There are several features of ‘the new Everyman’: rhyming answers (although I always have trouble finding these — Quito – Cointreau?), the ‘Primarily’ clue, which always provides a nice easy way in, the clues to these (as here) often being very clever, the reference to Everyman as ‘me’ which so far as I can see always appears quietly somewhere (in 12ac this time), and possibly others. Within these restrictions we are usually nowadays given a sound crossword. My criticisms below tend to be very minor. One might carp about the fact that there are as many as three (I think) reversals of the whole thing.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (hidden, reversal, homophone, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated (like this)* or *(this).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | LIQUID LUNCHES |
£51 uncle’s blown, consuming hot ‘meals’ that are really just booze (6,7)
|
| h in (LI quid (uncle’s)*) — h = hot, £51 is 51 quid, and 51 in Roman numerals is LI | ||
| 8 | ANTI |
Opposed to Protestantism to some extent (4)
|
| Hidden in ProtestANTIsm | ||
| 9 | TIGER WOODS |
Time one German given clubs (he’s a golfer) (5,5)
|
| t 1 Ger. woods — t = time, 1 = One = i, Ger. = German, and the golf clubs are woods, not that many woods exist nowadays since they’re all metal, but for some reason they are usually still called woods | ||
| 10 | LABOUR |
Work party (6)
|
| 2 defs | ||
| 11 | TED HEATH |
PM‘s body parts in Spooner’s speech (3,5)
|
| Spooner would have said ‘head teeth’, both of which are body parts — Ted Heath was Prime Minister from 1970 to 1974 | ||
| 12 | VOICEMAIL |
Message in very odd parts of zodiac wanting flipping Everyman to irritate (5,4)
|
| v [z]o[d]i[a]c (me)rev. ail — v = very, me = Everyman, ail = irritate (not all that happy with this, since ‘ail’ is given in the Oxford dictionaries as archaic, and anyway in its transitive sense it means to trouble or something like that, not quite the same as to irritate) | ||
| 14 | GLAD |
Cheerful boy, by George (to begin with) (4)
|
| G[eorge] lad — ‘by’ doesn’t say that it’s in any particular order | ||
| 15 | SHIA |
Primarily, someone honouring ‘Infallible Ali’? (4)
|
| s[omeone] h[onouring] ‘I[nfallible]’ A[li] — the ‘primarily’ clue that has become a regular in Everyman crosswords and is a CAD (I wonder if in the attempt to simplify and introduce the acronym CAD we have actually made it harder than the old &lit. — we need to know that ‘CAD’ stands for ‘clue as definition’) | ||
| 16 | DELFTWARE |
Dishes sent back: long time, wait with only sides cleared off (9)
|
| (era w[ai]t fled)rev. — era = long time, fled = cleared off | ||
| 20 | ANATHEMA |
‘Curse of marijuana’ – the Mail (8)
|
| Hidden in marijuANA THE MAil — ‘of’ is the hidden indicator, which some people find a bit thin | ||
| 21 | RIBALD |
Indecent bridal pants (6)
|
| (bridal)* — ‘pants’ seems to be an increaingly popular anagram indicator nowadays, because of its other meaning — again not universally popular | ||
| 23 | BETELGEUSE |
Star, Ringo perhaps, announced: ‘Good, EU’s beginning to evaporate’ (10)
|
| “Beatle” g EU’s e[vaporate] — this star, which according to Chambers can be pronounced in this way, although I’d always thought the first syllable was as in ‘bet’, unless one is being facetious and calling it ‘Beetlejuice’, as in the film | ||
| 24 | REAR |
Nurse‘s backside (4)
|
| 2 defs — to nurse is to rear, sort of: a mother nurses/rears her baby | ||
| 25 | LAUGHTER LINES |
Little wrinkles, removing head in butchery jobs (8,5)
|
| [s]laughter lines — slaughter = butchery, lines = jobs (as in ‘what line are you in?’) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | LONG-AGO |
Behold! ‘New joke’ at first originated in ancient past (4-3)
|
| lo! n gag o[riginated] — lo! = Behold!, n = new, gag = joke, and ‘at first’ applies to ‘originated’ | ||
| 2 | QUITO |
Low-carb diet’s sound in Ecuador’s capital (5)
|
| I’d never heard of this, but apparently Keto is a type of low-fat diet, so it’s “Keto”, which sounds like the capital of Ecuador — I was a bit thrown at first because another thing I found out is that there is some dispute over what actually is the capital of Ecuador and how it’s named, but my comfortable memory proved correct here | ||
| 3 | INTERIM |
Italian footballers on WhatsApp, perhaps finding caretaker (7)
|
| Inter IM — Inter is the Italian football team Inter Milan, IM is short for Instant Messaging, something you can do on WhatsApp, ‘caretaker’ is an adjective as in ‘caretaker manager’ | ||
| 4 | LIGHT LITERATURE |
Easy reading – e.g. taut thriller – I ordered (5,10)
|
| (e.g. taut thriller I)* | ||
| 5 | NERUDA |
Regularly suppressing anger round a poet (6)
|
| [a}n{g}e{r} r{o}u{n}d a — this refers to the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-73) | ||
| 6 | HOOKE’S LAW |
What you may get when boxed salad accommodates a little ethical principle (6,3)
|
| hook (e[thical}) slaw — you may get hit by a hook when boxing, slaw = salad | ||
| 7 | SEDATED |
On drugs, southern English getting old-fashioned (7)
|
| s E dated — s = southern, E = English, dated = old-fashioned | ||
| 13 | COINTREAU |
Citron mixed with water in French drink (9)
|
| (Citron)* eau — ‘eau’ is ‘water in French’ | ||
| 15 | SAND EEL |
Fish from south not available in W Yorks city (4,3)
|
| (Leed(n/a)s)rev. — n/a = not available, the West Yorks city is Leeds | ||
| 17 | FOR REAL |
The French female admitting mistake, largely shown up – seriously! (3,4)
|
| (la erro[r] f)rev. — la = the in French, f = female, error = mistake | ||
| 18 | RELOADS |
Scrappy Sea Lord arms cannon again? (7)
|
| *(Sea Lord) | ||
| 19 | LENGTH |
Giving up iodine, lighten up for duration (6)
|
| (l[i]ghten)* — i = iodine, and it is omitted from ‘lighten’ and the remaining letters are anagrammed, indicated by ‘up’ | ||
| 22 | BYRON |
How Hermione had a child, a poet (5)
|
| Hermione Granger in Harry Potter had a child by Ron Weasley I gather |
6dn in this crossword is clearly an in-joke for the benefit of people who remember 8dn in Everyman 3911.
Really enjoyed this puzzle and, John E @1, I too was surprised at the appearance of HOOKES LAW so soon after the previous reference to Hooke – but I did like it.
My favourite was BETELGEUSE which made me laugh. Also liked QUITO, SAND EEL, FOR REAL, LAUGHTER LINES
Thanks Everyman and John
I solved this quite quickly. Needed some online help for the GK.
Favourites: BYRON, LIQUID LUNCHES, DELFTWARE, NERUDA.
New for: HOOKE’S LAW, SAND EEL; and “Keto” = a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet for 2d.
Thanks, both.
My LOI was DELFTWARE which was a good note to finish on. Overall I found it not too hard as my printout still has a decent amount of white space. After a Vlad every piece of white space is full of various ideas and approaches!
Particularly liked TED HEATH and BYRON.
There isn’t any rhyming in this one, but there is alliteration (liquid lunches paired with laughter lines and both serving as bookends for light literature).
As with CanberraGirl Delftware was last to drop, having rumaged through various foods and no knowledge of Dutch cookware. Other that that I found this Everyman much easier than recent offerings, but still fun. Thanks John & Everyman.
John E@5 I think this is Everyman’s 6,7 Aliteration Grid.
Yes, Everyman’s favoured grid for the 1a, 4d, 25a alliteration pattern again here. We’ve had R rabble rousing, B bunsen burners, C cruise control, M murder mystery, S secret service, G get the giggles, C county council and most recently P pyjama parties as 1a entires using this grid. Now we can add L liquid lunches. Of course it only works when 1a is enumerated as (6,7) so that the start of the second word is the start of 4d, which is rather neat.
Thanks Everyman and thanks John for the blog.
Thanks for the blog and thanks Jay@8 , like to keep track of these, it may be an anagram.
Enjoyed this , especially Delftware and Betelgeuse , although I say it very differently.
It is actually one of the easiest stars to find and identify, in about a month Orion will dominate our night sky in the South and is the easiest constellation to find. Betelgeuse is the left shoulder and clearly red. Rigel is the right foot and clearly blue, one of the very few naked eye blue stars. This is Northern hemisphere only.
Thanks Everyman and John. This was, as you say, all sound fare.
I said in my comment on Tramp yesterday that it’s about time we had a moratorium on ‘Harry [Kane/Potter et al]’. Please also add ‘pants’ to the list. Was it Paul who first used it? I remember thinking at least it had some novelty value when I first saw it, though I’ve never been wholly convinced by it as an anagram indicator, but setters across the pantheon seem to have embraced it with undue enthusiasm and it is now terribly overused. Seems to appear at least once a week…
On a more positive note, I’m happy with ‘of’ as a hidden indicator, and thought ANATHEMA was nicely clued. Also liked LONG-AGO, SAND EEL, NERUDA and the nicely worked anagram for LIGHT LITERATURE. Not sure whether to smile or groan at BYRON.
The pleasure of discovering a new word from crossword wordplay, a Jorum, has often been noted. This puzzle provided it’s counterpart, the pleasure of discovering a new fact from the wordplay, a BYRON.
NERUDA was my first thought on seeing the N but I told myself no, you can’t just biff in the first poet that comes to mind so I left it til later 🙂
I once saw Neruda’s work being performed by David Soul at a festival. Sadly not a duet with Starsky but very good nonetheless
I was beginning to lose heart with Guardian crosswords recently. Everyman and Quiptic kept being far too hard and had no consistency. This one was great. Maybe my way of thinking just matched the setter, but I thought it was pitched perfectly. A great puzzle for new solvers to try.
Good, straightforward Everyman.
I thought ANATHEMA was particularly well hidden. The surface of 12A was rather weird, I thought.
Thanks Everyman and John.
Beaten by 22D. My Potter knowledge not up to scratch obviously. Didn’t know she ends up with Ron. Betelgeuse was great.
widdersbel @10: yes, “pants” is becoming very common and now immediately makes you think “anagram indicator” when you see it. But I actually thought it was really good in 21a RIBALD, making for a great surface. I also really liked 1a LIQUID LUNCHES.
John, I know what you mean about CAD (at 15a). Perhaps the answer is simply to spell it out as “clue as definition” which is surely much more understandable to beginners than “&lit”.
Many thanks Everyman and John.
I suppose SAND EEL and FOR REAL is a rhyming pair.
I see no reason to exchange CAD for &lit in the general parlance. More important is that people get what &lit clues actually are. Primarily, that is.
I rather agree with you paul b, but you and I are both old conservatives.
What’s the origin of &lit? Is it and literally? paulb@19 You had me trying to make some sense of the first letters of the words in your post. That’s what “primarily” means on Sunday.
When my father was training as a pilot in WWII and learning navigation, he was taught to pronounce BETElGEUSE as “BETT-el-ge(r)z”. Of course, all the trainee pilots called it beetlejuice because it was funny.
Imagine my horror when checking the pronunciation to find that the joke pronununciation is nowadays the preferred one. Though that was from an American who pronounce “Orion” as if it were a chocolate biscuit + N, and not as if it were an Irish name “O’Ryan”. I can see I will have to change all the pronunciations I learned as a child. Apart from leading to that horrifying revelation, I thought it was a great clue.
Great crossword, thanks to Everyman and John.
Petert @21: yes it is. Ximenes, in the chapter of “On the Art Of the Crossword” entitled “&Lit Clues”, says that this type of clue:
calls for a good deal of explanation, since the name I have given it for the sake of brevity is not self-explanatory and has from time to time caused misunderstanding among my solver-competitors.
I’m inclined to agree with Pierre, who invented “CAD”, that “clue as definition” is much more readily understandable without explanation.
Like you, I respect Pierre. I’m sure DSM too would have doffed his cap.
I personally quite like Peter Biddlecombe’s idea of the ‘extended definition’, which would surely cover the vast majority of efforts at clues &lit we come across here and elsewhere in Crosswordland.
Deep Thought @22 The American pronunciation of Orion is indeed
O’Ryan.” I’ve never heard anybody in the US or out of it pronounce it ay other way.
I do not exactly say O’Ryan, the Ryan bit yes but a shorter O sound , I do not know how to express it really, Can anyone help ?
Roz, re Orion:
The first ‘O’ is either a schwa ( ə ) or an open back rounded vowel ( ɒ ), the latter pronounced like the ‘o’ in ‘cot’ in RP. In American English it can also be pronounced /oʊ/ – like the ‘O‘ in O’Ryan.
[By the way, Roz @9, thanks for the further info re BETELGEUSE. I don’t want to appear over-excitable, but this from National Geographic suggests that it could be about to explode spectacularly, “briefly blazing brighter than the full moon before vanishing from our night sky forever”.]
[John: intriguingly, your BETELGEUSE link leads to a (thus far) commentless 15² page entitled ‘this’, on which appears an image of FT puzzle 15,669 by Dante from about four years ago, blogged at the time by Sil. I scanned it quickly for references to astronomical objects and found SPIRALS and CENTAURS, but no soon-to-be supernovae 😉 ]
Many thanks Everyman and John. I thought ANATHEMA was a nice dig at dailymailery, and LOL’d at BY-RON.
P.S. I’m sure I remember Patrick Moore pronouncing ‘Bételgeuse’ à la française.
Roz@26, I usually hear the “O” in Irish names as a schwa sound, though I do appreciate that Americans do things differently (eg the rhotic “R”)
I should like to do to American English as they do to our version. From now on I will insist that Ohio is pronounced “OH-ee-oh” (to avoid confusion with the Japanese for “Good morning”) and that Oregon is pronounced “O’Regan” (to preserve the balance of Irish placenames) 🙂
Thank you MrEssexBoy and Deep Thought , yes a short O sound like in cot or Oregon .
Betelguese is indeed a good candidate for the next nearby supernova , as is Rigel, much brighter than a full moon and clearly visible in daylight too for several weeks. Both are imminent , almost certainly within the next million years.
As for pronouncing Betelgeuse I follow the Arabic astronomers that I have heard at conferences .
Bettel , like metal and gurze like furze .
I tell a lie – it was an American with a foreign accent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4ho1Cj265A
Roz@32, yes, most star names derive from Arabic. Keep up the good work!
[Roz @31 I am relieved to hear that the “imminent” spectacular explosion and subsequent disappearance of Betelgeuse is *imminent* in terms of space timing. Orion is the only constellation I can recognise with certainty and I would hate it to change.)
Fiona Anne a million years is the blink of an eye for stars. We are actually due a visible supernova , records seem to show about every 400 years on average and Kepler’s Supernova was the last in 1604.
In another month Orion will be spectacular for the whole of winter.
Very odd. Goodness knows why my Betelgeuse link led where it did. It was meant I think to lead to a Wikipedia page about Betelgeuse. But never mind: if anyone wants that page they can easily Google it.
It has four common pronunciations according to its wiki page, which might turn the odd compiler away from doing a soundalike clue for it. It’s also 600 light-years away. So if it blows up in our telescopes sometime between now and 2621, it’s already exploded.
[Last time I was advised of an imminent astrophysical event on these pages, it turned out I was expected to sit in my garden for two and a half million years to see it. Is this one coming along any sooner?]
[PM @38: I defer to Roz of course, but if you think of waiting for light from Andromeda as like watching a Geoffrey Boycott century, Betelgeuse should explode before he reaches 40, and possibly before he even gets off the mark.
And by the time the Clangers/Andromedans themselves get close enough to whistle at, they’ll have missed the fireworks by several billion years 🙁 ]
[ Supernovae are also the most creative events in the universe , all the iron in the Earth’s core , all the iron in your blood came from earlier supernova explosions. ]
Very straightforward this week, nothing too taxing although a couple that required rather obscure general knowledge. I thought the Harry Potter characters were children – we all grow up I guess!
DNF. Failed on a few, well, gave up but seeing the answers (Hookes Law, Delftware, the Beatle thing) I would have had to on-lined as my GK doesn’t extend that far.
‘Of’ as HW indicator is slender indeed.
Nice puzzle. Betelgeuse was brilliant – although I did expect it to spark discussion on correct pronunciation. Anathema well clued. Byron made me laugh – only got it because I had the B and the N first. Thanks all.