Notes for Azed 2,776

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 2,776 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

This puzzle can be found at https://cdn.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/media/documents/obs.AZED.20260201.pdf

A pretty gentle offering from Azed, who I would like to think is relieved to no longer have the responsibility of judging the clue-writing competition (and producing a monthly Slip) on his shoulders. I did feel that some of the clues (eg 19a) may not have been entirely the work of the master, but no matter, it was an entertaining solve.

There is also an article on the Observer site today (behind the paywall) about Azed stepping down from the clue-writing comp and the forthcoming celebration of 100 years of the Observer tough cryptic (provided by just four setters – Torquemada, Ximenes, Azed, and now Gemelo).

A quick plug – the February puzzle over at the Crossword Centre (Cover Stories by Phylax) comes highly recommended by its author!

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 6d, “Time for start of struggle grated awfully (6)”. An anagram (‘awfully’) of GRATED leads to the (3,3) solution, but it is the definition that is of interest here. Chambers includes many words which have been imported directly from other modern languages, but have been assimilated into English over time; examples would be ‘outré’ (French) and ‘kitsch’ (German). However, Chambers also lists a number of other words which the editors consider to be ‘regarded as foreign words, rather than naturalized English words’, such as ‘abattu’ (French) and ‘Empfindung’ (German). These are shown with a qualifier such as ‘(Fr)’ or ‘(Ger)’ directly following the headword. The convention in barred puzzles is that such words, whether French, German or Scots, must have the language to which they belong indicated, or at least suggested, in some way. Hence the definition here needs to be more like “when Germans’ struggle begins” or “start of Kulturkampf, perhaps”.

Across

10a English king in public to exercise too much? (9)
The usual abbreviation for ‘English’ and a three-letter word for ‘king’ that comes directly from Latin are contained by a word meaning ‘public’ or ‘open’.

11a Bishop always replacing line in quiet? It was waste (12)
The two-letter abbreviation for the standard form of address to a bishop (or a Moderator of the Church of Scotland, should you happen upon one) and a four-letter word for ‘always’ replace the usual abbreviation for ‘line’ in a seven-letter word for ‘quiet’. The (3-9) answer is shown by Chambers as ‘obsolete’; this is not explicitly indicated in the definition, but implied by the words ‘it was’.

12a Exercises rolling over yielding a chortle from Mac (5)
There is a lot of exercising going on in the early across clues, not something I really want to contemplate on a Sunday morning (or at any time, if we’re being honest). Here a six-letter word meaning ‘exercises’ or ‘practises’ is reversed (‘rolling over’) before giving up (‘yielding’) the letter A (from the clue). The ‘Mac’ is there to tell us that the answer is a Scots word.

13a Easy? Not half, to touch up inside forthwith (6)
A six-letter word for ‘easy’ missing its second half (‘not half’) has a word meaning ‘to touch up’ (or ‘pretentious bits and bobs’) inside.

15a Incandescent cake decoration (6)
A double definition clue, where the first definition leads to an adjective and the second to a noun, both being listed under the same subhead in Chambers. I’m not sure about the first of these – I like hot food to be good and hot, but I think I might draw the line at incandescence.

18a Univ officer broadcast on TV? (4)
Another double definition, the first word being ‘university slang’ and the second ‘informal’ (a shortened form of a nine-letter word). I am reminded of the ‘young student from Oriel, who flouted the rulings proctorial’, but I think we’ll leave it there.

19a Player, by the sound of it secretary’s responsibility (4)
A slightly iffy homophone, where the answer sounds approximately (but not exactly) like the sort of player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.

29a If old-fashioned schedule about over, here’s a rhetorical device (12)
A two-letter archaic form of ‘if’ (ie ‘if old’) is followed by a word for a schedule which contains the usual cricketing abbreviation for ‘over’.

Down

4d Army mostly found accepting religious instruction repellent (6)
A five-letter word for an army, in the sense of a multitude, deprived of its last letter (‘mostly’) contains (‘found accepting’) the usual abbreviation for ‘religious instruction’.

7d Permission for e.g. bishop outside to dine (5)
A charade of the two-letter prefix meaning ‘outside’ and a word meaning ‘to dine’ produces a word which can refer to permission from a bishop to a priest to leave the diocese, not permission for a bishop to take his leave.

16d Making runs in sport locally (cricket) (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘runs’ is contained by a dialect (‘locally’) term for ‘sport’ or ‘fun’ (also a word these days often seen followed by ‘economy’), the answer being another dialect word (not indicated) for a cricket or grasshopper.

17d Spenser’s learned by heart – forgive one let off (4)
A seven-letter word for ‘forgive’ has the consecutive letters ONE omitted (‘let off’)

21d This one’s put in to drive ‘quicky’ aiming high (6)
I originally thought that the first part of this clue was a definition of a word which originated in the motorcycle world, where the BSA bike was known as a ‘Beezer’ while the name here was applied to a machine from their major German competitor. However, as Robert Zara has gently pointed out, it is in fact a simple wordplay involving a two-letter term for the setter (‘this one’) being put inside a word meaning ‘to drive’ . The definition really ought to be “result of ‘quicky’ aiming high?” – although if the bowler actually admitted to aiming high, they would be very unpopular indeed.

22d Might she have beguiled Pascal? (6)
An indirect anagram of the acceptable (in my view) kind. The letters in the first name of the only famous person with the surname ‘Pascal’ that I can think of are rearranged (‘beguiled’) to form a common feminine forename.

23d Scottish border – it divides one such heading north (5)
The word IT (from the clue) is contained by (‘divides’) a term for a border (‘one such’) which has been reversed (‘heading north’).

26d An eighth day, or half a seventh, counting up (4)
Half of the name given to the seventh day of the week is reversed (‘up’). I’m not keen on the ‘counting’, as that suggests that we should be counting the half backwards from the end of the word, which isn’t going to give the right result.

(definitions are underlined)