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1. Pay is adjusted with mostly modest woman
involved in mental affliction. PSYCHASTHENIA (chast(e), hen, all in anag.)
Some word listed under psycho- was the best bet here for a quick early
start.
11. Driver best given a wide birth, for whom it’s a game injecting heroin. JEHU (H in jeu) The
‘given’ was printed in Watson’s copy as ‘give’, an obvious typo. Our road hog
was Jehu, famed as a fierce
charioteer.
12. A Queensland native, it could be said. SIDA (anag.) A clue seeming to be a
homophone. Watson was bamboozled for quite a while - too much cider,
perhaps.
14. A country using French currency is making
good. UNPAYS (i.e. un pays) ‘French
currency’ may be understood as meaning ‘current French’.
16. Bacon, say, OK for goose? ROGER (3 meanings) The first of these is a reference to the
scholar: Roger Bacon,
not to be confused with Francis
Bacon, the great English polymath.
26. Ancient ox, last to munch oil secreted in
juice of poison ivy. URUSHIOL (urus,
h, anag.) ‘Secreted’, used to indicate the anagram (of
‘oil’), may have troubled one or two solvers until finding the listed meaning
(of ‘secrete’): ‘to form and emit ... ’. That may be
understood here as meaning to press out.
29. Of bone. OSTEAL
(o’, steal, & lit.) Not
the Competition word, but a fine & lit. clue. None of it is
superfluous to either the definition or the cryptic indication.
30. Former interval Ben’s shrugged off, sickly.
TWEE ((be)twee(n))
The entry for ‘between’ as noun includes
‘an interval (Shakesp)’.
Our Ben may be taken most aptly as a reference to Ben Jonson.
2. Antelope, one found in part of NZ. SUNI (un (or ’un) in SI) The reference to ‘un’
(as meaning one) is not to the French, but to the English dialect word (q.v.).
The suni
is usually found in South East Africa, but perhaps also in a South Island zoo.
4. Mills maybe mostly producing sound for
poet of yore. HAYLE (i.e. Hayle(y)) Our
solution is (with DISTENT) the first of two words sourced to the poet Edmund Spenser. The
other reference here is, of course, to Hayley Mills.
5. The USA’s one reverberates with ultimate
in eloquence? SENATE HOUSE (anag. inc.
e) The spine of the puzzle,
quickly found by Watson and many others, he suspects. Add &lit according to
taste.
6. Force? It briefly worsened … THRUST (’t, anag. (of HURTS)) The
first of a linked (with 7) pair of clues indicated by the triple dots
(ellipsis). This is an example of the rarer kind
where the solution of one is referenced in the cryptic part of the other. More
common is the pairing where the surfaces of two consecutive clues are improved
by being read together. Watson cannot avoid noting that, in the present clue, the anagram part is rendered indirect, normally
considered to be unfair to the solver. However, the letters required here are indicated by a full cryptic clue, as follows
...
7. … Such wounds − unit required by the sound of it. HURTS
(‘Hertz’) The other clue
of the pairing, a simple homophone, providing the letters for the anagram in
the first, as discussed above.
21. Brief letter, one from Greece that’s yellow
on fading. PHILEM (phi lem(on) & lit.) The
fragment of St Paul’s letter to Philemon depicted here
is not exactly lemon yellow, but we
know what Azed is getting at. The full text of the
letter in the King James Bible may be read here,
and more extensive discussion of its meaning here.
22. Rule in e.g. French described. DRAWN (r in
Dawn) An obvious and
rather overdone reference (in crosswords generally) to Dawn French.
23. Gently (G) − who’s playing that period instrument? SHAWM (i.e. Shaw, M.)
Dr Watson is not a fan
of detective programmes and took a while to find the explanation here. The
references are to Martin
Shaw and Inspector
George Gently ...
27. E.g. Christian wretchedness, as of old.
BALE (ref. C. Bale) ... and here, apparently, to one Christian Bale.
Other solutions:
Across: 10.
BULLA (bull5, a); 17. SAUTERNE
(anag. inc. E); 18.
DISTENT (hidden, ref Edmund Spenser); 20. OSTEOPETROSIS (anag.); 24. HORNIST (RN in hoist);
28. SADZA (sad, ZA); 31. WEST
(The Competition Word); 32. ETTLE ((n)ettle); 33. UNSYMMETRISED (anag.).
Down: 3. CLATTER (anag.); 8. NIGROSINE (gin (rev.), in in
rosé); 9. IDENT (den in it); 10. BUNDOBUST (B, undo, bust); 13. AREOSTYLE (anag. in ale); 15. POSTLUDES (lud in anag.); 19. NONETTI
(net2 in ‘not I!’); 25. RISER (r, is, re
(rev.)).