AZED CROSSWORD 1537

CAFTAN

1.  N. C. Dexter: Dress with not much leg showing – in fact possibly just a pair of ankles (anag. + an, & lit.).

2.  M. Barley: See one worn around Ankara, covering all but head and feet (A(nkara) ft in c an, & lit.).

3.  C. A. Clarke: Loose Middle-Eastern outfit sheltering one violent fanatic (anag. less I; ref. al-Qaida).

VHC

J. R. Beresford: What hangs loose in toilet? Answer: paper (a FT in can).

C. M. Edmunds: Trios from café-chantant clobber ‘alla Turca’ (i.e. caf tan).

R. Hesketh: What East African might change into after leaving serai refreshed? (anag. less anag. & lit.).

J. P. Lester: Butt (round behind) loose garment revealed (aft in can).

J. C. Leyland: Fat’s badly in fire for Bush: answer? ‘Clobber Oriental!’ (anag. in can; ref. Iraq).

D. F. Manley: Whirling fanatic? One may be cloaked in this (anag. less I, & lit.).

T. J. Moorey: Name piece of clothing from the East, wherein you conceal a fat bum! (anag. in n c (rev.)).

C. J. Morse: Something containing to hide wobbly fat about and behind one (anag. in can, c. + aft an, & lit.).

F. R. Palmer: Garment, long and loose, mostly to resist winds and sun? (fac(e) (rev.) + tan).

R. J. Palmer: Afghan coat could form leading items of old hippie garb together with a —— (comp. anag. incl. o, h, g, a, & lit.).

J. Pearce: For slop in toilet, the best grade paper is required (A FT in can).

D. Price Jones: Perhaps Persian one’s seen wrapped around female (f in cat an, & lit.).

D. J. Short: Almost head to foot one may be covered by this (ca(p) + ft an, & lit.).

D. A. Simmons: A fine cat that is ejected goes wild – see that Persian shift! (anag. less i.e.).

A. Streatfield: Persian, for instance, has one on, concealing a bit of flab (f in cat an, & lit.).

D. H. Tompsett: Ottoman’s loose cover – selvages of chinchilla, felt and Acrilan (first and last letters).

J. R. Tozer: MUFTI in Central Asia? Small Corps on foot, active inside Afghanistan’s borders (C + ft a in A, n; see MUFTI in C.).

L. Ward: This robe’s commodious behind conceals the same! (aft in can).

M. J. E. Wareham: Defence employed against Sun about newspaper article (ca. FT an).

Dr E. Young: Middle-Eastem outfit behind making bin Laden (aft in can; ref. Osama).

HC

D. Arthur, F. D. H. Atkinson, E. A. Beaulah, W. A. Bentham, Mrs F. A. Blanchard, C. Boyd, K. Brough, C. J. Brougham, Rev Canon C. M. Broun, E. J. Burge, Dr J. Burscough, B. Burton, D. Buxton, D. A. Campbell, M. Casserley, C. W. Clenshaw, S. Collins, N. Connaughton, R. M. S. Cork, L. J. Davenport, R. Dean, J. Dromey, R. R. Greenfield, R. Griffin, J. Grimes, J. P. Guiver, C. R. Gumbrell, R. G. Harris, B. Hitman, M. Hodgkin, W. Jackson, Ms M. Janssen, F. P. N. Lake, P. R. Lloyd, D. W. Mackie, Mrs J. Mackie, W. F. Main, R. J. Mathers, P. McKenna, Rev M. R. Metcalf, K. Milan, W. Murphy, C. Pearson, R. Perry, D. R. Robinson, D. Roseveare, D. P. Shenkin, R. G. Smith, P. L. Stone, S. J. J. Tiffin, Mrs J. E. Townsend, M. H. E. Watson, P. O. G. White, Ms B. Widger, G. H. Willett, J. S. Witte.
 

Comments
267 entries with clues, a further 193 without, though the figures undoubtedly conceal a number of ‘double entries’ from competitors trying both routes. What can I say about this month’s fiasco, except that it was not my doing and I’m profoundly sorry for all the frustration it must have caused? The wrong entry instructions were bad enough - the ‘floating’ asterisk simply made matters worse. Only a handful of less experienced solvers submitted a clue to TILDES, and a few of you played safe by cluing both CAFTAN and TILDES. I think everyone who really wanted to compete managed to do so by one means or another, though about 20 still reached me well after the revised closing date, too late for consideration. I wish I could guarantee that the whole sorry saga will never happen again. Certain new safeguards have now been put into place, and I shall do my damnedest to prevent such disasters recurring, but there will always be a slight risk, I fear. There were a few disgruntled or sarcastic comments this time, all fully justified, but the great majority of you were tolerant and sympathetic.
 
I don’t think we’ll talk about favourite clues this month (though I was personally quite pleased with ‘Prism’s thesis’ as an anagram of MISTRESS-SHIP). A couple caused special problems: those for SODDY and BETIMES. The note for the former (‘Turfed for example where centre of sward’s become uneven’) should have shown that I hadn’t slipped up, as one or two of you thought, but that the ‘a’ of ‘say’ (‘for example’) is replaced by ‘odd’. The BETIMES clue was ‘Early in book the author’s beset by idiots’. Explanation: ‘I’m in bêtes’, ‘in book’ because it’s a literary word. Perhaps the beset anagram misled people or they failed to see ‘the author’s’ as a definition of ‘I’m’ – perfectly valid, I think.
 
Given all the entry problems I could have done with an easy competition to judge, but I certainly didn’t get one. There were good clues aplenty, many predictably concerned with bottoms, quivering fat and other anatomical references in the light of the caftan’s popularity as an all-enveloping garment. And the more precise you managed to be in defining a caftan, as distinct from similar garments such as djellabas, kimonos, etc, the better. As so often the use of popular cluing ideas had to be accompanied by that elusive extra bit of wit and/or wordplay to rise above the rest in reaching the lists. One competitor sent me a delightful page from an Intemet website (http://www.geocities.com/FashionAvenue/1415) on ‘caftans and similar garments’, which will amuse browsing solvers. The site’s author (one Elfwyn) appeals for ‘caftan pics’ to add to those already posted on the site, so why not dig out those bottom-drawer relics from the swinging sixties and get snapping!