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Archive for the 'Azed' Category

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.

Posted in Azed | 3 Comments »

Azed 1874 - A Slip of the Pen

Posted by tilsit on 4th May 2008

Solving time: just about an hour.

Greetings from the Royal Blackburn Hospital. I was flung into here on Tuesday as the old pins were still knackered.

Reasonably tough fare from the Observer’s maestro, not helped by by a slip of the pen with 8 down. In Chambers this is listed as BESO LAS MANOS, but in this puzzle it’s shwn as BASO LOS MANOS to intersect with ANTIPODE.

Thanks to the Cryptonuts (esp Uncle Bob) for assisting with parsing a couple of clues.

ACROSS (*) = anagram; (CD) = Cryptic definition; (R) = Reversal

1 QUIXOTRY Homophone of “Quicks” + O + TRY

11 FREEWHEEL WHERE(*) inside FEEL

12 BLOAT A inside BLOT

13 MOSEL SO (R) inside MEL (another name for honey)

14 LASCAR L (Left) + AS (When) + CAR (Wagon)

15 INKOSI IS OK IN (*)

16 ANATTA Hidden answer

17 CHOLIC Homophone of COLIC

20 ANTIPODE AN + TIP (empty) + ODE

22 HIERURGY I HURRY E.G.(*)

25 OLD AGE LOAD (*) + GE (See Mrs Bradford)

27 ULEMAS compound anagram AS A RULE MONK minus KORAN = ULEMAS

30 PARSEC PARSE (analyse) + C (constant)

31 STEALE E inside STALE (past its best)

32 IROKO OK inside IRO(N)

33 ACNED DANCE(*)

34 NINETIETH TIE inside THE INN (*)

35 PERIOSTS OS (bone) inside TRIPES(*)

DOWN

1 QIBLA compound anagram IRAQI BELIEVER minus I = REVERIE + QIBLA Bit complicated for me, Reminds me of the old chestnut ELEVEN plus TWO = TWELVE plus ONE.

2 UHLAN HAUL (*) + N

3 ICOSAHEDRONS HAD NO SCORE IS(*) I like the definition “for each of us faces total score”.

4 X FACTOR (MA)X FACTOR (Cosmetician). I didn’t know that was the original meaning of the phrase!

5 TERRAN RANTER chopped in half and switched round.

6 RELICT C inside RELIT

7 CHOKO COOK (*) with H inside

8 BESO LOS MANOS As I said earlier, this is shown in Chambers, as BASO LAS MANOS as hands (MANOS) takes a feminine article in Spanish. E SOLO (Spain alone) inside BOSSMAN(*)

9 LEESIDE SEE(R) inide LIDE

10 ALLICES ALL + ICES

18 CHOPINE OP inside CHINE

19 FILARIA AIR + AL(L) + IF all (R)

21 PREECHO OR CHEEP (*) + &LIT

23 RECHIE Hidden answer

24 GUSHER G + USHER

26 ASKER Compound anagram KEN L RAISE (*) minus LINE. Reference to the (former -delete after Thursday’s election) Mayor of London’s famous pets.

28 ALERT TALER with first letter moved to last.

29 SEDES Indicates palindrome.

Posted in Azed | 6 Comments »

Azed blogging vacancy

Posted by petebiddlecombe on 27th April 2008

If you would like to write an Azed report about once a month, there’s a space going - one of our current bloggers wants to drop out. If you’d like to have a go, drop me a line - peter at biddlecombe dot demon dot co dot uk.

Update:
We’ve now had three volunteers, which seems enough. I’ll let them introduce themselves when they appear.

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Azed 1873

Posted by petebiddlecombe on 27th April 2008

Solving time: not recorded

I can’t remember how long this took or how much I used Chambers. But I made a wrong guess at the first letter of 17D, which suggests that the rest was solved without Chambers.

Across
1	SUFFRUTESCENT - (turf fuse)*, scent - herbaceous, with a woody stem-base
12	IN ONE - (NO.,N) in i.e.
13	IVOR(y) - ref. Ivor the Engine
14	RO(q)UE
18	HE,A,R.(TIKI)N. - “a little heart, used euphemistically in an old oath”, says C.
19	TAKE TEN - a longer version of “take five”
20	A.,ESC - “the rune for a, used in Old English for ae; the ligature ae used in Old English for the same sound (that of a in Mod Eng RP cat).”
22	ABD=bad*,OMEN
25	HEYS = “haze” = rag in the ‘play jokes on’ sense
27	PIROGUE = (I go up R.,)*,E
30	TRANSMUTE = (UN matters)*
32	D.E.,MOB - D.E. = Dept of Employment
33	DAFF - hidden reversal, - to put by (Shak.)
34	SAND = to polish with a sander, and the female novelist known as George Sand’s lover was Chopin, who was Polish.
35	MOWER - W. in Rome*
36	GULE - glue with its centre reversed, and Sots for ‘marigold’
37	TRANSGENDERED - strange,redden

Down
1	SCRATCH-TEST - scratchiest with T for I. Nice easy one if you’re married to an immunologist!
2	FLUNK(y) - to flunk = to faiil an exam, which is also ‘plough’
3	F,LEG - a Scotticism for ’scare’
4	RICH T(ea.) - sound = correct = right = richt.
5	UN,FEED
6	ENTRY = a field. I suspect the wordplay is Y = young. following something, but I can’t see what
7	SEE THE
8	EVOKES - OK in Seve rev. - ref. Olazabal and Ballesteros
9	NONISSUE - O = centre of ‘October’ in (suns(h)ine)*
10	TRENCHER-FED = separate from the pack, of hounds. (here FC)* in trend
15	CAN,OPUS - an urn for mortal remains
17	TABERDAR - beard* in tar = to incite = egg (vb.). I made a wrong guess at DABERDAR
21	HYAENA - A after AY rev. in HEN
23	BOSOMS - MO rev. in BOSS
24	MI(TT)EN - slang for ‘dismissal’, type (employment or cricket?) not specified in C.
26	E.,M.(BO)G.
28	REIRD = drier rev.
29	GLAUR - hidden - Scots for a mire
31	E(D.G.)E - the BBC = Auntie is headed up by the DG = Director General

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Azed 1872: Treading the boards

Posted by jetdoc on 20th April 2008

Quite a pedestrian Azed this week, I thought. Definitely one for those with TEA (or a similar anagram buster) to hand — some obvious anagrams for obscure words, which could be hard work otherwise. Also one for the Caledonians, with lots of Scottish words (I will be attending MCC vs Scotland at Lord’s on Monday, by the way. Will I get a chance to use ‘splatch’? Maybe, given the weather forecast.).

And do I have a fave clue this week? Nothing spectacular, but I think 14d just about gets it, because fitting ‘ortolan’ = bunting (the bird), plus ‘pi’ (a printing term) into a nautical clue (‘bunting’ also has a nautical meaning) is quite neat.

Across
1	BORDS	Sounds like (‘for audience’) ‘boards’, as in ‘treading the boards’. I guessed this almost immediately, but couldn’t find ‘bords’ in Chambers at first. It’s under ‘bord and pillar’, a mining technique.
5	SPLATCH	C (Chambers gives this as the third entry for ‘see’) in S[ylvia] PLATH. Splatch is a Scottish word, meaning ‘a splash or clot of dirt or colour; a splotch’. The poet and novelist Sylvia Plath was married to Ted Hughes, who later became Poet Laureate. Some who feel strongly about these things would say that if that was affection, he had a bloody strange way of showing it.
10	FLATUOUS	FATUOUS around L[ake]. Flatuous means the same as ‘flatulent’.
12	RYMME	Emmy reversed. ‘Rymme’ is an obsolete (‘lost’) spelling of ‘rim’.
13	BICCIES	BIS = instruction to play again; CC = 200; IE = that is. ‘Perkin’ is an alternative spelling of parkin, a ginger cake or (more rarely) biscuit.
15	SPAT	Hidden in ‘crosspatches’.
16	FRONT-RUNNER	A dickey is a false shirt front; ‘runner’ is a Scottish word meaning ‘a slice across a carcase of beef below the breast’. I got this from the checked letters before I worked out the wordplay.
17	SERK	‘seen in kirk’ without its middle letters (is there more to this? does ‘eninki’ have some significance?). Yet another Scottish word — a serk is a shirt, chemise or surplice.
19	GASSER	ASS = fool; GER = ‘in Mongolia, another name for a yurt. A gasser, in the US is ‘an oil well that produces natural gas; something exceptional or remarkable, very successful or funny’
20	VAT-MAN	V = contrary; ATMAN = the divine within the self, the essential self. And I must do a VAT return sometime soon…
22	SHOO	‘shoot’ minus its end.
24	CORACIIFORM	(if ic car room) — a pretty obvious anagram, the inclusion of the abbreviation ‘i/c’ (in charge of) being a dead give-away. The order Coraciiformes* includes the kingfishers, hornbills, bee-eaters and rollers. The name Coraciiformes means ‘raven-like’, which is a misnomer, because they aren’t like ravens. A Roller can also mean a Rolls Royce, hence the ‘car’ theme.
27	ROLF	FLORida reversed. Rolfing, which sounds like it should be frightfully jolly but probably isn’t, is based on the teachings of Dr Ida Pauline Rolf.
29	BRAXIES	XI = eleven; in BRAES. Soay is a breed of small, wild, dark-coloured sheep found esp on the island of Soay in the Outer Hebrides. Braxy is a bacterial disease of sheep, or a sheep infected with it.
30	ORGAN	‘nag r’ reversed; following O = ring. A hand organ is a barrel organ.
31	STRELITZ	*(litters z). A strelitz was a soldier of the Muscovite guards, abolished by Peter the Great.
32	TRIVETS	*(stir); about VET = check. A trivet can be a three-legged pot.
33	SORDA	SODA about R. Sorda (female form of ‘sordo’) in musical terminology means ‘muted, damped’.

Down
1	BERUFSVERBOT	*(of subverter b). B is often indicated by ‘book’. Berufsverbot is an order of ‘professional disqualification’ under German law.
2	OF YORE	Y encapsulated by O FORE.
3	DAMS	Double definition. ‘Dams’ can mean ‘the game of draughts’.
4	STENT	SENT; around T = ‘end of August’. Another Scottish word, meaning ‘tax’.
5	SUBERIN	‘sub Erin’. Suberin is the complex of fatty substances that form the chemical basis of cork tissue making it waterproof and resistant to decay. I much prefer screw-caps, myself.
6	POILU	UP = ‘in revolt’, pocketing OIL. Poilus were French private soldiers, apparently hairy.
7	LUCINAS	*(in cauls). A baby born in a caul is said to be protected from drowning. I was, and I haven’t drowned yet, so it has worked so far.
8	TRIPE-SHOP	*(hopes); after TRIP = lapse. A shambles is a flesh-market — so a district that might include a tripe shop.
9	HYSTEROMANIA	*(they as I); about ROMAN = upright (non-italic) type. Hysteromania is hysterical mania, often marked by erotic delusions and an excessive desire to attract attention.
11	PEARE	Alternative letters of PoEtAgReEd — a Spenserian spelling of ‘peer’.
14	PORTOLANI	ORTOLAN = bunting; in PI = jumble (as in printers’ pi[e]). Portolani, or Portolan charts, were used in navigation.
18	BAALITE	ALI = name most likely to be of a Muslim; in BATE = rage. Worshippers of Baal were disobeying the first commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”.
19	GRILSES	*(is legs r). A grilse is a young salmon on its first return from salt water.
21	ACORN	A = amateur; CO = company; RN = sailors (Royal Navy). Mast (as well as being something on a ship) is ‘the fruit of the oak, beech, chestnut, and other forest trees, on which pigs feed; nuts, acorns’.
23	ORMAZD	‘fOR Me, AZeD’ minus ‘fee’. A later form of the name Ahura Mazda, in early Zoroastrianism the creator and lord of the universe, later the good principle.
25	CHERT	Hidden in ‘teacher-training’. Chert is a siliceous rock of cryptocrystalline silica occurring as bands or concretions in sedimentary rock, e.g. limestone.
26	IDOLS	*(solid). An osolete meaning of ‘idol’ is ‘impostor, sham’.
28	BRIO	BIO = biography; about R. Brio is ‘life’ in the sense of ‘energy’.

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