AZED CROSSWORD 1346

PHARISEE

1.  Mrs J. Mackie: He praised not God, being blind (anag. less D, & lit.; blind = drunk; ref. Matthew 15,14).

2.  C. J. Brougham: Canter exercises a shire being broken in (anag. in PE).

3.  C. R. Gumbrell: Mount in bad shape not having heart for lusty canter (rise in anag. less s).

VHC

M. Bath: Ignoring the essence of Moses he praises form (anag. less s, & lit.).

B. Burton: In Uriah Heep (e.g.) as represented, a huge one is apparent (comp. anag. & lit.; ref. David Copperfield).

C. A. Clarke: Fellow endlessly going round splitting hairs (anag. in pee(r), & lit.).

E. Cross: Writhing, Heep’s air betrays him (anag. & lit.; ref. Uriah H.).

D. J. Dare-Plumpton: One sharp burst near close of race – energy for a canter (anag. incl. I + e E).

N. C. Dexter: The Pentateuch primarily he’s well up in (P + arise in he, & lit.).

C. M. Edmunds: A figure of sourness, one with drilling in Scripture divine (pH a RI see, & lit.).

G. I. L. Grafton: Upholder of law ignoring pressure – his paper rolls last for aye? (anag. less P + e; ref. Lord Irvine).

R. R. Greenfield: St Paul was one endless source of light, one for the Romans to recognize (phar(e) I see; ref. Acts 23, 6).

R. Heald: Is —— with cant represented as ‘the precisian’? (comp. anag. & lit.).

D. F. Manley: In false guise as pure, upright character, he will miss what’s inside cup (anag. incl. I less u, & lit.; ref. Matthew 23, 25-6).

C. G. Millin: Here’s a bit of a prig I fancy (anag. incl. p, & lit.).

J. Mortleman: Form he praises, neglecting what’s at the forefront of spirituality (anag. less s, & lit.).

G. M. Neighbour: A self-righteous old Wasp? Will need a revolution to make him flout ‘God’s laws’! (comp. anag. & lit.).

G. Perry: Heep’s air masked a sanctimonious hypocrite (anag.; ref. Uriah H.).

K. Thomas: Heep’s air, dissembling, typifies one (anag. & lit.; ref. Uriah H.).

Mrs M. P. Webber: Party obsessive over rules heaps ire on members being disorderly (anag.).

G. H. Willett: The standard I observe involves an element of hypocrisy (h in par I see, & lit.).

Dr E. Young: Is this person’s head filled with split hairs? (anag. in pee (P), & lit.).

HC

D. Ashcroft, M. Barley, E. A. Beaulah, Mrs K. Bissett, Mrs F. A. Blanchard, C. Boyd, E. J. Burge, Dr J. Burscough, C. J. & M. P. Butler, I. Clarke, D. C. Clenshaw, R. M. S. Cork, G. Cuthbert, V. Dixon, A. J. Dorn, Mrs E. Greenaway, D. Harvey, J. D. Hastie, R. Hesketh, F. P. N. Lake, J. P. Lester, J. C. Leyland, C. Loving, R. K. Lumsdon, A. C. Morrison, C. J. Morse, F. R. Palmer, R. J. Palmer, C. Pearson, Mrs E. M. Phair, D. Price Jones, M. Sanderson, P. L. Stone, J. B. Sweeting, D. H. Tompsett, J. R. Tozer, R. J. Whale, P. O. G. White, M. A. L. Willey, W. Woodruff.
 

Comments
270 entries, rather disappointing for a straightforward plain puzzle. A few of you didn’t understand the clue to GOAL (0, i.e. without a score, in gal), but almost no one got it wrong. QANAT also took a bit of finding but everyone found it in the end. And GLIS is in Chambers at the entry for Glires. The clue-word was a popular one, it seems, but quite hard to do original things with. Variations on the ‘here’s a pi’ anagram were just too numerous to merit more than HC status, unfortunately, and other promising treatments suffered from being too imprecise in their definition of PHARISEE, e.g. ‘He’s somewhat of a bounder endlessly plugging number one’ (haris(h) in pee). Nice, but a Pharisee is surely more than just a self-advertising rotter. The nicely misleading definition ‘canter’ was (perhaps surprisingly) used only by Messrs Brougham and Gumbrell. I was unhappy with clues which used ‘scribe’ for ‘Scribe’. As I’ve mentioned before, I think it’s OK (just) to capitalize a lower-case initial in the wording of a clue if that suits your purpose, but to give a proper name a lower-case initial to disguise the fact that it is a proper name strikes me as unacceptable.
 
A few items of news. I understand that a new edition of The Chambers Dictionary is scheduled for publication in the autumn. As in the past, I shall start using it as soon as it is available, but I shall make a point, for several months at least, of mentioning the fact that I have used words included for the first time in the new edition. And for those with access to the Internet I am told that there is now a web site dedicated to Ximenes, including information about X and winning clues from his competitions. The address is http:\\members.aol.com\drekhar\xwords.
 
I’m also informed that the so-called New Media department of The Observer has been working on a method of producing the AZED competition on the new Observer web site. This should be good news for AZ solvers overseas who are hooked up to the new technology. I have not yet been inundated by competition entries from foreign parts, though I enthusiastically welcome the small band of doughty devotees who regularly compete from overseas (including one this month from Portugal for the first time). Let us wait and see what these new developments bring. On a more sombre note I read that the Daily Telegraph has decided to dispense with its team of regular crossword setters. In future a computer will generate the daily grids and the clues will be recycled from past occurrences of each word going back over 20 years or so. O tempora, ... I haven’t yet had my marching orders from The Observer. Absit omen.