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In N... fifth and last letters are missing

And in the longest unclued entry, which begins with an unusual letter, the 9th & last letters are missing.

Thanks Merenz, thanks Kirky, thanks Son1ofrover1,

I do have the Chambers phone app but, until now, never knew what the * function was for. However, as per your suggestion, I put it before, in between and after the letters I already have and, hey presto! I now have both the long across words:-)

Brendan, glad you got all your deficiencies sorted out - and you picked up an app skill along the way!

Hi Malone,

Alas, I think the biggest deficiency is me:-( The number of times I miss a definition, or worse, discount it without even looking (examples are this week's Listener - "nix" for "cave" and "bounce" for "lie"). Still, as you say, I think this new found function in the Chambers app will spare me countless hours of frustration:-)

Thanks, Brendan. I'm sure your shortcomings as bad as you're making out!

Have you got round to EV?

Not yet, I'm just tidying up the Inquisitor and will start on the EV this evening.

Brendan, I wouldn't worry too much about 'nix' and 'cave'. It really is pretty oblique, like much of this weeks Listener. It was only a post about tea-crossword-helper and wordweb that clued me in to how some of these things get solved. Personally I like rummaging through my paper version of Chambers but it seems more and more that setters are expecting computers to solve things. Happily Azed isn't one of them so stick with it. (:o)

Hi Granama1,

I do like the paper version of my thesaurus and dictionaries but I'd be lost without word search engines, anagram solvers and access to the internet in general. I think last week's Listener, for example, involving different sets, would be nigh on impossible to solve without Google.

Oh I use anagram solvers and the internet and have very recently loaded the Chambers apps but the idea that you can put, say, xlo into a search engine and find a 3d version of a pixel seems a step too far imho. The fact that some compilers expect it seems to lead to a golden horizon where we compare to see who has the best software, just feed in the puzzle and, hey presto! solved. I think that's why I love the balance that Azed has, every clue is perfectly formed, mostly you can work out a solution then find out why it's right rather than vv (apart from the usual Scottish colloquialisms!).

This weeks Azed and Inquisitor were really quite good, the Listener was an eye-opener as to how the ninja level puzzles are set and solved.