Azed 2,635 Plain<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/strong><\/p>\r\n Difficulty rating: My enjoyment of the puzzle was not helped by its delayed appearance on the Guardian web site which denied me the pleasure of tackling it over breakfast – I held off until 10am, at which point the lure of the Toastie proved too great to resist. I’m jolly glad I didn’t wait, or I would have missed lunch and tea as well. My sincere thanks to the correspondent who sent me a scanned copy of the puzzle, which struck me as being a little below average difficulty, with plenty of misdirection but nothing too<\/em> tricky.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/p>\r\n Across 12a<\/strong> Source of fashion, No. 1 in spectacular bust<\/span> (8)<\/span> 14a<\/strong> Dull<\/span> old copper coin, penny (4)<\/span> 22a<\/strong> It enables instant replay<\/span> as opposed to a long time (4)<\/span> 25a<\/strong> German-English senior teacher, lacking of muscle<\/span> (9)<\/span> 29a<\/strong> Bard’s energy misplaced in prod formerly<\/span> (4)<\/span> 30a<\/strong> Rank<\/span> and file’s heart going in complete reverse (4)<\/span> 33a<\/strong> Fashionistas<\/span> creating eruptions, in tears? The opposite (12)<\/span> Down 4d<\/strong> Theologian’s disciple<\/span> having bothy during stay in Scotland (4)<\/span> 6d<\/strong> Ten trees, on this<\/em><\/span>, having to blend in, rising (12)<\/span> 7d<\/strong> Abnormal droop<\/span>? Beginning thereof observed in foot (7)<\/span> 18d<\/strong> Confusion involving drizzle for member of colony<\/span> (7)<\/span> 20d<\/strong> This pulse<\/span>, i.e. as irregular…is a bother perhaps (5)<\/span> 21d<\/strong> What’s healthy, interrupting work, not OK? It’s after school<\/span> (6)<\/span> 28d<\/strong> Baudelaire’s heading for<\/span> section of his work?<\/span> (4)<\/span> (definitions are underlined<\/span>)<\/p>\r\n![\"2](\"https:\/\/clueclinic.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/universal-star-rating\/includes\/image.php?img=cSquares.png&px=12&max=5&rat=2&folder=cusri\")
(2 \/ 5)\r\n
<\/strong>1a<\/strong> Builds on<\/span> mouthful, formerly crumbled crust (12)<\/span>
A three-part wordplay consisting of a three-letter word meaning ‘a mouthful’ (or ‘to drink’), a four-letter word for ‘formerly’, and an anagram (‘crumbled’) of crust, this last part being perhaps the starting point from which one will work backwards.<\/p>\r\n
The name of the place that precedes ‘fashion’ in a nautical expression which often also includes the word ‘shipshape’ is followed by the first letter (‘No. 1’) in ‘spectacular’, producing a mildly naughty(cal) bit of rhyming slang.<\/p>\r\n
A three-letter word for an obsolete Indian copper coin and the current abbreviation for a penny combine to produce a word that might be applied to a squib (or indeed a squid, if it had recently left the ocean), although here it is actually a verb.<\/p>\r\n
The wordplay involves the usual single-letter abbreviation representing ‘opposed to’ being followed by a word meaning ‘a long time’, but in truth ‘enabled’ might have been more appropriate than ‘enables’ as the only incarnation of the solution likely to be found in a modern TV studio is Brenda Blethyn.<\/p>\r\n
The intention here is that two single-letter elements are followed by a nine-letter word for a senior teacher from which the letters OF have been removed (‘lacking of’), but D is the IVR code for Germany<\/em> rather than being an abbreviation for German<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n
A word which describes a bard, any bard, has the usual abbreviation for energy relocated within it to produce a word meaning ‘to thrust, especially with the foot’.<\/p>\r\n
The middle letters of the word ‘file’ (“file’s heart”) are put inside a verb meaning ‘to complete’ and the whole lot is reversed. I’m not comfortable with ‘reverse’ here, as I think that for the wordplay to be grammatically sound it needs to be ‘reverses’.<\/p>\r\n
‘The opposite’ here means that rather than a word for ‘eruptions’ being placed inside a word for ‘tears’, it is the tears (in the ‘rips’ sense, a familiar five-letter word) which are contained by the eruptions (in the pustular sense, a word that I don’t remember coming across before).<\/p>\r\n
<\/strong>1d<\/strong> We had vehicle lifting old cow<\/span> (6)<\/span>
A contracted form of ‘we had’ and the word for a type of public service vehicle are reversed (‘lifting’), the result being an obsolete variant of a word meaning ‘to cow’.<\/p>\r\n
The bothy is a three-letter word archaic or poetic word for a small dwelling , while the ‘stay’ is a Scottish legal term. Azed treads on one of my cruciverbal corns here by using ‘during’ as a containment indicator – I don’t think that the Chambers definition ‘in the course of’ is sufficient, as it is used exclusively in a temporal sense, but since even the Listener editors accept it I may be in a minority of one.<\/p>\r\n
This is the sort of clue you’ll probably only see in an Azed puzzle (or perhaps an Azed competition clue) these days. The solution comes from a reversal (‘rising’) of a word meaning ‘to blend’ being put inside an anagram of TEN TREES, with the anagram indicator being…’on’ plus the solution itself. I seem to recall that when the competition clue word was OUT OF ORDER there were some clues which were constructed on similar lines (possibly including my own)<\/p>\r\n
The first letter of ‘droop’ (ie ‘beginning thereof’) is contained by a word for a foot of two syllables (aka a trochee), and I have to say that Azed has been quite restrained in his definition of the answer.<\/p>\r\n
A three-letter word for confusion that is popular with setters (and with me, but only if it has pastry on top) contains a Scots term for fine misty rain, producing a dialect word for a specimen that is pretty certain to be part of a colony.<\/p>\r\n
A composite anagram, where the letters of the solution (‘this pulse’) plus IE AS can be rearranged (‘irregular…perhaps’) to form IS A BOTHER.<\/p>\r\n
A four-letter word meaning ‘healthy’ inside (‘interrupting’) the word ‘work’ from which the letters OK have been omitted (‘not OK’), and a nice cryptic definition.<\/p>\r\n
I can’t recall seeing a French double definition clue in an English crossword before, but that is effectively what this is. The second definition (the sort of thing that Baudelaire wrote) is in Chambers, while the first is the word that Baudelaire would presumably have used to mean ‘heading for’ or ‘towards’.<\/p>\r\n