AZED CROSSWORD 823

SARBACANE

1.  W. K. M. Slimmings: Reactionary supports a switch whose blow can mark one’s end (bras (rev.) + a cane).

2.  G. Johnstone: Hollowed-out shooter housing arrow’s head with poison round about (a in s(hoote)r + ca. in bane, & lit.).

3.  C. A. Clarke: Rioting Arabs to get measure of Israelis? Hard lacking a missile launcher (anag. + cane(H)).

VHC

M. Barley: Means of supporting society over a shoot: a shooting stick? (bra S (rev.) + a cane).

E. A. Beaulah: Scots relish ball and hand out a thrashing; the French blow it! (sar ba’ cane).

R. C. Bell: Blowpipe can destroy a British Saracen (anag. incl. B; ref. missile, tank).

Mrs F. A. Blanchard: A British Saracen in action – a launcher blown up (anag. incl. B; ref. tank).

E. J. Burge: Tube? – No good when out of breath a cab nears… wave for it (anag.).

P. Cargill: It can bear shot (SA + anag. & lit.).

L. J. Davenport: SA shooters stalk, maybe, holding one (a in SA RB cane, & lit.).

A. L. Dennis: Are supporters in union reverting to strike weapon? (a. bras (rev.) + cane).

N. C. Dexter: Cause of a nick in bear’s bum? (a can in anag., & lit.).

M. Earle: Nasty tipped barbs may be put by one into one (anag. of (b)arbs + an in ace, & lit.).

S. C. Ford: Dart thrower’s prerequisite? Barsac’s drunk, then a Scotch (anag. + ane).

D. V. Harry: Cabs are an obnoxious source of toxic emissions (anag.).

D. F. Manley: The point one supplies with wind may have poison round about (ras (rev.) + ca. in bane, & lit.; wind, 2 mngs.).

H. S. Mason: A sabre can bust an arm with a deadly blow (anag.).

C. J. Morse: Chastising rod, applied to rioting Arabs, can deliver a fatal blow (anag. + cane).

S. J. O’Boyle: Is hollow stem containing tipped spike one? ((b)arb a in ’s cane, & lit.).

F. R. Palmer: End of arms’ race negotiated with a ban for missile launcher? (s + anag.).

Mrs E. M. Phair: It’s blasted arrow, noiseless as can be (anag. incl. ar(row), & lit.).

A. G. Ray: What can deliver a deadly blow? Whirling a sabre can! (anag.).

A. J. Redstone: What’ll give a lethal blow? A sabre swung about may (can in anag.).

A. D. Scott: I’m useful with darts in bars being difficult one to beat (anag. + a cane).

P. D. Stonier: Nearly new Saab car needs attention – blown cylinder (anag. incl. ne(w)).

D. Williamson: What could produce scar with a bean? (anag. & lit.).

M. G. Wilson: ‘Blowpipe’ destroyed by a British Saracen (anag. incl. B; ref. missile, tank).

Dr E. Young: A stick is used on rioting Arabs: did it deliver a fatal blow? (anag. + cane).

HC

D. W. Arthur, H. J. Bradbury, C. J. Brougham, Rev Canon C. M. Broun, Dr J. Burscough, E. Chalkley, E. Dawid, Dr V. G. I. Deshmukh, C. M. Edmunds, S. Gaskell, R. R. Greenfield, J. F. Grimshaw, P. F. Henderson, R. J. Hooper, M. S. Taylor & N. C. Johns, A. J. Jones, J. F. Jones, F. P. N. Lake, A. Lawrie, M. A. Macdonald-Cooper, S. M. Mansell, H. W. Massingham, L. May, J. R. C. Michie, C. G. Millin, T. J. Moorey, T. W. Mortimer, A. J. Odber, D. Price Jones, H. L. Rhodes, G. C. Rosser, H. R. Sanders, T. E. Sanders, W. J. M. Scotland, H. Smith, R. J. Whale.
 

COMMENTS
474 entries: almost no mistakes. There were some generous comments on the puzzle, and in particular on the diagram construction with its inclusion of 15 thematic words. I was admittedly quite pleased at achieving this and would imagine it quite hard to improve on in a normal 12 × 12 grid. In response to one inquiry this was the fifth ‘Red Herrings’ puzzle, previous themes having included fish (hence the name: 8 worked in), flowering plants (9), Shakespearean characters (9) and articles of clothing (15). The letters of the unclued answers have been dealt with in a variety of ways. Some of you questioned the need to work them into the puzzle at all, it being quite possible to arrive at the unclued words without them. I take the point but suggest that it gives an added element to solving certain clues which is absent from a straightforward Ximenean ‘Spot the Theme’ type of puzzle. In part, of course, it harks back to the original ‘Red Herrings’ puzzle, the extra words being themselves red herrings. Anyway, I was gratified by the size of the entry, having been a bit worried that in cramming in so many weapons I was making the theme correspondingly more difficult to spot. I clearly needn’t have worried. A small quibble concerned my clue to CABA which I defined as ‘Nicklaus’s bag’ though it is a woman’s handbag. Granted, but that would not preclude an American man referring to one, so the possessive is surely permissible. The clue did not specify a golf bag, after all.
 
Clues submitted were on the whole very good this month, it being particularly difficult to pick out those deserving of prizes. It was, most of you agreed, a friendly word to have to clue, though as usual there was a handful of dissenters who reckoned it a brute. Following my animadversions in the DOLCE VITA slip, especially regarding the clue ‘Lived to a fault, round the clubs’, I am rightly reminded that in 1972 I awarded first prize to ‘Given unconventionally for Jack’s head’ as a clue for VINEGAR, with its identical use of a past participle to indicate a noun. I can only claim in my defence that my ideas about the rights and wrongs of clue-writing have developed since those early days of the Azed series (it was puzzle No. 27) and that I now regard such a device as putting too great a strain on the syntax. The participles in each case are the equivalents of adjectives and if we are to allow that adjectives may be used in clues to indicate answers which are nouns or noun phrases, we are opening undesirable flood-gates, Pandora’s boxes, etc. Does anyone disagree?