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This is my first ever Azed and what a treat it was too.

So many great clues, but I think my favourite has to be 7d.

Hear hear Brendan.

His love of words is palpable and it is for me a Sunday treat to turn to when The Listener is too hard for me, which is very often!

I liked 30, very devious!

Hi Brendan, I like Azed crosswords so much, I'm working my way through the archive....again! 1 per day, as far as I can before using Chambers, then a 1hr limit. It's pretty good exercise for the Listener and the Inquisitor and it's slightly disturbing how little is remembered on tackling one from a few years ago!

Hi Kt17,

30d - Devious indeed, and I initially chose the wrong spelling, which made 32a more difficult than it should have been.

I'm looking forward to doing some previous ones during the week:-)

Hi Granama,

Apart from the puzzle itself, one of the things I particularly like is that, in addition to the solution being shown, the parsings are also given, which is always welcome:-)

Welcome to AZED. It's the reason that I've taken the Observer for 50 years. However I can't parse 15a: "Mixture of strong beers packed quite a punch". (6) I think I have the word. C-OP-R.

Stout and porter mixed (and Henry)

Thanks Alto,

15a - Is a double definition, with one being the name of a 'brut(e)' (geddit 😉) who "packed quite a punch":-)

For my trawl through the archive I use 15squared to resolve the 'have answer but can't parse' issues.
The result is that I can now (usually) complete each new one reasonably promptly each Sunday.
They are a delightful wander through the more mysterious and often long-forgotten corners of the language. Just completed one with Rhadamanthine, costrel, scelerate, cham and threnetical in!

Thanks Granama,

What a great collection. Needless to say I didn't know any of them but - Chambers to the rescue:-)

I don't want to appear like a cham or unnecessarily Rhadamanthine or scelerate so, while I take a swig from my costrel, I'll just say that trying to use them in a sentence would is extremely difficult and may even cause me to wail in a threnetical manner😜