A finely crafted puzzle this week. Solving the four long perimeter clues certainly helped lock the rest into place.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CHAIN-SMOKING |
Dangerous habit of passing on tea in M&S from the back (12)
|
| CHA (tea) + IN + M&S reversed (from the back) + OKING (passing, also spelled OK’ING), with “on” indicating the order of the wordplay | ||
| 10 | MEEKER |
Increasingly gentle Gemelo supplement facing resistance (6)
|
| ME (Gemelo) + EKE (supplement) + R (resistance) | ||
| 11 | USA |
Jellyfish striking Mediterranean country (3)
|
| [MED]USA (jellyfish) minus (striking) MED (Mediterranean) | ||
| 13 | MUON |
Tiny particle from N or M translated into French the wrong way (4)
|
| N OU M (N or M, translated into French) reversed (the wrong way) | ||
| 14 | PLECTRA |
Led by power, classic Avenger rejects first picks (7)
|
| P (power) + [E]LECTRA (classic avenger, i.e., of her father’s murder) minus first letter (rejects first), with a capitalization misdirection and with “led by” indicating the order of the wordplay | ||
| 15 | MYRIAPOD |
Strange pyramid housing old creepy-crawly (8)
|
| Anagram of (strange) {PYRAMID + O (old)} | ||
| 17 | UNIAT |
Do without occasionally antiwar Christian (5)
|
| UT (do, i.e., the musical note) around (without) alternate letters of (occasionally) [A]N[T]I[W]A[R] | ||
| 18 | SCROD |
American fish, namely perch (5)
|
| SC. (namely) + ROD (perch) | ||
| 20 | EARTH-HOG |
Aardvark hater turned corner (8)
|
| Anagram of (turned) HATER + HOG (corner) | ||
| 22 | INIMICAL |
Vast number from Pakistan and India, and smaller number from East in opposition (8)
|
| {LAC (vast number from Pakistan) + I (India) + MINI (smaller number, here referring, I think, to a miniskirt, for example)} all reversed (from East) | ||
| 26 | OOBIT |
Caterpillar falling short on account of being late (5)
|
| O[N] minus last letter (falling short) + OBIT (account of being late, i.e., deceased) | ||
| 28 | YEZDI |
Sect member finally chose between two versions of unknown gods (5)
|
| Last letter of (finally) [CHOS]E inside (between) {Y + Z} (two versions of unknown) + DI (gods) | ||
| 29 | STACKING |
Filling food carried by Yodel? (8)
|
| TACK (food) inside (carried by) SING (yodel), with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 30 | CENTARE |
Stronghold covering a relatively small area (7)
|
| CENTRE (stronghold) around (covering) A | ||
| 32 | KEEN |
Piercing wail (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 33 | AGE |
Poet’s once more ignoring last century (3)
|
| AGE[N] (poet’s once more, for “again”) minus last letter (ignoring last) | ||
| 34 | REBUTS |
Ultimately, hint to crack puzzle proves incorrect (6)
|
| Last letter of (ultimately) [HIN]T inside (to crack) REBUS (puzzle) | ||
| 35 | PRINCE’S METAL |
Imitation of Gold disturbed Manic Street Preachers at first, left short of time (12, 2 words)
|
| Anagram of (disturbed) {MANIC + STREE[T] + first letter of (at first) P[REACHERS] + L (left)} minus (short of) one T (time), with a capitalization and italicization misdirection | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | COMMUNION CUP |
Comic struggling with pun 13 where element is offered by minister (12, 2 words)
|
| Anagram of (struggling) {COMIC + PUN + MUON ([solution to] 13[A]}, with “element” here referring to the wine used in the Eucharist | ||
| 2 | HAÜYNE |
Precious jade turned up in Chinese and European blue mineral (6)
|
| {YU (precious jade) inverted (turned up) inside (in) HAN (Chinese)} + E (European) | ||
| 3 | AMORINI |
Cupids soaring in Italy (their capital) (7)
|
| {IN + I (Italy) + ROMA (their [i.e., Italians’] capital, in Italian)} all inverted (soaring) | ||
| 4 | NEGATE |
Deny access after one loses head (6)
|
| [O]NE minus first letter (loses head) + GATE (access), with “after” indicating the order of the wordplay | ||
| 5 | MELODRAMA |
Perhaps play unfinished chant over Hindu god (9)
|
| MELOD[Y] (chant) minus last letter (unfinished) + RAMA (Hindu god) | ||
| 6 | ORE |
What may be dug up or picked up (3)
|
| Homophone of (picked up) OR | ||
| 7 | KUCHCHA |
Chuck about what’s inside of dried mud (7)
|
| Anagram of (about) CHUCK + inside [letters of] [W]HA[T] | ||
| 8 | NARDOO |
During seminar, do observers see Victorian fern? (6)
|
| Hidden in (during) [SEMI]NAR DO O[BSERVERS], “Victorian” here referring to the Australian state. | ||
| 9 | GRAND GUIGNOL |
Old Parisian theatre guard longing for excitement (12, 2 words)
|
| Anagram of (for excitement) GUARD LONGING | ||
| 12 | STIR |
Shake can (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 16 | PEACH-TREE |
Fruit provider to go around every trustee (9)
|
| PEE (to go) around {EACH (every) + TR. (trustee)} | ||
| 19 | SMITTEN |
Dismissal after Stokes bowled over (7)
|
| S (stokes) + MITTEN (dismissal), with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 21 | HAZIEST |
Extremely dim bully clinging to one stone (7)
|
| {HAZE (bully) around (clinging to) I (one)} + ST (stone) | ||
| 23 | NO FEAR |
Definitely not Iron Man’s core breaking circuit (6, 2 words)
|
| {FE (iron) + middle letter of (core [of]) [M]A[N]} inside (breaking) NOR (circuit, referring to a logic circuit) | ||
| 24 | LYCEUM |
College‘s extremely lovely college uniform (6)
|
| Outside letters of (extremely) L[OVEL]Y + C[OLLEG]E + U[NIFOR]M | ||
| 25 | ADNEXA |
American constitution restricting Express and associated organs (6)
|
| A (American) + {DNA ([figuratively, perhaps] constitution) around (restricting) EX. (express)}, with a capitalization and italicization misdirection | ||
| 27 | BUNG |
Casually throw old purse to pay broken Australian (4)
|
| Quadruple definition, with Chambers having the second indicated as “obsolete criminal slang,” thus “old,” and the fourth indicated as “Australian informal” | ||
| 31 | ARC |
Bow and scrape, somewhat shown up (3)
|
| Hidden in (somewhat) [S]CRA[PE] inverted (shown up) |
I got off to a slow start and it took me a while to get any of the 12-letter answers which probably didn’t help. I needed all of the checking letters to guess 9d, but the others were easier to work out with just some checking letters. I originally wrote in BUNG from the first definition, but eventually thought it must be several definitions and only ‘old purse’ was unfamiliar to me. I probably have seen KUCHCHA before but I couldn’t remember its spelling or meaning and I needed all of the checking letters to think that the answer could contain CHCH.
I had also been thinking that the ‘of’ in 7d was a slightly dodgy linking word before I looked in Chambers and found that the answer could only be an adjective, so ‘of’ must be part of the definition.
Thanks, Cineraria and Gemelo.
Thanks for the blog , another excellent Plain puzzle , Gemelo seems to have got these just right now . OOBIT had nice disguise for obit , NARDOO has the use of Victorian again which I will look out for , SMITTEN has mitten for dismissal which I doubted until I looked it up .
I could not find ADNEXA in Chambers93 but I had all the letters and the wordplay was clear .
When I first read 1ac, I thought it was going to end in ISM – i(n) + MS reversed. Only when I’d got CHA-N at the start did I realise my mistake! Generally, I thought this was pretty straightforward – remarkably so, remembering back to Gemelo’s early puzzles. ADNEXA also not in my C98, but verified by Google.
I’ve come full circle. One of the first Azed puzzles I attempted back in 1979, OOBIT was one of the answers. I couldn’t find it in Chambers because alternative spellings then were not listed in alphabetical position and it was under W. I still remember that. Nowadays I have the Chambers app so no problem.
In Chambers93 OOBIT says see woubit , it turns up quite often .
This would have been the 1978 edition. They didn’t use computers so much in those days. Chambers still had an appendix of extra words to save having to re-typeset so often.
I’ve given up hope of a new paper edition, but I wish they’d update the app.
Chamber93 was a major upgrade , perhaps using computers for the first time ?? The first to be called The Chambers Dictionary , 25000 new entries . All later editions are just small revisions to 93 .