Notes for Azed 2,689

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 2,689 Plain

Difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

No spoonerisms to deal with this week, but that wasn’t to say that this was a straightforward ‘plain’. There was a relatively low proportion of ‘gimmes’, quite a few unfamiliar words, and some neatly oblique definitions to deal with. As I solved the puzzle I identified an unusually large number of clues as being potentially worthy of comment, which generally suggests a puzzle of significantly above average difficulty. But having understated the difficulty last week, perhaps I am just ‘levelling up’…

Note that the closing date for the Christmas comp has (I understand) been corrected to Monday 8 January, so there is still plenty of time to get your entries in.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 19d, “Jellyfish that is core of jelly quivering in luminous glow (7)”. The luminous glow is an AURA, but what’s going on inside it? It’s an anagram (‘quivering’) of IE (‘that is’) and the middle letter (‘core’) of JELLY. But (I hear you say) surely that’s an indirect anagram – the fodder for an anagram should be on view within the clue, and that ‘IE’ certainly isn’t. Well, Azed isn’t averse to including single-letter abbreviations in anagrams (something like ‘new and old’ for DONA, anagram of AND + O), but I think this is a bit of a stretch. At one time indirect anagrams were common in cryptic crosswords, and a clue along the lines of ‘Be detestable abroad’ for LIVE (anagram of VILE) would have raised few eyebrows. This sort of clue began to disappear in the 1970s and has been outlawed for many years. However, a certain level of indirection in anagrams is generally tolerated. I think that in a clue like ‘Couples from capital of France confused’ for PAIRS, the ‘capital of France’ could only be PARIS or something to do with euros/francs, so it just about gets through. And the jellyfish clue? Let’s just say I wouldn’t have been happy with it myself.

Across

5a Monoxide of a kind? Charm incorporates reverse of it (8)
The sort of charm that might adorn the bonnet of a classic car contains (‘incorporates’) a reversal of the letters IT (from the clue). 

11a Blow received in ruck? That’ll be a buckeroo (10)
A familiar five-letter word for a blow is contained by (‘received in’) another familiar five-letter word, but (like me) you may well need to consult Chambers to identify it, as what we have here is not ruck¹, nor even ² or ³, but ruck ⁴. The Chambers definition of ‘buckeroo’ offers an alternative which Azed could have used here, but didn’t for obvious reasons.

16a Plug giving tip after show’s opening (7)
There are several sorts of ‘tip’ to choose from when it comes to finding the six-letter word to follow the first letter of SHOW (“show’s opening”), but the type that is required relates to the verb meaning ‘to tilt’. The solution is given by Chambers as ‘rare’, so I’m surprised that Azed didn’t write “Plug rarely giving…”.

18a Prat abandoning European supporters of home rule (4)
A five-letter medical/anatomical term for the derrière now exposed only in crosswords is deprived of (‘abandoning’) the usual abbreviation for ‘European’.

22a Was stuffing left out? Very disappointed (6)
A seven- letter word meaning ‘was stuffing’ or ‘gorged’ has the usual abbreviation for ‘left’ omitted (‘out’).

26a Clownish slap we stand up to, absorbing blow (9)
A (2,4) phrase meaning ‘we stand up to’ containing (‘absorbing’) a three-letter word for a blow produces the answer, the definition of which originally (as Azed intended) fooled me good and proper. The ‘slap’ of course has nothing to do with physical violence and everything to do with altered appearance.

29a Scaly eels wriggling round loose fish? (7)
An anagram (‘wriggling’) of EELS contains a three-letter word for a ‘loose fish’, one of many terms used to describe a member of Mrs Warren’s erstwhile profession.

31a Number one dictionary (shorter), an evergreen (4)
The Roman numeral representing ‘one’ is followed by the abbreviation (‘shorter’) for a term describing ‘a wordbook or dictionary’.

33a Whirlwind outing with notification of what’s owed in advance (10)
There might look to be some manipulation going on here, but in fact the wordplay is a 4+4+2 charade of the outing, the notification, and a word which includes ‘in advance’ among its many meanings.

35a Nursery favourite losing half of stuffing, tiresome for Walter (4)
The ‘nursery favourite’ is losing one of a pair of identical letters in its ‘stuffing’ in order to produce Sir Walter Scott’s word for ‘tiresome’.

Down

3d Young girl holding knot of ribbon up, cheap in US (6)
A ‘derogatory’ term for a young girl or woman contains (‘holding’) a reversal (‘up’) of a very familiar word, the indication of which blind-sided me by its phrasing. The answer is hyphenated, 3-3.

4d Mine prop right inside passages seen from below (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘right’ is contained by (‘inside’) a reversal (‘seen from below’) of a word for the sort of passages that you need to mind when travelling underground.

6d Duck when catching book? This may detect visual defects (10)
The six-letter name of a type of sea duck contains (‘catching’) a word for a book, particularly a large and weighty one. The instrument which results might sound as though it could be used to test the extent of someone’s Caledonian pedigree, but it probably can’t.

8d Old nag having short run within grasp no longer (6)
One of those clues where a wordplay containing an obscurity leads to an obscure answer. A five-letter word for a horse, now given by Chambers as ‘obsolete’ (hence the ‘old’), contains the usual cricketing abbreviation for ‘run’, producing an obsolete (‘no longer’) variant of a familiar seven-letter word meaning ‘to grasp’ or ‘to wrestle mentally (with)’, which apart from the first letter it resembles closely.

9d With respect to fee paid, pound included not connected (7)
A two-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘with respect to’ is followed by a four-letter word for a fee paid, or a monetary penalty, into which the single-letter representation of a pound sterling has been inserted (‘included’).

13d House plant, large: one sags from below, stair disturbed (10)
A single-letter word for ‘one’, a reversal (‘from below’) of a four-letter word meaning ‘sags’, and an anagram (‘disturbed’) of STAIR combine to produce something of which Gracie Fields had an extraordinarily large example.

21d Countryman’s bird? Do please let it out (7)
The wordplay leads to a (1,4,2) phrase equating to ‘Do please let it out’. The sort of bird in question (which I don’t remember encountering previously) is hyphenated 4-3 and takes its name from the shape of its nest, and is thankfully not something that the Cratchit family had at Christmas.

27d Routine, broad imposition (5)
The two-letter word which starts this 2+3 charade is shown by Chambers as ‘US slang’, but the relevant definition is itself given as ‘N Am offensive slang’, which is why Azed has not felt the need to indicate the Americanism. The imposition may not be familiar – it is a contraction of a six-letter word which at this time of year is often associated with ‘Bah!’. The solution is hyphenated, 2-3.

28d University initially limited in money, providing unacceptable service? (5)
The usual abbreviation for ‘university’ and the first letter (‘initially’) of LIMITED are contained by one of many slang terms for ‘money’, this one being the sort that might adjectivally be applied to a wealthy ‘cat’. The definition refers to the kind of service which would be unacceptable if delivered by Andy Murray.

(definitions are underlined)