortable with ‘activity’ = ‘go’: is it perhaps a reference to the game? |
| 5,20 | ‘Growth in US pile diverted/rising British-American holding party, a logical challenge’: EPULIS (20) - (US pile)*, although a pileus is also perhaps a growth; SUDOKU (5) do in (UK US) rev. |
| 7,29 | ‘A work-basket in US got up in fibre/of course, one in variable weight’: ABACA (7) - (a caba) rev.; ROT(A)L - the adjective from ‘rota’, one of whose meanings is ‘course’ (29). |
| 8,28 | ‘Inferior wheat meant/some rearer undercharging for second broadcast’: SPELT (28) - 2 mngs; RE-RUN (8) - reaRER UNdercharging. |
| 9,27 | ‘Moth climbing (mostly) rough-edged/herbs a rum cove rears’: EGGAR (9) - ragge(d) rev.; ERUCA (27) - (A cure) rev. It was tempting to try to get ERICA to work. |
| 10,26 | ‘Move in fencing special area involving unknown/extraction process, uranium kept under wraps by president’: SI(X)TE (10); P(U)REX (26). |
| 11,25 | ‘Captivated band of volunteers climbing col/seals burst vent emitting gas and mud’: TAKEN (11) - TA (nek)rev.; SALSE (25) - seals*. |
| 13,30 | ‘Soft bit of Plasticine shaped/to fasten box’: NESH (13) - PlasticiNE SHaped; SPAR (30) - 2 mngs. |
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