I didn’t find this one terribly hard, and made good progress for a while. I eventually got stuck and went to bed. Returning the next day, I got a few more. I was still stuck in the NE corner, but suddenly I saw how khoikhoi worked and was able to use those crossing letters to finish.
I thought the puzzle was pretty good, with some obscure words that were very fairly clued, and a couple of easy answers to get started.
| Across | |
| 1 | Aptly running after a vintage jade wallpaper (9) |
| ANAGLYPTA – Anagram of APTLY after A NAG. | |
| 11 | A mass with organ — my work of 2023? (7) |
| MAN-YEAR – MANY + EAR, with DBE for the literal. | |
| 12 | Bring back hot principal girl (5) |
| NIAMH – H + MAIN backwards | |
| 13 | A mostly sparse tree (4) |
| ARAR – A + RAR[e] | |
| 14 | Repeatedly carp about hard African language (8) |
| KHOIKHOI – K(H)OI + K(H)OI. The clue isn’t kidding – those South African tribal languages with clicking sounds are tough. | |
| 15 | Check past distribution of beer around the country (6) |
| REBUKE – UK inside an anagram of BEER. | |
| 16 | Follower in church row between chapter and bishop (5) |
| COARB – C(OAR)B. The medieval Irish church, for instance. | |
| 18 | Messenger pigeon, one used in combined operations (6) |
| NUNCIO – NUN + C(I)O, familiar to many from the Papal nuncio. | |
| 20 | Grew old around father with late onset disease (8) |
| WATERPOX – W(ATER-P)OX. The first letter of PATER is moved to the rear, and the historically correct preterite of wax is used. Weaxan was a Class VII strong verb, but quickly became weak everywhere except Northumbria. | |
| 23 | What’s written about Persia in atlas is confused with Qatar (8) |
| NASTALIQ -Anagram of ATLAS IS plus Q, a one-letter country abbreviation. | |
| 25 | Braid trim not edged mostly split (6) |
| RICRAC – [t]RI[m] + CRAC]k]. | |
| 28 | Dumbledore bee seen among alliums regularly (5) |
| ALBUS – A[l]L(B)[i]U[m]S. You won’t get this from Chambers – what we have here is popular culture. | |
| 30 | Dotted line included by calligrapher that’s not special (6) |
| CRIBLE – [s]CRIB(L)E. | |
| 31 | Low standard award for beach (8, two words) |
| BLUE FLAG – BLUE + FLAG. Here the cryptic is obvious,but many solvers will not know the literal. | |
| 32 | Ready in Bangladesh, volunteers serve old (4) |
| TAKA – TA + KA. Yes, ka is an old word meaning serve, origin unknown. | |
| 33 | Boy emptied large collection-box for kirk (5) |
| LADLE – LAD + L[arg]E. Solvers want to put L for large, but here you must follow the instructions. | |
| 34 | Are those against current society feeling not understood? (7) |
| ANOESIS – A + NOES + I + S, a compendium of popular cryptic bits. | |
| 35 | Fatty excess in US — hear robes must be altered (9) |
| SEBORRHEA – Anagram of HEAR ROBES. It would be seberrhoea in the UK. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | God after new ways to inspire? (5) |
| NARES – N+ ARES. | |
| 3 | A catch at international caught moving upwards (8) |
| ANABATIC – A + NAB + AT + I + C. | |
| 4 | Ridge captured by dodgy Russians (5) |
| GYRUS – Hidden in [dod]GY RUS[sians], among other things they might be hiding. | |
| 5 | Pleasant African display ground supported by king and queen (6) |
| LEKKER – LEK + K +ER. A lek is an area where male birds offer displays during the mating season. | |
| 6 | Snooper small town’s put up before beak (8) |
| PRODNOSE – DORP upside-down + NOSE. | |
| 7 | Answer phone? Just the reverse, no? (6) |
| AIKONA -A +NOKIA backwards, more African slang. | |
| 8 | Work alone in Perth upset with Australian weaver (4) |
| TAHA – HAT upside down (Australian slang) + A. I’m not sure where the A comes from, perhaps Australian? | |
| 9 | Winged figures set up in one capital (7) |
| AMORINI – IN + I + ROMA upside-down. | |
| 10 | Tobacco pipe order incomplete, small shop’s put out note (9) |
| CHIBOUQUE – CHI[t] + BOU[ti]QUE. | |
| 15 | Note deceit about pub coming up ready for new electrics? (9) |
| REWIRABLE – RE + WI(BAR upside-down)LE. | |
| 17 | ESA facility bundle terminal parts to skyrocket (8) |
| SPACELAB – BALE + CAPS upside down, presumably electrical caps, although other interpretations may be possible. | |
| 19 | Fruit starter of clafoutis as cooked in batter (8) |
| CALABASH – C[lafoutis] + ALA + BASH. | |
| 21 | Take all nine with one running up — underarm (7) |
| AXILLAR – R + ALL + IX + A, all upside-down. | |
| 22 | Severe second illness for Macbeth (6) |
| CRUELS – CRUEL + S. | |
| 24 | Full state overturned king during riot (6) |
| TURGOR – RO(GR)UT, all upside-down. | |
| 26 | Row about time which US uses for complete change of solution? (5) |
| TITER – TI(T)ER, the US spelling. | |
| 27 | Drunkard — first of two ejected from film (5) |
| ALKIE – [t]ALKIE. | |
| 29 | Begin to develop ordinary ethos for martial arts (4) |
| BUDO – BUD + O. | |
The spelling SIBORRHEA and SPACELAB are also not in Chambers, but easily deduced. Managed to complete this in one sitting..
31A: Aside from “blue flag” having a Chambers entry, a search for it plus the name of a British newspaper should get you a fair number of hits. The C def is a bit old – the blue flag scheme is no longer just for EU becahes.
8D: Yes, Australian is one of the 40+ things that A stands for in C.
BLUE FLAG came up in another cryptic puzzle recently, so it was a write-in. Got through this with minimal fuss, fun puzzle.
Very enjoyable puzzle from John Grimshaw
It took me a while to sort out 20ac WATERPOX. But very satisfying when I did: discovering “wox” as an obsolete past tense of “wax” to grow. Thanks a lot for the extra information about this: that’s lovely.
Also, I had trouble seeing the components in 17d SPACELAB. “Bale” for “bundle” eventually came first. Then Chambers has “cap” = “the uppermost or terminal part of anything”.