Everyman 3,881

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A pleasant crossword. I make a few criticisms, but while some of them may be justified, some of them may be simply down to my own inability to see what’s happening.

Definitions in cadet blue, underlined. Indicators (anagrams, hiddens, homophones etc.) in italics

 

ACROSS
1 TOFFEE APPLE
Uncertainly peel off tape that’s sticky … sweet! (6,5)
*(peel off tape)
9 EGO-TRIP
Got into regressive irrational spiritual teachings for self-aggrandizement (3-4)
got in (pi RE)rev. — pi, as in ‘pi r squared’, is an irrational number, an irrational
10 ANTONIO
Not tense at first, prepared notation for The Merchant of Venice (7)
*(no{t}ation) — the title character in Shakespeare’s play — I’m not quite sure why it says ‘at first’, since it’s either of the t’s that can be dropped; perhaps it helps the surface and it isn’t actually wrong
11 KABUL
Capital city of Alaska …?’ ‘… Bullwinkle?’ (5)
Hidden [‘of’, which seems a bit thin] in AlasKA BULlwinkle
12 STINK BUG
Freshened up … but king’s malodorous creature (5,3)
*(but king’s) — something that was new to me, but obvious enough when you know
14 FRENCH HORN
Cor, that’s some brass! (6,4)
2 defs, one of them referring to the French for horn (most commonly seen, perhaps, in ‘cor anglais’), the other referring to the fact that a French horn is part of the brass in an orchestra
15 MEZE
Starters of midye, ezme, zacusc? & enginar? (4)
First letters, &lit. (I assume: I’ve never actually heard of any of these ingredients, but if you go exotic enough I wouldn’t be surprised if you found them).
17 EDGE
Heidegger’s regularly showing irritation (4)
{H}e{i}d{e}g{g}e{r}
19 FOUNDATION
Discovered Everyman wearing large amount of make-up (10)
found (a t(I)on) — it seems that in every crossword Everyman has a 9ac — in fact he has two of them in this one (keep alert, for the next one is quite soon)
21 WHODUNIT
Crossword setter in ramshackle hut, down to make something with clues (8)
I in *(hut, down) with a slightly unconvincing (to me, at any rate) definition: how is a whodunit, which is a type of book, defined by ‘make something with clues’? [I changed this because Charlie@3 is quite right — apologies Everyman]
23 EARTH
Planet‘s environment agreeably receptive to humans … initially (5)
First letters again
25 EYEBALL
Take a gander at cocktail in East End bar (7)
“highball” — why ‘bar’? To help the surface? It’s not necessary for the wordplay
26 PRIMATE
Who’s in charge of bishops? Big ape, perhaps (7)
2 defs, one of them referring to the senior churchman, the other to the monkey-like thing
27 STEPSISTERS
Setter sips a little soup cooked for family members (11)
(setter sips s{oup))*
DOWN
1 TROUBLE
Getting tense over money – bother! (7)
t rouble
2 FORELOCK
Golfer calls this rugby player ‘hairy bit at the front’ (8)
fore lock — ‘fore’ is shouted by golfers, a lock is a rugby player
3 EXPO
Show some of convex polyhedron (4)
Hidden in convEX POlyhedron
4 ALAN TURING
In style of Bible stories (not about healing mathematician) (4,6)
à la NT {c}uring — c = circa = about
5 PUT IN
It’s his historic fourth term: submit! (3,2)
2 defs, one of them referring to Vladimir Putin, whose fourth term as President this is
6 ENNOBLE
Coming up in the Spanish-German city, Earl to get more distinguished (7)
(Bonn)rev. in el, then E — you have to split it as ‘the Spanish’ [= el] and ‘German city’ [= Bonn]
7 WEEK AFTER WEEK
Time and time again, freak out about time in water spent by King (4,5,4)
I’m not all that comfortable with this: it seems to be t in (freak)*, in (wee-wee K): ‘week after week’ is supported (just) by Collins but not by Chambers — I think that’s how it works, but if anyone can do better then please say
8 TONGUE-IN-CHEEK
Perhaps English eke out small amount to be eaten: that’s ironic (6-2-5)
tongue (inch) (eke)* — English is a language, a tongue
13 CHRONICLES
Deplorable, the French historian’s work (10)
chronic les — chronic = deplorable — historians write histories or chronicles
16 BAKELITE
Plastic bag finally forsook for good (best) (8)
{forsoo}k replacing g in bag, then elite
18 GROVELS
Creeps travel aimlessly in Golfs every now and then (7)
rove in G{o}l{f}s
20 INROADS
Progress with play, mostly sardonic (7)
*(sardoni{c}) — as in make progress/make inroads
22 USAGE
Practice in America: ‘grey’ oddly seen (5)
USA g{r}e{y}
24 APPS
Those on smartphones in part of church called out (4)
“apse” — ‘Those’ refers to the programs, not the people

41 comments on “Everyman 3,881”

  2. …and in 21ac, I took the ‘to make’ as a link, so a whodunit is ‘something with clues’…which sort of works..

  4. Did not get manage to parse BAKELITE

    Liked FOUNDATION, WHODUNIT (made me laugh) ALAN TURING, (a hero) EGO-TRIP (took me ages to parse)

    Thanks to Everyman and John

  5. Quite a tough puzzle to solve.
    Favourites: TONGUE IN CHEEK, FRENCH HORN, WEEK AFTER WEEK, EYEBALL.
    New for me : STINK BUG, BAKELITE (loi).

    9ac: I don’t understand why PI RE = pi r squared. Is RE an abbreviation for ‘squared’?

    Thanks, Everyman and John

    [It’s a pity that today’s Everyman puzzle has not appeared on the Guardian site yet]

  6. I should add that I parsed 9ac as GOT in rev of PI = pious, in the sense of unrealistic or irrational + RE = spiritual teachings / religious education

  7. Tougher than last week’s, but I did manage it on Sunday. KABUL was tricky – I was looking for something along the lines of D’UKNO – was it a catch phrase of Rocky and Bullwinkle? No – just a not so simple inclusion. I liked EGO-TRIP, FRENCH HORN, PRIMATE, ENNOBLE, CHRONICLES and the two long ones. The Merchant of Venice as a definition was neat, too. I’m not sure ‘take a gander’ is quite EYEBALL – and there doesn’t seem to be a homophone indicator, either. Thanks, Everyman and John.

  8. TassieTim@7: it doesn’t really need both a homophone indicator and what you might call a Cockney accent indicator (East End) telling you that it’s ‘ighball.
    Thanks for parsing EGO TRIP.

  9. I agree with Grantinfeo @1 re 10ac. T would be valid as an abbreviation for ‘tense’, which is what I think out blogger may have had in mind, but the setter chose not to use it as such and indicated the first letter ‘T’ instead.

  10. Thanks for the lovely blog. I think EGOTRIP needs partly John and Michelle@6. Pi is the maths term which is definitely an irrational ( cannot be expressed as a fraction ) , RE is the religious teachings.

  14. Not often I begin my post with a straight out criticism but 11ac for KABUL appears to be one of the weakest clues I’ve seen in a quality publication. So I cheered myself up by Googling for unlikely combinations and discovered Bullwinkle’s Pizza in Juneau, AL, which tickled me. Mind you, another search result turned out to be similarly but not identically spelled – https://www.adn.com/voices/article/recalling-alaskas-most-notorious-drunken-moose-street-smart-buzzwinkle/2013/09/10/ – so isn’t really valid but what a link it nearly turned out to be so I include it here anyway.

    ANTONIO, CHRONICLES, FOUNDATION, WHODUNIT (despite the vague definition) and TONGUE IN CHEEK were favourites. EYEBALL is an outrageous Cockneyism but made me laugh.

    Thanks Everyman and John

  15. [PostMark @14 Entertaining article, but similar spelling? Compared with Bull, I’d say that Buzz was lightyears away!]

  17. [Penfold @15: very droll. Seriously, I was slightly surprised that it came up as the first item in a Google search for Alaska+Bullwinkle. The restaurant came up second. But worth the link as it’s an amusing incident.]

  18. PostMark@14 Shades of Lord Rockingham’s 11 classic “There’s a Moose Loose (about this hoose). I was misled by KABUL for ages too. I was thinking it was going to involve “Do you know?”

  19. It took me a long time – on reflection, a lot longer than it should have, given that I knew roughly what was required from the clue – to come up with BAKELITE. This meant that, after I realised I couldn’t make an anagram (indicated by perhaps) of “big ape + the b from bishops, I had two possibilities for 26a: PRELATE and PRIMATE, but neither of which I could justify in the parsing. Once I saw which one it was I was still at a loss, indeed I still sorta am after seeing the above. Never heard of it in reference to the first part of the clue in my life.
    The other one I couldn’t parse at the time was FRENCH HORN.

  20. [Petert: misled or moose-led? Had Everyman employed such a dubious homophone/pun, there would have been considerable rancour. Edging over the boundary of what’s acceptable. I’ll get my coat and promise no more Alaskan puns today…]

  22. Thank you BodsnVimto , I too was completely outfoxed by 16d, Bakelite. I did not get it and even with John’s explanation, think it not one of the best. All the others went in remarkably quickly so perhaps it was Everyman’s way of reminding me not to be so smug? As I am now used to, a bit uneven, but that’s the hallmark,IMO.

  23. Fairly smooth Sunday solve.

    I think the explanation for the ‘at first’ in 10A is that Everyman uses T = tense in 1D, so he didn’t want to use the same abbreviation twice. LOI were the 16/19 combination. I did particularly enjoy FOUNDATION, as well as CHRONICLES.

    I think the Bullwinkle reference is probably here.

    Thanks Everyman and John.

  24. Mostly very straightforward for me, but I had a brain fade on GROVELS (just couldn’t get the synonyms) and this held me up on WHODUNIT, which held me up on CHRONICLES. Got there in the end!

    Serendipity corner: STINK BUG was one of my first in, having seen an item in the Guardian on Monday about how these insects have invaded the UK and are expected to cause damage to crops such as apples. If I’d done the crossword on the traditional Sunday, I’d have had to give it a bit more thought.

  25. [Ta, Jay @13, printed and done, except for 22d, for which the clue is illegible due to my old printer..]

  26. Robi @23: I think your Alaskan Bullwinkle is about as obscure as mine! The web-site is amusing: I assume you did see what happens when you press the buttons About and Getting There? Amazingly helpful.

  31. Cor Anglais is not a French Horn. Cor Anglais is a woodwind instrument, otherwise known as English Horn. French Horn is a brass instrument.

  33. Intriguingly, though perhaps not relevant, the Cor Anglais is not English in any meaningful sense. It was invented in Poland and popularised in Germany, where it was called the engellisches horn, meaning angelic horn. This was understandably later mis-translated.

    What we now call the French Horn, meanwhile, originated in Germany. The German version is easier to play than the French one, but was a later invention. So over time it became more popular, though orchestral scores continued to use the older term, and gradually people equated the instrument being played (the German horn) with the term listed in the scores.

    Whether French or German, however, it is at least a horn, and a beautiful-sounding instrument. In both cases this makes it unlike the Cor Anglais, which is a woodwind instrument that sounds like a wet fart. Or at least it did when I used to play it 25 years ago.

  34. I wonder how many people thought of the wonderful Flanders and Swann bit in the preamble to ‘Ill Wind’, in which he says something like ‘… the horn, or the French horn as the English call it (not to be confused with the cor anglais …’

  36. Further to the French Horn discussion, in fact as it was explained to me (in France) that the cor anglais is so called as it’s a homonym of cor anglé, reflecting the fact that it’s not straight (at an angle)
    Just my 2 penn’orth…

  37. For the first time I managed to make use of the rhyming pair in order to solce 7D. (I thought its partner at 8D was a great clue but the answer jumped out straight away.) Flew through most of the rest then came to a grinding halt. Couldn’t parse 14A, not expecting to know cor was French for horn. Failed to parse 9A too, but thought that was an excellent clue. Thanks John & Everyman.

  38. Foundation was a nice clue but found a number of others unduly contrived. Kabul was especially poor. So only a 6/10 crossword for me.

  39. My favourites were toffee apple, alan turing, eyeball, foundation french horn but
    Plenty I don’t understand when reading this blog
    can someone explain
    20d what is the relevance of sardonic in the clue?
    8d where does Cheek come from? i guess the eek is eke but wht about the CH
    7d I don’t understand this explanation at all

    I liked ego trip 9ac but would never have worked out Pi and Re

  40. Vanessa: in 20dn sardonic provides (most of) the letters to be anagrammed; in 8dn the ch of cheek comes from the last two letters of ‘inch’; the ‘eek’ of cheek comes from an anagram (indicated by ‘out’) of ‘eke’; in 7dn the problem is that I’m a bit uncomfortable with it, as I say, but so far as I can see the definition is ‘Time and time again’, which more or less equals ‘week after week’; for the wordplay you start with freak, make an anagram of that and put it round t (giving k after), and finally put that in ‘wee-wee K’ — water spent is ‘wee-wee’, K is King. Rather tortuous.

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