AZED CROSSWORD 1646

BLACK

1.  J. R. Tozer: Void is at Bible’s beginning (B + lack, & lit.).

2.  Dr I. S. Fletcher: Bachelor: miss dated one seeking mate (B + lack; ref. chess).

3.  D. Appleton: Angry Liberal disrupts support for unofficial colour bar (L in back, 4 defs.).

VHC

M. Barley: Football ultimately overshadowed by position of rugby? It’s hard to see (l in back).

J. R. Beresford: Moor, lowering dingy – light opposite jetty (5 mngs.; jetty adj.).

B. Burton: Such is book in which foremost of law-breakers is held to account (l a/c in bk, & lit.).

C. A. Clarke: Conrad, for example, depicting horror in ‘Heart of Darkness’ (2 mngs.; ref. Conrad B., Joseph Conrad).

N. C. Dexter: Deadly half back able to get English going delirious (anag. incl. ba(ck) less E; ref. Jonny Wilkinson).

V. Dixon: Bar sinister – illegitimate? (3 mngs.; ref. heraldry).

W. Duffin: Provides descriptions of sea and death? Could be Conrad (3 mngs.; ref. Conrad B., Joseph Conrad).

H. Freeman: I might be caught in balk after screw (not Jimmy!) (c in anag., & lit.; ref. snooker, Jimmy White).

R. Hesketh: Threatening as club is or bar (3 mngs.; ref. cards).

M. Hodgkin: Star of dating game unable to make first move in mating game! (2 mngs.; ref. Cilla B., host of ‘Blind Date’, chess).

Mrs J. Mackie: Conrad, e.g., essential feature of thumb lacking (hidden; ref. Conrad B. and C. who sucked his thumbs and had them cut off in ‘Struwwelpeter’).

W. F. Main: Going into reverse, vessel’s stern does for jetty (l in back; jetty adj.).

D. F. Manley: Baron facing deprivation? (B + lack, & lit.; ref. Conrad B., forced to sell ‘Daily Telegraph’, etc.).

C. J. Morse: British want unofficial support to keep the pound (B + lack, L in back).

R. J. Palmer: Baron facing shortfall (no longer in it?) (B + lack; ref. Conrad B.; i.e. no longer in the b.).

D. R. Robinson: Beta-blocker man might be jocularly presented as: ‘Meet Baron ——’ (comp. anag. & lit.; ref. Sir James B., Nobel prize winner for work on beta-blockers).

R. Stocks: Bad-tempered press baron in trouble with the union and with financial authorities (4 mngs.; ref. Conrad B., b. economy).

G. H. Willett: Cause mouse to become better on swallowing soupçon of Lymeswold (L in back; mouse = black eye).

D. C. Williamson: In end of table opposite this, middle half circled, cueist initially breaks (c in balk with centre reversed, & lit.; ref. snooker).

HC

D. Arthur, E. A. Beaulah, M. F. Bennett, Mrs A. Boyes, C. J. Brougham, J. Burscough, C. J. & M. P. Butler, Mrs M. J. Cansfield, M. J. Corlett, A. Cox, K. W. Crawford, E. Cross, L. J. Davenport, R. Dean, T. J. Donnelly, C. M. Edmunds, A. S. Everest, Ms B. Flude, M. Freeman, J. Grimes, J. P. Guiver, C. R. Gumbrell, N. Harris, D. V. Harry, W. Jackson, Mrs S. D. Johnson, M. Kindred, J. P. Lester, P. R. Lloyd, P. W. Marlow, J. R. C. Michie, I. Morgan, T. D. Nicholl, R. A. Norton, F. R. Palmer, M. Sanderson, W. Scott, J. B. Sweeting, J. Wakely, A. J. Wardrop, M. Whitmore, Dr E. Young, R. Zara.
 

Comments
223 entries, few mistakes almost all through failure to understand the clue to VEGAN (‘What I am (in extreme form) gets me reverse of irate inside!’), which as it happens was also this month’s favourite, followed by those for TROTTER and FUGHETTA. It verged on the outrageous as clues go (hence the exclamation mark), but contains enough information to lead unmistakeably , and I think fairly, to the correct answer. Self-referential clues like this can be tricky to solve, there being no explicit definition to guide you, but clearly the penny, when it dropped, did so with a satisfying ring for many of you. Twenty-four clues in all were mentioned as having given special pleasure. Overall it was a disappointingly low entry for what more than a few said was a plain of less-than-average difficulty.
 
I don’t suppose I’ve ever given you a word with more different senses (and parts of speech) to clue than BLACK. Perhaps it was an embarrassment of riches, because it failed to elicit quite the brilliance of response you’re capable of, though many submissions were perfectly acceptable and sound. Favourite ideas included Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (many with identical wording), illicit rupees kept in the bank, and references to snooker. Only the best of these made it to the quoted lists. A few used ‘alas’ or a similar synonym to indicate ‘lack’, citing lack² in Chambers, but it seems only to have this meaning in the compound form GOOD-LACK.
 
One very interesting but ultimately unsuccessful clue deserves more detailed examination: ‘Why ablet is bleak?’ This is based on the curious fact that putting the letter ‘l’ inside two different words meaning ‘support’ (i.e. ‘abet’ and ‘back’) produces two further words which can both be defined as ‘bleak’, one a noun and the other an adjective. It calls to mind those fiendish crosswords (rarely attempted these days) whose clues yield two valid sets of answers. Unfortunately in this instance I feel that the clue writer has over-condensed the information available to the solver, rendering the clue itself unfairly difficult, if not actually unsound. I would have been more favourably disposed towards wording such as ‘Support holding line for bleak’, which the unsuspecting solver might reasonably have assumed led to ABLET until discovering the other equally valid answer.
 
My sincere thanks to the many who sent me and my family cards and/or seasonal greetings. I hope 2004 is a good year for us all and that you continue to enjoy our weekly battle of wits. Remember that I’ll be recommending the new edition of Chambers (available at a bewildering variety of prices, I’m informed) from January.