The Observer crossword from Jan 17, 2021
A fine crossword that we enjoyed just a bit more than the one from the week before.
Everyman’s puzzles may somewhat vary in difficulty and tightness of the clueing itself, but let’s not forget that he tries to please us every single week!
Something not to be taken for granted, in my opinion.
Today’s rhyming pair are the two long ones in the 7th and 9th row, highlighted in the blog below.
My first one in? I think it was 17dn …..
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HORNPIPE | Dancing will get you prone with hip replacement (8) |
| Anagram, indicated by replacement, of: PRONE + HIP I assume ‘dancing’ for ‘hornpipe’ is just about OK? |
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| 5 | ERUPTS | Holy man, righteous, flips, goes bananas (6) |
| ST (holy man, short for Saint) + PURE (righteous), then together reversed, indicated by flips | ||
| 10 | ICEBERG | I see diving bird returning to very cold water (7) |
| I + C (see), followed by a reversal, indicated by returning, of GREBE (diving bird) The definition is, in my opinion, rather loose but an iceberg is indeed very cold and was, at some stage, surely ‘water’. See others below. Some solvers like to see an indicator when a setter uses C = ‘see’, but it’s in Chambers. |
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| 11 | SAPPORO | Poor misguided fool in the lead somewhere in Japan (7) |
| Anagram, indicated by misguided, of POOR, preceded by SAP (fool) The city where the 1972 Winter Olympics took place. |
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| 12 | DUE TO | Because of odour, eat cod only now and then (3,2) |
| The even letters, here indicated by only now and then, of: ODOUR EAT COD | ||
| 13 | NAIVENESS | Van is seen moving with simplicity (9) |
| Anagram, indicated by moving, of: VAN IS SEEN | ||
| 14 | CASH MACHINES | Bread boxes? (4,8) |
| Cryptic definition ‘Bread’ is slang for money [see also 6dn]. At first, I tried to find something for ‘boxes’, however one should see the clue as a whole. |
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| 18 | ANAGRAMMATIC | Like Enid Blyton vis-à-vis tiny blonde? (12) |
| ENID BLYTON is an anagram of TINY BLONDE Really nice find. |
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| 21 | LEYLANDII | Earl finally – finally! – has estate ringed by 52 hedges (9) |
| E (earl) + [finall]Y + LAND (estate), together inside LII (52, in Roman numerals) A few days before this crossword appeared, Aardvark used the same word in his FT puzzle. So it was still fresh in my mind. Leylandii (plural: the same) is a fast-growing cypress, often used for hedging. |
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| 23 | OMANI | Perhaps Muscat resident will be back soon (5) |
| Reversal, indicated by back, of: IN A MO (soon) | ||
| 24 | GAINFUL | Productive government losing power, irritating (7) |
| G (government), followed by PAINFUL (irritating) with the P (power) removed My solving partner found this a rather inelegant clue – Who is losing power? Not the government! |
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| 25 | DESKTOP | Oddly, drew a little shrine; close to flock, highest screen displaying icons (7) |
| The odd letters of DREW, followed by S[hrine] + [floc]K + TOP (highest) | ||
| 26 | TROLLS | Provokes some toilet-roll shortages (6) |
| Hidden solution, indicated by some: TOILET-ROLL SHORTAGES | ||
| 27 | DEWY-EYED | We’re prepared to go back to the old you, once a little delightful innocent (4-4) |
| DEW, which is the reversal of WE’D (we’re prepared to), indicated by go back, followed by YE (the, old) + YE (you, once) + D[elightful] | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HAIRDO | Difficult, love, to get over Everyman’s coiffure (6) |
| HARD (difficult) + O (love, zero), together around I (Everyman) | ||
| 2 | REELED | Staggered, seeing fish in merlot, perhaps (6) |
| EEL (fish) inside RED (merlot, example of a red wine) | ||
| 3 | PTEROSAUR | Prehistoric beast – monster – spotted, in reports (9) |
| Two consecutive homophones, indicated by in reports, of: TERROR (monster) + SAW (spotted) | ||
| 4 | PIG-IN-THE-MIDDLE | In impeded light, playing game (3-2-3-6) |
| Anagram, indicated by playing, of: IN IMPEDED LIGHT I am more familiar with [Hey Diddle Diddle] Piggy-in-the-Middle [remember Neil Innes who sadly left us last year? 2019, thx Blorenge. How time flies.]. |
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| 6 | RUPEE | Regularly fry up pieces of bread in Asia (5) |
| Regular choice of letters, the even ones this time, of: FRY UP PIECES Some more bread, please! |
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| 7 | PHONE-INS | Spooner’s expressed anti-Scandinavian policy as radio programming (5-3) |
| Spoonerism of: NO FINNS (anti-Scandinavian policy) And an amusing one, we thought. |
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| 8 | SCORSESE | Director adding touch of silliness to film’s music before vacuous scene (8) |
| S[illiness] put into SCORE (film’s music), followed by S[cen]E Martin Scorsese (b.1942), director of films such as Taxi Driver and The Last Temptation of Christ. |
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| 9 | AS FIT AS A FIDDLE | If fat, side salad could make you healthy (2,3,2,1,6) |
| Anagram, indicated by … could make you …, of: IF FAT SIDE SALAD Nice anagram! |
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| 15 | HEINOUSLY | He and I sense lobby will be evacuated in an awful way (9) |
| HE + I + NOUS (sense) + L[obb]Y | ||
| 16 | DAYLIGHT | Riotous lady, topless, drunk after sunrise (8) |
| Anagram, indicated by riotous, of LADY, followed by TIGHT (drunk) with the T at the beginning removed Don’t know why I wrote here (LADY minus L) + LIGHT, made no sense, sorry. I’m pretty sure when solving, I parsed it as @12, @15 and @37/38 did. |
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| 17 | BABYCINO | Primarily bubbly, a beverage your child is nowadays offered? (8) |
| Indicated as ever by Primarily, the first letters of: Bubbly A Beverage Your Child Is Nowadays Offered New word to me but so incredibly easy to get …. |
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| 19 | GANTRY | Little Morgan trying to get support (6) |
| Hidden solution, indicated by little (in the sense of a little bit of): MORGAN TRYING Whether the solution is ‘a little bit’ of the fodder, is questionable (as it’s half of it). |
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| 20 | NIPPED | Bit hurried (6) |
| Double definition ‘Bit’ as the past tense of the verb ‘(to) bite’. |
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| 22 | AWFUL | Pollarding allowed – that’s terrible (5) |
| LAWFUL minus, indicated by pollarded, the L at the start (the top, actually) | ||
Favourites were OMANI, LEYLANDII, SAPPORO (like the beer and the place) HEINOUSLY.
Did not get ERUPTS and am not sure about NIPPED for hurried.
I like the Everyman puzzles – I look forward to them – they are around my level though I still have to have help from the crossword dictionaries for some clues.
Thanks to Everyman and Sil van den Hoek
Difficult puzzle. I sound like a broken record, but I still miss the old Everyman.
Failed to solve 21ac
Favourite: ANAGRAMMATIC
New: PIG IN THE MIDDLE (game)
Thanks Sil and Everyman.
Pleasant, but 7dn isn’t a Spoonerism imo.
Gonzo @3 the Spoonerism seemed straight enough to me. FO NINS / NO FINNS.
BABYCINO new to me, but Everyman gives us these initialisms on a plate. Probably the cleverest one he’s done though.
PIGGY is more familiar to me than PIG too, but no problem with that. (Being pedantic, Sil, Neil Innes actually died in 2019. In case you and others didn’t know, some kind soul put all three series of The Innes Book of Records on youtube a few weeks ago.)
Anent 14a and 6d.
Do these crossword setters still follow the old system of trading? It seems that when they go out to buy something, they take bread with them.
A rupee user.
I had the same stumble as Sil with 14a CASH MACHINES, and when I saw it I thought it was clever.
I also liked the same two other clues as Sil, the Enid Blyton at 18a and the Spoonerism at 7d.
I like that Everyman gives us an easy way in with his “primarily” clue, especially when the surface is as good as this one at 17a.
Thanks Everyman for the fun and Sil for the excellent blog.
Read 17d for 17a in cellomaniac@6
Thanks Rishi@7 for catching that.
Good summary, Sil. It took me ages to see my LOI ANAGRAMMATIC, and when I did, I reacted like you – what an amazing anagram pair. I think ‘very cold water’ is fine – an iceberg is still, chemically, water (H2O), only in the solid phase – though it did pull me up short for a moment before I had that thought. I also particularly liked OMANI and HEINOUSLY (‘He and I’ needs to be taken literally, when I was looking for the trick!). Fiona Anne @1 – “I just nipped/hurried down to the shops when I heard you were coming”. Thanks, Sil and Eveyman.
Sil (& TassieTim @9) – interesting that you felt slightly uncomfortable about very cold water = iceberg. I seem to recall, not that long ago, expressing similar discomfort when very hot water was equated with steam. And I’m another PIGGY rather than PIG but it hardly prevented solution.
I loved the clueing of the double YE in DEWY EYED, HEINOUSLY was very nicely put together, LEYLANDII is, of course, superb (though the trees, themselves, are horrific!), TROLLS had a nice surface but ANAGRAMMATIC has to take the prize for the day. Delightful in concept, clueing and construction.
PAINFUL seems to be another of those ordering issues (and, at the moment, you have two underlined definitions in the blog). I recall you raising the point last Sunday and again on Thursday in the Indy blog. Although I agree my solution to the latter was slightly clumsy, I feel we’re into exactly the same situation again. “Productive government losing power, irritating (7)”. If we imagine a full stop after the first word in the wordplay we get the G and we’re left with instructions for how to treat irritating. ‘Without’ is not an exact synonym for ‘losing’, I know, but it’s how I visualised the remainder of the wordplay – without power, Painful = ainful. Hardly elegant, tortuous even but possibly GAINFUL in the end?
Thanks Everyman and Sil
Much to like in this puzzle – favourites were ANAGRAMMATUC, OMANI and AS FIT AS A FIDDLE.
However 7dn soured it for me. Finns are NOT Scandinavian – that term refers to the North Germanic peoples of Norway, Sweden and by linguistic affinity Denmark and Iceland. I can’t find any dictionary which sanctions this sloppy usage; ‘Nordic’ is the more inclusive word.
For 16D DAYLIGHT,I had the full riotous LADY, followed by topless [T]IGHT.
Did not get DEWY-EYED.
Many thanks from Holland for yet another enjoyable puzzle!
Gervase @11 I can!
Sorry – the link didn’t show up! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia
The Clogster @12 – I parsed DAYLIGHT as you did, too.
As the penny dropped on NO FINNS, I thought, “There’ll be controversy here.” (It’s been an issue before. I’m sure Anna will have a view.) LEYLANDII and ANAGRAMMATIC were my favourites
I seem to be at odds with the majority view here but I found this hard work and finally finished it on Thursday. If I don’t make much progress, I sometimes forget the puzzle for days and come back to it when I remember. It is rewarding to finally solve the clues and ‘tiny blonde’ was indeed a revelation. It would be even better if Enid Blyton was a tiny blonde herself !.
Thanks to Sil and E.
….by the way, I love the new format. It is crystal clear. Thanks.
Petert @16: yep, we’re in for some finny business today. Sadly, I don’t think we see Anna on the Everyman pages; we could’ve done with her today. (And it’s her kind of weather outside my window in the Midlands this morning!)
TimW @13,14: Wikipedia is not a dictionary! It is true that many people use ‘Scandinavian’ in a loose sense, just as many people outside the UK refer to Scots as English. That doesn’t mean it’s right, or that it should be encouraged!
TassieTim @9
I couldn’t think what you were on about at first – and then the penny dropped. Thank you.
I agree with Sil and have said before that producing an entertaining crossword weekly is no mean feat.
I enjoyed this and thought both ANAGRAMMATIC and AS FIT AS A FIDDLE had great clues. I will, however, list my quibbles. Traditionally, if you want to use the first letter, most setters would, I think, use ‘little of’ rather than just little. As has been mentioned above, in 24A ‘irritating’ seems to be in the wrong place, and it could have been moved behind government with commas to give a reasonable surface. In 8D, ‘adding’ doesn’t IMHO mean ‘put inside’.
Gervase @20; I guess you’ll think that Collins and Oxford are real dictionaries. Collins: 2. the countries of N Europe, esp considered as a cultural unit and including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and often Finland, Iceland, and the Faeroes; Oxford: <em1.1A cultural region consisting of the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark and sometimes also of Iceland, Finland, and the Faroe Islands. I don’t think you can blame setters for using dictionary definitions.
Reflecting further on both the Scandinavian debate and Kitty’s question as blogger of the Independent yesterday regarding the use of capitals, I missed the opportunity for majusculation in my previous comment. I guess, depending on one’s stance on the Nordic question, Gervase @11 is either being Finnicky or displaying considerable Finnesse! ….. I’ll get my coat …
PM@23
The word ‘majusculation’ is new to me. I couId not even guess the meaning from the context. I had to look it up. Now I am unable to guess the derivation of the word but I will try later or consult a dictionary for etymology.
Thanks.
Rishi @24: if you pop into yesterday’s Independent blog, you’ll see the blogger’s preamble raising an interesting issue around capitalisation – essentially, should setters be allowed to decapitalise words that are normally capitalised – particuarly proper nouns – to add further challenge to the clues? My reply came at the end of a (short) collection of puzzle comments and you’ll see the context in which majusculation arose.
Further to my Comment @24, Alec Robins in his book Teach Yourself: Crosswords (Hodder & Stoughton, 1975) has a long note (p. 149) on “Capital letters”‘ in the Chapter titled ‘Punctuations’.
I will type out just a significant sentences.
***”Any word that demands a capital letter by right must not lose ir simply because it happens to suit the clue-writer’s purpose;…”
,
I was thrown by the phone-ins Spoonerism: of course it’s PHO/NINS, NO/FINNS. I had a very thin version: PHONE/INS, OWN/FINNS and the sense of owning people as being in control of their every action, not much good.
Rishi @26: I’m not sure whether you’re responding to my comment or not. In the comments made by Kitty yesterday (and she referenced other attempts to stimulate conversation on the topic in which she made similar points), she observed that the conventional approach to capitalisation, as summed up by your quote from a 1975 publication, may be open to revision, given the growing tendency for users of electronic communication – particularly text/messaging applications – to use lower case throughout. A scan down the Guardian comments page (only because it tends to attract more entries) will show lots of commenters deliberately choosing lower case for their pseudonyms, for example. And that’s a community one might have expected to be quite strict about such things. Personally, I’m attached to correct capitalisation (though I do try to follow suit when it comes to naming other commenters) but I can foresee a time when changing practice in wider society may justify relaxation of standards – which will, of course, enable setters to become even more devious.
PostMark @23: I wouldn’t Dane to comment….
Gervase @29: Norse hould you! 😀
Further to my Comment @25:
D. St. P. Barnard in his book Anatomy of the Crossword (G. Bell and Sons. 1963) in the chapter titled ‘Cryptic licence’ gives some example clues (pp. 133-4):
1. A wise old man, Herb (4)
2. Bird that would fetch a pound at a market (9)
3. The foot followed up by the yard (5)
3a. The yard is too much for it (5)
Notes justify the use of capital where you would expect an lc (in 1 above) and vice versa (in 2 [market] and 3 and 3a [yard]).
[Rishi @31: I’m still not sure whether you have read my comments in reply to yours or whether you’ve glanced at Kitty’s of yesterday which provides context for the issue. (It’s here, actually Comment 7 with hyperlinks to two other times she raised it, rather than the preamble as I first recalled: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2021/01/23/independent-10696-by-bluth/). Your examples don’t appear to me to be pertinent to the discussion. And, tbh, I’m not sure I understand the last three: I don’t see why one would expect either market or yard to be capitalised in the first place. And I’d be a little surprised if any solver were to feel that capitalising Herb need be defended or require ‘Cryptic licence’. Maybe I’m missing something.]
Babycino was for me a write-in of a word I’d never heard of. This should give you an idea as to how much I ‘enjoy’ (or otherwise) this weekly type of clue.
Rishi @* the Guardian cryptics are generally the among most unconventional crosswords and hence unlikely to conform to “rules” laid down decades ago. Personally I just ignore case, punctuation, and often word order too as they’re often just being used for misdirection
Gervase @* you’re right – wikipaedia is not a dictionary but neither is a cryptic crossword a geography exam. There’s no requirement for the setter to use the most “accurate” definition of a word. As a long as a vaguely plausible link exists then it’s game on
PostMark @32: I’m a little puzzled in turn by your puzzlement at Rishi’s comments, which seem to be entirely relevant to the question of whether it’s fair to use capitalisation, or de-capitalisation, misleadingly. In example 1, “Herb” to define SAGE would not normally have a capital “h”, and it only does so in the clue to suggest someone’s name in the surface reading. I can certainly imagine some people objecting to it. In example 3, where the answer is presumably THEFT, the “yard” in the cryptic reading refers to Scotland Yard and should therefore have a capital “y”, but this time the lower case makes for a better surface.
I appreciate that these examples don’t address the question of whether text-speak and so on should suggest a more relaxed approach to this issue. Is that what you meant?
Lord Jim@35
Thanks very much for explaining the points to be inferred from Barnard’s example clues.
I could not have explained it better than you have done.
PM@various
I simply took off from “use of capital letters” in your earlier Comment; my post was tangential.
Thanks for the link but I think I will refrain from entering into debate on that question.
I’m pretty sure 16D is supposed to be DAYL, an anagram (riotous) of “lady” ) + [t]IGHT (“drunk”) minus the first letter (topless).
^ Agreed, Zim. Previous commenters @12 and @15 have mentioned it. I can’t see light meaning drunk anywhere. The nearest meaning would be ‘dizzy’, but that’s not the same thing.
Thanks ‘all’ for pointing out that I did something strange in 16dn.
Now corrected.
Had a strong sense of déjà vu solving this. I don’t know why, I’m sure I didn’t solve it on line, although I do do Guardians on line every so often.
This was one of the current Everyman’s best I thought, although I’ve not heard of the hedges.
Omani and rupee were nice.
Rishi, nice to hear from you. Haven’t seen you on DIYCOW for ages.
Good puzzle though missed parsing a few & didn’t get the spoonerism. Enid Blyton was very clever. Thanks Everyman & Sil.
This was just too hard for me. I have no problem with hard puzzles but at least the setter should keep the grammatical purity in the clues – for e.g. surely ‘dancing’ in 1ac would be better to be ‘dance’; a Hornpipe is a dance not dancing. and 10ac I don’t think iceberg translate to cold water at all.
The spooner clues always leave me cold.
21 ac totally incomprehensible
5ac same
on the upside I did enjoy hairdo, reeled and awful but overall, this week gave me no enjoyment.
But what is babycino? Surprised no explanation given. Will try Google! We liked anagrammatic , daylight and desktop. Ice is solid water _ no problem there.
No wonder we didn’t get it. It’s a fluffy in NZ.
Can see the link to cappuccino now!
Excellent puzzle this week. Not easy but rewarding when you got it.
Guessed a few like anagrammatic which was our favourite.
Kiwipair @43 (and, perhaps, others), according to Collins ‘babycino’ is: a drink of frothy milk with a chocolate topping, designed as an alternative to coffee for young children.
Not that I knew this but it just couldn’t be anything else.
Found this one nearly impossible. Clues were much too convoluted. And one is just plain *wrong*!!! The word is babyccino (double c) — means a kind of fake cappuccino for kids (with no coffee). Triv to get despite that, since it was one of those super-easy “primarily” clues. But that’s no excuse.
Got it all out but needed to use wild card dictionaries very heavily. Could not parse many of the answers (e.g. dewy-eyed, 27 across) even when I was sure they were correct.
Too convoluted.
Plain wrong?
All dictionaries tell me that it can written with either one C or two.
Babycino – my daughter used to love them! And yes, definitely with one C not two at all the cafes she and I used to frequent in London. Leylandii was a goodie, on the whole much more fun than the last few!