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1. Wrecked car straddling one dog – inside
left area of small bones ACR(OSS)ICULAR (anag.; l a in I cur) Dr
Watson wonders if Azed originally intended to make
this solution thematic, with ACROSS overlapping a word starting with CROSS.
10. Middle East: sudden flare-up reduced
British standard money B(ANCO)ME (ME; B) Here
almost all of both solutions is overlap, leaving Azed
needing just a couple of abbreviations for the wordplay.
12. Relating to stomach pains; a motorized plough
TRAC(TOR)MINAL The
competition pair.
13. Cable to stop short: ‘Henry, I ...’ and
Eliza’s disturbed issue in bits HAL(SER)IALIZE (Hal; anag.)
This looks to have been
the most difficult pair to clue fluently, though Azed
still manages two misleading definitions and a plausible couple of characters
(from the song ‘There’s a hole in my bucket’?). ‘Halser’
is an alternative spelling of ‘hawser’.
14. Tons to savour, herald’s dropped on lack of
central column T(ASTE)LY (t; Ly(on)) Another
minimal pair of indications. Lord Lyon King of
Arms, despite the grand title, is a junior Officer of State in Scotland, a
herald in the sense of one making judgments in matters of heraldry. The surface
might have been better using ‘Herald’
to allude to a newspaper title.
17. Portion of ale? One beast letting off
blasted ‘Noggin not good!’ LEO(PARD)ONING (hidden; anag.
less g) Dr Watson’s first across
solution, helped by some easy wordplay and familiar words.
19. Caught in shade, moved chickpea from the
back borders MARG(INS)TINCT
(c in tint; gram, rev.) The most coherent of the acrosses
and the least obvious meeting point between the clues. ‘Instinct’ is defined in
its adjectival sense of incited or animated.
24. I see elegant bronze ring, ring round the
moon, luminous BRO(CH)IC
(I C; br O) The
long second definition makes the parsing of this double clue more difficult.
26. Sailor’s bar, standard oxygen in a beer,
fizzy? I’ll need no oxygen NORM(AN)AEROBE (norm; O in anag.) A norman is a bit
of nautical equipment that Dr Watson won’t attempt to explain.
29. Liner, maybe? Thousand on one swan, belly
fed with recipe TRUM(PETER)-MAN (M + an; r in tum) The
longest of the overlaps. A liner is a line fisherman, and a peter-man is a
fisherman, after the apostle.
30. Not here, sing away, thrush – it’s eastern season MIS(SEL)E
(mis(sing); E) ‘Sele’ is a dialect word for season in the sense of time of
year.
31. Rearing up, returning diploma, confirmed
‘USA crawling with Reds’
CAB(RE)ASSURED (Bac.,
rev.; anag.) ‘Cabré’ is a
heraldic term for ‘rearing up’, rather like the Lyon of Scotland.
6. Leafy crown? You might have found e.g.
this simply given out in Olympic games COMA (comp. anag.) The anagram material is
‘Olympic games’ which mixes the letters of ‘e.g. coma simply’, coma2
being a crown of a tree. Dr Watson, unaware of this meaning of coma,
confidently entered CAMO, assuming a leafy crown could be a form of camouflage.
8. Formidable woman, cross when grabbed by a
fellow AMAZON
(zo in a man) Women
still tend to be given submissive roles in crossword clues, so it’s good to see
Azed bucking the norm here. The setters’ favourite
hybrid also makes an appearance.
11. What’s king in throw of dice called? CRIED (R in anag.) A brilliant deflection from the definition.
16. Fate
when freed from enveloping company, once hateful LOTH ((C)loth(o)) Clotho
and her sisters were the Fates who spun out the thread of life in Greek myth.
18. New arrival from Germany I’ll depart
wealthy, after profit
INCOMER (income + r(Ich)) ‘From
Germany I’ for Ich is a far from
obvious piece of wordplay, further obscured by the following ‘ll’, and by its
non-appearance in the solution.
21. Day in Rome, not at all special NONES (none s) A neat little clue with
an attractive surface.
25. Dropping by, one known for his intriguing
canapés once? CATES (Cates(by)) An intriguing clue leading unexpectedly to
the Gunpowder Plotter Robert
Catesby.
Other solutions:
Down:
1. ANTHELMINTIC (helm + anag., all in
antic); 2.
CARAFE (a r in café, & lit.); 3.
REALTOR (anag. in rear); 4. SATE (hidden rev.; see satay) 5.
SNORT (n in sort); 7.
LENIS (I in (contact) lens); 9.
RELENGTHENED (l Eng. then in reed); 15.
SAIR (S(cotch) + air); 20. APORIA (po in
aria); 22. CUBAGE (bag in cue); 23. CRUMB (c rumb(o)); 27. APSE (anag. of
spa(c)e); 28.
EELS (slee, rev.).