Posted by The Trafites on January 3rd, 2010
Nick: My first blog on AZED and luckily it was a (fairly!) straight forward plod after the herculean ‘Christmas Parcels’ competition (and what a word to clue to boot!). Some nice words this week (as usual) and also nice to learn some real meanings of words that get lost in modern day parlance.
Superscript numbers¹²³ refer to headwords listed in Chambers (2008).
Legend to solution comments:
* = anagram.
< = word(s) reversed.
d.d. = double definition.
c.d.d. = cryptic double definition.
|1.||CHRESTOMATHIC||(THAT’S MORE)* in CHIC|
|11.||OOMPH||(HP + MOO)< ; ‘that’s it’ = sex appeal = oomph.
I spent ages trying to parse the word play of this clue as 00 MPH.
|13.||COMMO||COMMO(n) ; Trot(skyist/skyite) = communist – Aust. slang.|
|15.||OTTOMAN||OTT + (the Sultanate of) OMAN|
|16.||REMEDIAL||(c)REME + DIAL|
|19.||LATEST||LA + TEST|
|22.||WRASSE||WASSER with the tail ‘R’ moved to the second position.
I am still not sure ‘German river’ could mean wasser, as I could only find wasser = water. (See comments below about this clue).
|24.||ANTIMATTER||A NATTER around TIM ; ayurveda = Traditional Indian Medicine.|
|29.||LORDLIKE||(KILLED)* around OR ; Ref. Lord Lucan.
A sort of &LIT. – maybe AZED knows more than the police?
|30.||TIBETAN||(BITTEN)* around A
A Tibetan terrier is not a terrier, hence the strange definition of ‘misnamed terrier’.
|31.||PLIM||LIMP with the ‘P’ moved to the front.|
|32.||ANILE||ANI + LE|
|33.||MANET||d.d. Apart from the artist, manet is a direction for an actor/actress to remain on stage.|
|34.||MAGISTRATURES||MATURES around (A GIST + R)|
|1.||CAPROLACTAM||(CAROL)* inbetween CAP and TAM|
|2.||HOLEY||HO + LEY|
|3.||ROOMETTE||(TOME)* in ROTE³|
|4.||SPADES||c.d.d. suit = ♠; spade³ = spado – a castrated person; the word ‘alter¹(ed)’ once meant to castrate(d).
The ‘we’ in this clue indicates the plural is required, hence spados = spades.
This was the last clue I solved, even though with the checking letters and the obvious definition it
had to be SPADES; it took me over 4 hours and lots of beer to parse the clue correctly.
The full clue: ‘Suit we got altered years ago‘
A tour de force from AZED.
|5.||THAIM||hidden: perTH AIMless
Sneaky – with Perth in there the solver could expect a Scottish or Australian ref.
|6.||MATLOW||MAT + LOW
Being from Pompey, and as my Father was a matlow, this came quickly.
The ‘seaman’ part was a nice detraction though, leading solvers to expect an AB ~TAR et al
in there somewhere.
|7.||ACTOR||AC + TOR|
|8.||TOOT²||T + (TOO)<|
|9.||IMAGES||IS around MAGE
A single wise king is a magus -> mage, hence the three (as plural) are magi.
|10.||CONTRETEMPS||(T + ENTER)* in COMPS
‘comps’ = ‘monthly AZ(ed) affairs’ – very nice.
|12.||SOAPSTONE||SOAPS + TONE|
|17.||ASSAILER||(A LASS IRE)*
Very loose definition I thought.
|20.||ANGINA||(p)ANG + IN + A
There you go – I learnt something new with what this word really meant.
|21.||TALANT||T + A + (p)LANT ALAN T(itchmarsh)
A pun sort of clue Ref. Monty Don, TV gardener.
Monty D(on) implies what he does is (p)LANT. See comment #2 – I parsed this clue totally wrong, but arrived at the correct solution
‘single’ = a hawk’s talon, of which TALANT is Spensers form.
So simple for an AZED clue I did not go for this at first.
|25.||MITES||hidden: herMIT ESurient|
|26.||TREMA||T + REMA(in)|
|27.||SKITE||S + KIT + E
Another Aust. word, hence ‘Ponting’, Australian cricketer, as the indicator.
Superior is almost superfluous (KIT higher up than E), but was needed/added to make
the clue surface reading parse nicely I feel.
Another ‘so obvious’ type clue that makes it quite difficult.
I spent ages messing about with ‘delicate’, trying to remove the ‘cate’ part.