As always Azed produces a top-class grid, with four words crossing it completely and two more almost doing so. As a result, of course, there are many words that need a painstaking hunt through Chambers, but they are all clued soundly and fairly.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | ENCEPHALARTOS — (hose plant care)* |
| 11 | F(ERA)L |
| 12 | ATOC — a species of skunk and ‘a to c’, suggesting ABC and ‘easy as ABC’ |
| 13 | OAT H — ‘oons’ is an archaic word for an oath |
| 14 | LO(A)VE — to loave is to form a head as in a cabbage |
| 16 | HOW(B)E — an old way of saying ‘yet’ |
| 17 | GI GUE — ref ‘GI Blues’; a gue is a kind of viol formerly used in Shetland |
| 19 | BAPU — (a pub)*; a bapu is a Hindi spiritual father |
| 20 | C(ROPE)AR — a crop-ear is an obsolete word for a person, horse, dog etc with cropped ears |
| 21 | GYNAECOMAST — (stance may go)* |
| 24 | N(A CRIT)E |
| 27 | Y{o}U{r} FT — Russia leather |
| 29 | YELTS — l in (stye)* |
| 30 | GAUDI{est} |
| 31 | IXTLE — {t}(extil)*{e} |
| 32 | matcH UNGovernable |
| 33 | STOT — a stot is a stupid oaf and also means ‘beat’, and wordplay as well: (tots)rev. |
| 34 | arrearS witH lifE dO dwelL |
| 35 | TAKE TO T(HEBE)NT — a Scottish phrase meaning to take flight |
| Down | |
| 2 | NEO(P AGA)N |
| 3 | CR(A MP)Y |
| 4 | PLEIN-AIRIST — (painter I lilies — lie)* |
| 5 | HAG GLE{am} |
| 6 | L OPER{a} |
| 7 | ACHROMATISE — ach(amorist)*e |
| 8 | ROOP — this required much research: it’s (poor)rev. and the reference is to Lady Macbeth’s line ‘the raven himself is hoarse’. A roop is a hoarse sound. |
| 9 | TAWSE — {miscrean}T (weals — L)* |
| 10 | SH(EARST)EEL — sh(earst)eel — what an effort it was to find out that a sheel is a hut. I suppose Azed just knows that. |
| 11 | FLY-BY-NIGHT — fly b (thingy)* |
| 15 | SUCCEED — ce in (decus)rev. |
| 18 | MAT FELON |
| 22 | OOLITH — (I tool)* h{atchet} |
| 23 | SUTTEE — s(tut)*ee — some people might object to the mere statement that suttee is barbaric, but one definition of ‘barbaric’ in Chambers is simply ‘foreign’ |
| 25 | hooCH UNKnowingly — I’m not quite sure where the bar comes in [Large section of bar maybe tucked into hooch unknowingly] |
| 26 | TYPTO — (potty)* |
| 28 | {B}E(DG)E{b} — nice clue — director-general |
Got off to a good start, but struggled with NE corner , then realised I’d got OAST instead of OATH. Corrected that, but needed help with 10- tough!
John
I wondered about the bar in 25 down as well, as the clue could work perfectly well without it. Perhaps it’s a reference to a chunky chocolate bar?
Curses! Finished it but with one wrong at 8dn. We went for ‘rook’ in the end, on the basis that it means something like raven – couldn’t decide on the wordplay. Bit of a difficult clue, that one. Otherwise an enjoyable puzzle, thought 28dn was inspired.
Re 25dn, I think Azed is using ‘bar maybe’ (as in chocolate bar) as an example, as Chambers states chunk = ‘a thick piece of anything’ – and most people break up a bar of chocolate into chunks.
Nick
Thanks, John. Took a lot of time to make sure I spelled SHEARSTEEL correctly. As you say, finding ‘sheel’ was not easy. I got 35ac from the wordplay, but only verified the def when I eventually looked up ‘bent’.
The one I got wrong was 12ac. I had ‘apoc’, with perhaps the slightly strange justification that it might be an acronym for ‘a piece of cake’.
I give up…where did you find SHEEL = hut?
Page and location in CH, please-
Bob in Sarasota=
bobvl #6, look under shiel…; shiel -> sheal <- sheel. Bloody Chambers (sometimes). Took me a while to it find too, but Bradford's listed it so I knew it had to be there somewhere. I still do not understand the cross reference[s] though.
Nick
bobvl, #6, look under shiel[2] (page 1438). My origianl post was spam trapped, so it will appear here soon.
Nick
Bobvl – do you remember a ‘Mog’? I apologise if I’ve got this all wrong, but I *think* you may know of that wonderful character.
Chambers doesn’t say sheel=hut. It says sheel=sheal[1]=to shell or husk. But it is sheal[2] that is a hut via shiel[2].
Stevem is absolutely right about sheel and hut. Azed has made this sort of cross-referencing error before.