Back to Scotland again this week with Muriel SPARK. More than Everyman’s usual share of weak surfaces though: e.g. 9A, 2D, 5D, 17D. The rest are quite good though so perhaps this isn’t such a bad trawl.
Across
| 9 | ORMOLU – (loo, rum)*, ”rum” is fodder not the anagrind which it often is. |
| 11 | CHRONIC,L[owgrad]E – CHRONIC is “very bad” as in the slang “something chronic” sense. CHRONICLE’s our “record” (elsewhere, record is CD). |
| 13 | P(A,G[uru])AN |
| 14 | ONCE OR T,W,ICE – (coronet)*. ICE for “diamonds”. |
| 18 | BRIGHT, SPARK – two famous Brits: the first ref. John BRIGHT (Radical 19C politician) and second ref. Muriel SPARK the Scots novelist. |
| 22 | GREEN,HORN – trivia fans might want to know that GREENHORN appeared in Everyman 3162 as well. |
| 24 | GANYMEDE – (men, edgy)*. |
| 26 | END,ANGER – “nark” can mean annoy or needle thus ANGER. |
| 27 | O,BE(YE)D – lovely suggestive surface: “Complied with demands, making love with you in bed”. |
Down
| 1 | CHOP-CHOP – good surface: def is “quickly” (must be derived from pidgin I would think). |
| 2 | LIME,RICK – RICK is a “stack” of hay. |
| 3 | COLON[y] – if you didn’t already, you now know that the COLON is Costa Rican currency. |
| 5 | A(B)IDE WITH ME – B in (The maid, I we)* and it’s a hymn (also British as it happens). |
| 6 | STOP, PRESS – in the wordplay PRESS is a “crowd” and in the def it’s a newspaper. |
| 7 | O,RANGE – our second “Fruit – “ clue (see 2D). |
| 8 | TYRANT – hidden in “parTY RAN Tanzania” with a convincing surface. |
| 12 | CUTTING EDGE – sometimes now called the “bleeding edge” which is consistent with biting your lip! |
| 16 | MAHOGANY – I didn’t know this was an “old Cornish drink” but it is according to Google and Chambers has it as “gin and treacle”. |
| 17 | SKIN,HEAD – rather weak surface (not I hope referring to his fellow Independent setter). |
| 19 | MAN,GLE=leg* – my last clue. Not hard but I wanted it to be a containment clue. |
| 20 | C(ANNE)D – Brit slang for “drunk”. “Record” this time is CD. |
Anyone who glances at The Everyman Book of Crosswords will see that the ‘surfaces’ are pretty good.I’ve never seen a piece of utter nonsense from my Sunday colleague! Everyman is generally easy, but Ilan is being maybe a little uncharacteristically harsh on this occasion.
My phrasing was unintentionally harsh: i meant to say that typically Everyman clues have excellent surfaces indeed — thus the 3 or 4 weakish clues this week were unusual.