AZED CROSSWORD 947

SHOULDER-SLIP

1.  R. J. Hooper: Ill-doers push crack? No crack here – just a joint given a pull (anag.; ref. drugs).

2.  C. J. Morse: Make super-solid left hand smash – not with this you won’t! (anag. incl. lh).

3.  M. J. Bland: Pills hod user chewed may help with this sprain (anag. & lit.).

VHC

D. Ashcroft: Is taking responsibility for sauce what may make joint tender? (shoulders lip).

M. Barley: Upper arm injury: horse spill leads to decidedly unprincely fracture (anag. incl. d, u; ref. Prince Charles’ polo injury).

Rev Canon C. M. Broun: Muscle pulled, sorish! (anag. & lit.).

R. Dean: Foolishly I pushed Rolls – and pulled muscle! (anag.).

J. R. du Parcq: Wrench or drill broken with use in store (anag. in shop).

C. E. Faulkner-King: A joint-muscle suffering this could be pulled and sorish (anag.).

J. F. Grimshaw: Holds universal joint with pliers and monkey wrench (anag. of holds U pliers).

D. V. Harry: Working shires do pull and strain (anag.).

P. F. Henderson: Is dull sore throbbing in joint indicating this? (’s + anag. in hip, & lit.).

R. Jacks: It might make us hold pliers awkwardly (anag. & lit.).

Mrs D. B. Jenkinson: Lord help us! It’s awful not having suitable bandage in case of accident (anag. less T(-bandage)).

G. Johnstone: RH’s spill … end of polo due to fracture – and this? (anag. incl. o; ref. Prince Charles’ polo injury).

R. S. Morse: Treatment to cope with this might give help with discus or pole vaulting (comp. anag. & lit.).

J. J. Murtha: Pulled, ‘sorish’ suffering wrench (anag.).

R. Phillips: Hurls spoiled after such a wrench? (anag. & lit.).

D. Price Jones: Rick Nelson might have rendered louder hit during quiet piece (anag. in sh slip; ref. former pop star and wrestling hold).

C. P. Rea: Trouble in the regions over arms pile – hold USSR to be out of order (anag.).

T. E. Sanders: What one might get in bad spill, unhorsed after dropping end of rein (anag. less n, & lit.).

A. J. Shields: Dishes up roll badly sliced: this’ll make serving difficult (anag.).

D. Williamson: I’d pull horse’s withers (anag. & lit.).

M. G. Wilson: Abuse hurled, so youth wrecked joint (anag. + slip).

HC

M. J. Barker, S. Best, H. J. Bradbury, E. J. Burge, B. Burton, C. J. & M. P. Butler, E. Chalkley, C. A. Clarke, Mrs S. M. Cole, Mrs D. M. Colley, Dr V. G. I. Deshmukh, N. C. Dexter, C. M. Edmunds, P. S. Elliott, R. A. England, C. J. Feetenby, Dr I. S. Fletcher, S. C. Ford, B. Franco, H. Freeman, N. C. Goddard, Mrs E. Greenaway, R. R. Greenfield, D. R. Gregory, R. F. A. Horsfield, R. Lawther, J. P. Lester, P. Long, C. Loving, R. K. Lumsdon, D. J. Mackay, H. S. Mason, J. R. Michie, C. G. Millin, T. J. Moorey, T. W. Mortimer, H. B. Morton, W. Murphy, R. F. Naish, B. Noble, S. J. O’Boyle, C. Pearson, W. Pinsker, Dr W. I. D. Scott, D. P. Shenkin, G. Smith, I. C. Snell, F. W. R. Stocks, J. B. Sweeting, G. A. Tomlinson, Mrs J. E. Townsend, A. A. Vinson, Ms J. Ward, A. J. Wardrop, J. F. N. Wedge, R. J. Whale, Dr E. Young.
 

COMMENTS
398 entries, virtually no mistakes. No special problems either, it seems, though one or two commented that the NE corner was a bit tricky. It was one of those grid patterns in which some of the outlying parts were somewhat cut off, a weakness that sometimes occurs when one tries to vary the pattern in a new way. There were plenty of good ideas for SHOULDER-SLIP, the best of them featured above. I wasn’t too impressed by clues which broke the word into SHOULDER and SLIP, however obliquely each was clued. Rather uninspired, I thought, given the wealth of other possibilities. I hesitated over the ‘pulled sorish’ anagram since ‘sorish’ isn’t in any dictionary that I could find (as Mr Murtha’s inverted commas acknowledge). But it’s a reasonable enough formation with a common affix and I guess I might have used it had I been cluing the word. (Mr Hooper’s ‘ill-doers’ is also not in Chambers, but the OED has it and again, the meaning is transparent in a lovely clue.) Prince Charles’s polo accident predictably cropped up in many clues too.
 
Referring to my use of FOUGASSE in the puzzle, one of the old guard recollected that the cartoonist Kenneth Bird (aka Fougasse of ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ fame) was one of the guests at the dinner held to mark Ximenes’s 100th crossword. The others were Afrit and Ivor Brown.
 
Just too late for the last slip came the sad news of Mrs Norah Jarman’s death. ‘She was’, writes her close friend Betty Simmonds, ‘a Torquemada solver and a Ximenes fan from the very beginning and some of her early clues are famous.’ I still use her prize-winning Printer’s Devilry clue to MINARET in an early Azed competition as the illustrative example in my PD preamble (‘Bunter whine starts, with jaw open: "Cease – condone – Wharton, please!’). As well as a gifted clue-writer Norah was a delightful person, and attended at least two of the Azed dinners. According to her daughter (and occasional competitor) Anne Boyes she never lost her fascination with words, and was devising anagrams of hospital notices and menus to the very end. I’m sure she’ll be greatly missed.