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 you would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,783 Plain

My difficulty rating: (3 / 5)

This puzzle can be found at https://content-api.slowdownwiseup.co.uk/api/mobile/v1/puzzle-data/37f474ec-edd2-4768-98f0-830809391543/file/puzzle.pdf

This was a distinctly mixed bag, which felt as though it was the work of several hands. One or two of the clues  were neatly constructed but not entirely satisfactory, while others suffered from grammatical shortcomings or  odd surface readings. The different styles of clue served to make it quite tricky by the standards of recent Azeds.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 24d, “Stone fissure causing struggle of old (6)”. A charade of the two-letter abbreviation for ‘stone’ and a four-letter word for a fissure produces the answer, an archaic form of a familiar word. The point of interest here is the word ‘causing’, which links the wordplay to the definition. These link words (or phrases) can be very useful in blocked puzzles which are aimed at less advanced solvers, since they can help the solver to identify the wordplay and definition parts; for the same reason, in advanced puzzles they tend to make clues easier, and I therefore try to avoid using them in such puzzles. Azed historically used link words sparingly, but in this puzzle roughly 40% of the clues contain one (‘in’ and ‘for’ being the most common). The Clinic’s list contains well over 100 such words and phrases, and there are more waiting to be added. While you might come across any of these in a puzzle, there are some which I would not use myself, and one of these is ‘causing’ (or ’causes’). The rationale for its use is that ‘causing’ can be placed after the wordplay and before the definition to indicate that the answer is the result of evaluating the cryptic ‘formula’. Whilst I have no issue with ‘producing’, and the first meaning of ’cause’ given by Chambers is ‘produce’, I think that ‘causing’ is borderline in terms of validity. I can think of no situation in real life where manipulating something ’causes’ something else of substance; combining hydrogen and oxygen can produce water, but it can’t cause it – it would ’cause it to be produced’. And whilst something might ’cause a riot’, the riot isn’t actually produced from the components. There are several other link words/phrases (eg ‘leading to’, ‘responsible for’) that fall into the same category, and I would advise setters to consider whether the link that they are proposing to use does fairly indicate to solvers that the wordplay directly produces the answer (or vice versa).

Don’t forget to catch up with the latest Digest and have your say in this month’s poll, on the appeal – or non-appeal – of spoonerisms.

Across

1a Speaker holding right box for composer (12)
A six-letter ‘speaker’ contains the single-letter abbreviation for ‘right’ and a five-letter word for a  large strong box. 

14a Cheer without address? Resulting depression (4)
A seven-letter word meaning ‘[to] cheer’ or ‘gratify’ loses (‘without’) the three-letter abbreviation for ‘address’.

21a Directors from USA with time broadcast round Europe (7)
An anagram (‘broadcast’) of USA plus the single-letter abbreviation for ‘time’ contains the three-letter abbreviation for ‘Europe’.

25a Powerful house, not the first, showing strong growth? (5)
The name of the ruling house of England between 1603 and 1714 (and Scotland from 1371-1714) loses its initial letter (‘not the first’).

29a Lie about abstaining – from such? (6)
A four-letter word for a lie, perhaps more often a story with certain elements exaggerated or invented,  contains (‘about’) the two letters which could be applied to someone who abstains from alcoholic beverage. Since the answer can mean ‘idle or frivolous talk’, the definition superficially seems to make some sense (by lying then you could be indulging in that very thing), but closer analysis suggests that it is simply inadequate.

33a Being averse to food one set in place, I see (8)
The single-letter word for ‘one’ is followed by a five-letter word meaning ‘set in place’ or ‘postulate’, the letter I (from the clue), and the letter of the alphabet with the name ‘see’.

34a Resinous medicine one twice swallows – reliable three times daily (9)
The same single-letter word from 33a here appears twice, the two instances being separated by (‘swallows’) a four-letter word meaning ‘secure’ (often followed by ‘sound’) and the three-letter abbreviation of the Latin for ‘three times a day’. The en dash in the middle of the wordplay is a bit of a horror grammatically speaking.

35a Wherein you’ll see fat sheaves constructed with art – a ———? (12)
An intended ‘composite anagram &lit’, but definitely not from the Premier League. The (7-5) answer (represented by the blank in the clue) when combined with A can be rearranged to form FAT SHEAVES plus ART. But the “Wherein you’ll see” at the start and the ‘a ———’ at the end are both trying to fulfil the same cryptic function, so the clue doesn’t work properly.

Down

2d Odd bits of whin interspersed with grass in west-country stream (5)
Two letters selected at intervals from ‘whin’ are interspersed with a familiar three-letter grass, producing a dialect word for a ditch or watercourse. The selected letters are not the odd-numbered ones, though – quite the reverse, which means that the clue is disingenuous at best.

4d Elements of woody tissue esteemed capital (7)
The past tense of a verb meaning ‘esteem’, along with many other things such as ‘possess’, combines with a four-letter European capital city.

5d Twining plant, treat mostly, as once, with chopper (6)
A five-letter word which is ‘old slang’ for a drink or treat (I think it must be older than I am), deprived of its last letter (‘mostly’), is followed by a two-letter North American spelling of a word for a ‘chopper’.

8d Poet, rising but not special, in costume (6)
The name of a famous poet from the twentieth century, missing one of his two initials (the one that came from ‘Stearns’), is reversed, the result being a familiar word used with a less familiar sense.

11d Submerged by bog, (English) girl star in church opening (10)
Underneath (‘submerged by’) a three-letter word for a bog are the usual abbreviation for ‘English’ and the girl’s name which is also the Latin word for a star. The surface reading seems rather mysterious.

18d What this stands for follows in USSR possibly (7)
A clever clue – almost. The standard abbreviation of a synonym given by Chambers for the answer (‘this’) follows an anagram (‘possibly’) of IN USSR. However, in the cryptic reading it would need to be ‘what stands for this’, as in ‘L stands for learner’ (not ‘learner stands for L’).

26d Early letters, super, turning up, revealing a woman’s sterility (6)
A (1,2,1) phrase for the first three letters of the alphabet (which perhaps would appear on the spine of the first volume of a set of encyclopaedias) is followed by a reversal (‘turning up’) of the two-character adjective meaning ‘first-rate’ or ‘excellent’ (I cannot believe that Azed is responsible for ‘super’).  Is ‘early letters’ sufficient here? It’s a bit too vague for my liking.

30d Upper house in the place of the seal, beginning within (5)
The two-letter abbreviation of the Latin phrase meaning ‘in the place of the seal’ (loco sigilli) has a three-letter obsolete word for a point (as of a weapon) or a beginning inserted (‘within’). Chambers doesn’t support the answer alone being used to indicate the upper house of the British parliament, although when prefixed with ‘The’ I suspect it would be understood by all solvers as having that sense.

(definitions are underlined)