AZED CROSSWORD 1398

PERMETHRIN

1.  G. I. L. Grafton: One means to create ‘no-fly’ zone, exercising naval force in the radius involved (PE + RM + anag. incl. r; ref. naval exercises in Adriatic and Gulf).

2.  R. K. Lumsdon: Emergent thrips can be put down as this gets working (comp. anag. & lit.).

3.  N. Connaughton: Bugs this’ll reduce in number e.g. thrips (comp. anag. & lit.; reduce = resolve itself).

VHC

W. Anderson: With ease this could make ephemeras inert (comp. anag. & lit.).

M. Barley: After an onset of nits I’m the right spray (per + anag. incl. n, r, & lit.).

E. J. Burge: By means of this, miner is wiped out, destroyed (per + anag. less is, & lit.; miner insect).

Dr J. Burscough: How this, sprayed, makes hornet whimper! (comp. anag. & lit.).

C. A. Clarke: What’s devastating near Hemiptera, last one eradicated (anag. incl. nr less a, & lit.).

N. C. Dexter: Touch of rose-blight? Then prime spray with this, perhaps (anag. incl. r, & lit.).

A. J. Dorn: According to Scottish play, after first three characters vanish, Macbeth is at heart a potential monarch killer (M(acb)eth in per rin; ref. m. butterfly; rin (Scot.) = run).

C. R. Gumbrell: To make hemipterans rare, scatter areas with this (comp. anag. & lit.).

T. Jacobs: A sip, and this could be R.I.P. hemipterans! (comp. anag. & lit.).

G. Johnstone: Bugs take me then … RIP (anag. incl. r, & lit.; bug = irritate).

M. Jones: So this might be sprayed on mere thrips? (comp. anag. & lit.).

C. J. Lowe: First sign of raspberries? Ripen them, spraying a bug-killer! (anag. incl. r).

Mrs J. Mackie: This will do for endless Hemiptera with borders to ruin (anag. incl. r, n, & lit.).

R. J. Palmer: It takes a second to do for thrips near me (comp. anag. incl. a s, & lit.).

H. L. Rhodes: Aphides met horrid end: somehow had ——, so died (comp. anag. & lit.).

J. R. Tozer: Bug fixer: he’s busy with printer close to millennium (anag. incl. m).

L. Ward: He (Mr Pinter) gets involved in rewrite – it helps the plot dramatically? (anag.; garden plot).

A. J. Wardrop: What, when sprayed, makes Hemipteron right for nothing (anag. with r for 0, & lit.).

Dr E. Young: Exciting mirth: preen – have I left flies undone? (anag.).

HC

D. Appleton, E. A. Beaulah, J. R. Beresford, C. J. Brougham, C. J. & M. P. Butler, D. A. Campbell, D. C. Clenshaw, R. M. S. Cork, E. Cross, R. Dean, R. V. Dearden, C. M. Edmunds, Dr I. S. Fletcher, H. Freeman, P. D. Gaffey, R. R. Greenfield, R. J. Heald, R. Hesketh, W. Jackson, J. C. Leyland, D. F. Manley, J. McDermott, G. T. McLean, C. G. Millin, T. J. Moorey, C. J. Morse, T. D. Nicholl, F. R. Palmer, J. Pearce, D. R. Robinson, V. Seth, P. L. Stone, G. H. Willett, D. Williamson.
 

Comments
325 entries, with only a handful of mistakes, mostly TRIO or TRIP for TRIN (which, for those who don’t have the 1998 edition of Chambers, may be found at trine²). That apart it seems to have been a relatively straightforward, even easy, plain puzzle - but why not a bigger entry then, I wonder? I am now thoroughly well informed about permethrin and its uses, having received three different sets of pages from the Internet from different competitors. Despite what Chambers says it is not used only as a garden pesticide. It was developed originally for use on clothing, is used by the US military on all jungle and desert uniforms (‘effective against mosquitoes, ticks, flies, chiggers and gnats’), and is a common treatment for head and body lice.
 
Composite anagrams were much favoured in clues submitted this month, usually with an ‘& lit.’ element, as many of those quoted above demonstrate. Given its component letters, suggesting those of Hemiptera and other insects, this was not surprising. Comp. anags. have their detractors but they can be very neat and to me they are just as acceptable as anagrams that include common abbreviations to ‘make up’ the requisite complement of letters. A number of you used ‘thrip’ as a supposed singular form of ‘thrips’ (itself singular). I could find no justification for this. I liked the definition ‘undoing of flies’ for PERMIETHRIN, usually with a misleading reference to Clinton’s sordid affair, but no one quite managed to link it to a successful cryptic part. The nearest was another composite anagram: ‘The undoing of flies? This sad slip-up could do president harm’, but this falls down in using the noun ‘slip-up’ as an anagram indicator, something I’ve repeatedly said I find unacceptable.
 
I am grateful to Mr Derek Harrison for sending me more information about the amusing definitions in Chambers, including much of their history. There is too much of it to quote here, but anyone interested who has access to the Internet should visit Mr Harrison’s website, The Crossword Directory, at http://home.freeuk.net/dharrison/puzzles/. As has been rightly pointed out by another regular solver, a distinction needs to be drawn between witty definitions which tell us something about the lexicographers’ sense of humour, and ‘straight’ definitions to words for bizarre things or ideas (such as taghairm and mallemaroking) which illumine the weirder corners of the English language.