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Archive for July 27th, 2008

Azed 1886

Posted by bridgesong on 27th July 2008

bridgesong.

Solving time : about a day (but it was my birthday, so I was distracted).  Loads of unfamiliar words this week, and some excellent surface readings (e.g. 19 across).  I found the south-west corner particularly difficult, with doubts over 30 and 34 across.  Apologies for any formatting oddities: I composed the blog on one computer and then emailed it (in two sections) to my home computer, and something odd appears to have happened en route.  I’ll be away and without access to the net when this blog appears, so won’t be able to respond to any comments for a few days but please don’t hesitate to write in with any comments.

Across
1 KHODJA - a simple anagram with which to start
6 PELOPID - pole in dip (all rev.), a descendant of Pelops, who was the grandfather of Agamemnon, and Electra was Agamemnon’s daughter
11 HOSANNA - an(imals) in Noah*
12 BEMIRE - emir in BE; “dirty” is here used as a verb, not an adjective
14 ALIT - Alit(alia); this is the past participle of the verb to alight. Although this is an intransitive verb, and the surface reading suggests a transitive use, this is deliberately misleading, and an aircraft can be said (intransitively) to have put down
15 ROMAUNT - Rom + aunt; an old word for romance
16 DOMANIAL - mania in dol(lar); the word is in Chambers under domain
18 ELAN - an eland is a South African antelope
19 OSIER - (h)osier(y). More usually found as a noun, it is also an adjective, justifying the clever use of “Twiggy”, although perhaps it might be argued that the words “full range” add nothing to the clue?
20 CORONAL SUTURE - na in true colours*
23 SIEGE - hidden and reversed in college I see
25 TOEA - 0 in tea; a toea is a Papua New Guinea monetary unit, 1/100 of a kina; kina and china are alternative names for quina, and china of course can refer to tea. Very clever
29 OPERA HAT - h in PE aorta*
30 AQUEOUS - the word play is relatively straightforward: a(dvance) + que (French for that) + ous (sou*). What I have difficulty with is the definition: aqueous can mean “deposited by water” but it seems to me that “let down” is some distance from this as a definition
31 LORY - hidden and reversed in captivity rolled
32 GUIROS - Rio* in G US; a guiro is a gourd used as a percussion instrument in Latin America
33 INTERIM - I in “in term”
34 EXTINES - another clue that gave me difficulties. The word is plural, so the definition must be “film covers”; you then have exes round tin, and I suppose that “opening” implies that the word “tin” is within “exes”. Not a usage I remember coming across before, but perfectly fair.
35 SERRAE - arres(t) + E; they’re a zoological term for sawlike organs
Down
1 KHADI - a compound anagram. Take the letters of “linge” from “like Gandhi” and you have an anagram of the answer, an Indian word for home-woven linen
2 HOLOZOIC - an anagram of zilch and three o’s
3 DATA LOGGER - a lot* in dagger; the phrase is in Chambers under its second element only
4 JNANA - it’s a Hindu term
5 ANGINA - in (which can mean “on the spot”) inside an anagram of a nag
6 PARABLEPSIS - psi in parables
7 EBOLA - a lobe (rev.); the Ebola virus is well known
8 LEME - hidden
9 PIUPIU - piu is Italian for more; a piupiu is a Maori skirt
10 DETER - (Sovie)t in deer: an axis is a type of Indian deer
13 MANSTEALER - ante meal’s* + r
17 HERBARIA - the reference is to Herb Alpert
21 REQUIT - r + equit(y)
22 STEANS - as nest*
23 SWAGE - swag + (blad)e; a swag can mean a depression
24 TOUSE - to use
26 ORATE - O + rate
27 STYME - hidden; it’s a Scottish word meaning a glimmer of light
28 POON - 0 in pon(d); it’s an Indian tree, funnily enough

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