{"id":3175,"date":"2022-10-02T12:23:25","date_gmt":"2022-10-02T11:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clueclinic.com\/?p=3175"},"modified":"2022-10-16T12:36:29","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T11:36:29","slug":"notes-for-azed-2625","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/02\/notes-for-azed-2625\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes for Azed 2,625"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

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<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Azed 2,625 Plain<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Difficulty rating: \"2.5 (2.5 \/ 5)\r\n

This puzzle seemed to me to sit very close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum. A 13×11 grid, which is by no means unusual for Azed, although the presence of two three-letter words came as more of a surprise. Some nice clues in there, though perhaps nothing truly outstanding.<\/p>\r\n

Setters’ Corner<\/em><\/strong>: This week I’m going to take a look at clue 29d, “Disciple holds one up in sanctum sanctorum (4)”. Nothing too difficult about the wordplay, a three-letter synonym for ‘disciple’ being put around A (‘one’) and the whole lot reversed (‘up’). It’s very rarely that I select an Azed clue in order to demonstrate a trap for setters that Azed has himself fallen into, but here we have an instance – ‘Disciple holds one’ is fine for SOAN, but as the clue is worded the ‘up’ can only refer to the ‘one’ (not the whole lot) and since a reversal of A is still A, ‘Disciple holds one up’ also leads to SOAN. In order for the ‘up’ to refer to the result of the preceding elements, a participle phrase is required, so here the clue needs to read ‘Disciple holding one up in sanctum sanctorum’.<\/p>\r\n

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Across
<\/strong>12a<\/strong> Jock’s husky<\/span>, no good when fed nothing (5)<\/span>
A four-letter word meaning ‘no good’ (or at least ‘bad of its kind’) is ‘fed’ (contains) the usual single-character representation of ‘nothing’.<\/p>\r\n

14a<\/strong> Former commander at sea<\/span>, one having pain trapping his foreign counterpart (7)<\/span>
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and a three-letter (French) word for pain are put around (‘trapping’) a term for a Muslim ruler or commander, ie the counterpart of the ‘commander’ (but nothing to do with ‘Former’ or ‘at sea’).<\/p>\r\n

16a<\/strong> Monkey<\/span>? One accepted in place of clue (4)<\/span>
You could argue that this is an &lit of sorts, although I wouldn’t be inclined to agree. The wordplay references the definition ‘Monkey’, wherein a three-letter word meaning ‘clue’ must be replaced by…well, it could be a single-letter word for ‘one’ or the usual abbreviation for ‘accepted’, take your pick. I would have preferred “One’s accepted’ to “One accepted”.<\/p>\r\n

17a<\/strong> Beside river in spate? Less than half – but it’s fairly high<\/span> (3)<\/span>
A short answer, but a lengthy clue featuring a definition preceded by two wordplays, the first a charade of a two-letter word meaning ‘beside’ and the standard abbreviation for ‘river’, the second involving a seven-letter word for a spate or rushing stream losing its last four letters (‘less than half’).<\/p>\r\n

22a<\/strong> Learner lacking in courage making pass<\/span> (5)<\/span>
The usual abbreviation for ‘Learner’ is removed from (‘lacking in’) a slang term for courage.<\/p>\r\n

28a<\/strong> Cold wind returning, accounting for young pampas creature<\/span> (4)<\/span>
The usual abbreviation for ‘cold’ is followed by a three-letter word for ‘wind’ (particularly a light breeze) which has been reversed (‘returning’). The solution does not feature in some earlier editions of Chambers.<\/p>\r\n

29a<\/strong> Secluded spot<\/span>, acceptable after retiring certainly (4)<\/span>
Here we have a two-letter informal word meaning (among many other things) ‘acceptable’ reversed (‘after retiring’), plus another informal word meaning ‘certainly’ .Parsing this clue may be made a little trickier by the fact that the second word can mean both ‘acceptable’ and<\/em> ‘certainly’.<\/p>\r\n

31a<\/strong> Trouble cutting off furlong round Grand Canyon<\/span> (5)<\/span>
A five-letter word for ‘trouble’ with the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘furlong’ removed (‘cutting off furlong’) is put round a single-character abbreviation for 1,000 (‘Grand’). I will leave the reader to decide whether a ‘grand’ and the abbreviation here come to the same thing (but I think that in common usage they probably do).<\/p>\r\n

Down
<\/strong>1d<\/strong> Old Harry, eccentric, that may reveal winning number<\/span> (11, 2 words)<\/span>
A charade made up of another name (one of many) for the Devil (‘Old Harry’) and a four-letter term for an eccentric. The solution is actually given by Chambers as a single word.<\/p>\r\n

3d<\/strong> African people<\/span> turned up round edge of equator (5)<\/span>
A four-letter word meaning ‘turned’ is reversed (‘up’) around the first letter (‘edge’) of the word ‘equator’.<\/p>\r\n

4d<\/strong> Making awkward progress dropping bling – it’s not real<\/span> (4)<\/span>
A nine-letter word for ‘making awkward progress’ has the letters BLING removed (‘dropping bling’). I can’t escape the feeling that a little more polishing might have produced a really nice clue here, but I could be wrong.<\/p>\r\n

5d<\/strong> Mother and children lacking nothing on which games are played<\/span> (7)<\/span>
A three-letter term for a mother is followed by a five-letter word for ‘children’ from which the usual one-letter representation of ‘nothing’ has been extracted (‘lacking nothing’), the result being a word derived from the Dutch language for the setting of a jeu de dames<\/em>, and one which I don’t remember coming across before.<\/p>\r\n

6d<\/strong> Franco-US artist<\/span> supplied by fellow serving drinks (not his first) (5)<\/span>
My knowledge of the art world is not extensive, and it certainly didn’t encompass the artist born Armand Fernandez in 1928 who, according to his Wikipedia entry, ‘moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (cachets, allures d’objet) to using them as the artworks themselves. He is best known for his Accumulations and destruction\/recomposition of objects.’ Suffice to say that I won’t be investigating his back catalogue.<\/p>\r\n

8d<\/strong> Raptor<\/span> having a catch under wing (6)<\/span>
A (from the clue) and a three-letter word meaning ‘[to] catch’ follow an American term for a wing of a building that has a particular shape.<\/p>\r\n

13d<\/strong>\u00a0Some cows’ll follow you wanting nothing – like a rash?<\/u>\u00a0(6)<\/span>
A Scots word for ‘cows’ that is no stranger to the barred crossword follows the letters YOU from which that familiar representation of ‘nothing’ (for the third time of asking) has been removed. Note that Azed has (as you would expect) avoided the trap of writing ‘Some cows follow’, since in order for the wordplay to be grammatically sound this would have to be ‘Some cows follows’; the future tense, where the singular and plural forms are indistinguishable, once more comes to the rescue.<\/p>\r\n

19d<\/strong> Typical of theologian<\/span>, allowing some obscurity (7)<\/span>
A three-letter shortened form of a six-letter word meaning ‘allowing’ is followed by a meteorological phenomenon that (perhaps when viewed through itself) might just about mean ‘obscurity’.<\/p>\r\n

(definitions are underlined<\/span>)<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/span> Post Views:<\/span> 845<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/p>\r\n

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<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A plain puzzle of close to average difficulty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azednotes"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3175"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3183,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions\/3183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}