Azed 1993

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[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

The standard, routine, par for the course, vanilla wordplays waiting for reader enlightenment.
Across

1 BARON,G – it’s broad-bladed knife
6 M,AVENS – indeed AVENS is a rosaceous plant
12 ETOURD*,ERIE – stupid blundering
13 TANKINI – (in a knit)*- not to be confused with a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqini
14 TRAM – two meanings
15 REDTOP – hidden in “bladdered tops” but not sure I understand the definition… “Not one of the qualities to be found among bladdered topers” unless it’s an &lit somehow?
16 RAM*,JET
18 XO(AN)A – AN=one in rev(a,ox). “primitive statues… overlaid with… gold”
20 TO,PARCH,S – district ruler
22 STRAINER – TRAIN=sequence in SER[ies] – a riddle is a kind of STRAINER
25 SPU(R)N – archaic kick
27 NOSH-UP – (push on)* — I guess the definition is “blow-out” and the anagrind “new course”.
29 RIMOSE – fissured — and (is more)* but not sure where IS comes from? IS=elevation somehow?
31 MILO – ([pal]m oil)*. Yes it’s sorghum.
32 CHOBDAR – Indian usher. But wordplay? “Usher bound to be seen in ambit of a torch, heading off unsteadily?”
33 OUT(ER) HOUSE – as opposed to the Inner House (in Scotland I guess). ER=HM (for now).
34 TE(TT)ER – TT=abstainer in TEER=plaster and TETTER is a nasty rash.
35 P(RUDE)S – &lit

Down

1 BUTT,RESS-ROOT*
2 A,MA(RAN)T – “fabled never-fading flower”
3 RENAME – hidden. I red-herringed with AG,NAME for a long time.
4 NOISE – is a “sound” but wordplay? “Blunder with this makes bet sound?”
5 GU(N)STO,NE – NE is obsolete “not” thus “not old”. And it’s a stone shot thus ‘natural’ I guess.
7 ADN*,EXA – rev(axe=cut). “the organs that are attached to a particular organ”
8 V,ENDORS[e] –
9 ERST – hidden in “undERSTanding”
10 NI,TON – former name for radon. rev(not in=out)
11 SE,A, PASSPORTS – couldn’t find this in my Chambers (2003) but the definition makes sense to me. Disport is a frolice but what’s our dance? “What neutral merchantman had in South-East, a dance and frolics”
17 OPEN-S,HOP
19 BAR,ONET* – BAR=saving
21 HAULAGE – wordplay? “Very big hall replacing top-class transporters?”
23 INSUR*,E
24 C(HIDE)D – cd=abbrev(contagious disease)
26 PIQUE – wound and also sounds like “peak”
28 OD(OU)R – OU in [Oxf]ord*
30 MOTT – two meanings “clump of trees” (American) and (Spenserian) measured.

27 comments on “Azed 1993”

  2. Get in early then.
    MOTT last to go in because I invented RIVOSE for 29. Who was Mr Mott?
    Thought 15 was an anagram of ‘topers’ – there are so many of these; until I saw the hidden answer.
    AMARANT was ‘adamant’ for a while – that didn’t help.
    Looking forward to several explanations.

  3. Myrvin, 30D is two defs – a variant of MOTTE(1) and pp of METE(1) (Spenser, hence ‘years ago’.

    My clue (@1) is a hint for explaining 4D. Its a treat to see it for yourself.

  4. 21dn is AULA (a hall) replacing the U in ‘HuGE’. All I could get for 4dn was (anti)noise? 15ac ‘redtop’ is i.e. the sun or the mirror newspapers, i.e. not one of the qualty papers like the times.

    Nick

  7. 18A A in (An ox)(rev) – pernickety?; 27A (push on)(rev) – ie ‘change of course’; 29A MO in RISE
    1D anag. in BUTT; 4D – see my hint @1 – an extra word is needed. 11D SE+A+PAS+SPORTS; 17D OPENS + HOP

  11. Also:”sea letter or sea brief formerly, a document listing a ship’s place of origin and her cargo; a document issued to a neutral merchant vessel in wartime, allowing it to pass freely (also sea pass or sea passport).” In my Chambers CD, must be earlier than 2003.

  12. Ilan, I query your 6.37 post time. Myrvin & I were having a private chat with no sign of a review until 8.45

  15. Nick, I assume you solved my simple clue? It gives a 6-letter word that in Azed’s clue leads to the 5-letter solution there. Both words are defined in his clue which is one where the parsing of the clue reveals the solution ‘noise’. This type pops up so frequently and causes so much confusion that I think it better for solvers new to Azed to practice solving them. I wonder if he might give us a special in which all the clues were of this type. That might help new solvers improve their parsing skills.

  16. I have to admit to bad parsing in 27A. Ilan is correct, and right to question ‘with new course’ as indicating this adequately.

  18. AZEDs are bad enough with solution words that nobody’s ever heard of. If he’s doing reverse clues with words we’ve never heard of, that don’t even appear, I think that’s pretty spiteful.

  19. Azed puzzles are very generously cross-checked. The solution to 4D is obvious given noi?e and a simple synonym at one end. It is therefore reasonable to take the rest of the clue as its subsidiary, with ‘this’ apparently standing for ‘noise’. For parsing, this leads to (some word meaning ‘blunder’) + noise = ‘bet’. How could this be understood? Logically, only ‘noise’ could be taken to represent some operator that would lead to the missing word, since we are told that there is some relationship between that word and ‘bet’. The rest is straightforward, and not the impossible conundrum postulated.

  20. Gaufrid @ 17

    Thanks for the lucid explanation.

    I suspect an editor’s hand in producing an atypically unfair clue.

    I have no idea what Bob Sharkey is on about.

  21. Bob. That’s how lots of us got it of course. There have recently been discussions suggesting that all clues should be capable of solution without the crossing letters. We need to know the word which will, if ISE is taken away, produce the answer If we don’t know it, the clue don’t work. Just having enough letters to guess the word is not good enough.

  22. Re 4dn, AZED seems to like these type clues, using puns upon ‘NO ISE’ (or xyz etc.). But as Myrvin states, how do you deduce the answer from a ‘blunder with no ise’ = ‘bet’ cold? Convoluted, maybe even an obtuse type clue, impossible to solve unless with nearly all the checking letters.

    Mind you, having said that, yesterday’s Listener with printer’s devilry… ARRRRRRRGGGHHHHHH

    Nick 😉

  23. For what it’s worth, I thought it might have something to to do with miSTAKE. But that doesn’t work.

  27. 21D HAULAGE: substitute ‘AULA’ (= hall) for ‘U’ (as opposed to non-U = Top-class) in ‘HUGE’ = (very large)

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