AZED CROSSWORD 874

BLUESTOCKING

1.  J. R. H. Jones: Got BSc unlike fluff? (anag. & lit.).

2.  J. F. N. Wedge: —— got BSc? Unlike wanton? (anag. & lit.).

3.  Dr J. Burscough: Who might show worsted in King’s College but no leg? (anag. less leg, & lit.; show vi).

VHC

S. Armstrong: One ruling needed after Telecom, introducing an early form of STD, overcharge e.g. Girton girl? (lues in BT + o/c + king).

D. A. Campbell: Has she got bulgiest conk about? (anag. & lit.).

M. Coates: Female it’s being wasteful to entertain merely for procreation (stock in blueing, & lit.).

R. N. Cuff: Learned ‘handle’ because of First from Girton? (blue stock in G, & lit.).

W. Davies: She’s no dummy so there’s suckling to be done (anag.).

N. C. Dexter: Buckles into work – getting ‘First’ at Girton? (anag. + G, & lit.).

D. M. Duckworth: It’s unusual for her to be stuck on bilge! (anag. & lit.).

O. Greenwood: OCE, but no silk sadly for her? (anag. & lit.).

D. V. Harry: She could have learned wisdom at Royal Holloway clink but goes on twisting (anag.; ref. prison and college).

R. J. Hooper: College beak with bust (?) in worsted (Miss Beale, possibly) (anag. less anag., & lit.; ref. Dorothea B., educational reformer).

G. Johnstone: One from King’s College with legs in nothing but a worsted? (anag. of KG legs in 0 but a, less a, & lit.).

F. P. N. Lake: No leg trimmed with silk, but 100 for Latin – that’s me! (anag. with C for L, & lit.).

D. F. Manley: Worsted guise, not black, may befit a —— (comp. anag. & lit.).

L. May: Athlete’s foot case for lady doctor, probably (Blue stocking.).

J. R. C. Michie: Murdoch’s one Tory intrusive boss at home with head of Government (Blue stock in G; ref. Iris M., Rupert M.).

C. G. Millin: Clever girl sporting GCE but no silk? (anag.).

C. J. Morse: Name given by sportive university types to coterie’s first ‘queen bee’ long ago (Blues to c king, & lit.; see king in C.).

T. W. Mortimer: On such a long-haired lady one can restyle locks into e.g. bun! (comp. anag. & lit.).

F. R. Palmer: Superior Oxford or Cambridge type, making an object of ridicule (Blue stocking, & lit.).

D. R. Robinson: A Chelsea-ite, maybe – but drabbly rigged out (club kit’s gone astray) (anag. & lit.; ref. arty district, football club).

D. W. Shaw: A university sportsman keeping a female student tied up in guest block (Blue stocking, anag.).

HC

D. W. Arthur, M. Barley, R. C. Bell, R. E. Boot, Mrs A. R. Bradford, C. J. Brougham, Rev Canon C. M. Broun, J. M. Brown, P. Brown, E. J. Burge, C. J. & M. P. Butler, Ms C. Carstairs, G. P. Conway, R. V. Dearden, Mrs E. S. Denniff, A. L. Dennis, Dr V. G. I. Deshmukh, J. R. du Parcq, M. Earle, C. J. Feetenby, Dr I. S. Fletcher, S. C. Ford, H. Freeman, Ms C. Gay, N. C. Goddard, S. Goldie, D. Goodwin, M. Goodyear, J. Green, R. R. Greenfield, D. R. Gregory, J. F. Grimshaw, R. W. Hawes, P. F. Henderson, V. G. Henderson, J. F. Jones, Dr J. F. Knott, J. H. Lamble, J. W. Leonard, J. D. Lockett, R. K. Lumsdon, M. A. Macdonald-Cooper, Mrs E. L. MacNeill, H. S. Mason, H. W. Massingham, Rev M. R. Metcalf, R. Miller, T. J. Moorey, R. A. Mostyn, R. F. Naish, Mrs E. M. Phair, Mrs D. M. C. Prichard, Miss I. M. Raab, A. Renwick, E. R. Riddle, A. Rivlin, C. W. Robins, T. E. Sanders, A. D. Scott, D. P. Shenkin, Mrs E. J. Shields, W. K. M. Slimmings, B. Solomons, D. M. Stanford, F. W. R. Stocks, J. B. Sweeting, J. Tebbutt, G. A. Tomlinson, Dr I. Torbe, A. P. Vincent, A. J. Wardrop, Mrs M. P. Webber.
 

COMMENTS
381 entries, no mistakes, (except a few incomplete grids). Despite the fact that I gave you only four coded words it seems to have been easier than usual to deduce the code-word. (CO = KC and LT = BO must have helped. ) Several said it was the first Playfair they’d ever managed to complete. What I think only one competitor claimed to have spotted was the extra ‘Theme and variations’ bit of help I gave you. ‘Cobalt’ and ‘morose’ are both synonyms of ‘blue’, and ‘stitch’ and ‘frames’ both form compound words with ‘stocking’. Some of you have suggested in the past that Playfair puzzles would be improved if the code-word were related thematically to the rest of the puzzle in some way. This was a first attempt at something of the kind, though I decided against drawing explicit attention to it since doing this would almost certainly have given the game away. What do you think? All suggestions welcome. And contrary to what one or two surmised, Ximenes never used BLUESTOCKING in a Playfair competition – I checked. Surprisingly perhaps – it’s a lovely word to clue (pace the sprinkling of dissenters.)
 
One or two of my clues caused difficulty. NASARD was ASAR (qv.) in N(EE)D and SARI was (W)AIS(T) and (SHOULDE)R ‘wrapped round’ in the sense of jumbled (?), with an ‘& lit. ’ effect. My use of ‘coupling’ to mean ‘couple’ or ‘couplet’ in the clue to EINE raised an eyebrow or two and I agree it’s borderline. It’s one of those short words I must have clued half a dozen times before and one gets pretty desperate for a new idea!
 
Anyway, an excellent competition with very little unsoundness and a lot of inventiveness. The word offers abundant anagram possibilities (see above) – the most popular being ‘luck begins to change, etc. ’ Although the first two prize-winners arrived at virtually the same form of wording, Mr Jones’s punctuation is neater and slightly less cumbersome. The double use of ‘fluff’ as noun (in the literal reading) and intransitive verb (in the cryptic reading) is especially appealing.
 
Several of you (but not I, unfortunately) spotted the very odd error in the 1988 edition of Chambers, in its entry for NANDU, NANDOO, which it defines as ‘rami or China grass’. RAMI in turn is defined as ‘rhea or China grass’. RI-TEA has two entries, the first defined simply as ‘rami’ and the second, among other things, as ‘the South American ostrich’. There is no doubt, from a reading of the previous edition and other sources, that nandoo is the ostrich and Chambers have got their rheas mixed up. I’ll tell them, gently.
 
Finally, the sad news has reached me of the recent death of F. B. (Fred) Stubbs. I last met him at the Listener crossword setters’ dinner last autumn and enjoyed his company, as always. He was a regular and reliable competitor in the Azed series from the start but his solving days went back many years before that. He specialised in cecidology, that little known area of biology, and he was kind enough to send me a copy of his Provisional Keys to British Plant Galls, published in 1986, from which I learn among other things that popular names for galls include the delightfully evocative Little Black Pudding, Robin’s Pin Cushion and Witches’ Broom. I’m sure he’ll be missed.