AZED CROSSWORD 1294

TRANSENNA

1.  R. J. Whale: Screen for saint’s remnants – this forms it, perhaps? (comp anag. & lit.; screen = sift).

2.  E. J. Burge: Partition in Church promoted in Nantes violently overturned (ran in anag.; ref. revocation of Edict of Nantes (1685) by Louis XIV).

3.  N. C. Dexter: Grill St Anne was screened within? (ran in anag. & lit.).

VHC

M. Barley: If one’s missing engine driver, try the station’s bar, perhaps (tra(I)n Senna; station = holy place, bar = barrier; Ayrton S.).

D. A. Campbell: One of the screens hiding inner sancta, excluding heads of idly curious? (anag. less i, c).

D. J. Dare-Plumpton: It screened Saint, Mother of Virgin Mary, gazing heavenwards (’t ran S + Anne (rev.), & lit.).

E. G. Fletcher: This screen could, with respect, be created by St Anne’s carpenter (comp. anag.; St A. patron saint of carpenters).

Dr I. S. Fletcher: Queen’s new craft coming up for monumental screening? (Anne’s n art (all rev.); ref. Royal Yacht).

R. R. Greenfield: Maybe, the veil of the temple being rent, Annas shivered (anag.; ref. Matthew 27, 51 and John 18, 13).

F. P. N. Lake: Feature of holy place half-hiding what may move one deeply? (tran(sept) + senna, & lit.).

R. K. Lumsdon: This item screens tenant remains (comp. anag. & lit.).

D. F. Manley: Such an erection may provide no entrance near saint (comp. anag. & lit.).

P. W. Marlow: Screen that’s around shrine must be replaced; horde crush site and ——! (comp. anag. & lit.).

C. J. Morse: This could be spread round a representation of St Anne – or vice versa (ran in anag.).

F. R. Palmer: You’ll find this shroud is one to be arranged round a saint’s shrine (comp. anag. incl. I, & lit.; shroud = screen).

R. Parry-Morris: Has inner sanctum refurbished. Much is obscured with this (comp. anag. & lit.).

D. A. Simmons: Holy screen in Saint Anne’s is missing, with rector in a ferment! (anag. less is plus r).

J. R. Tozer: Church screening nude’s not art? Ban is possible if this doubt carries on (comp. anag.; ref. controversial video screening in Durham cathedral).

Mrs M. P. Webber: A tip! This could be in a transept – an enclosure for a shrine (comp. anag.).

D. Williamson: Effectively as mist, this veils a saint’s remnants (comp. anag. & lit.).

Dr E. Young: Time runs short before change in coin: curtains for Mark? (t, r + sen in anna; ref. launch of euro).

HC

W. G. Arnott, D. Ashcroft, F. D. H. Atkinson, M. J. Balfour, E. A. Beaulah, J. R. Beresford, C. Boyd, J. M. Brown, B. Burton, C. A. Clarke, N. Connaughton, Capt D. A. Craddock, E. Cross, G. Cuthbert, R. V. Dearden, V. Dixon, C. M. Edmunds, P. Eustace, H. Everett, C. R. Gumbrell, Mrs B. E. Henderson, R. Hesketh, R. J. Hooper, M. D. Laws, J. C. Leyland, C. Loving, R. C. Mallinson, Dr E. J. Miller, W. L. Miron, T. J. Moorey, A. C. Morrison, R. A. Mostyn, A. J. Pinel, D. Price Jones, D. R. Robinson, H. R. Sanders, V. Seth, P. L. Stone, Miss D. W. Taylor, D. H. Tompsett, Dr I. Torbe, O. & G. Tyrrell, A. J. Wardrop, G. H. Willett, M. Woodruff, S. Woods, and an unnamed entry beginning ‘Feature of dagoba’.
 

Comments
A disappointing entry this month – only 274, but no mistakes. I’m very sorry about AYONT which, fortunately, no one got wrong. ‘Ayot’ is not a variant of ‘eyot’, and no amount of searching in the OED, Ekwall et al could make it so. (Ayot St Lawrence, for example, has a different etymology altogether.) Why then did I think it was? Oddly, I have a very clear recollection of what happened during the construction of my faulty clue. I often use Anne Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary to give me ideas when it comes to defining words in clues (I have the original Longman edition published in 1986), and on this occasion I looked up isle(t)/island in it, and there is ‘ayot’ along with ‘eyot’ and ‘ait’. Down went my clue without further ado or checking in C. I’m emphatically not blaming AB for my lapse (I should know better than not to check everything) but I am intrigued to know whether she has chapter and verse for the ‘ayot’ form or whether it’s a case of great minds lapsing alike! The only other clue that proved troublesome was the one for SONG, which depended on your seeing the word as ‘S on G’ or SG, an abbreviation for Solicitor-General.
 
So what of TRANSENNA? The least popular clue-word for some time, it seems. What is it about n’s that is so uncongenial to clue-writing? (I foresaw that this might be a bit of brute, but you don’t expect cosseting every month, do you?!) Apart from its intractability it’s also clearly a very rare word, though the Chambers entry (reprehensibly) fails to indicate this. It has no entry at all in the OED, which includes it once only in its myriad pages (at grate-work where it quotes an 18th-century Latin dictionary). As a Latin word it has probably survived in the language of the Vatican priesthood. But it wasn’t easy to clue, I see that. Not that this month’s prizewinners (especially) and VHCs haven’t achieved considerable distinction in what they did with it – an object-lesson for the also-rans.
 
It’s countdown time for the Azed 1,300 dinner at the Randolph Hotel, Oxford. It’s not too late to reserve tickets, so if you’d still like to come please write to Don Manley, not later than 2 April, the closing date for applications. I much look forward to meeting old and new friends at what I’m sure will be an excellent evening.