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13. Port-dweller, one writing off hard-wearing garments ADENI (a deni(MS)) The
subtraction of MS, indicated by ‘writing off’ is an inspired piece of wordplay.
An Adeni is a citizen of Aden.
15. Being sullen, pair row, in a muddle MOODINESS (oo din in mess) OO is clearly a pair of O’s, but simply
indicating it as ‘pair’ seems imprecise by Azed’s
normal standards. (Correction: A reader points out that in cricket a duck in both innings is called
a ‘pair’, shown on the scorecard as 0 0).
20. What’s on in Paris? It’s big in California SUR (2 mngs.) Two meanings you won’t find in Chambers. ‘Sur’ is French for ‘on’ and the
rugged coastline of Big Sur
is a popular scenic attraction on the Pacific Highway near Monterey.
26. I’ve got the Queen behind on tow? I’m only joking LEG-PULLER (leg
pull + ER) Azed finds a concise and misleading way to indicate ‘leg
pull’ with ‘on (the cricket term) tow’.
31. PC operating system: wife follows nothing,
being backward LINUX
(nil, rev. + ux)
Dr Watson hopes that the surface reading
isn’t intended as a generalisation about women and technology.
32. Among fauna (unusual) one’s slightly better
off than the Pobble UNAU (hidden) The first three words would make a passable
& lit. clue to ‘unau’, but Azed adds a further
hint. An unau is a sloth with two toes (per foot), while the Pobble
in Edward Lear’s poem is toeless.
34. We ride into the ring about Tom the Voice,
and love being included
REJONEADORES (re + adore in Jones) ‘Tom the Voice’ could only be Sir Tom Jones, who
is of course also a judge on The Voice. A rejoneador is a bullfighter who
challenges the bull on horseback armed with a réjon,
a type of wooden lance.
2. Very good boom time for developer SOUP (so up) And a very good working of a short solution. ‘Soup’
is a photographer’s slang term for developing fluid. ‘So’ and ‘very good’ are
read as affirmative expressions, and an up may be an economic boom. The
alternative meaning of ‘soup’ as nitro-glycerine appears to be coincidence.
4. Accompanist maybe Bostridge
used in track for Winterreise? PIANISTE (Ian in piste) A
couple of musical references. Ian Bostridge
is an acclaimed English tenor. Schubert’s Winterreise
(winter journey) is a song cycle he may well have performed, though downhill
skiing probably never came into it.
5. Greedily devourin’
what ’ost offers in the main OGGIN ((h)oggin(g)) A double elision is a fairly unusual
wordplay, but works well here. The solution is a naval slang term for the sea. There
are no doubt many others.
16. S-set going up, cast in the wings had a bit
of nooky SHTUPPED (p-put, rev., in shed) Azed
evokes an entertaining scene straight from Michael Frayn’s Noises Off.
Solvers using the iOS version of the Chambers app may have found that ‘shtup’, although listed, doesn’t appear in search results.
19. French drivers keep this road badly with it
going over earth À
DROITE (anag.
+ it + E) French
drivers, and all other drivers in France, are required to ‘tenir
à droite’, and also to observe the baffling ‘priorité
à droite’.
27. Wrap for Julia, say, soft one enveloping everything PALLA (all
in p a) Dr
Watson’s working assumption was that this must be Herrick’s Julia, going in her
silks, and that may have been an intentional tease, but it turns out Julia represents
Roman womanhood in a mantle of unspecified fabric.
28. Slight hint of ‘blot’ wiped from run-down outskirt SLUR (slur(b)) The term ‘slurb’ was new to Dr Watson. OED’s citations indicate it’s
a contraction of ‘sloppy, sleazy, etc.’ and ‘suburb’, rather than ‘slum’, and it
describes a messy suburban sprawl, not necessarily a run-down area.
30. Mum gets special bit of electronics to
improve microwave MASE
(ma + s + e)
Hopefully Dad agrees that Mum understood this better than she did Linux.
Other solutions:
Across: 1. ESCAPOLOGIST (apolog(y)
in anag.); 10. PORTIGUE (anag.
inc. go(ld)); 12. LUAU (a for l
in lulu); 14. SNIPPINGS (pin g in spins,
rev.); 18. CAVY (v(isit)
in cay); 22. HAYLE (ha + Ely, rev.); 23. ODIST (hidden); 24. PST (p(o)st); 25. BATT (batt(y)); 28. SONOGRAPH (0 in song + anag.); 33. IDLENESS (anag.
in is).
Down: 3. CRACOVIENNE (anag.
+ n, all in CE); 6.
LUMPERS (lum pers(on)); 7. GADI (hidden); 8. SINGULT (anag.
in silt); 9. TAIS
(a. in sit, rev.); 10. PLUMCOT (anag. in pot); 11. PENNY-A-LINER; 17. PETROUS (p + anag.); 21. UPGRADE (comp. anag.); 29. OUZO (U in (G)ozo).