Notes for Azed 2,671

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,671 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

A mix of straightforward and somewhat trickier clues, my overall impression was that this puzzle was of just about average difficulty. An enjoyable solve.

Setters’ Corner: Two general points this week, both relating to 31d, “Tramp in contact with a rowing vessel (4)”. Nothing wrong with this clue, a three-letter word for a tramp (in the poule de luxe sense) preceding the letter A, the result being a Malay rowing boat. In the context of the puzzle as a whole, however, we have a couple of issues. Firstly, the very same vessel, albeit with a variant spelling, turns up at 14a; this is very bad form indeed. The issue could have been avoided simply by making the answer to 31d STOA and changing 31a to SEBAT. Secondly, the synonym for ‘tramp’ appears with exactly the same meaning in the clue to 36a; this is certainly less heinous, but is still not ideal. On its own, this problem could easily have been fixed by changing the clue to 31a to something like ‘Pug once giving one a smack’.

Across

3a The old discern church councillor behind voodoo? (10)
A 3+2+2+3 charade to get things under way, two abbreviations being sandwiched by an archaic (‘old’) word meaning ‘discern’ and an adjective or adverb meaning ‘behind’.

14a Malay vessel turning up, cheers welcomed (5)
A reversal (‘turning’) of UP within which is contained (‘welcomed’) a three-letter word meaning…well, I would have thought ‘cheer’ rather than ‘cheers’.

15a Lunch? Pet, reverse of healthy, given tons (4)
Here we get two definitions for the price of one, and a wordplay that involves a reversal of a word for ‘healthy’ being followed by the usual abbreviation for ‘tons’.

17a Plant put aboard vessel (not Noah’s) (5)
A neat clue, where an eight-letter word meaning ‘put aboard [a] vessel’ has the term for the particular type of vessel constructed and captained by Noah removed (“not Noah’s”).

18a Jock’s suffered, being drunk after imbibing for all to see (4)
A Scots (“Jock’s”) word meaning ‘allowed’ or ‘suffered’ is produced by one of the many words and phrases used to describe someone in a state of inebriation containing the certificate given by the British Board of Film Classification to a film which is suitable for anyone to see

19a Horror flick, bore when denouement’s missing (6)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘bore’ in the sense of ‘conveyed’ is deprived of its last letter (‘when denouement’s missing’), the result being the title of a 1976 film which the aforementioned BBFC (when they were still ‘Censors’) unsurprisingly did not consider appropriate for viewing by minors or those of a nervous disposition.

22a Old letter, first from Simona kept till last? (5)
The Simona here is a Romanian tennis player and former Wimbledon singles champion; the first letter of her surname must be moved to the end (‘first…kept till last’).

24a Wretch keeping note in account (5)
The ‘note in account’ accurately reflects the containment of a single-letter abbreviation by a word meaning ‘account’ or ‘benefit’. I’m not sure that the solution can legitimately be considered to be doing the ‘keeping’, so that word is perhaps a gerundive rather than a participle. Or perhaps not.

26a Church dignitary’s having treatment involving mug (7)
A nicely disguised possessive adjective results from a four-letter word for ‘treatment’ containing (‘involving’) the sort of mug that might hold coffee.

29a What tar yields, measure caught in system of nets? (6)
A unit of measurement used in the printing trade is contained by (‘caught in’) a four-letter anatomical term for a network of eg blood vessels or nerves.

Down

1d Early invader? That means a bit of sacking (4)
The invader is of the sort generally associated with the Angles and the Saxons, the combined force supposedly having been led by Hengist and Horsa.

2d China closing border, original (6)
The first word in the wordplay is a bit of rhyming slang, leading to a three-letter word which contains (‘closing’ = ‘enclosing’) a word for an edge or border.

6d In some parts light rope caught round seaman’s ‘attachment’ (6)
When I used to take my scorebook to cricket matches, I would record the dismissal of a batsman who had been caught as ‘ct’. I can only think that Azed is using the same abbreviation here, although it does not appear in Chambers, and that it is being put round an adjective applied to ‘a seaman able to perform all the duties of seamanship and having a higher rating than the ordinary sailor.’ Why ‘In some parts light’? Pass. As I understand it, the item in question is a thick, strong thing, albeit not quite as thick as its bigger brother. Surely it should be something like ‘Relatively light rope’?

8d Old magistrate about to admit rudimentary gut (11)
A six-letter word for one of nine magistrates in ancient Athens is put around (‘about’) a word meaning ‘to admit’ or ‘to join in’.

11d Last among mixed-race people given promotion – something that’s not to be missed (7)
The last letter of a term describing the offspring of a white person and a quadroon (like a doubloon, but twice as big) is moved up a couple of places to produce the (4-3) hyphenated solution.

13d Searing pain that brings about a GI being deformed (9)
A six-letter adjective meaning ‘that brings about’ is followed by an anagram (‘being deformed’) of A GI.

23d German dramatist, genuinely inferior to British (6)
I’m not sure whether the ‘German’ here can legitimately be seen in the cryptic reading as separately qualifying both of the words that follow it, but it is indeed a word shown by Chambers as ‘Ger‘ and meaning ‘genuine’ which must be preceded in the answer by a two-letter abbreviation for ‘British’.

27d Time out for festival – one relaxes (5)
I can’t help feeling that ‘from’ would be preferable to ‘for’ here in order to indicate that the abbreviation for ‘time’ must be taken out of a word for a particular festival.

(definitions are underlined)