AZED CROSSWORD 1875

GOUTTE / UPREAR

1.  T. C. Borland: Knowing rules about drainage channel, lift out and get free drop (up + ea in r r; anag.; ref. golf).

2.  A. J. Wardrop: Leading pairs in golf’s utmost test drop back after winning start (go ut te; up + rear).

3.  J. Fairclough: In putting out team, drop exhausted back to provide lift (hidden; up rear).

VHC

R. D. Anderson: Drop of oil perhaps on coat? Get out tatty uniform (pre-war) wife put away in loft (anag.; U + pre-(w)ar; NATO alphabet).

D. Arthur: Must timeless rapture raise a tear say, almost under a spell? (anag. less t; go + utte(r); must⁴ = frenzied).

J. G. Booth: In pouring out tea a driblet’s found to rise; redesign a pourer carving centre of spout (hidden; anag. less o).

N. Connaughton: Drop out and get stoned at university? Parent to become rather angry (anag.; up rear; parent vb.).

N. C. Dexter: Partial to stingo? Utterly! A nip giving us from the word go curiously rare power to elevate spirits (hidden; u(s) + anag. incl. P).

Dr I. S. Fletcher: Sky hit behind wicket getting out for a blob? (up + rear; gate with out for a; up n. = success).

J. Grimes: To cultivate beginning of end for love in turmoil drop ring in bottomless drain (uproar with e for 0; O in gutte(r)).

D. Harris: Raise hell, getting drug for nothing, drop out and get high (uproar with E for 0; anag.).

R. J. Heald: Sky shows mug getting caught out behind wicket, out for a blob ((c)up + rear; gate with out for a; Sky Sports).

P. F. Henderson: Pair in United are working to lift half of team after zest shows a drop (pr in U + anag.; gout + te(am)).

Mrs D. B. Jenkinson: Aim for higher achievement at Oxford but afterwards tear out and get sloshed! (up + rear; anag.; but²).

P. R. Lloyd: Lift in high Peru taking one close to sheer drop? Vertigo utterly possesses me (anag. + a + r; hidden).

W. F. Main: Parent in court behind drop in bawling out terrors (up rear; hidden; parent vb.).

D. F. Manley: Give exalted position to posh advocate of right – revolutionary goner shed a tear maybe in bowing out terminally (U prea(Che)r; hidden; ref. election of London mayor, C. Guevara).

L. F. Marzillier: Beginnings of underground psychedelic response, Leary not the first or last to raise, ‘Drop out, get high’ (u p r + (L)ear(y); anag.; ref. Timothy L.).

C. J. Morse: Climbing can give a lift to activity above almost sheer drop (up rear; go + utte(r); can, rear = lavatory).

R. Perry: This device makes you go utterly off the rails with wild rapture having no time to become rampant (go utte(rly); anag. less t).

R. C. Teuton: Get high at university? Student can drop out and get work (up + rear; anag.; can, rear = lavatory).

D. H. Tompsett: Sky – empty air – after pure tumbling drop with which para jolts tutor agape (anag. + a(i)r; comp. anag.).

J. R. Tozer: Lift revolting latrine pan out, full almost to the last drop (up rear; go + utte(r); pan out = run out).

HC

D. & N. Aspland, M. Barley, C. Barr, Dr P. M. J. Bennett, R. E. Boot, C. J. Brougham, Rev Canon C. M. Broun, E. J. Burge, B. Butler, D. A. Campbell, P. Cargill, B. Cheesman, C. A. Clarke, Mr & Mrs T. Coventry, E. Cross, C. Daffern, H. Dazeley, T. J. Donnelly, C. M. Edmunds, Mrs E. Greenaway, R. Griffin, A. & R. Haden, G. Hearfield, J. Horwood, G. Johnstone, J. R. H. Jones, J. C. Leyland, M. A. Macdonald-Cooper, P. McKenna, C. G. Millin, T. J. Moorey, C. Ogilvie, F. R. Palmer, D. Parfitt, D. Price Jones, W. Ransome, D. R. Robinson, D. P. Shenkin, N. G. Shippobotham, P. L. Stone, K. Thomas, Ms S. Wallace, R. J. Whale, D. C. Williamson, Dr E. Young.
 

Comments
225 entries, no mistakes. In response to one query this was the sixth ‘Up & Down’ I’ve given you (all competition puzzles) as a variant on the Ximenean ‘Right & Left’. It took me a while to pick the (admittedly rather colourless) pair of words for you to clue, and it was only after I’d made my choice that I noticed their relevance to the ‘up and down’ theme, one of those serendipitous pleasures that sometimes seem to come from nowhere. Your favourite double clue was ‘Soft bit of Plasticine shaped to fasten box’ for NESH/SPAR, and this perhaps serves to illustrate what one should strive for in such clues, i.e. a convincing piece of prose which hangs together as a unit and in which the division between the two consecutive clues is well disguised. In a strong field this is what eventually brought the three prizewinners out on top. What you must avoid at all costs is any superfluous linking words (such as ‘and’) between the two parts of the double clue. A few clues submitted failed in this regard.
 
The puzzle generally seems to have given few serious problems, though several of you admitted to wasting time on looking for ‘Aries’ in ‘Ominous creature rams end of cart …’. Nothing was further from my mind, Lord Copper! It is odd, as many of you commented, that Chambers does not give PRESSURE-GAUGE (hyphened in the SOED), though I think someone claimed to have found it in an early edition of Chambers Words. Strange indeed are the ways of lexicographers. In general I was impressed by the high standard of cluing this month and congratulate you on finding a host of different ways of dealing with this unprepossessing pair.
 
A recent first prizewinner has expressed misgivings about my printing the full address of such winners in the announcement of results each month, given the general concern these days about freedom of information, etc. This had never occurred to me before and I wonder how many of you have similar worries. As I’m sure many of you know, the practice arose to enable the holder of the small silver cup which goes to each successive first prizewinner to send it on to the next. If we stop printing the winner’s address we shall have to devise another system to aid this procedure. I’d welcome your views on this.
 
Finally and sadly, I must record the recent death of Eric Burge after an accidental fall at his home in Cheltenham. Eric rarely if ever missed an Azed competition since the start of the series in 1972, and frequently appeared in the slip. Inspired by this he took up setting crosswords, as Phiz or Quark, in a variety of journals. He also regularly attended the Azed get-togethers, usually with his wife Aileen. I shall greatly miss him and the pithy but friendly comments that always accompanied the clues he submitted.