Reviews
index
| & lit. homepage | Try the
puzzle
|
O |
PERA features in three
different clues in this month’s competition puzzle, two of them via Verdi, but
apart from a couple of translations, the references don’t step far outside of
what can be verified in Chambers. For the first time that Dr Watson can remember
there are no ‘hidden’ clues in the entire puzzle, and so nothing to get the
solver off to an immediate start. A couple of very neat, & lit. clues add
to the entertainment, though it’s probable that neither is virgin cruciverbal
territory. Competitors may look a bit askance at LITERATIM, the comp word. It’s
a Latin adverb, and like MEMORITER back in
2002, it could elicit “some huffing and puffing about the extra difficulty they
pose”.
1. Led away,
was talking incoherently in US dormitory?
BURB (burb(led)) ‘Dormitory’ in the definition is used in the sense of dormitory
town or suburb.
13. Officer
briefly interrupting enemy wave as of old FLOTE (Lt alternating with foe) The clue parses
as ‘officer briefly = Lt’ interrupting ‘enemy = foe’. Chambers gives ‘break the
continuity in’ for ‘interrupt’, but this doesn’t seem to completely offer the
sense of alternation that the wordplay requires.
16. Bring round
cages i.e. in Germany for kestrel WINDHOVER (d.h.
in win over) ‘d.h.’ for ‘das heißt’ or ‘that is’ is in Chambers. Ximenes gave WIND-HOVER
(hyphenated) as a comp word
in 1946. Several competitors used the same wordplay idea as Azed here, but
at the time de Havilland the aircraft manufacturer was understandably a more popular
option for DH than the German expression. Ronnie Postill,
an officer in the Signal Corps during the war, took second prize with “Hawker isn’t
likely to use it; try to persuade De Havilland (win DH over)”.
18. Devil getting
end away going after American Honeysuckle? ABELIA (A + Belia(l)) A reference to
the Hebrew name for the Devil.
29. Sauce coming
in a river? The opposite – single lump perhaps HEAP (i.e. ea in HP) The dialect word for a
river or channel should be known to most solvers. HP Sauce is still a popular
condiment, and users of the glass-bottled product will be familiar with its
tendency to emerge either not at all or all at once.
29. Who’s ticked
off about a bit of lying? CHILD (l in
chid, & lit.) Something like this has no doubt
been done before, but it’s always a pleasure to see a tidy & lit. from
Azed.
3. Spotted
playing blinder BRINDLE
(anag.) Azed carries off a straightforward anagram
with style.
7. Deerhound?
Not crazy about matted fur, unkempt TUFTER (anag.
of (ma)tte(d) fur) It’s clearly going to be an anagram, but the combined presence
of ‘ crazy’, ‘matted’ and ‘unkempt’ is enough to put the solver off the scent.
14. Wind formerly
cut choice at sea LIBECCHIO
(lib2 + anag.) The wordplay appears
to be crying out for an anagram of ‘cut choice’, but it’s a bit more
complicated. ‘Lib’ is a dialect word meaning castrate, and the solution is a
Miltonic misreading of ‘libeccio’.
20. Linnaean
library? Find right book, going into ‘Cures’
HERBALS (r b in heals) Carl Linnaeus was known
as a botanist and zoologist as well as a taxonomist, and his library was likely
full of herbals, or books of medicinal plants.
24. Bully for
you, making tons of gold! TAURIC (t auric) A
very clever charade. Chambers doesn’t quite support the definition ‘bull-like’
for ‘bully’, but it can mean blustering in an archaic sense.
25. Weight
reduced, one is going in here? WAIST (a is in wt)
Another irresistible & lit. that’s surely cropped up before somewhere
in cryptic history.
28. Il Trovatore,
to wit singular opera? SCOP (sc. op.) Much to unpack from
a short clue, quite apart from the reference to Verdi’s opera. ‘Scop’ and ‘trovatore’ are in different
worlds words for a minstrel or troubadour; ‘sc.’ abbreviates ‘scilecit’, Latin for ‘namely’; and the Latin singular of
opera is opus or op.
Other solutions:
Across: 4. OBSTACLE (anag.); 11. USURPATURE
(usu. + rapture with ap rev.); 12. CUBITS
(Cubist with ts rev.); 15. WHITTRET (whit tret); 21. SENE (Sene(gal)); 23. DUETTI (TT in due I); 26. CHAMFRAIN (anag.
in chain); 28.
SCARIDAE (arid in anag.); 30. LEARNT (earn in L t); 31. SEAMANLIKE (anag.
incl. ne(at)); 32.
POTSHERD (stop, rev. + herd); 33. SCUR
(s(E)cur(E)).
Down: 1. BUCKWASH (buck(et) was H); 2. RUBINE (bin in rue (Fr)); 5. BASHO (bash 0); 6. STRIVED (t in anag.); 8. CEORL (CEO + r, l); 9. LITERATIM;
10. EVET (eve(N)t); 17. SPINSTER
(pins in ster(n); see tabby cat in C.); 19. ACADEME (a d E in acme); 22. WHIDAH (hid in haw2, rev.); 27. MALAR (malar(key)).
Reviews
index
| & lit. homepage | Try the
puzzle