AZED CROSSWORD 1446

NEWSPAPERDOM

1.  Mrs E. M. Phair: Sweep, mop, darn, set to rights – that’s the province of dailies (anag.).

2.  M. Barley: It’s within the hurly-burly of me PA pen words (anag. & lit.; Press Association).

3.  Dr J. Burscough: It’s the province of dailies to wield sweeper and mop, removing last trace of grime (anag. less e).

VHC

D. A. Campbell: Warne sped Pom out in Packer’s realm (anag.; ref. Shane W., Kerry P., cricket and media mogul).

P. Cargill: Press gang spared women ship’s term at sea (anag. incl. p).

E. Cross: Press centre of fastening down, Pampers needing adjustment (anag. incl. e; ref. nappies).

E. Dawid: Modern pap we circulate – Sun included! (S in anag., & lit.).

N. C. Dexter: Women with drapes off occupy a page in the Sun etc (p in anag.).

A. S. Everest: Press home in on warped MEPs. Corrupt, more like! (anag.).

D. Godden: Its bilious effusions are enough to make one spew – pardon me (anag.).

C. R. Gumbrell: See cod wrapped in some piece of its output (anag. less i, & lit; cod adj.).

J. Hastie: Originators of rumours and scandals, we pan Dome, with Page getting fired (anag. incl. r, s, p, & lit.; ref. Millennium Dome, Jennifer P.).

R. Heald: Those in ‘the rag trade’, using mediocre material, must sew modern clothing (pap in anag.; must⁴).

R. Hesketh: Rag trade tailors sew or mend stitching in bust part? (pap (= nipple) in anag.).

M. D. Laws: Pen ample – left out sword for wielding here? (anag., less l, & lit.).

I. Morgan: Women’s dapper fashion industry (Rag Trade!) (anag.).

C. J. Morse: We’d spare no MP going astray (anag. & lit.; ref. sleaze).

F. R. Palmer: What can make you pawn in subtle admen’s power? (p in anag., & lit.).

R. J. Palmer: Its product’s possibly wrapped some rock-salmon finally (anag. incl. n, & lit.).

D. R. Robinson: Epsom pre-dawn work out for gathering of hacks? (anag.).

D. H. Tompsett: Whimsically, per E. W., odd bits of ‘Scoop’ damns???! (anag. incl. S(c)o(o)p, & lit.; ref. Evelyn Waugh novel).

J. R. Tozer: Mad with pen-power, Sun disgraces it? (anag. incl. S, & lit.).

W. Wynne Willson: Fleet Street warns dome needs reorganising with additional pep (anag.; ref. Millennium Dome).

HC

F. Anstis, D. Appleton, F. D. H. Atkinson, M. Bath, E. A. Beaulah, J. R. Beresford, Mrs F. A. Blanchard, E. J. Burge, B. Burton, C. A. Clarke, R. G. Crosland, V. Dixon, A. J. Dorn, D. Durrance, H. Freeman, M. Freeman, D. Fricker, H. R. Gallantree, B. Grabowski, G. I. L. Grafton, Mrs S. D. Johnson, G. Johnstone, R. Jones, L. M. Keet, J. P. Lester, J. C. Leyland, P. R. Lloyd, W. F. Main, D. F. Manley, P. W. Marlow, P. McKenna, C. G. Millin, T. J. Moorey, R. Parry-Morris, D. Pendrey, G. Perry, J. Rose, A. Roth, H. R. Sanders, L. Schwarz, W. J. M. Scotland, N. G. Shippobotham, N. Simpson, G. R. E. Spark, C. M. Steele, D. Sutherland, C. W. Thomas, Mrs J. E. Townsend, L. Ward, A. J. Wardrop, P. D. Wey, R. J. Whale, Ms B. Widger, G. H. Willett, D. C. Williamson.
 

Comments
367 entries, and no mistakes. None, that is, apart from my duff clue to SETAE. The cryptic part led unmistakeably to a (or I) in eats (rev.) and clearly puzzled many. I do apologize. Those who recognized my lapse were characteristically forgiving. No one got it wrong, I’m glad to say. Favourite clue of the month was probably the one for TEMP, though one purist correctly (and politely) pointed out that temperature and heat are not the same thing. I plead non-scientific clue-writer’s licence! The TRANSVESTISM clue, with its veiled reference to Twelfth Night, was also favourably commented on. This month’s was a universally popular clue-word, for once. Since Chambers unhelpfully fails to define it, except by reference to the entry for the suffix -dom, I was tolerant towards some definitions of it which struck me as slightly questionable, e.g. newspapers themselves as distinct from the ,world of newspapers or the people who inhabit it. The word seems to me to carry pejorative overtones (or do I mean undertones?), and although this may be an unfair knee-jerk reaction to Private Eye’s ‘Street of Shame’, the attitude certainly emerged strongly from the clues submitted. The most popular anagram (and a beauty) was ‘power-mad pens’; sadly it turned up just too often to gain special mention here, though Mr Tozer’s variation attains the list by virtue of that little extra touch. Do fish-and-chip shops still wrap their goods in newspapers? I was prepared to believe that some do. If this is now a dated concept, I suggest that it is still enshrined in the minds of many, so the clues of Messrs Gumbrell and Paimer (R.J.) easily pass muster. I’d love to hear of chippies that still wrap their fare in pages of the local rag, (The ‘rag trade’ was incidentally a nice definition for NEWSPAPERDOM, used by quite a number of you.).
 
With nothing more to say about this month’s competition, beyond thanking you all for a most enjoyable postbag of entries, may I just thank those who pointed out that my describing Hero as a ‘famous swimmer’ in No. 1,445 betrayed a careless failure on my part to check the classical tale of Hero and Leander. He was the (ultimately doomed) swimmer, she (Hero) the object of his affection who cast herself into the waters of the Hellespont and drowned after her lover’s ill-fated attempt to swim across it to her. As Mr Campbell wittily put it in gently correcting me: ‘Hero was better known as a swimmee than as a swimmer - more swimmed against than swimming.’
 
You will have noticed that all results, and the solutions and notes for each puzzle (not just the monthly competition puzzle) now appear three weeks after the publication of the puzzle to which they refer. I hope you will accept this change, which makes life a lot easier for your hard-pressed setter, given the vagaries of the postal system and the demands of newspaperdom!