The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3832.
Welcome to the forum where social distancing has always been acceptable. Here we have Everyman’s trademarks of paired answers – in this case just UP is up in 1A, and DOWN is down in 25A, and a couple of &lits thrown in, where the entire clue reads as wordplay or as definition (although neither here strikes me as an outstanding example of this difficult device). There are a couple of places here where the clue construction is doubtfully sound. Keep well and keep crosswording.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | KISS-AND-MAKE-UP | Become reconciled to US rock band (and what they wear) (4-3-4-2) |
| A charade of KISS (‘US rock band’) plus ‘and’ plus MAKE-UP (‘what they wear’). | ||
| 8 | ANTI | Averse to walnut oil every now and then (4) |
| Alternate letters (‘every now and then’) of ‘wAlNuT oIl’. | ||
| 9 | ROYAL FLUSH | Prince Andrew, say, visibly ashamed: it’s a big deal (5,5) |
| Cryptic definition, referring to poker, and (approximate) literal interpretation. | ||
| 10 | ZENITH | Japanese discipline, computing, hard to get to highest point (6) |
| A charade of ZEN (‘Japanese discipline’) plus IT (‘computing’) plus H (‘hard’). | ||
| 11 | TOSSPOTS | Old drunkards hurl crockery (8) |
| A charade of TOSS (‘hurl’) plus POTS (‘crockery’). | ||
| 12 | STRIP MINE | Set off explosive in pursuit of bit of sediment here? (5,4) |
| A charade of S (‘bit of Sediment’) plus TRIP MINE (‘set off explosive’), with an extended definition. | ||
| 14 | FINN | Scandinavian with some belief in Nordism (4) |
| A hidden answer (‘some’) in ‘beleiF IN Nordism’. | ||
| 15 | SATE | Fill up with seconds devoured? (4) |
| A charade of S (‘seconds’) plus ATE (‘devoured’). | ||
| 16 | TWILIGHTS | Times of day when sight wilts almost hazily? (9) |
| An anagram (‘hazily’) of ‘sight wilt[s]’ minus the last letter (‘almost’). | ||
| 20 | BEER HALL | Dancing seen around here drunkenly? (4,4) |
| An envelope (‘around’) of EERH, an anagram (‘drunkenly’) of ‘here’ in BALL (‘dancing seen’ at a pinch) &lit. | ||
| 21 | KNEELS | Gestures showing respect; king, on reflection, observed around 50 (6) |
| An envelope (‘around’) of L (Roman numeral, ’50’) in K (‘king’) plus NEES, a reversal (‘on reflection’) of SEEN (‘observed’). | ||
| 23 | WAR REQUIEM | Timeless, warmer, quiet composition of Britten? (3,7) |
| An anagram (‘composition’ doing double duty, unless you allow just ‘of Britten’ as the definition) of ‘warmer quie[t]’ minus the T (‘timeless’). An answer in last week’s Everyman was (First World War poet Wilfred) OWEN; in the War Requiem, Britten sets some of his poems interspersed with the Latin Requiem. | ||
| 24 | ALI G | Comic character landed? Not half (3,1) |
| ALIG[hted] (‘landed’) minus the second part (‘not half’), for the creation of Sacha Baron Cohen. | ||
| 25 | GOT BOGGED DOWN | Feel overwhelmed? Town begged God for release (3,6,4) |
| An anagram (‘for release’) of ‘town begged God’.
As Gonzo @1 points out, the answer should read GET BOGGED DOWN. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | KINDEST | Almost all German children say ‘thankyou’ at first: most agreeable (7) |
| A charade of KINDE[r] (‘German children’) minus the last letter (‘almost all’) plus ST (‘Say Thankyou’ – note that ‘thankyou’ is written as one word). | ||
| 2 | SCI-FI | Primarily, stories concerning imagined fantastical impacts? (3-2) |
| First letters (‘primarily’) of ‘Stories Concerning Imagined Fantastical Impacts’, &lit. | ||
| 3 | ABRAHAM | A Hindu god, minutes later, becomes Jewish patriarch (7) |
| A BRAHMA (‘a Hindu god’) with the M moved down (‘minutes later’). | ||
| 4 | DRY-STONE WALLING | Creating barriers, arousing any strong-willed characters (3-5,7) |
| An anagram (‘arousing … characters’) of ‘any strong-willed’. | ||
| 5 | AT LAST | Finally, he with weight on shoulders given time (2,4) |
| A charade of ATLAS (Greek mythology, ‘he with weight on shoulders’ – the whole Earth, in fact) plus T (‘time’). | ||
| 6 | ECLIPSING | Covering up European cuts in Guardian’s leader (9) |
| A charade of E (‘European’) plus CLIPS (‘cuts’) plus ‘in’ plus G (‘Guardian’s leader’). | ||
| 7 | PASHTUN | Afghan people joke about a quiet time (7) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of ‘a’ plus SH (‘quiet’ as an injunction) plus T (‘time’) in PUN (‘joke’). | ||
| 13 | INTERPRET | Revamped teleprinter, ignoring the French, to decode (9) |
| An anagram (‘revamped’) of ‘te[le]printer’ minus LE (‘ignoring the French’). | ||
| 15 | SHEBANG | Informed about Hebrews’ affair (7) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of HEB (‘Hebrews’, a standard abbreviation for the book of the Bible) in SANG (‘informed’). | ||
| 17 | LIKE MAD | According to Spooner, Everyman’s dressed hurriedly (4,3) |
| A Spoonerism of MY (‘Everyman’s’) plus CLAD (‘dressed’). | ||
| 18 | TOLKIEN | To make up tale about Khuzdul, for starters – and Sauron, in the end – he did! (7) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of K (‘Khuzdul’ for starters’) in ‘to’ plus LIE (‘make up tale‘) plus N (‘Sauron in the end’), with an extended definition – Khuzdul is a language of the Dwarfs, and Sauron the evil master in Tolkien’s Middle Earth | ||
| 19 | BANQUO | Shakespearean character, Caliban, quotable to some extent (6) |
| A hidden answer (‘to some extent’) in ‘CaliBAN QUOtable’. From The Tempest to Macbeth. | ||
| 22 | ERATO | Muse sequester a tourbus? Not entirely (5) |
| A hidden answer (‘not entirely’) in ‘sequestER A TOurbus’, for setters’ favourite muse. What about Polly Hymnia? | ||
Thanks PeterO, slight typo at 25, should be GET.
In 20, I took ‘seen around’ to be the inclusion indicator, leaving ‘dancing’ for BALL.
18 was very good – ‘tale’ goes with ‘make up’ btw.
17 is not a Spoonerism in any fair way: if you start from ‘my clad’ you have to do more than swap initial sounds, or vowel sounds, to get the answer. The way I often solve them is to guess one half of the pair, giving the initial sound of the other.
Thanks Everyman for the entertainment.
A good Sunday solve.
I parsed 20 as Gonzo. For the Spoonerism, one has to read it as: Mi/ke-lad or ‘my clad,’ as Peter says – I think that works.
I enjoyed the ‘minutes later’ Jewish patriach.
Thanks Everyman and PeterO.
I liked the “up” and “down” clues at 1a and 25a. I also thought 19d BANQUO was great.
I must admit that I initially thought that 17d LIKE MAD was intended as a spoonerism of “I’m clad”. I take a very liberal view of spooner-related matters – as I’ve commented before, his idiosyncrasy of speech involved transposing sounds in quite a wide variety of ways – but this would have been towards the outer limits of what might be acceptable. However as PeterO and Robi say, it’s “my clad”, which sounds like “Mike lad”, which spoonerises to LIKE MAD. No problem!
Many thanks Everyman and Peter.
It’s easy to be critical of Everyman’s puzzles where many clues fail under close inspection – the Spoonerism, the &lits, the hints of double duty where one cannot quite put a finger on exactly which part of the clue is what. However, he does produce a number of gems and it seems to me he aims to produce surfaces which allude to the answer or tell a story, whilst being willing to sacrifice a little in pure accuracy. Are they less solvable for that? I don’t think so. Less enjoyable? Only if one insists on unweaving the rainbow. Rather than consider the clues to be &lits that don’t quite make it, I tend to think of those as a new sort of clue for this puzzle, one where the surface allusion is important as well as the wordplay. Treat Everyman more as an impressionist where clues gives hints of what one is to do and one can step back and see the whole picture, but looking closely reveals some rather dodgy splodges.
TheZed – very well put
14a – At the risk of being (overly?) pedantic, Finland is not part of Scandinavia.
I like The Zed’s impressionism analogy @4.
I couldn’t possibly improve upon TheZed’s comments! I’m particularly struck by “dodgy splodges” – a phrase you can really roll around your tongue – and one which sums up a lot of my attempts at solving, too!
My personal faves with this were TOSSPOTS, FINN and the classy BANQUO.
ALI G was an unparsed guess, so thank you PeterO for explaining it and thanks to Everyman for the fun.
Monet or Brassau?
Thank you to PeterO and all solvers.
‘Impressionist’ is very flattering: for what it’s worth, I think of myself as a traditionalist, albeit one that’s fond of extended definitions – indicated with exclamation or more usually question mark – which I appreciate are often parsed differently. One of my setters, for interest, is a card-carrying Ximenean.
Wishing the very best of health to all.
Re 14a. My apologies, I see that Chambers disagrees with me about Scandinavia. My excuse is that I recently returned from Norway, where they are sure that Scandinavia is Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
TheZed. Amen.
TheZed, I partly agree with you but I certainly think you exaggerate when you say “many clues fail under close inspection”. For example as I said @3 (and others said before me) I thought the spoonerism worked fine.
Everyman, thanks for dropping in – it’s always good to hear from the setter. Having said that, I’m intrigued by your reference to “one of my setters”. I rather thought you were the sole setter? It would be really interesting if you could clarify the set-up.
One of my *testers*. I think I’ll try to blame autocorrect. Setter single; testers plural!
Good of you to drop in Everyman and welcome. If I err on the side of flattery, well I’d rather that than being over-critical of the hard work put in by our setters (something I’ve been guilty of in the past). As Eileen commented in yesterday’s blog, this community helps us keep it together in hard times and setters are every bit a part of it.
In my opinion, the spoonerism fails on a more basic level in that it’s not a distorted version of what anyone would ever actually say. What is “my clad” supposed to mean? You can’t just bung two random words together.
poc @15: if the Reverend Spooner or someone with a similar affliction tried to say “like mad”, they could end up saying “my clad”. They wouldn’t be trying to come up with a new meaningful phrase. I would tend to agree with your objection if the words “my clad” appeared in the clue, as that would make for a nonsensical surface, but they don’t.
Just wanted to mention that it’s a common misconception that Atlas held up the earth – this is an image propagated by the covers of certain atlases (as in the maps). In the original story, Atlas actually holds up the sky while standing on the earth.
As others have mentioned, Finland is not in Scandinavia, as this is just Denmark, Sweden and Norway. If you include Finland the group is technically known as Fennoscandia. They all fall within the larger group of Nordic countries, which includes Iceland etc.
Also, with regards to 15 down, as well as the explanation given above, I assumed there was also another hidden meaning because the word also contains “Sheba” – Solomon’s affair.
TheZed@14 — on the subject of keeping it together, tackling today’s Everyman online was my attempt to regain some sense of normality after spending two days in bed feeling absolutely dreadful.
My favourite was PASHTUN.
New for me was STRIP MINE (loi)
On a sunny Anzac Day here in NZ, and a month or so behind the rest of you, just want to say thanks for a cracking crossword. Everyman is getting better every week IMHO, and every week I seem to have more stars next to clues I particularly enjoyed. This week 1ac, 11ac, 20ac, & 5dn tickled my fancy. Also considered but dropped Ali G as he’s not in a comic book. Duh!
TheZed sums it up brilliantly for me – well said that person.
Many thanks to Everyman for stopping by and the enjoyment every week, and many thanks PeterO for the blog. Hope all are well and safe.
Easier than many recent I found.Got it all -first time for a while .Guessed 17d tho the “my clad ” explanation didn’t come to me….
My fave today was royal flush
Thought that a top clue— maybe the Brits not as amused as those of us down under
Didn’t get shebang
I also didn’t know a pot was crockery but I suppose a potter would disagree
Liked Royal Flush, Tosspots, Dry-stone walling, Pashtun.
Haven’t heard of strip mine, or Ali G.
TheZed really hit the nail with the Impressionist analogy. much appreciated. For 23a I followed the lead of John’s V1000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britten_V1000 not Benjamin’s Requiem. Thanks Everyman, PeterO and all contributors. Stay safe everyone.
Great puzzle, but I did not like the plural “twilights” (16 across). There is only one twilight. (Got it anyway.)
I think most people consider Finland to be a part of Scandinavia.
Enjoyed this puzzle on a beautiful Anzac Monday. I find it getting better and more to my liking each week so thank you Everyman. I agree with Vanessa in that Royal Flush was one of my favourites although when she made the reference to Kiwi humour I did look back to the clue in case I’d missed a reference to toilet paper or something similar! Also enjoyed tosspots as Audrey did; don’t hear that a lot these days apart from when I’m being called one! Also as a Finn myself I’ve always been proud and still am to be referred to as a Scandinavian, so choose to ignore the technicalities mentioned earlier.
Thanks to all