Notes for Azed 2,692

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 2,692 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

I found the difficulty of this one hard to assess – there were quite a few easy clues (including three hiddens), but also a couple of distinctly tricky ones; overall, I felt it was probably around the middle of the spectrum. Once again, there was a lady of easy virtue on show, this one making not one but two appearances.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 21d, “Focused briefly on poem? Wrong way round, I admit (7)”. A four-letter abbreviation and the reversal (‘wrong way round’) of a three-letter word for a poem combine to produce the answer, the definition being ‘I admit’ (a term used in logical disputation). But the first part of the wordplay requires ‘Focused briefly’ to deliver CONC, and the question is how it can do that. A synonym given by Chambers for ‘focus’ is ‘concentrate’, and ‘conc’ is given as an abbreviation for ‘concentrated’. All good, then? Not really – the problem is that ‘conc’ is used specifically in chemistry to describe the strength of solutions, as in eg ‘nitric acid (conc)’ (as opposed to the ‘dil’ variety, somewhat less of a health hazard). What we have here is an example of failed transitivity (just because a=b and b=c, a doesn’t necessarily equal c), something that setters need to be very wary of. Personally, where an abbreviation has no life of its own (eg ‘conc’ or ‘sch’, rather than LP or PE, which in practice are quasi-nouns), I wouldn’t indicate it using anything other than the expanded form given in Chambers, but if you choose to stretch things  it is essential that the meaning is preserved, eg ‘largely strong’ for CONC and ‘small educational establishment’ for SCH.

Across

11a Old fool I tear apart blocking means of escape (8)
The letter I (from the clue) and a three-letter word for ‘tear apart’ are inserted into (‘blocking’) a word which originally described a gap in a wall, through which you could look and, if moved so to do by what you saw, fire missiles; it is invariably these days followed by ‘hole’ and typically describes a defect in a law or contract which, figuratively speaking, provides a means of escape.

15a Work not fair? Almost last bit for serving woman (4)
The word WORK (from the clue) is deprived of two separate letters which together mean ‘fair’ or ‘satisfactory’ and is followed by a word meaning ‘last bit’ missing its final letter (‘almost’). The definition is slightly oblique.

16a Composition, very funny one rendered back to front (4)
A four-letter word for a very funny person has its last letter moved to the start. I can’t help feeling that ‘rendered back to front’ suggests a reversal; ‘back rendered to front’ would be closer to describing what is required here.

19a Stations mostly crucial when moving about in force (9, 2 words)
An anagram (‘when moving about’) of CRUCIAL without its last letter (‘mostly’) is contained by a three-letter word, taken directly from Latin, for ‘force’, producing a (3,6) answer which relates to the stations of the Cross.

29a Curly, very active, perverse, neglecting ward (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘active’ is followed by an archaic (not indicated) seven-letter word meaning ‘perverse’ from which the consecutive letters WARD have been removed (‘neglecting ward’). The Happy Mondays would describe the solution as less curly, more kinky.

31a He’s thrown off detective returning for sordid gain (5)
The first name of a famous fictional detective has the letters HE stripped from its outside (“he’s thrown off”) before being reversed (‘returning’), the result being something that could be distinctly filthy.

34a Tenors abandoned practice opening words set to music (8)
An obsolete (‘abandoned’) three-letter word for ‘practice’ or ‘operation’ – a barred puzzle ‘regular’ which differs by one letter from a familiar synonym – is inserted into (‘opening’) the five-letter plural of a term meaning ‘words set to music’, or ‘a short passage from the Scriptures’.

35a What Spaniards may dance to, afternoon after Whit? (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘afternoon’ follows a word for a whit (note the deceptive introduction of a capital letter in the clue, something which is deemed acceptable if not highly desirable), often associated with a tittle.

Down

3d Church stole, one with belt clothing artist (7)
The ‘one with belt’ containing  (‘clothing’) the two letters which often equate to ‘artist’ in cryptic crosswords, was a famous hunter and a model of Ford car (originally, and slightly confusingly, codenamed ‘Apollo’).

5d Poetic trifle, unfashionable, penned by e.g. Franciscan (6)
A three-letter word meaning (among many other things) ‘unfashionable’ is contained by the Italian word for a brother or friar. The spelling of the answer is given by Chambers as ‘Shakespearean’, hence the ‘poetic’.

7d Public upset when urn is spilt (5)
An eight-letter word meaning ‘[to] upset’ is deprived of the consecutive letters URN (‘when urn is spilt’). I originally misread ‘spilt’ as ‘split’, which wouldn’t be valid as the clue stands but would work rather nicely in ‘Public upset when urn splits’.

8d Pink minerals, each half overturned (4)
A familiar four-letter word for naturally-occurring mineral aggregates has each pair of letters reversed (‘each half overturned’).

12d One of those doing the rounds in Glasgow? Chambers an obligation (6)
Here Azed has craftily put ‘Chambers’ at the start of a sentence, thus disguising the fact that it refers to things that might be found under the bed rather than in a bookcase. When followed by the three-letter ‘obligation’, it produces a term which Chambers (the bookcase one) shows as ‘Scot and Aust informal’, but is, I think, in pretty widespread use these days.

18d Getting worse again, ’e’s losing colour after getting up (7)
A (2,5) phrase equating to “‘e’s losing colour” is reversed (‘after getting up’) to form the solution.

20d Songbird, one in process of catching fish? (6)
A double definition clue, the second one being mildly whimsical (strictly speaking, I think ‘landing’ would be more accurate than ‘catching’, but we know what he means).

24d Sensation concerning probable misprint in Shakespeare (6)
A four-letter word for a sensation in the ’emotion’ sense is followed by that ubiquitous piece of commercial jargon meaning ‘concerning’. The ‘probable misprint’ is an interesting one. The word appears in the Prologue of Troilus and Cressida, 

To Tenedos they come, / And the deepe-drawing Barke do there disgorge / Their warlike frautage: now on Dardan Plaines / The fresh and yet vnbruised Greekes do pitch
Their braue Pauillions. Priams six-gated City, / Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, / And Antenonidus with massie Staples
And corresponsiue and fulfilling Bolts / ?????? vp the Sonnes of Troy.

This has long been seen as a misprint for ‘sperre’ or ‘sperr’ (=’spar’, to close in), but the principle of lectio difficilior potior (“if there’s a tricky reading and an obvious one, the former is probably right”), when combined with the ‘up’ which follows the verb, suggests that the answer here may be what the Bard intended, suggesting as it does the rising expectancy of the defenders brought on by their own preparation.

26d Old Jack climbing inside half of volcano? He’ll hope it won’t (5)
An obsolete term for the jack in the game of post and pair is reversed (‘climbing’) within the first two letters of a famous four-letter volcano. The words ‘do this’ or the like need to be inferred at the end of the definition.

28d Arthritis in the chest? It may kill you (5)
A two-letter abbreviation for a particular form of arthritis is contained by a three-letter word which can mean ‘material, tools, instructions, assembled, esp in a container, for some specific purpose’ or ‘the container itself’, although ‘chest?’ strikes me as a bit of a stretch. The creature which forms the answer is shown by Chambers as ‘deadly’, so the definition is fair.

(definitions are underlined)