The Observer crossword from Feb 17, 2019
Not a crossword that could be finished during my Sunday brunch, I’m afraid. But – hurrah – I did finish it (without making any mistakes)! And, did I like it?
Yes, we all know Everyman made a false re-start. But what is it actually, an Everyman crossword?
Last Sunday, at ‘comment’ no 12, one of the previous setters (Allan Scott) made some interesting remarks.
I, for one, thought that Everyman puzzles frequently had cultural references (film, music, literature) in them and deliberately so.
These were missing recently and so I was pleased to find that 1ac did something to turn the tide.
Overall, I think, this crossword was OK.
However, at times too loose to my taste.
There’s a lot of maroon below but I am happy to hear from others.
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | AS YOU LIKE IT | If you insist, play in a forest (2,3,4,2) |
| Double definition Not overly happy with ‘you’ being in the answer and in the first definition but hey, perhaps not easy to avoid. ‘A forest’ is, of course, the Forest of Arden where our Shakespearean heroine found her love. [and a good reason to revisit that 1980 song by The Cure] |
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| 7 | BIT | Indubitably, at heart, it’s something boring (3) |
| Hidden answer [at heart] in: indubitably My first one in! |
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| 9 | INEPT | Lousy home with messy pet (5) |
| IN (home) + an anagram [messy] of PET | ||
| 10 | DETENTION | Intend to exact originally unusual punishment (9) |
| Anagram [unusual] of INTEND TO E[xact] Which reminded me of the fact that, in my whole career as a teacher, I only once put a student in detention (because someone told me to do so). |
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| 11 | EIDERDOWN | I wondered about what ducks have to offer us (9) |
| Anagram [about] of I WONDERED Nice anagram but I think I’ve seen it before. |
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| 12 | PIECE | The Sound of Silence: a musical composition (5) |
| Homophone [the sound of] of PEACE (silence) And it is indeed. Good clue. |
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| 13 | INNARDS | Most of haggis cooked as dinner, English put out (7) |
| Anagram [cooked] of: AS DINNER minus E (English) | ||
| 15 | TONE | Serving of steak without a drop of béarnaise elicits a mood (4) |
| T-BONE (serving of steak) minus B[earnaise] | ||
| 18 | NEWS | Latest developments from all directions? (4) |
| N (north), E (east), W (west), S (south) | ||
| 20 | SURNAME | Although it’s proper, it’s never given (7) |
| A ‘surname’ is a proper noun Without any crossers difficult to find. At least, for me it was. |
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| 23 | ABOUT | Around four to twelve rounds, usually (5) |
| A boxing contest may usually last four to twelve rounds Boxing is not my thing but I fully believe what Everyman says about the number of rounds of A BOUT. |
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| 24 | STAR SIGNS | Onboard, staring madly, finding guidance from the heavens (4,5) |
| Anagram [madly] of STARING inside SS (‘onboard’, aboard a ship) Not really taken by the definition but I see what Everyman means. |
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| 26 | ITALICISE | In email, make a big deal of fervent felicitations without wacky font (9) |
| An anagram [fervent] of FELICITATIONS minus an anagram [wacky] of FONT Another definition that doesn’t make me jump up and dance. I would use bold or CAPITALISED letters for that matter, anyway. |
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| 27 | SPECS | Detailed plan, provider of focus (5) |
| Double definition Specifications & spectacles. One of my last ones in but a nice clue. |
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| 28 | GET | Receive guests every now and then (3) |
| Regularly taken letters of: guest My second one in. |
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| 29 | SUNNY SIDE UP | Before winning, cheerful team makes an order to a chef (5,4,2) |
| SUNNY (cheerful) + SIDE (team), together preceding UP (winning) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | AS I SEE IT | Roughly around one, easiest for me (2,1,3,2) |
| Anagram [roughly] of: EASIEST going around I (one) Others might think differently but I thought this was a nice companion to 1ac. That said, I am a bit ambivalent about the position of the anagram indicator. It’s OK, though. |
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| 2 | YIELDING | Giving up losing weight, flourishing after a short year (8) |
| WIELDING (flourishing) minus W (weight), coming after Y[ear] | ||
| 3 | UTTER | Absolute state (5) |
| Double definition | ||
| 4 | INDOORS | Nothing Rodin’s sculpted is safe from the weather (7) |
| Anagram [sculpted] of: O (nothing) + RODIN’S Another one of these somewhat loose definitions but once you’ll get the answer from the construction, you’ll accept it. |
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| 5 | EXTINCT | About time: former partner in court, never to be seen again (7) |
| EX (former partner) + IN + CT (court), together going around T (time) | ||
| 6 | TIN OPENER | Can Her Majesty, overlooking a word of refusal, find a chef’s helper? (3,6) |
| TIN (can) + ER (Her Majesty), together going around NOPE (a word of refusal) I am not so sure that ‘overlooking’ is a proper insertion indicator. |
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| 7 | BLIMEY | Blasphemous in its origin, Brit’s exclamation of surprise (6) |
| B[lasphemous] + LIMEY (Brit, mostly North American slang) | ||
| 8 | TENNER | A spot of money cheesy thing’s raised (6) |
| Reversal [raised] of RENNET (cheesy thing) My last one in. I think a tenner is a bit more than just a ‘spot of money’ (certainly in my purse) but it is the second part of the clue that I find quite loose. For example, Collins gives: A substance, containing the enzyme rennin, prepared esp from the stomachs of calves and used for curdling milk in making cheese and junket. A case of simplifying things. |
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| 14 | REENTRIES | With leader absent, environmentalist tests procedures at Cape Canaveral (9) |
| GREEN (environmentalist) minus its leader G, followed by TRIES (tests) When a spacecraft returns into the earth’s atmosphere, it is called a ‘reentry’ (with or without hyphen). Does that justify Everyman’s definition? |
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| 16 | GANGRENE | Group of friends being superior to Frenchman? It’s mortifying (8) |
| GANG (group of friends) placed above RENE (Frenchman) To be clear: ‘gangrene’ is a noun. |
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| 17 | TENSES UP | Having put up with contacts heading off to be introduced, becomes nervous (6,2) |
| Reversal [having … up] of PUT, going around LENSES (contacts) missing its header L Using ‘up’ as the reversal indicator when ‘up’ is in the answer too, is to say the least ‘unfortunate’. |
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| 19 | SESSION | Fifty minutes lying on a couch – or sitting (7) |
| Doublish definition I haven’t got any experience with lying on a couch that way, but 50 minutes? |
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| 20 | STATELY | Majestically smart surroundings for famous collection of art (7) |
| SLY (smart) around TATE (famous collection of art) | ||
| 21 | SAYING | Describing New York, talk up sandwiches I saw (6) |
| Reversal [up] of: GAS (talk) going around NY (New York), and then the whole lot going around I | ||
| 22 | POP ART | Movement of Paolozzi, primarily overcoming movement of Riley, primarily (3,3) |
| P[aolozzi] + OP ART (movement of Riley) I do not see why Everyman uses ‘primarily’ at the end of the clue. Some others do (see below). Paolozzi is probably doing double duty here, which, if so, I do not like very much but will not keep me awake at night either. Eduardo Paolozzi and Bridget Riley . |
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| 25 | SUSHI | South American welcome offering rice dishes (5) |
| S (South) + US (American) + HI (welcome) Dishes or dish? [don’t ask the Japanese (because they don’t know the answer to that question)] |
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I thought Everyman was getting back on track with this one, not quite on track yet because I agree with most of Sil’s maroon comments. Many commentators thought the previous week’s (3774) ws “back on track”, but I thoughht not yet….
22d Because Riley was the primary but not the only exponent of PopArt? One of my favourite clues.
A strange mix of easy ones to get you into it and some difficult ones – it took me quite a while to get 13ac, although it looks straightforward with hindsight. Perhaps “innards” is not the first word to come to mind when describing haggis…. guts? offal? entrails? But yes, all those are innards.
Couldn’t get the significance of “50 minutes” in 19d either, unless your one hour session encompasses 10 minutes for writing the cheque.
Thnkas to Everyman for an almost familiar puzzle, and to Sil for the thoughtful blog.
The procedures associated with Cape Canavarel are launches, not re-entries.
John E @2 – yeah, I wondered that, and they are perhaps most associated with launches. But I thought perhaps they have a role in co-ordinating re-entries. But now I wonder if that is not Houston…
I solved less than half of this.
I am totally not on the new Everyman’s wavelength.
I miss doing my Sunday puzzles!
Thanks to Everyman and Sil. I quite enjoyed this, some welcome signs of improvement. Re 8d, a ‘ten spot’ is another slang term for a ten pound note.
Thank you for the detailed blog.
I enjoyed quite a few of these clues. ‘Innards’ made me smile. The southwest corner took the longest as I got stuck on 23 ac, having zero interest in or knowledge about boxing.
I agreed with a lot of your comments, but also…
For 20ac, a given name is also a proper noun. I think the clue means that one’s surname is never one’s given name. That was how I read it anyway, and the answer came easily.
For 16dn, I could live with ‘it’s mortifying’ as a description of gangrene, rather than a synonym.
For 19dn, a ‘session ‘ of counselling or therapy is normally 50 minutes.
Thanks also to the new Everyman for new challenges.
For 25adn, ‘sushi’ is a collective or generic term, so works for the plural ‘dishes’, I think.
Whoops. I managed to swap my last two sentences around. ?
@1 and OP – Bidget Riley is the primary exponent of OP art.
I have issues with 27ac. Spec[ification]s are not a plan; they are a requirement or constraint. A specifation may say that a widget needs to fit into a certain space, take a certain voltage or deliver a certain torque, or more loosely be a goal – “we need to capture the castle”. A plan is how to achieve the specification, not the specification itself.
Also 22ac. A surname is an example of proper noun, but there are others – “Northampton” and “iPad” for example.
Once again, there was little enjoyment in this puzzle and I gave up for the first time ever with four clues unsolved. This bears little resemblance to the Everyman I know and love and unless there is a substantial improvement, I will stop doing Everyman. Yes, I was hoodwinked by the old chestnut “saw” but the clue for 21d was exceedingly poor. I thought of SURNAME for 20a but it just seemed so vague and the clue for 27a does not work although you said it was a nice clue Sil. How can plan (singular) equal specifications (plural) ?. The clue should say plans.
Anyway, how about Hectence taking over the Everyman puzzle ?. I could sleep easy then.
Greensward @5 — Ten-spot is American slang for ten-dollar bill (there was much cadging of five-spots and ten-spots in the novels of Henry Miller). I have never seen or heard it applied to a ten-pound note.
I had the same misgivings as Alan about the shape of the grid. 3775 felt like four completely separate crosswords sitting next to each other.
3776 seems to trivialize clues with an abundance of multi-worded solutions. In fact, the longest actual WORD in the solution is nine letters! Oh well, it chimes with my constant sixty-something moan about the world universally dumming down.
I didn’t get a response to my email either.
Oh and the Guarniad disease is back in six down today….my wife’s printed version omitted the second line completely! Should we really be second guessing misprinted clues?
John E @10: I have. Obviously another thing we’ve borrowed from our American cousins. In fact, many years ago, we used to refer to the old ‘half crown’ as ‘half a dollar’, there being roughly four dollars to the pound at the time.
Terry @11, did you deliberately mis-spell dumbing down ?. If so, brilliant.
Well, Terry @11, thanks for pointing out today’s (print) error. I am a ‘paper solver’ and was completely stumped by 6dn – not anymore.
Pinky @6, I fully agree on your points about 16dn, 19dn and 25dn. My remarks shouldn’t be seen as criticism, they were just meant to be ‘food for thought’.
No lack of that anyway here above ….
Greensward @12 — Yes, half a dollar is a well documented slang phrase for the old half crown in British dictionaries. But all the dictionary references to ‘ten-spot’ as money slang relate specifically to the US $10 bill.
Looking back I wrote “top half a write in, bottom half as many ?s as confident answers”. And I now see why – I had STEPS rather than SPECS (which makes much more sense), I didn’t see CONTACTS as LENSES in 17d, I still don’t see the need for 50 minutes in 19d and do now appreciate why the second PRIMARILY is in 22d. So on the whole the shortcomings were mine rather than the setter’s which is how I’d expect it to be. That said it seems the new Everyman style is still evolving – maybe a consistent feel is a much harder thing to achieve than it seems from the solver’s chair?
With thanks to Everyman for a puzzle that’s moving in the right direction and to Sil for the blog and explanations.
Thanks to Sil van den Hoek and Everyman
Having completed a few recent Everyman puzzles from the Guardian archive I appreciate why he is missed.
A hard act to follow, but I think the new setter, if it is just the one, is improving by the week.
A few quibbles but most have been covered.
One does stand out for me though @20d:
I can’t see STATELY as MAJESTICALLY, only as MAJECTIC
Perhaps someone will enlighten me.
Dansar @17
As an adjective, stately means majestic but as an adverb it equates with majestically.
Gaufrid @18
Thank you. I now see that my SOED gives both “stately” and”statelily”, both described as “rare”.
BTW
What is the position of the Guardian here?
I.e, in English, “time to about turn and rearrange setting”.
Less applicable given the steady improvement.
Terry @11, and anyone else who’s having problems with a faulty 6d clue in the print version of 3776 on the website: try printing the PDF version instead. 6d is correct in the PDF; the text of 23d is strangely split up but it’s readable. These issues are unlikely to be the fault of the crossword setter, but (as previously discussed here) there should be an editor checking this sort of thing, and apparently there isn’t.
Back to 3775: I’m with those who think Everyman is moving in the right direction. Some slightly loose clues / definitions, and it would be good to get some sort of acknowledgement that our concerns are being listened to, but basically solvable and enjoyable.
Glad to see the current Everyman somewhat ‘normal’.
Re 22d, does the second ‘primarily’ perhaps relate back to the first? That is, primarily (primarily) provides the P to go in front of OP ART – meaning Paolozzi doesn’t need to do double duty (nor does Bridget Riley need to be considered a primary exponent of OP ART). Of course, it does make the sentence construction rather strained as regards the parsing…..
Perhaps we’ll get this crossword next week in New Zealand. The one we had today wasn’t it or any other Everyman that I can see. (It was also terrible, but that’s not Everyman’s fault).
Agree with Barrie. Don’t know what we got but it wasn’t the one above. It was awful. How can we let the Herald know they stuffed up?
I had no mood to do this after what happened yesterday. I am so depressed right now. Can’t believe something like this would happen in NZ. 🙁