AZED CROSSWORD 1376

LOGO

1.  D. C. Williamson: What’s jamming to gollywog? Quite the reverse (hidden rev., & lit.; ref. logo of Robertson’s jam).

2.  R. J. Hooper: Cipher associated with brand, possibly? (log + 0, & lit.).

3.  C. J. Brougham: Sign of trendy leisure wear and good office clothes (g in loo).

VHC

P. Bartlam: Sign language (2 mngs.).

B. Burton: This may show entrance to gents’ in convenience (g in loo, & lit.).

M. Cutter: What heads letters of go-ahead organisation (first letters & lit.).

R. V. Dearden: Labour rose, for example, largely on good organisation initially (fIrst letters).

N. C. Dexter: With tails on Boeing (Anglo) so controversial, it’s getting redesigned (anag. of last letters, & lit.; ref. row over BA’s tail-fin logos).

V. Dixon: Gent’s head seen entering gents’ heads, maybe (g in loo, & lit.).

C. R. Gumbrell: What, with regular showing of ad, becomes prime stimulus? (lo(ad) go(ad), & lit.).

R. Heald: Headings on leaflets organization gives out show distinctive emblem (first letters).

A. Hodgson: The ladies, intrinsically good for image of MCC perhaps? (g in loo).

F. P. N. Lake: Sign language (2 mngs.).

J. C. Leyland: Motive shown by felon Hercule Poirot bags (practically last of characters to become suspect) (anag. of penultimate letters; motive = motif).

C. G. Millin: Icon mostly to access a mainframe computer language (log o(n), 2 defs.).

W. L. Miron: Record disc – HMV perhaps? (log O).

J. Mortleman: Initials of organisation, or label, graphically represented (anag. of first letters, & lit.).

F. R. Palmer: It appears in headings for letters of groups and organisations (first letters & lit.).

R. J. Palmer: Specially designed bits of graphic on organisation’s letterhead (anag. of first letters, & lit.).

J. R. Tozer: A cipher, a fainéant, a nothing (log (= inert person) + 0).

HC

W. G. Arnott, D. Ashcroft, M. Barley, P. M. Barton, M. Bath, E. A. Beaulah, K. Brough, E. J. Burge, D. A. Campbell, W. R. Chalmers, J. & B. Chennells, E. Cross, A. J. Dorn, R. P. Dowling, D. Durrance, C. M. Edmunds, H. Freeman, E. Gomersall, B. Grabowski, J. Grimes, R. Hesketh, M. Hill, B. Hitman, J. F. Knott, J. D. Lockett, Mrs J. Mackie, W. F. Main, D. F. Manley, G. D. Meddings, J. R. C. Michie, T. J. Moorey, M. Moran, C. J. Morse, R. Parry-Morris, A. Roth, H. R. Sanders, M. Sanderson, P. L. Stone, K. Thomas, Ms B. J. Widger, G. H. Willett, W. Woodruff.
 

Comments
303 entries, with very few mistakes, though for some reason there were quite a few incomplete diagrams submitted. I suspect this was pure inadvertence, so I do urge everyone to check that their diagrams are completed before competing. I cannot accept an incomplete entry, however good the accompanying clue is. Two clues of mine were not up to scratch, for which I apologize. A COGIE, I now see, is clearly a bowl that is a receptacle, not one for use on a bowling green, as my use of ‘wood’ implied; and I don’t think KARRI is pronounced the same as CAR E, as it needed to be to make the clue work. It is closer in sound to ‘carry’ with a longer final syllable. (It sounds feeble to say so after that admission, but I’ve never liked the Chambers pronunciation system, which even with the table in the front matter and the footers on each page is far from self-explanatory. I wish all dictionaries would use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the only system that has a unique symbol for each sound and is more or less foolproof as a result. It is standard in dictionaries for foreign learners of English, but sadly not well known among native speakers.)
 
As one regular pointed out, there was a distinctly French flavour to the vocabulary on display in this month’s competition puzzle, including Tartuffe, huitain, Grenache, ennuyé and démodé. This was not deliberate - just one of those things. Grenache was a fortunate find that got me out of a tricky corner when constructing the diagram. Though not a name that was familiar to me, it is, to quote Jancis Robinson in the Oxford Companion to Wine (1994), ‘the world’s second most planted grape variety sprawling, in several hues, all over Spain and southern France’. So perhaps it ought to be in Chambers (as should identify, which Mrs Prichard has identified as notable by its absence in the new edition).
 
Somewhat to my surprise, there was a general welcome for a short word to clue for a change, the first for some time. There is always a risk that such words will yield a huge concentration on one or two basic ideas, making judging a nightmare, but on this occasion I received an agreeably diverse set of clues. The most popular idea exploited the ‘first letters & lit.’ treatment, and the best of these, which are undeniably neat, appear above. Mr Dexter’s variation on this theme is particularly nice, though I felt that ‘Anglo’ was perhaps a trifle strained. The first prizewinner, though scarcely PC in these image-conscious times, impressed me especially by its clever use of ‘reverse’ with double meaning, once for the cryptic reading and once for the literal reading.
 
Two final apologies for misprints in last month’s slip, the result of my faulty keying. Mr A. J. Dorn’s VHC clue should have read ‘Work up to Maker’s [not Master’s] rest’; and Mr F. P. N. Lake should have been there instead of ‘F. P. N. Knott’. And a plea (given in the July slip but studiously ignored by most): when renewing your subscription to the AZED slip, please write your name and address on the back of your cheque. It saves Anthony Ellis and me quite a lot of work.