AZED CROSSWORD 2508

CHARACTER (Misprints)

1.  T. J. Moorey: A daily performance is getting on flipping mask (mark; char act + re (rev.); ref. social distancing).

2.  R. C. Teuton: Rat-catcher taking away very little townsfolk playing tune (tone; anag. less t; ref. ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’).

3.  Dr I. S. Fletcher: Duality shown by pied rat-catcher after payment ultimately denied (quality; anag. less t).

VHC

M. Barley: Job varied entries to Azed tackle entails reproducing clue typo (type; char + anag. of first letters).

M. Barnes: Parson’s moral make-up – reach out to accommodate leaders of roundhead and cavalier types (person’s; first letters in anag.).

T. C. Borland: Statue to make black react, incensed (status; char + anag.).

Dr J. Burscough: E.g. Holder, fantastic catcher taking a run (Holden; a r in anag.; ref. WI cricketer, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’).

A. G. Chamberlain: Copperfield’s first account, rather hazy: we meet him in a hovel (novel; anag. incl. C, a/c).

E. Dawid: Damaged the car? RAC care is required (card; anag.).

A. H. Harker: Qualify cleaning lady to play the part of The Queen (quality; char act ER).

R. J. Heald: Account penned by Miss Brontë drawing large number heading for renowned parsonage (personage; a/c in Char(lot)te + r; ref. Brontë home/museum).

M. Hodgkin: Statue falls, with rejection of fashionable man once surrounded by heartless acclaim (status; (cat)aract in ch(e)er).

G. Johnstone: Mrs Mopp? Something of a Drama Queen in ITMA’s past? (part; char act ER; ref. 1940s radio comedy).

D. F. Manley: ‘An ace Crowther special!’ – excited one beginning to work out setter? (letter; anag. less anag. incl. w).

P. W. Marlow: Tense Australian caught close to wicket is trapped by Archer bowling (sense; A c t in anag.; ref. Jofra A., England bowler).

C. G. Millin: An eccentric parson performed endlessly during tea with a bishop (person; acte(d) in cha RR).

R. J. Palmer: Care to ring breakdown organisation with the car broken down (card; RAC in anag.).

D. Price Jones: Bond embracing a counterspy at the outset exhibits duality (quality; a c in charter).

S. Randall: Someone in hovel organised rat-catcher to eradicate nucleus of infestation (novel; anag. less t).

T. Rudd: Play set in church, a king and Canterbury at its heart: a good prayer’s in it (player; act in ch a r + er; ref. ‘Murder in the Cathedral’).

Dr S. J. Shaw: In novel format, Archer embraces pretence to acquire literary parsonage (personage; act in anag.; ref. Jeffrey A., The Old Vicarage, Grantchester).

P. L. Stone: Slippery racetrack, losing rear end – on board Hamilton’s first to find grip (grit; anag. less k incl. H).

T. West-Taylor: Catch rare loco – one of distinctive trains (traits; anag.).

G. H. Willett: Job-seekers may show reverence for this daily performance in front of royalty (reference; char act ER).

HC

D. Appleton, D. & N. Aspland, C. J. Brougham, Mrs S. Brown, C. A. Clarke, S. L. Claughton, T. Clement, Dr P. Coles, P. T. Crow, C. M. Edmunds, H. Freeman, R. Gilbert, J. Grimes, M. Hudson, T. Jacobs, A. MacDougall, J. McGhee, P. McKenna, J. R. C. Michie, T. D. Nicholl, C. Ogilvie, A. Roberts (New Zealand), A. J. Shields, C. M. Steele, P. Tharby, J. R. Tozer, A. J. Varney, J. Vincent & Ms R. Porter, L. Ward (USA), A. J. Wardrop, R. J. Whale, K. & J. Wolff, R. Zara.
 

Comments
136 entries, no mistakes. The reappearance of a competition ‘Misprints’ (the first since No. 1,953, with a couple of non-competition ‘Misprints’ in between) was warmly welcomed by many. The fact that you were at liberty to choose your own letter to misprint was, in retrospect, over-generous in view of the multiple ways available of defining CHARACTER. To some extent I foresaw this, which was why I added the stipulation that clues should make some sense both before and after misprinting (not too tricky, though a few clearly forgot about it). The whole problem was largely of my own making once I’d found the appropriate quotation consisting of exactly 36 letters. (I do feel that ‘Misprints’ puzzles require some such extra feature offering an added challenge. If memory serves, Ximenes divided clues equally between those containing misprints and normal ones requiring a misprint of one each in the diagram, but I always found this a bit dull and demanding less than usual of the setter.
 
The puzzle itself does not seem to have been of more than average difficulty, apart perhaps from the unintentional red herring of LISTERISE for STERILISE and the fact that several of you had clearly not heard of Loch Awe. Favourite clue of the month (of 15 mentioned) was ‘Set device for projecting images, including appropriate technology’ for EPISCOPATE, just ahead of ‘Sex? It’s messing about in field’ (FELID).
 
You will notice that I have stopped printing the addresses of the three prize-winners above. I am advised to do this so as not to infringe personal privacy guidelines. I shall however continue to print the full address for the first prize-winner in the paper so that the tradition of passing on the AZ No. 1 Cup to each successive monthly winner may continue. A reasonable excuse for bending the rules, I think.