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15. Bag I included as traveller round the
Levant? SAIC (I in sac) Dr
Watson could find nothing in Chambers to indicate that ‘traveller’ can mean a
thing (a ship in this case), rather than a person, that travels, but the
question-mark just about covers it.
16. Creature spayed late on – it’s operated on
with gas STAIG
(anag.) Another dubious definition. ‘Staig’ appears as a Scottish variant of ‘stag’, a creature
that surely could not be spayed at any age.
17. Gosh! Course whereon Derby may be seen HATRACK (ha! +
track) Dr
Watson, found HAT at the start of the light and spent some time trying to fit a
four-letter synonym of ‘course’ on to it to create an interjection. In fact the
wordplay is all contained in the first two words and the rest is definition.
27. Biblical tribes originally more than half
degenerate? DECAD (decad(ent)) A
reference, apparently, to the ten tribes descended from Jacob
that formed Israel, as opposed to the total of twelve that formed Israel and
Judah.
29. Pin removed from slightly blue solid graphite KISH ((pin)kish)
How can ‘pinkish’ mean ‘slightly blue’? Chambers’s
entry for pink includes the
definition ‘slightly pornographic, somewhat blue’.
35. The ultimate in luxury, with bodily
appetites and dalliance put first FLESH-POTTERY (flesh + potter + y,
& lit.) A
lovely & lit. clue (though ‘flesh’ is perhaps used
in essentially the same sense in both readings). Azed
can’t take credit it for the clue: the word drew some inspired ‘& littery’ from Ximenes’s
competitors in his competition
1115 in 1970, including a memorable first prize-winner, and the VHC here from
Jeremy Morse. Also amongst the VHCs was J. Crowther’s “One who takes delight in
his cups gets involved in gross ——” (potter in fleshy, & lit.).
3. Divine protectress
goes round Nigerian city dancing at Christmas
JUNKANOO (Kano
in Juno) A
happy combination of two proper nouns produces this unusual solution. Azed set its alternative spelling JOHN CANOE as the
competition word for Azed 1439 in Dec 1999.
4. Grunted when swimming, a rare sight in
the pool these days
TRUDGEN (anag.) Dr Watson, although a
keen swimmer, hadn’t come across this stroke before, and struggled to visualise
it from the description, so
a video may help.
It is apparently the predecessor of the front crawl.
6. Nocturnal bird recorded round Jamaica EVEJAR (JA in
ever)
‘Ever’ is being used here in the sense of e.g. ‘the biggest ever’.
18. Warm a wire round major artery? AMICABLE (M1 in a cable) Dr
Watson commented on the crossword use of MI = M1 = motorway last month. Here
‘motorway’ is extended to ‘major artery’, though Mrs Jarman’s ‘something you can rattle up and down’ is
surely still the best description to date.
21. Odds and ends, but not this etc AND THAT ((this) and that) It feels like only half
a clue (and half a solution for that matter), but it works nicely, with ‘etc’ as the stealthy definition.
26. Part of Hitchcock’s instruction to
cameraman indicating feature of Psycho shower scene? CUTTO (i.e. cut to …) Wikipedia
claims the Psycho
shower scene contains 77 camera angles and 50 cuts (to the film stock
rather than Janet Leigh).
28. Obelisk topped elevation AGGER ((d)agger) An obelisk, as well as a stone monument, can
be the typographic symbol †, also
called a dagger.
Other solutions:
Across: 1. OBJET DE VERTU (jet D ever in anag. of bout(ique)); 10. MAUGRE (ug in
mare); 11.
VACUUM (vac U U M); 13. CUPELS (C + anag.); 14. SUKH (UK in sh!);
19. BUNDESRAT (anag. less e); 22. ANDANTINO (anag. + tin, all in a no.); 24. CROMBEC (m be in croc); 31. MAGE (hidden); 32. MALTHA (H in Malta); 33. DAKOTA (dak + to, rev. + a); 34. TABLET (tab let).
Down: 2. BAHUT (b a hut); 5. DEPTH (p for a
in death); 6.
EVEJAR (cot in cote);
7. VALET;
8. RUSA (r USA); 9. TUNICIN (tun
+ icin(g)); 10. MOSS-BACKED (anag.
in mocked); 12.
MOCK-MODEST (c(hic)k + mode, all in most); 20. UPRISAL ((Jan)u(ary) + anag.); 23. DEWLAP (L in pawed, rev.); 25. BEATH ((tu)b + eath;
see ethe in C.);
30. SOKE (‘soak’).