Everyman 3,815

by

The Observer crossword from Nov 24, 2019
As is almost normal in the UK nowadays, Everyman seems to divide opinion but I thought this was a generally sound offering in the now familiar style.

There were (less than) a handful of clues that made me ask questions but only 5ac did bother me.
Bothered me? Be assured, it wouldn’t lead to sleepless nights.
I had a feeling that the crossword was again somewhat anagram-heavy but I don’t mind (because I like a good one).
And as often is the case, there were two long ones sort of ‘connected’ to each other – today: Salt & Pepper.
On the whole, enjoyable, perfectly all right entertainment for Sunday morning’s breakfast & coffee session – also timewise.

ACROSS
1 ARCHAISM Refined charisma, a thing of the past (8)
Anagram [refined] of CHARISMA
5 WARMTH With weapon? Not I packing heat (6)
WITH minus I going around ARM (weapon)
This is the only clue today that didn’t really work for me.
The order of the two instructions ‘not I’ and ‘packing’ seems to be the wrong way round.
As Lord Jim @4 suggests (and I agree), Everyman probably meant that ARM replaces I in WITH to get WARMTH.
That is slightly different from my first parsing but I am still not terribly convinced.
10 PURCELL Composer with practically modest, humble dwelling (7)
PUR[e] (modest, practically i.e. most of it) + CELL (humble dwelling)
Someone relying on universal credit, a prisoner, a monk and an organism will all have a different view on CELL = ‘humble dwelling’, I assume.
But let’s talk about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Purcell .
11 ERASMUS Rejecting queen, marquess turns philosopher (7)
Anagram [… turns …] of MARQUESS minus Q (Queen)
For more about my fellow countryman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus
12 IBSEN Ad-libs entrance, getting around playwright (5)
Hidden answer […. getting around]: Ad-libs entrance
Always wanted to know the ins and outs of Henrik Ibsen? Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Ibsen .
13 ORGAN LOFT Section of cathedral undergoing renovation for a long time (5,4)
Anagram [undergoing renovation] of FOR A LONG, followed by T (time)
A very nice anagram clue, and one that I’d seen before – I think it was in the FT – but did it lead me straight to the answer? Er, no.
14 AND THAT’S THAT Australia hadn’t thrown Test; England missing bowler – perhaps? End of story! (3,5,4)
A (Australia) + anagram [thrown] of HADN’T, followed by TEST without E (England, ???), then + HAT (bowler, as an example)
We’re in abbreviation territory again and not the first time with Everyman (not for the last time either, see 24ac).
No-one has to explain to me what the E stands for in ‘CofE’.
However, none of the dictionaries are impressed by that.
18 LAMB’S LETTUCE … but a stem cell could become salad ingredient (5,7)
Anagram [… could become] of BUT A STEM CELL
This ‘salad ingredient’ sounds like veggies will hate it, as will meaties (because of the word ‘lettuce’).
It’s corn-salad, they say.
21 USE-BY DATE Take advantage of past boyfriend when something goes bad (3-2,4)
USE (take advantage of) + BY (past) + DATE (boyfriend)
23 ERASE Get rid of quiet, accommodating Republican (5)
EASE (quiet) around R (Republican)
24 DETRACT Belittle English in German leaflet (7)
D (German, ???) + TRACT (leaflet), together around E (English)
Unfortunately, D isn’t ‘German’ (that’s G or Ger). It is an abbreviation for ‘Germany’.
Some clever boys and girls may come up with D-TRACT as a kind of ‘German leaflet’.
But then I’ll get me coat.
25 PULL OUT Horny male wanting introduction, wearing come-hither look: withdraw! (4,3)
[b]ULL (‘horny’ male, without the first letter) going inside POUT (come-hither look)
26 RELISH Enjoy a condiment (6)
Double definition
27 TROUSERS Pants with pockets (8)
Another double definition
DOWN
1 AU PAIR A posh couple’s help (2,4)
A + U (posh) + PAIR (couple)
2 CURTSY Short, extremely seemly gesture (6)
CURT (short) + S[eeml]Y
3 APENNINES A mountain range, a mountain range (9)
A + PENNINES (mountain range)
It’s all about what you mean by ‘mountain’.
Here is some touristic information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennines and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apennine_Mountains .
4 SALT OF THE EARTH Decent type with soft heart, health for the most part failing (4,2,3,5)
Anagram [failing] of SOFT HEART HEALT[h]
6 AGAIN Old-fashioned stove favoured once more (5)
AGA (old-fashioned stove) + IN (favoured)
7 MAMMOTHS Mania on vacation: ‘1,000 insects! Enormous creatures!’ (8)
M[ani]A + M (1000) + MOTHS (insects)
8 HESITATE Think twice about abandoning cultivated aesthetic (8)
Anagram [cultivated] of AESTHETIC minus C (about)
9 SERGEANT PEPPER Fabulous officer in range set out to discharge gunshot (8,6)
Anagram [out] of RANGE SET, followed by PEPPER (discharge gunshot)
One may think that The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album is fabulous, not sure I would call our officer ‘fabulous’ as such.
But yes, he’s a fictional one.
15 SACRE BLEU Scare about European Union suppressing retrograde imperial weight: blimey (5,4)
Anagram [about] of SCARE, followed by EU (European Union), together around a reversal [retrograde] of LB (imperial weight, pound)
16 FLOUNDER Awkwardly struggle with fish (8)
Double definition
17 EMMENTAL Take case from Edam before getting crackers and cheese (8)
E[da]M + MENTAL (crackers)
19 LAHORE Asian city where movie villain returns to get minerals (6)
Reversal [… returns] of HAL (movie villain), followed by ORE (minerals)
I assume the ‘movie villain’ here is HAL 9000 from the Space Odyssey series, first appearing in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I am pretty sure I added this link in another blog some months ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000 .
20 HEATHS Tory PM’s barren lands (6)
HEATH‘S (Tory PM‘s)
Here’s another Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Heath .
Project Fear’s doom-laden scenario for the UK after Brexit?  🙂
22 YEATS Stay up to let in eastern poet (5)
Reversal [up] of STAY going around E (eastern)
Of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats .

 

26 comments on “Everyman 3,815”

  1. I’m glad you picked up on D = Germany,  not German. I too assumed a 2001 reference at 19dn but wasn’t entirely convinced by ‘movie villain’. ‘Fabulous’ rather than ‘fictional’ at 6dn also grated. I thought the substitution at 5ac worked though if one imagines ‘packing’ referring back to the word WITH.

  2. 5ac I ugly it found. A verbal analogue of Eric Morecombe and Andre Prevue – the words were all there but not necessarily in the right order. I spent the week awaiting enlightenment from fifteensquared and was flattererd to find it wasnt just me.

     

  3. I suppose I will be criticised as being over-sensitive, but I didn’t like 17d. “Crackers” and “mental” are the sort of playground insults that I find out of place in the Observer. I look forward to the day when such language is considered almost as offensive as racist slurs

  4. I think 5a is supposed to work as ARM (“weapon”), not I, “packing” (being the contents of) “with”.

    I had several favourites here including 21a USE-BY-DATE and 7d MAMMOTHS (very funny).  But best of all was 1d AU PAIR, beautiful in its simplicity.  Sil, surely the definition is not just “help”, the definition is (brilliantly) the whole clue.

    Many thanks Everyman and Sil.

  5. I assumed ‘fabulous’ was a slightly tortured reference to the Fab Four!

    My lack of knowledge of composers and Italian mountains did for me here, although I was pleased to deduce ORGAN LOFT despite being entirely ignorant when it comes to ecclesiastical architecture.

    Thanks to Everyman and Sil.

  6. Finished this one quite quickly but only really because some clues left others with only one possible answer and I had no idea why, and neither did my friend who many years ago got me into Everyman. If she was stumped around meanings, it’s not that good. Not altogether satisfactory, therefore despite my speedy finish. I seem to be getting more and more unable to work out the meanings. So glad it’s not just me!

  8. It was OK, but I can’t say it gave me a lot of WARMTH from solving.

    I did like the salt and pepper. I didn’t like England, German, the movie villain, mental meaning crackers, and what seemed to me to be the rather silly ‘stem cell could become salad ingredient.’

    Thanks Everyman and Sil.

  9. Having read @5 Lord Jim’s take on 5ac, I think he might be right.
    However, if ARM is ‘packing’ something here instead of I, is that something WITH or WTH?
    Not for the first time I noticed that there is an overlap between containment and hidden indicators.
    However, I am not sure whether ‘packing’ is a good example.
    But it’s a lot better than how I initially looked at this clue.

    D as part of e.g. DM or DDR stands for ‘Deutsch(e)’ but that doesn’t mean that we may subsequently anglicise it.
    Perhaps, VDS Prasad @7 refers to D being in the dictionaries as Deutsch (in the musical sense, think Schubert).
    Unfortunately, this ‘Deutsch’ is the name of a person (Otto Deutsch), nothing to do with German as such.

  10. Shirl @3 you are not the only one to dislike the way crosswords are behind the times when it comes to describing mental illness, though perfectly PC when it comes to racial issues or physical disability (“spastic”” was once common in crosswordland, thankfully no more)

    Thanks Everyman, nice Sunday morning stroll with some uphill bits and downhill bits. Thanks, Sil, needed some help parsing the uphill bits 🙂

    I was happy that Sergeant Pepper, being fictional, would also count as fabulous (from a fable, no matter what you think about the 1960s meaning of the word “fab”).

    Will need to go back to the subtle difference between mountains and other upland features (and whether they can have “ranges” or not…)

  11. Thank you Everyman for an enjoyable puzzle and Sil for a super blog.

    Rapunzel was named after the German for the LAMB’S LETTUCE that grew in the witch’s garden, it can even be picked from under snow in winter.

    Robi @8, the clue did not bother me, here is an extract from Nature, “stem cells are particularly important for plant growth, because virtually all tissues of the plant descend from small groups of stem cells located in their growing apices, within structures called the apical meristems.”

  12. Thanks both.

    It is quite common in crosswords to have the IVR (letters on cars indicating their home country) indicator representing the country. In this case D represents Germany. I can’t see a problem.
    .

  13. Indeed, Bracoman, D is the IVR code for Germany. I can’t see a problem with that either.

    But Everyman uses D here for ‘German’ which is, to say the least, very debatable.

    We had discussions in the past about issues like this and today’s won’t be the last.

  16. In 24 across don’t we need de , not just D? De is the internet domain for Germany, hence German pages?

  18. Cookie @11; OK, I guess stem cells could grow into (become) a larger piece of a plant to make a salad ingredient, although I doubt a single one would do the job.

     

  19. I was very nasty about this setter a couple of weeks ago, but since down here in New Zealand we only got this puzzle on December 21, I must, in the spirit of Christmas, apologize. Au pair, sacre bleu, Sergeant Pepper and organ loft were, I thought, crackers (Christmas, geddit?). But lambs lettuce I did not like. Much better than his earlier ones, though.

  20. Not bad. Agree that 5A is a bit scrambled.

    Happy Christmas one and all, including all bloggers and Everyperson.

  22. hi everyone and merry Christmas I did surprisingly well and quite liked this but have a few queries if someone could clarify?

    1d is U meaning posh referring to U upper class?

    7d what is the pointer to remove the inner letters of mania – is it vacation ?– think that is pretty obscure but I do get it now

    17d  – realise is says ‘take’ from edam   how does case refer to DA.   Is Da referring to Dative (case) if that is so, that is really obscure and something I only know having studied German. Also agree that D perfectly fine to refer to  D German or D Germany  – Deutsch or Deutschland. With the proliferation of foreign refs and often no indication that it is an imported word, I think most of us know what D means?

    27ac not sure I know about trousers meaning pockets?

     

    Really liked 21ac, liked 16d, 26ac, 20d 24a

    hated 25ac thought it as just all clumsy

    Nice way to spend Sat afternoon tho rather than in the malls

  24. I have not done everyman for a while. Thought I’d give it another crack. I’m sorry but this is garbage. In particular I detest the continuous use of anagram clues where the setter drops a character or two. This is sloppy setting.

  25. Hi Vanessa@22

     

    1d is U meaning posh referring to U upper class?

     

    Yes. U = upper class, Non-U = lower class, or socially unacceptable. It’s a standard dictionary def, not just crossword-ese

    7d what is the pointer to remove the inner letters of mania – is it vacation ?– think that is pretty obscure but I do get it now

    Yes, crossword speak for ‘vacate’ = ’empty’ as a verb. Sometimes they say ‘on vacation’ meaning ‘take the middle out’. It’s the opposite of ‘take case’ (see below)

    17d  – realise is says ‘take’ from edam   how does case refer to DA.   Is Da referring to Dative (case) if that is so, that is really obscure and something I only know having studied German.

    No, the outer ‘case’ of the word Edam are the two outside letters E and M. Take those away and you’re just left with D and A.  Sometimes they say take case away, or shell, or skin – all the same instruction, remove the outer letters. It should be just the first and last.

     

    Also agree that D perfectly fine to refer to  D German or D Germany  – Deutsch or Deutschland. With the proliferation of foreign refs and often no indication that it is an imported word, I think most of us know what D means?

    I agree

    27ac not sure I know about trousers meaning pockets?

     

    It means pinch or steal or nick. If I left some money on the table and you walked past and trousered it, it means the same as if you pocketed it or nicked it.

     

    I hope that helps?

     

  26. Thanks Barrie for such detailed explanations. I get them all now
    Never heard of trousering sthg …
    long and clumsy word when much easier to say ‘nick’or ’pinch’ but I’ve learned a new term

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