Solving time: longer than I care to admit, but see 16 across. I completed about three quarters of the puzzle in an hour, but the northeast quadrant proved to be stubborn. This is my first blog, so apologies for any formatting errors.

Across

1 SPLENITIS - SPLIT SPINE* - a simple anagram to start off.

7 UMP - an umpire deals with appeals; not sure about the wordplay but as 3 letter

words are all checked in Azed grids, it doesn’t matter too much.

11 AGACERIE - to be found in Chambers under AGACANT. The construction appears to be

ACE RI in AGE, with ACE meaning one.

12 FECULA - anagram of CAREFUL, minus the R.

13 ILIAC, from ILIACUS, which is a muscle. I thought at first that Trojan might imply

a hidden clue, but it turned out to be the definition.

14 TRIDACNA - a simple anagram for an obscure word.

15 TOPI - well, top means head, but I can’t explain the I. A topi is an antelope.

16 KINSALE - the last clue I solved, and I wasted a lot of time on it before Google

provided the answer. It’s apparently a town in Ireland popular with sailors. I

felt that we should have been warned that there was a place name not to be found in

Chambers.

18 BIGENERIC - BIG EN (a measure) ERIC (a blood-fine).

22 PAIRHORSE - an anagram of A SHOP, RiveR, IE. It means a carriage drawn by a span,

which is a pair of horses.

23 MUTANDA - AN in DATUM*

26 KNAR - it means a knot in wood, (so does KNAG) but is also RANK reversed.

27 DRAPIERS - the clue makes sense when you discover that one of the meanings of TUCK

is RAPIER.

29 LAITY - IT in LAY(which can mean to plan).

30 PINYIN - PINY (like a conifer) + IN (popular). It’s defined as an alphabetic system

for the transcription of Chinese, esp. Mandarin.

31 OMNIVORE - another simple anagram.

32 RIG - another 3 letter word, which I solved before reading the clue, as a result of

the checking letters! It’s RIG(ID), using the fourth of five definitions of RIG in

Chambers.

33 CANDLE-END - a beautifully misleading surface reading. LEADEN* in CND. SERGE is

a variant of CERGE.

Down

1 SOFT-TOP - OFT in STOP. Note that SOFT TOP is shown as the noun, but the

adjectival form is hyphenated, which is why it is shown as one word in the clue.

2 PLEROMA - anagram of RO(OM) + AMPLE.

3 LOCI - hidden in BelLOC Incunabula. A locus can be a passage as well as a place.

4 NALAS - N is final bit of IRRIGATION, + ALAS. We had NALAS (in a slightly different

form) in 1876 a couple of weeks ago.

5 TAWNIER - AWN (a beard of barley) in TIER.

6 SELFSEEKING - ELF in S(tephen) KING.

7 URINARY - YOUR RAIN* less the O.

8 MIAUL - I in MAUL. A variant of MIAOW, I suppose.

9 PECKE - c in PEKE. A Shakespearean spelling of PECK, in its third meaning.

10 HUDIBRASTIC - from Hudibras, by Samuel Butler.

17 TITLING - TIT is of course a bird, and LING a fish. I wasn’t happy with “requiring”

which seemed to suggest a slightly different meaning.

19 GODROON - GO ON round ROD*. It’s a variant of GADROON, and is defined as an

embossed decoration on silverware.

20 ICARIAN - well hidden in supersonIC ARIANe. The reference is to Icarus, whose waxen

wings melted when he flew too near the sun.

21 CORSNED - S in CORNED. A very old word, relating to trial by ordeal.

23 MILOR - OIL* in MR.

24 UMAMI - hidden (reversed) in “raviolI MA MUcked”.

25 SPIEL - I in (GO)SPEL.

28 EYNE - Y (the ultimate letter in heresy) in EYE; it’s an old spelling of EYES.