AZED CROSSWORD 1506

BARE(-)BONES

1.  N. G. Shippobotham: Obese? Bran flakes for the slimmest outline! (anag.).

2.  R. Phillips: The elements buffet one lost in the woods (bar + ebon(I)es).

3.  W. F. Main: Minimum requirements are found in books by anybody with a modicum of sense (are in bb + one + s).

VHC

M. Barley: Staying in B & B, a person’s getting no more than the basics (are² in B, B + one’s).

J. R. Beresford: With this diet potentially ban outsize beer guts (anag. incl. OS, 2 defs).

C. J. Brougham: Meat and cabbage in strips (bone in bares; for meat = gist, cabbage = steal, see Collins).

E. J. Burge: Rakes in the past uncovered mortal remains (bare bones).

L. J. Davenport: One stabber – not the first in toga – colluding. Very much the likes of ‘yond’ Cassius (anag. less t; ref. Julius Caesar: ‘yond C. has a lean and hungry look’).

N. C. Dexter: We’d little breadth and are persons needing middle of doublet taken in (b in b are ones, & lit.).

V. Dixon: Black, little? Drunken, as on beer? They often remain articulate after dissolution (b + anag.; Black, Little, Drunken, all names of parliaments).

C. M. Edmunds: Men like Cassius Clay’s ultimate destiny (after boxing?) (2 mngs.; ref. Julius Caesar; clay = human body).

P. D. Gaffey: Beanpoles once bore beans in rotation (anag.).

B. Grabowski: Open with a skeleton key (bare bones; key = essence).

G. I. L. Grafton: Bottom line in Shakespeare that refers to Starveling and his like (2 mngs.; ref. MND).

R. R. Greenfield: Old rakes seen in strip joints, maybe (bare bones).

C. R. Gumbrell: More than one old rake must have been so aroused after undoing of bra (anag. + anag.).

F. P. N. Lake: Minimum requirements from Bass are good ales – not half (B are bon (al)es).

J. C. Leyland: Queen’s heart captured by beast’s head as Oberon craftily releases love essence (e in anag. incl. b less 0; ref. MND).

D. F. Manley: Some like us now fit the AA mould so ban beer to reform (anag.; AA, smallest bra size).

T. J. Moorey: What’s borne beans up the wall and new shed? Could be old beanpoles (anag. less n).

R. J. Palmer: Nub, and what it’s made of poor thieves (bare bones; nub = gist, gallows).

D. A. Simmons: Beanpoles once bore beans up the pole (anag.).

D. H. Tompsett: William’s (Hudibrastic?) beanpoles bore beans entwined (anag.).

HC

D. Appleton, W. G. Arnott, F. D. H. Atkinson, Mrs F. A. Blanchard, Rev Canon C. M. Broun, C. J. & M. P. Butler, D. A. Campbell, Mrs M. J. Cansfield, J. & B. Chennells, C. A. Clarke, C. W. Clenshaw, M. Coates, K. W. Crawford, E. Cross, G. Cuthbert, R. Dean, R. V. Dearden, A. R. Esau, A. S. Everest, H. Freeman, R. Griffin, D. Harrison, P. F. Henderson, Mrs D. B. Jenkinson, R. K. Lumsdon, D. W. Mackie, P. W. Marlow, P. McKenna, J. R. C. Michie, C. G. Millin, C. J. Morse, W. Nesbitt, R. A. Norton, S. J. O’Boyle, C. Pearson, J. T. Price, D. Price Jones, R. Robinson, M. Sanderson, L. Schwarz, W. Scotland, D. J. Short, R. Stocks, P. L. Stone, J. R. Tozer, L. Ward, A. J. Wardrop, M. H. E. Watson, R. J. Whale, Dr M. C. Whelan, P. O. G. White, Ms B. J. Widger, I. J. Wilcock, G. H. Willett, D. C. Williamson, J. Woodall, Dr E. Young.
 

Comments
238 entries, almost no mistakes. A bit too obscure, this parliament of fools so soon after the ship of fools? I’d thought of doing something with the parliaments in Brewer on and off for years, and then about a year ago, while I was out walking the dog alone and wondering idly what I was going to do the next time 1 April fell on a Sunday, the devious connection between PARLIAMENT(S) and APRIL FOOL(S) suddenly struck me. I deliberately planned it so that solving the puzzle was not dependent on getting the joke, and clearly many of you completed the grid without understanding the point of it all or identifying the missing title. No matter. The unchecked letters were an extra help, and those that did see the light were sufficiently amused to have made the whole thing worth while. There may have been a fair number of self-administered kicks when the solution was printed as well! One can’t expect more from an April Fool joke, I think, and new ideas for such crosswords get harder to dream up every time.
 
Tiresomely, it seems that the list of these names for parliaments has changed a bit in Brewer over the years. My edition, bought in 1974, is the third (corrected) impression of the ‘centenary’ edition (completely revised) published in 1970, Dr Brewer’s original work having first appeared in 1870. Some of you said you couldn’t verify LACK-LEARNING or that BAREBONES was given without the final s in some editions. These were complications I couldn’t really cope with, I’m afraid. The two pairs of alternative names were LONG/PENSIONER and LACK-LEARNING/UNLEARNED. Several parliaments were christened LONG, apparently, including the latter phase of the Rump Parliament, but this overlap was too minor and complicated to build into the preamble.
 
The only clue of mine which was not understood (by some) was that for EARL. The solution notes should have clarified this by now, but Earl Wild is an internationally renowned classical pianist, born in the US in 1915, famous for his interpretations of Liszt, and still (I think) with us, and Edward Lear’s poem Incidents in the Life of My Uncle Arly (beginning ‘O My aged Uncle Arly!/Sitting on a heap of Barley/Thro’ the silent hours of night’) first appeared in his Nonsense Songs and Stories (1895) and is quoted from in the ODQ. Not too obscure, surely? (I can’t help wondering if Lear himself noticed that his own surname lay concealed in that of his fictional relative, or, better still, whether he deliberately placed it there.)
 
I haven’t left much space to mention clues submitted this month. BARE BONES and BAREBONES were clued in roughly equally numbers, and many of you incorporated references to both, sometimes alluding to the parliament as well. Clues that referred only to the parliament, as a few did, struck me as a bit short on inspiration, given the range of options before you. Two VHCs might have done even better but for niggling worries they left me with: Mr Davenport’s ‘colluding’ as an anagram indicator is on the borderline of acceptability, and I wasn’t wholly convinced by Mr Grabowski’s claim that ‘key’ is a near synonym in this context of ‘basic essentials’.
 

 
In my account last month of the AZ 1,500 dinner in Oxford I unforgiveably failed to mention the handsome cheque that was presented to me, representing donations by many solvers, not all of whom were at the dinner. I am most grateful to all those who contributed to this and am still considering what to spend it on as a permanent reminder of the occasion.