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Azed slip No 2,621

RIBALD

1 R. J. Heald: Queen in Balmoral departs, a symbol of history gone, leaving us blue (R i’ Bal(moral) d).

2 M. Barley: See such characters appearing regularly in bawdy Rabelais work (anag. of alternate letters & lit.).

3 H. Freeman: Regularly crude, as B. Hill turn? (anag. of alternate letters & lit.; ref. Benny Hill).

VHC

D. Appleton: In fun wife starts to act lewdly ‒ decidedly facetious (rib + first letters).

A. Brash: Did Rabelais put out such ideas? (comp. anag. & lit.).

Dr J. Burscough: With this rogue’s outburst, air’d go bluer (comp. anag. & lit.).

R. Emerson: Mean COVID finally left brain mostly scrambled (anag. incl. D, l less n).

G. I. L. Grafton: Dispose of bottles left after pub’s closure, about a gross (a in b, l in rid).

M. Lloyd-Jones: Racy, like The Pilgarlick almost clear in front (ri(d) + bald; ref. Grand National horse).

P. W. Marlow: Broad bowled a short length in much of spell on top? (b, a, l in rid(e); ref. Stuart B., England bowler).

S. J. O’Boyle: Cunningly, ʼtis Blackadder stacked with such humour ‒ or Baldrick? (comp. anag.).

J. Pearce: Initially Rishi applauded Liz’s deeds ‒ but it turned mean (anag. of first letters).

N. Roper: Truss cut short in purge ‒ Speaker being offensive? (bal(e) in rid).

T. Rudd: Blue reshuffle needed after bad liar loses last bit of charisma (anag. less a).

Dr S. J. Shaw: Essentially scurrilous and verbally extremely lewd (central and outer letter pairs, & lit.).

P. L. Stone: Shambolic Boris is gone, KO finally delivered, laid low (anag. less is, O).

A. J. Varney: Base core of building on architects’ letters (RIBA + ld).

J. Vincent & Ms R. Porter: Bits of Donne’s lyrics are immensely bawdy ‒ really astonishingly coarse! (anag. of first letters).

L. Ward (USA): Raunchy wife starts to lead admiring divorcé astray (rib + anag. of first letters).

A. Whittaker: Licentious French dance in shift (bal in rid).

HC

T. Anderson, R. Bowden, C.J. Brougham, Mrs S. Brown, Ms C. Carstairs, D. Carter, A. G. Chamberlain, C. A. Clarke, M. Coates, V. Dixon (Ireland), J. Doylend, W. Drever, A. Gerrard, R. Gilbert, J. Grimes, E. Hall, S. Hazir (Pakistan), P. F. Henderson (New Zealand), P. Jenkinson (Switzerland), G. Johnstone, J. C. Leyland, M. Lunan, Dr R. A. Main, D. F. Manley, P. McKenna, J. R. C. Michie, C. G. Millin, B. Pasupathy (India), R. A. Pinnock, A. Plumb, M. Price, D. Price Jones, W. Ransome, A. D. Scott, D. P. Shenkin, A. J. Shields, N. G. Shippobotham, I. Simpson, P. A. Stephenson, R. C. Teuton, Prof. M. O. J. Thomas (New Zealand), Mrs A. M. Walden, A. J. Wardrop, T. West-Taylor, R. J. Whale, R. Zara.

Comments

A modest entry, only 136 in all, the only mistake I spotted being (oddly) one WARE HOOP for WAR WHOOP. Much has happened in the last month, what with the election of the new PM and, of course, the death and subsequent funeral of the late Queen, which dominated our screens for several days. The former event was exploited by quite a number of competitors, while Mr Heald was I think alone in concentrating on the royal events, with his superb winner.

Favourite clue of the month, of 12 mentioned, was, by a long way, ‘One such (though not born abroad)’ for CAPO, despite the fact that several expressed uncertainty about how the clue actually worked (‘But where’s the definition?’, and so on). It refers of course to Al Capone, the ruthless US gangster born in New York City who flourished during the Prohibition years but was ultimately convicted on multiple charges of tax evasion. My self-referential clue was certainly unusual and I had misgivings about it myself before deciding that it was fair, if only just (and hard to resist).

Rather unexpectedly, I have received from the publishers (Chambers Harrap) a ‘revised thirteenth edition’ of The Chambers Dictionary, published in 2016. The extent of the revision is nowhere explained, and I rather think that ‘corrected edition’ would be more accurate, but I shall refer to it as the 2016 edition in future. I’m sure you don’t need to replace your existing copy for the time being. Let us all just hope that the dictionary itself survives even though the Chambers imprint is effectively no more.