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HIS month’s competition
puzzle is most notable for the variety of great clues to short words of 4 to 6
letters. Regular cryptic setters must have clued, for example, TROUT many times
over the years, but Azed still manages to come up
with an original approach to the wordplay. It’s a similar story with AMASS,
though here Azed stretches the viability of the ‘solution
as wordplay’ device to its limit. Happily, there are no horrible traps for
solvers, and everything can be verified in Chambers.
15. Colourful
bird releasing cry of wonder within Broadway stalls PARQUET (par(o)quet). Azed combines an unusual spelling of ‘parakeet’ with an
unfamiliar meaning of ‘parquet’ as theatre stalls. Solvers may release a cry of
wonder ‘O!’ or another sentiment when all the pennies drop.
16. Larval
excreta frequently found on turnip FRASS (fr +
ass).
With the football World Cup upon us, it’s an appropriate time to recall
a sense of ‘turnip’
popular in 1993.
17. Portion of
unimportant refuse, or grot
ANTRE (hidden). The grot in question is grot2, a
poetic form of ‘grotto’.
22. Once at sea,
I was off course by miles
ASWIM (anag. + m). Azed doesn’t miss the opportunity to disguise the
definition ‘at sea’ as the anagram indicator.
26. Retiring,
it’s start of pension with what counts as final salary STIPEND (it’s, rev. + p + end). An elegantly
worded piece of wordplay, though sadly true for fewer and fewer retirees
nowadays.
28. Small joint,
one acquiring name for weakest spirits JANN (j an n). It’s worth noting
that ‘jann’, like ‘jinn’ (of which jann are a sub-group), is a plural noun, as the definition
indicates.
30. Suggestive
of formidable brigade, rebels uni sacked BLUE-RINSE (anag.) Blue rinse is much less evident than it once
was amongst “the supposed type of well-groomed usu middle-class, older women” as
Chambers puts it. ‘Formidable
brigade’ is a more interpretive definition of the term.
1. A wee bittie s-scar SCLIFF (s cliff). The exploitation
of speech impediments for cryptic purposes is rarer than it was, which must be
a good thing. It should perhaps be reserved for surfaces in which the reason
for the mispronunciation is clear, such as fright or drunkenness.
2. Arrests
more than one lock-keeper in person NABS (3 mngs.). The
latter two senses used here are the socket a door bolt slides into, and the
slang term seen in ‘his nabs’ or ‘his nibs’.
4. Pile? Team
could be set up with this
AMASS (i.e. team with am as s = set, rev.). A more
complicated take on the ‘reverse cryptic’. Not only does the solution need to
be read as wordplay, but the result then needs further wordplay to reach its
target.
8. What flies
attract, all around river? TROUT (R in
tout3). The semi-& lit. wordplay takes an
unexpected direction thanks to the loose definition.
20. Mosque
servant (female) admitting Jesuits MASJID (SJ in maid). A welcome piece
of interfaith activity from the progressive wings of both organisations.
25. Lead in screen
trailer providing plug
SCART (s + cart). Scart connections,
like blue rinse, seem to have had their day. They continually came loose from
the back to Dr Watson’s video equipment, and their replacement with HDMI is
welcome from a technological, if not a crossword setting, point of view.
Other solutions:
Across: 1. SYNGAS (y in anag.); 6. SPETCH
(sp. etch); 11. CHARMEUSE; 12. LABIA (lab I a); 13. YO-HO (hoy, rev. + O); 18. FORE-AND-AFTER (anag.); 20. MUSSITATIONS (muss it + anag.); 25. SLICK (s
to start in licks); 29. ARABY (A RA
by); 31. DES RES (des(I)res); 32. STAYER (t in anag.).
Down: 3. GRILSES (anag.); 5.
SERPENTINOUS (pen tin in serous); 6.
SUGAR DADDIES (Garda in anag.); 7. PSORA (p + sora); 9. COHERENCE (here in C once); 10. HOOTER (2 mngs.); 14. CROUSTADE (roust in cade2); 19. FILARIA (a r in filia(l)); 21. SKRYER (r in skyer); 23. WINGS (n in wigs); 34. MERLE
(hidden); 27. WANY (N in way).
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