Everyman 3,871

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The Observer crossword from Dec 20, 2020
Everyman in a festive mood – food and drink aplenty!


I counted 14 clues with a ‘culinary’ surface.
Apart from the four long ones around the perimeter (highlighted in the blog) there were quite a few other food or drink related answers, like KEDGEREES, LIMBURGER, KETCHUP etc etc.
Funnily enough these shorter ones will all be found in the top half of the grid
That’s not where SYRIA is …..
So, festive? Um, dunno, after all it’s 2020, and Christmas wasn’t really Christmas.
Let’s hope 2021 will be a better year for us all.
Best wishes to Everyone, including Everyman!

ACROSS
1 SCOTCH AND SODA Frustrate a sad don desperately wanting liquor (6,3,4)
SCOTCH (frustrate) + an anagram, indicated by desperately, of A SAD DON
Not sure whether ‘wanting’ is an appropriate link word between wordplay and definition.
8 BROWN Prime minister‘s toast (5)
Double definition
9 LIMBURGER Knocked back most of milk, beefcake and cheese (9)
LIM (which is a reversal, indicated by knocked back, of most of the word MILK) + BURGER (beefcake)
As a real lover of cheese, I was rather surprised to find this one, one that was new to me.
11 KEDGEREES With greed, ekes out rice dishes (9)
Anagram, indicated by out, of: GREED EKES
12 ILIAC Oddly, I’ll finance hippy, if you will? (5)
The odd letters of: I‘LL FINANCE
The ilium is one of the bones that form the hip, so Everyman invites us to see ILIAC as ‘hippy’.
13 DARLING Bold to take starter of langoustine and honey (7)
DARING (bold) going around L[angoustine]
15 KETCHUP Vessel raised, offering sauce (7)
KETCH (vessel) + UP (raised)
17 LANTERN EU not invested in neural net that might produce illumination (7)
NEURAL NET minus EU: this might produce or, in other words, give us anagram of the solution
The word ‘neural’ is what you’ll get when EU’s invested in ‘n-ral’.
It’s perhaps the mathematician in me that is unsure about whether “EU not invested in neural” is the opposite of that statement.
That said, if EU’s not invested in NEURAL, then it doesn’t take part in it and that’s what Everyman means.
19 SPRUCED Adorned conifer with daughter (7)
SPRUCE (conifer) + D (daughter)
21 SYRIA Sweden, on reflection: open country (5)
S (Sweden, IVR code) + a reversal, indicated by on reflection, of AIRY (open)
23 SERENGETI Wild green site? (9)
Anagram, indicated by wild, of: GREEN SITE
A cad (if the Serengeti National Park is indeed a green area). Expect wildebeests, zebras and many more wild animals.
25 APARTMENT Given a rôle, Everyman’s not ‘hollow and flat‘ (9)
A + PART (role) + ME (Everyman) + NT (NOT minus the O in the middle, the word being ‘hollow‘)
Funny to see a circumflex accent placed on top of ‘role’, when it could easily have done without.
Both ‘given’ and ‘ ‘s’ (meaning: has) stand for ‘+’ in the parsing above.
26 UNRIG Disassemble runner hinge regularly (5)
Regular choice of letters, in this case the even ones, from: RUNNER HINGE
27 PEACH SCHNAPPS Chaps! Chaps! Open up! Duck’s wanting something to drink! (5,8)
Delete O (duck, nothing) from OPEN, then take an anagram, indicated by up, of: CHAPS CHAPS PEN
I know, some people keep on asking questions about ‘up’ as an anagram indicator but for me it’s totally fine.
Initially, I made a real mess of this part of the grid by entering CHEAP SCHNAPPS …..
DOWN
2 CHOWDER Primarily: clams, herbs, onions which Delawarans eat regularly? (7)
A cad (therefore nothing’s underlined), indicated as (nearly) always by Primarily, all the starting letters of what follows: Clams Herbs Onions Which Delawarans Eat Regularly
3 TANGERINE Part of fork securing bad blood orange (9)
TINE (part of fork) going around BAD BLOOD (anger)
As to the definition, a tangerine is not an orange but the colour of this citrus fruit is surely kind of orange.
4 HALVE Healthy to eat vegetarian option that’s cut in two (5)
HALE (healthy) going around V (Vegetarian (option), like it is often shown on a menu in a restaurant (remember restaurants?))
5 NAMESAKES King Henry VIII had seven of these! (9)
Cryptic definition
Even though there were probably a lot more Henrys around at the time.
6 SAUDI South German car: one’s seen in Middle East (5)
S (South) + AUDI (German car)
7 DOGFISH After egg, girlfriend tucked into platter that’s a kind of seafood (7)
O (egg, its shape) + GF (girlfriend, abbreviation), together placed inside DISH (platter)
8 BAKED ALASKA Dessert‘s bad: a sake and trimmed kale cocktail (5,6)
Anagram, indicated by cocktail, of: BAD A SAKE KAL[e]
10 RICE PUDDING Mix up cider, gin and drop of Drambuie for comforting dessert (4,7)
Another anagram, this time indicated by mix, of: UP CIDER GIN D[rambuie]
Comforting? It doesn’t seem to have a great reputation, or am I wrong?
14 GANGSTERS Golf with dread and hesitant sounds, seeing the roughs (9)
G (golf, in radio communications) + ANGST (dread) + ERS (which is ER + ER: hesitant sounds)
16 TARANTULA Angry words with Greek character about the French being … hairy (9)
RANT (angry words) with TAU (Greek character) going around it, then + LA (the, French)
Not very keen on the definition here, rather loose.  I included ‘being’ because the solution is a noun.
18 NARRATE Ran up fee for detail (7)
Reversal, indicated by up, of RAN, which is followed by RATE (fee)
20 CHEER UP Lychee Rupert’s eaten for comfort (5,2)
Hidden solution, indicated by (is) eaten: LYCHEE RUPERT
I don’t see what ‘for’ is doing here.
22 ANTIC Pedantically suppressing a bit of fun (5)
Another hidden solution, this time indicated by suppressing: PEDANTICALLY
24 RETCH Strain sounding like one that’s miserable (5)
Homophone, indicated by sounding like, of WRETCH (one that’s miserable)

 

26 comments on “Everyman 3,871”

  1. Yep, quite a bit of a food and drink theme in this one – with matching desserts and spirits on the outside. I snorted at the hippy in 12a, once the penny dropped. Having ANCESTORS for 5d held me up a little. Otherwise, this was a pleasant diversion. Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Thank you, Everyman and Sil.

  2. Sil, I like your CHEAP SCHNAPPS. It goes with 1a, as I would never add soda to anything other than Cheap Scotch. And to top it off, the surface of 8d BAKED ALASKA conjures the image of mixing kale and sake in a blender and serving it up as a (very) bad dessert.

    This crossword features a host of delightful surfaces, which makes it a winner in my books. Favourites were 12a ILIAC and the traditional “primarily” clue at 2d CHOWDER.

    Thanks, Sil for the precise and informative blog, and Everyman for the excellent but all too brief fun.

  3. Sil for 10d:
    What is the matter with Mary Jane?
    She’s perfectly well and she hasn’t a pain,
    And it’s lovely rice pudding for dinner again!
    What is the matter with Mary Jane? [AA Milne]

  4. After a couple of weeks where I couldn’t quite finish, managed to complete this – and all on last Sunday morning.
    Lovely puzzle. Favourite was PEACH SCHNAPPS, and also liked LIMBURGER, which I did know thanks to a cheesaholic friend.

    Thanks to Everyman and Sil

  5. Like TassieTim, I laughed at hippy and I’m in Cellomaniac’s school when it comes to adding anything other than the tiniest dribble of water to decent whisky. In these days of imaginative smoothies, though, a kale and sake combo wouldn’t surprise me (and, if you search Google for recipes involving kale and sake there ARE some!).

    One or two of my favourites have already been mentioned in despatches: PEACH SCHNAPPS, LIMBURGER, CHOWDER and KEDGEREE. I also enjoyed SYRIA and RICE PUDDING and particularly liked GANGSTERS for the ‘angst’ incorporation.

    Thanks Everyman and Sil

  6. Quite straightforward really. I didn’t think that detail = NARRATE was satisfactory although I’m prepared to be convinced otherwise. I did remember LIMBURGER from Monty Python’s famous cheese shop sketch where John Cleese asks for every cheese known to man. For those too young, the joke is that the cheese shop does not have any cheese at all.
    Thanks to Sil and E.

  7. Yes, plenty of food and drink, but no Venezuelan Beaver Cheese? I enjoyed GANGSTERS with the Angst Hill Mob.

    Thanks Everyman and rice pudding sceptic Sil.

    [If Mark @5 is looking for imaginative smoothies, I can recommend the ‘Neil Diamond’: swede, carrots, lime. Good limes never taste so good!]

  8. Thanks Everyman and Sil
    Good fun. I liked PEACH SCHNAPPS.

    [LIMBURGER reminded me of a story told by one of the northern English folk group of the 60s, The Spinners. On tour they paired up in rooms. In Nottingham, one of a pair bought some Limburger cheese. His partner refused to have it in the room overnight, so they put it on the outside windowsill. They forgot it the next morning when they checked out.

    When they returned to Nottingham the following year, the hotel had been demolished…]

  9. Entertaining but not too tricky so, alas, over far too quickly.
    I liked GANGSTERS best, and NAMESAKES made me grin.
    Sil, rice pudding can be comforting – if it’s warm and creamy. My mum used to add cinnamon and, just before serving she’d sprinkle Demerara sugar on the top and pop it under the grill to caramelise it a little. Just typing this is making me yearn for it again….
    I didn’t know tangerines aren’t oranges. What are they, then?
    Thanks to Everyman for the fun and Sil for the blog

  12. Light, enjoyable (and mouthwatering) fun, ala the Quiptic…or at least what the latter is supposed to be but often isn’t 😉

    Surely the Serengeti (incl much more than just the Natl Park) can be considered green, particularly in rain season when a flush of new grass brings the great migration round. Wikipedia indicates rain of 20-47 inch/yr depending on location.

    Knew limburger fr/old Warner Bros cartoons (Bugs Bunny, et al), where it was sometimes used to epitomize stinkiness… e.g. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dgNfkT5qWww (incl just for image… video is nothing special).

    Fr/MaidenBartok’s prior discussion re/orange, citrus fruits are all scientifically hesperidiums. Most familiar ones (orange/lemon/lime) are hybrids or mutations of a few original species. E.g. tangerine is mostly mandarin orange w/a bit of pomelo (ancestor of grapefruit, to me much superior), and often considered just a variety of mandarin; other oranges are similar hybrids w/same two parents. So yes, would consider tangerine an orange (much like limburger is cheese, but not all cheese limburger).

    Cheers to setter, blogger, and commenters!

  14. [ Postmark@5, I agree, although I would add a double-dribble to the peat-smoky Islay malts. And while I still think a kale and sake smoothie would make a bad dessert, the recipe you found for sake-braised kale with sesame looks delicious – definitely worth a try.

    Wellbeck@9, your mum’s recipe has sent me on a nostalgia trip. My mother made it the same way, but with a little nutmeg and some raisins added – the crusty top was special. Comforting indeed. ]

  15. Whose rice pudding is slimy. Unlike Mary Jane, I’ve always thought of it as comforting.

    I thought of namesake right away, because it’s familiar to me. (Didn’t think of ancestor at all.) I am named for my grandfather (how many women can say that?) and sometimes he called me “namesake.”

    Thanks Everyman and Sil and a Happy New Year to both and all.

  18. One of very few I’ve completed in under an hour. Favourite was Apartment. Best wishes to fellow Kiwis celebrating Waitangi Day.
    Thanks Sil & Everyman.

  19. Took us a lot longer partly due to a few too many last night but overall a goody this week. Enjoy Waitangi weekend fellow Kiwis!

  20. Yes I agree. This was a good one. Liked lots including Ketchup.
    For some reason this crossword is showing the wrong date. Probably because we are ahead of the UK. It is not the 5 February but the 6. Waitangi Day here.
    Thanks Everyman and Sil.

  21. Audrey it looks like the time stamps are based on time at the website domain (presumably GMT) rather than each poster’s local time.

  22. 22 ac Why is ‘Up’ as an anagram indicator totally fine? There are many that this setter use that are borderline but I just don’t get ‘up’. I think the clue for this was appalling. Having said that liked lots of others. Apartment, Scotch Soda Bakd Alaska, Namesakes etc

  25. Excellent puzzle. Struggled with several and then kicked myself once I’d got them. Agree with Davy@6 that “narrate” is not a synonym for “detail”.
    AFAIAC tangerines are a kind of orange.

  26. Vanessa @ 22 I think of ‘up’ as in ‘what’s up’ or ‘something’s up’.

    Agree it’s not instinctive but it seems widely accepted. And a lot more mainstream than this setter sometimes foists on us.

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