AZED CROSSWORD 439

LINGA (Printer’s Devilry)

1.  E. H. Furnival: A nice axe is needed for sca/lps.

2.  W. J. M. Scotland: Evans the booze sells me the g/in fully priced (metheglin).

3.  T. E. Sanders: Romantic sex to/y lines – the joys of youthful love.

VHC

Mrs A. Boyes: Put carpet ro/ll on Tintometer – one strip.

J. M. Brown: The poker player made a fist, fu/mbling with cards.

E. J. Burge: What are secretaries at? Tending to fi/nd typing jobs in offices.

M. Coates: Transplant team is no good if it does not have the hea/rt.

R. V. Dearden: Damaged ’plane lands, with dang/er of oil on undercarriage causing anxiety (aerofoil).

B. Franco: Though I’m luckier in love, he’s more success fu/mbling.

C. Frean: Cat saw star/light on bush, and pounced.

D. A. Ginger: Now a troubled world is cal/mer, I can store new hopes of peace.

J. B. Graham: Inventors, dea/d, get sand in their functions.

R. Gregory: ‘Purdy, when there’s danger? Cal/m bit!’ says Steed (Gambit; ref. TV ‘The New Avengers’).

V. G. Henderson: Crosswords circulated (as latest art?). Ru/m Azed tests devotees (ref. Centenary Test controversy).

D. J. Hennings: You want to come into pri/ze dishonestly? Not advisable (ref. Azed comp).

J. Hicks: The sharper I scare, fu/mbling with marked cards.

E. M. Holroyd: Mens sana…? That’s nonsense – I’m fee/ble-bodied and feeble-minded.

R. E. Kimmons: We have the makings of a future – football genera/tes skill and flair (Eric Gates, Ipswich Town & England).

F. P. N. Lake: ‘Letters for Ida?’ – Housemai/d dresses with zips to please postman.

E. C. Lance: Footballers fou/nd fighting ruined the match.

G. G. Lawrance: The postman cannot deliver unless he can see the mai/d dress.

W. H. M. Lemmey: How fee/ble to make epic verse scan! You want to write limericks.

C. G. Millin: After some chil/d vice, Scrooge became a reformed character.

J. J. Moore: Carter and Reagan are hopeful, but is Anderson too fee/ble to succeed? (ref. US election: John A., independent candidate).

C. J. Morse: Bad fee/t, old hams, hocks hardened – sporting hacks! (ref. journalistic outcry at trouble at recent Oldham-Sheffield match).

C. Pearson: Stea/k is so lovely, Missis! ’Scuse the poetry – utter bliss!

W. H. Pegram: In a gale, riding tandem’s very hard, but cyc/lone, it’s impossible.

Mrs B. Simmonds: You’ll find Pam’s ’ouse fu/mes of loo (pam, highest card in loo).

T. A. J. Spencer: Pet ro/ll-on can slim – it strips a broad.

R. Stephenson: I love to see a baby’s mi/nd contented.

J. G. Stubbs: Star ve/nds nugget; parts in play with flute (ref. ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’).

M. J. Suckling: London cannot match the excitement, nor ma/y Paris.

D. H. Tompsett: Wretched Sou/th – didn’t know King had fallen! (‘Tell it not in Gath’).

V. C. D. Vowles: Did you notice the star/light on the church tower last night?

M. R. Wetherfield: I can’t help Smi/thers, he’s miles back.

W. D. Wigley: I buy myself wine by the litre, my pet ro/ll-ons.

HC

F. D. H. Atkinson, M. J. Balfour, M. Barnes, E. A. Beaulah, O. R. Bloor, Dr M. H. Bride, A. J. Bulman, R. N. Chignell, D. L. L. Clarke, A. J. Crow, G. Cuthbert, J. V. S. A. Davies, R. A. Dehn, A. L. Dennis, N. C. Dexter, J. H. Dingwall, R. P. C. Forman, M. Freeman, F. D. Gardiner, H. J. Godwin, B. Hancock, D. V. Harry, E. M. Hornby, J. Horwood, R. Jacks, A. H. Jones, Prof N. Kessel, R. Lawrence, A. Lawrie, M. D. Laws, J. H. C. Leach, Mrs E. Luscombe, D. F. Manley, S. M. Mansell, B. Manvell, L. May, R. D. McCall, J. McGhee, B. N. McQuade, G. McStravick, R. A. Mostyn, W. Murphy, N. O’Neill, F. R. Palmer, R. J. Palmer, S. L. Paton, T. Patterson, M. G. Payne, B. A. Pike, P. Poulton, E. R. Riddle, D. R. Robinson, A. D. Scott, C. I. Semeonoff, B. D. Smith, F. B. Stubbs, L. M. Styler, F. E. Thomas, L. E. Thomas, I. Torbe, D. V. B. Unwin, J. Walton, A. J. Wardrop, M. H. E. Watson, J. F. N. Wedge, Mrs J. Welford, J. B. Widdowson, Miss B. J. Widger, G. H. Willett, D. C. Williamson, L. C. Wright.
 

COMMENTS
570 entries, no mistakes to speak of. Clearly this was a welcome return for ‘P.D.’, whose fans had been growing increasingly impatient for it. They far outnumber the handful who really do dislike this type of special, usually on the grounds that clues give no hint at all of the meaning of their answers. My only counter to this argument is its obvious popularity. I’m not even particularly impressed by attempts, often strained, to hint at or define the answer in either the devilled or the undevilled version of the clue. Part of the fun surely is that one is freed from any such obligations provided one’s clue makes reasonable sense. (In practice, incidentally, this usually means that the undevilled version consists of a sentence with a main verb.) Occasionally this involves resorting to slightly unnatural word order (e.g. ‘…her finery a rani lined…’ for ANILINE or ‘…to see in war N.A.T.O. KO U.S.S.R. and allies’ for ATOKOUS) but such clues are forced upon the setter by peculiarly intractable words. I challenge anyone to find a better way of dealing with ATOKOUS. The clue word I give you is carefully chosen to offer a wide (some said too wide) range of possibilities for P.D. treatment.
 
Two other of my clues provoked occasional comment. In its full version the clue to ALL-AMERICAN, which foxed some, reads: ‘His mad gallop made his mare a great deal lamer; I canter mine warily’. Here ‘canter’ is used transitively, as is ‘plane’ in the NEUSTON clue which some queried for that very reason. I concede that Chambers doesn’t acknowledge this usage and I can find no authority that does. I’m fairly confident that I’ve heard it often enough, though, particularly in transatlantic parlance, cf. bus v.t. in the Chambers Supplement. The meaning of the clue cannot have been unclear.
 
It will do no harm to reiterate the main faults that are most common in constructing P.D. clues, at least in my eyes. The first is to ignore my preference, spelt out in the preamble, for clues in which the breaks before and after the word omitted (before and after omission) do not occur at the ends or beginnings of words in the clue. Thus, for example, any clue which in its undevilled state contains the A of LINGA as the indefinite article is, to me, flawed in this way. The second common fault is as it were ‘rigging’ the wording of the undevilled version in order to make the devilled clue read better. This is a very natural tendency but it’s dead easy to spot and should be resisted. Finally there’s the urge to bedevil more than is necessary solely to show off or gratuitously to add to the solver’s task. The only justification for re-dividing long stretches of the wording in the devilled clue should be to improve the intrinsic sense of it. Wilful or nonsensical obscurantism is just silly. I wish I could give actual examples of these faults but my wife has irretrievably tidied away those I had set aside for the purpose!
 
In conclusion, I have now run out of blue Azed ties but there are still a few maroon and green ones left.