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T |
HE final competition puzzle
of the current Honours year, and Azed delivers some
real entertainment in a balanced variety of clue types and references. Dr Watson
found the SE corner put up the most resistance, with CRONET, POWIN and TAIGLE
all requiring extra lateral thought.
13. Green tops?
The tops indeed
VERTICES (vert ices) ‘Indeed’ is there only to provide a decent
surface, though it may have had some solvers looking for a solution ending in ‘yes’,
‘ay’ or even ‘I’.
14. Sage
unaccompanied by that last bit of onion
SOLON (solo + n) A misleading culinary surface disguises the
reference to the wise Greek
lawmaker.
15. A tin shed
like this? Ikea’s not involved SKEO (comp. anag.) Although the clue
is obviously a comp. anag., it’s quite hard to see the
construction. Are we removing ‘Ikea’ from something containing ‘like’? No, we
need to take the anagram of ‘tin’ from ‘Ikeas’s not’.
‘Shed like this’ is the definition buried centrally in the clue. A skeo or skio is a shed you’d find
in Orkney and Shetland.
21. Section in
buff uniform wheeling satisfyingly NUFF (hidden rev.) Azed makes the most of ‘section’ to enhance the military flavour
of the surface reading.
27. Design song
about extraterrestrial orreries? PLANETARIA (plan ET aria). A tidy charade, but
Dr Watson doubts an orrery and a planetarium have ever been the same thing,
even if they have a common purpose.
29. What’s
youngster after end of fagging? GLAD (g
+ lad, & lit.) Azed is a former pupil of Thomas Arnold’s Rugby School, so
perhaps this influenced the choice of ‘fagging’ amongst all the ‘-ing’ words that mean something a lad would be glad to see
the back of.
30. Showy bird
making an impact after entering POWIN (pow in) The Scottish peacock had Dr Watson
head-scratching for a while about ‘after entering’, which looks like wordplay
but is really a synonym for ‘in’.
1. Robbery
with violence: do this to find a brigand? Not I SMASH-AND-GRAB (i.e. and grab = anag. of a br(i)gand) Solvers may well have found the solution before untangling the
wordplay in this ‘reverse cryptic’, i.e. an instruction to smash ‘and grab’.
9. Clock
in square went round
SPEEDO (S peed O) Slang terms for bodily functions are often a gift to the
setter.
19. Sign which
restricts self-confidence
THE GOAT (ego in that) Three well-disguised elements are combined
here, especially the innocuous ‘which’. The Goat is the zodiac sign Capricorn.
23. Drudgery
alternating with former rail company, widen out FLANGE (fag alternating with LNE) The unusual wordplay is explicitly indicated.
Chambers gives the abbreviation LNE
for the old London and North Eastern railway, but Dr Watson could find no
evidence for the use of anything but LNER, also the name of the current
operator.
25. Constant
upward drift? It was especially noticeable in shires CRONET (c + tenor, rev.) Dr Watson’s favourite clue of the puzzle for
its sheer misleadingness. Once you have ‘tenor’ from ‘drift’, you still have to
work out that the definition refers to the hairy ankles of shire horses. A great
penny-drop.
31. The
best of northern England, one of its rivers, if not the first WALE ((S)wale;
wale2) The recent flooding
in Swaledale may have brought this river to mind
for some solvers.
Other solutions:
Across: 1. SCHMUDDLE (Sch + muddle); 11.
MYOID (comp. anag.);
12. WANHOPE (w + anag.); 16. ROSE-TINTED (tin in roseted;
see roset);
17. AGHAST (Aghas + t); 20. SNOT (tons, rev.); 24. HECATE (C in heate(d)); 32. RING ROAD (anag.
incl. a); 33.
ANGLIAN (alt. letters in anan); 34. FELLS (fell + S); 36. PATENTEES (paten + Tees).
Down: 2. CYBORG (by, rev., in corg(i));
3. HOWL (h + owl); 4.
MIMOSA (mo. in anag.); 5. TWEET;
6. TARTISH (anag. incl. it); 7. ENTENTE (anag.
of net net e); 8. DOCKEN (anag.); 10. BESOTTEDNESS (anag.
in Bess); 18.
SANGRIA (sang3 + air, rev.);
22. UPLINE (in in (Co)uple); 26. TAIGLE (t to start in aiglet); 28. THANE (hidden).
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