Everyman 3,890/2 May

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Having dropped into Sil’s blog a few weeks ago to say I agreed with him about Everyman becoming more consistent as a setter of our Sunday puzzle, I found myself getting slightly grumpy about this offering because of the number of clunky clues and less than meaningful surface readings. Your experience may, of course, have differed.

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

1 Salad of two eggs, thistle? Lose it
GET THE GIGGLES
(EGG EGG THISTLE)* with ‘salad of’ as the anagrind.

8 Burden hanging over setter and solver
ONUS
A charade of ON for ‘hanging over’ and US for the two partners involved in producing a completed version of this puzzle.

9 Once more assess, leave a true slamming
REEVALUATE
(LEAVE A TRUE)* with ‘slamming’ as the anagrind. The surface reading is straining at the edges, I think. I would always write RE-EVALUATE, and enumerate it as (2-8), but the hyphenless version isn’t wrong.  I’d advise you not to write ANTIINTELLECTUAL or INTRAAGENCY, though.

10 Scrapes together half of single answer
GLEANS
A charade of [SIN]GLE and ANS.

11 Gold … bunch of wind … American statesman
AUGUSTUS
Another surface reading that’s not particularly meaningful. A charade of AU for the chemical symbol for ‘gold’, GUST and US gives you the Roman ‘statesman’ Augustus Caesar.

12 Essential to Health: roly-poly pudding’s #4, after t’ai chi regularly
FATTY ACID
Another strained surface which relies on the italicisation to make even remote sense. A charade of FATTY for ‘roly-poly’ and D for the fourth letter of ‘pudDing’ after ACI for the even letters of ‘tAi ChI‘

14 Withdrawn, partly open Indian prince
RAJA
A reversal of AJAR.

15 US duffer plays green shot loudly
PUTZ
A homophone (‘loudly’) of PUTTS. PUTZ is American English, hence ‘US’. In case it comes up in polite conversation for you sometime soon, it’s the Yiddish word for ‘penis’.

16 Announces cramps; oil massaged
PROCLAIMS
(CRAMPS OIL)*

20 Member of Steps, Beatle wife, 60s diva assembled somewhere in C Pacific
HONOLULU
This is a much better surface, although 60s needs an apostrophe after it to get past the punctuation police. H is a member of the pop group Steps; ONO is John Lennon’s wife; LULU is a 1960s’ diva. Put them together and you’ve got the capital of Hawaii, which is in the Central Pacific.

21 Some ‘hero’ haltingly retiring somewhere in Asia
LAHORE
Somewhere in the Central Pacific, somewhere in Asia … we’ll be somewhere Over the Rainbow soon. Hidden reversed in hERO HALtingly. Do we really need the inverted commas around ‘hero’?

23 Everyman touring Ontario with Italian musician – and another
MONTEVERDI
A charade of ONT in ME for ‘Everyman’ and [Giuseppe] VERDI gives you [Claudio] MONTEVERDI, the Italian composer.

24 Perhaps Murdoch‘s one seen in the Eye?
IRIS
A dd. The first reference is to the Irish writer Iris Murdoch, perhaps best known for The Sea, the Sea; the second is to the satirical magazine Private Eye (so we do need the italics).

25 Makes progress with clue for ‘the rags’?
GATHERS GROUND
A reverse anagram thingy. Since ‘ground’ is an anagrind, GATHERS GROUND would clue ‘the rags’.

Down

1 The French defending one supporting mob – there’s some nerve!
GANGLIA
A charade of GANG and I inserted into LA for one of the French words for ‘the’. The insertion indicator is ‘defending’ and ‘supporting’ works because it’s a down clue. I am struggling to make the clue really work, since GANGLIA is the plural of GANGLION, and ‘some nerve’ to describe a plural entity is perhaps not ideal.

2 Primarily, Thomas Edison’s science-advancing, long-standing arch-rival!
TESLA
The initial letters of the second to sixth words of the clue and a (very vague) cad. One of Edison’s many inventions was the electric light bulb, but to describe him as a ‘rival’ of the EV company TESLA is a stretch.

3 Sourced in Kandahar is salty, spicy paste
HARISSA
Hidden in KandaHAR IS SAlty.

4 Infantrymen guided arrangers in orchestration
GRENADIER GUARDS
(GUIDED ARRANGERS)*

5 Good to roam freely, reaching farmhouse
GRANGE
A charade of G and RANGE.

6 LA: it’s in America, on the Gulf of Mexico
LOUISIANA
I am happy to be proved wrong, but I think this is just a misleading definition of LA for Los Angeles.

7 Mandarin tests Ms. Thurman
SATSUMA
A charade of SATS and UMA. SATS (more correctly written as SATs) stands for Standard Assessment Tests. They are used in English primary schools to evaluate pupils’ progress at the end of Y2 and Y6. Hearing someone refer to them as SATS tests is about as annoying as being asked in a supermarket to enter your PIN number.

13 Retaliation: what makes ‘hit a toff’ click!?
TIT FOR TAT
The solution relies on the fact that if you replace TAT in the middle of ‘hit a toff’ with TIT then you get ‘hit it off’, which means ‘click’.

15 Prince topless, tea to get more drawn out
PROLONG
A charade of PR and [O]OLONG. Surely the definition requires PROLONGED?

17 A little manic, Ollie Reed portrays man seen with canary
COLLIER
Another hidden: this time in maniC OLLIE Reed. I’m not sure the actor Oliver Reed was ever widely called ‘Ollie’, but many of his character portrayals could be described as ‘manic’. My favourite of his is as Gerald Crich, the mine owner in Russell’s adaptation of D H Lawrence’s Women in Love. The canary reference is to the mines, of course: the birds were taken down by miners because they would react more quickly than colliers to high levels of carbon monoxide, thus providing an early warning of danger. I was surprised to learn that in the UK it was only in 1986 that they were replaced by electronic monitors.

18 Arrived on a little isthmus in Med, took the plunge
MARRIED
An insertion of ARR and I for the first letter of ‘isthmus’ in MED.

19 Actor, regularly loud, very very immodest and egotistical at the outset
LUVVIE
A charade of LU for the odd letters of ‘loud’ and VVIE for the initial letters of ‘very’, ‘very’, ‘immodest’ and ‘egotistical’.

22 Hearts of the vain yakuza captured in poetry
HAIKU
The middle letters of tHe, vAIn and yaKUza give you the Japanese verse form consisting of 17 syllables, usually arranged into lines of 5, 7 and 5.

Many thanks to Everyman for this morning’s puzzle.

65 comments on “Everyman 3,890/2 May”

  1. I did enjoy the puzzle especially since I managed to complete it without using any aids – a first for me – although I didn’t manage to parse TIT FOR TAT despite returning to it several times during the week.

    I liked ONUS and PUTZ which took me way too long to get. Also liked GET THE GIGGLES and HONALULU (and I think Lulu was in an Everyman puzzle quite recently).

    Agree that LOUISIANA was a strange clue.

    Thanks Everyman and `Pierre

  3. Weren’t Edison and Tesla rivals over DC vs AC? Westinghouse backed one and another mogul the other, I vaguely recall.

  4. Isn’t LA the two letter abbreviation for LOUISIANA then? Which is in America on the Gulf of Mexico. I agree with Pierre’s other nitpicks but I’m not sure what’s wrong with that one.

  5. Unless I’m misreading your query. If you’re expressing surprise at its straightforwardness, then I agree with the raised eyebrow.

  6. As usual for me, couple of gk-related shrugs… nho Steps or H, or Ollie Reed (but Oliver, yes!). Didn’t matter none.

  7. PM @4, yeah I think Pierre just meant that that’s all there was to it, not that it was wrong.

  8. Enjoyed the alliterative G’s in all the long clues. Felt 22d was a missed opportunity to write the clue as a Haiku. Something like…

    Centres of the vain
    Yakuza in poetry
    Coming from Japan
    (5)

    Thanks to Everyman and Pierre

  9. Thanks for the blog , I agree about too much punctuation again.
    What is the strange symbol in 12ac ?
    EDISON and Nikola TESLA were rivals for original electricity distribution. Edison was for DC but Tesla was for AC , the system we use now for the National Grid.

  10. Sorry grantinfreo , I have just read your comment. Tesla also did a lot of theoretical work in electromagnetism, he even has an SI unit named after him, a rare honour.

  12. I felt the same about this puzzle as Pierre.

    My notes were:
    Why does COLLIER = a man seen with canary? is it to do with canary in a coal mine?
    New FATTY ACID – did not know that it is essential to health; LUVVIE = actor.
    Did not parse TIT FOR TaT – anagram?
    Did not parse H in HONOLULU – I never heard of the pop group Steps.

    LOUISIANA = LA (the state of Louisiana)

  13. I wondered about Private Eye but assumed that was misdirection and settled on IRIS being a part of the eye? I Loved the HONOLULU superband but I think H might struggle to be heard in that company

  14. I parsed GLEANS as being half of both sinGLE and ANSwer, rather than a half word plus an abbreviation.

  16. My experience did differ! I loved this one.

    GATHERS GROUND was my favourite: a real meta-clue.

    Re: 60s needing an apostrophe. Isn’t ’60s’ an adjective? And thus ok without the apostrophe?

    Thanks for the blog!

  18. TIT FOR TAT was great and I enjoyed HONOLULU (though tempted by Yokohama at first). The last time I saw Lulu she had to turn round to ululate.

  19. Agree with Pierre this had some awkward ones, though the definition of 15 is best read as “get more drawn out”. And as bodycheetah says, an Iris is indeed seen in the eye: the italics make the surface work. Never parsed 13 or 25 despite looking at them all week!

  20. Thanks for parsing this Everyman. The range of difficulty was unusual I thought. LA for Louisiana was almost not even cryptic. TIT FOR TAT was briliant (thanks for explanation Pierre) and ideal for AZED more than Everyman ( in this case Everyman minus this one, at least) and GATHERS GROUND – reverse anagrams – not sure where that stands on the difficulty ladder, bu somewhere north of me I regret, and I’ve enjoyed Everyman for several decades.

  21. My favourite was 7d SATSUMA. I know “Ms Thurman” for Uma was a bit of a giveaway, but the misleading use of “mandarin” was amusing.

    Is 25a GATHERS GROUND an actual phrase? “Gains ground”, or “gathers pace”, yes, but I’m not sure I’ve heard GATHERS GROUND.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  22. I don’t know, I quite liked most of these surfaces. The ‘golden windbag’ in 11A made me smile – as did the idea we might call Trump a ‘statesman’.

  23. Thanks for all the comments so far. Just to clarify, my gripe with 6dn is that LA is indeed Louisiana, but the clue makes you think it’s Los Angeles, so I can’t really see any cryptic element to it.

    Objection withdrawn for the EDISON clue. I should have known about Tesla the inventor, but with so much electric vehicle stuff in the news at the minute I was led astray. My bad.

    Roz, the symbol in 12ac is the hashtag, which is used (mainly in the US, I would say) as an alternative to ‘no.’ for ‘number’. So it’s pointing you to letter number 4 of the word in question.

    Graham P, I hesitated over whether to make ‘get’ part of the definition in 15dn. But it still doesn’t work as a synonym for PROLONG. ‘The game got more drawn out because of the slow over rate’ won’t translate as ‘the game prolonged because of the slow over rate.’ ‘The slow over rate prolonged the game’ is fine.

  24. Bodycheetah@13

    I agree that the Eye reference to Private Eye was for the sake of the surface, not part of the definition.

  25. Roz @9: Pierre has just addressed your query about the hashtag. A couple more snippets you might find interesting. Pierre’s right that, on this occasion, it’s just being used as an indicator for ‘number’ – and it was originally just referred to as ‘hash’ but it has become adopted as a marker – or tag – of significance in programming language. Initially, it instructed computers (I’m no tecchie so may be using language loosely!), to process certain key words before others. Subsequently it was proposed as a tool to link common threads or topics in global ‘chat’ applications like Twitter and Instagram. ( Both of which I know you employ on a daily basis 😀 ). It is also – confusingly – sometimes referred to – again, mainly in the US, as ‘pound’.

  26. Thanks for the explanations everybody – really helpful! The only one I’m struggling to explain to myself is 25 across. I can’t see how “the rags” is a clue for gathers ground.

  27. David @26: ‘ground’ is an anagram indicator. Apply it to ‘gathers’ and you get ‘the rags’ – or vice versa.

  28. GATHERS GROUND is an anagram core. ‘ground’ is the anagrind. One could argue it is an incomplete clue because there is no definition part of the clue.

  31. My label of the GATHERS GROUND clue as a ‘reverse anagram thingy’ may not have helped your comprehension, David. I must think of a better descriptor (although the possibility of using the acronym ‘rat’ remains tempting).

  32. Andrew+Cotgreave @28: there is a definition in 25a which is “Makes progress”, as underlined by Pierre. My query (@21) was whether GATHERS GROUND is actually a known phrase.

  34. Lord Jim @32: From Milton’s Paradise Lost

    “The Cherubim descended; on the ground
    Gliding meteorous, as evening mist
    Risen from a river o’er the marish glides,
    And gathers ground fast at the labourer’s heel
    Homeward returning.”

    Though, to be fair, that is the only reference that comes up in Google Books – apart from a line about a fisherman who gathers ground bait which I don’t think counts!

  35. I know we are not supposed to discuss this week’s Everyman but in the clue for 6A is “SURPRESSED” a word? Not in any dictionary I have. Or another Grauniad typo?

  36. Thank you Pierre @23 and MrPostMark @25. I have the word hashtag but do not think I have ever seen it written.
    I am with Lord Jim on GATHERS GROUND, gathers pace or speed or momentum , or gains ground.

  37. Thanks PostMark @34, a lovely quote (from that final section leading up to the magnificent closing lines). But it doesn’t alter my suspicion that GATHERS GROUND may just be two words that can go together, like “blue teapot”, rather than “a thing”.

    (Pierre @31: I like the idea of the acronym for “reverse anagram thingy”! But perhaps on balance it’s best not to start referring to rats as well as cads in case people think you’re calling them names 🙂 )

  38. Talk about GK! There is actually a person called H in a band called Steps?

    In the US, SAT is the Scholastic Aptitude or Achievement Test, which high school students take for applications to college. The former is supposed to test general brightness, and comes in “verbal’ and “mathematical,” and the latter are in specific subjects, such as French or history.

    ON#25 That’s the weight pound, not the currency pound.

    Jay@8 I learned recently (I think in the comments here) that the word “haiku” applies specifically to poems about nature. Senryu are poems of the same form about human nature, usually satirical. That was news to me, I’d assumed a haiku was any poem in the 5-7-5 syllable form.

    I don’t think FATTY = “roly-poly.” Would you say “a fatty child”?

    I think 10a singGLE ANSwer is a simple hidden, we’re getting too fancy here.

    Nice puzzle, Everyman, thanks. And thanks to Pierre for the (birdless) blog.

  40. Very much a typical product from the Frenchman with the usual entertainment and fun mixed in with the usual error[s] (as usual it seems to be lack of effort in checking things rather than any inherent idiocy). We also have the usual bluster and I am-rightism (though you may disagree, of course), but, as I have come to expect from this blogger, it is charming in its own way. I suppose what I am saying is Pierre is a bit Marmite. However, despite his many and continuing flaws I am definitely in the love camp. There is no doubt he is very amusing. 🙂

    On the crossword front, I did wonder whether some of the clues were changes from the pen of the editor rather than the setter?

  41. “…and Seabiscuit GATHERS GROUND along the rail …” — Such usage is fairly common among announcers of horse races.

    I’m surprised to see that some were flummoxed by the use of the number sign. See its Wikipedia article to sort out its various names and uses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign

  43. @Lord Jim – my bad, when I said there’s no definition, I meant that the clue “Gathers Ground” has no definition for “the rags”; it’s just the anagrind part.

  44. Funnily enough, Hoskins, I am just about to allocate the next ninety minutes of my life to solving your next puzzle in the Indy and posting a blog so that your work might reach a larger audience and – unless you have included flaws, bluster and a healthy dose of I-am-rightism – get the plaudits it deserves. I’ll reserve an extra five minutes at the end before I press ‘Publish’ just to check that there’s none of that from my side to spoil your carefully crafted offering. Other bloggers are available who make far fewer errors than I do, and the Fifteensquared bloggers schedule is not hard to work out if you’d prefer someone who doesn’t smell of Marmite to do the job for you. Who knows, you might even land someone who’s not inherently idiotic.

  45. Oh no, me petit pois, don’t change a thing in your work on my account – it would spoil the pleasure for many if not all. Like I said above, I love you and your work because, like all great artists, there is just so much of yourself in it. A Pierre blog is like a stick of Blackpool rock and just as nice to suck on and no doubts abouts it! 🙂

  46. Everyone seems to have missed the error in 23ac. ON is the recognized abbreviation for Ontario, not “Ont”.

  47. Bravo, Pierre @44 in response to the obnoxious, patronising intervention by Hoskins. I sometimes disagree with you (e.g. regarding ‘anticipate’ several puzzles back), but I hope that I would never in so doing take the tone adopted in @40. H’s riposte @45 just compounds the felony. Is Hoskins really like that in real life, in which case I feel for his friends and family, if improbably he has any left, or is he hiding behind a performative, prize-pain-in-the butt persona? As an alumnus of a Particular College at a Particular University, I have regrettably encountered the latter both in low- and in high-table contexts, but I am unable to say, in this case, as I solve only in the Guardian. You may have significant previous experience of H (‘member of Steps’) to which I am not privy. If Hoskins is now inclined to turn his incomparable wit and fatuous bravado against me, I would advise him to spare the wear and tear on his keyboard.

  48. Spooner! Please store yer handbags in the overhead carriage. Just jokes and banter here wot you seemed to have missed, but as you only do the Graun and don’t know me like that Pierre does that is easily done. No hard feelings and no apology needed on your part. Onwards and upwards. 🙂

  49. Well, that, of course, enabled me completely to revise my view of you, Hoskins @48; so thanks for that. I feel so much better, believe me.

  50. Valentine @ 38

    I think you could say: *He’s a right fatty* and *he’s a right roly-poly* or *what a fatty* and *what a roly-poly* maybe

  51. No worries, Spooner, easy for one to go off the deep end in these stressful times as my silver-haired mother will attest to my doing as I kept her company during the lockdowns! The main thing is your view has been reviewed – all else is as flowing water and already forgotten. 🙂

  52. George smiley @46 Here in Canada, “Ont” is understood countrywide as a legitimate abbreviation for Ontario, even though it is not the “official” 2-letter ISO definition. Place names can have more than one well-understood abbreviation — consider US and USA, for example, or CA, Cal, and Calif for California. I think the clue in question is fine.

  54. Well that was fun. And a great discussion to boot. That Hoskins sounds like a truly great man. And I’m sure nobody knows that better than him. Many thanks to Pierre.

  55. Being expected to know H was a member of Steps is absurd. Frankly it was the last thing on my mind

  56. Bodycheetah @55 I was fairly sure that, if I looked up their discography, I’d see what you did there 🙂

  57. Just to clarify: a hashtag is a tag preceded by a hash (#) to identify it as a hashtag. A person who calls #annoyinglymodern “hashtag annoyingly modern” is displaying slight linguistic ignorance.

    And I greatly enjoyed matematico’s comment @54.

    As for the puzzle, PUTZ is pretty obscure and I would have guessed that it was pronounced “puts” rather than “putts”, though I suppose in my part of the jungle “putts” is pronounced much the same as “puts”.

  58. Thank you Monkey , I have only ever heard the word HASHTAG and never seen it written before and I now see the symbol is called a HASH.
    It is a bit like saying AC current.

  59. Thanks grantinfreo@53.
    Not sure if the proof reader had surpassed him/her/itself not that it suppressed my ability to solve the clue.

  60. DOUG431@52 .As a resident of ON for the past 50 years, I cannot recall coming across that usage.

  61. Pierre, I always try to look for where Everyman might have seen something I’ve missed but I have to agree with you on 15dn “Make more drawn out” would have worked for me.
    Has anyone noticed a big difference between this Everyman and previous ones? S(he) currently never speads answers across two entries (eg 1across, 4 down) and also never refers to a different answer within a clue (eg “… produced by a 6 in Germany”)

  62. Some trickier ones this time but still enjoyable. 13d was clever – too clever for me. Thanks Pierre & Everyman. Given the furore above its a good thing you avoided the French homophone at 21ac.

  63. Good puzzle again. Putz was beyond us even though Alan has ancient Jewish ancestors – unfortunately they didn’t hand down the use of Jewish slang, so I guess we need to watch more US sitcoms.

  64. After serving up some quite good crosswords recently I thought this a bit of a leap backwards, with some especially poor surfaces and contrived cryptic constructions.

    Mr. Catflap, having had a little bit to do with Hoskins in the DIYCOW blog I can attest to his being a good egg, and his beat-up of Pierre seemed out of character. But then this comes to you some weeks too late for either of you to read it.

    Thanks Pierre – and Everyman, but more polishing required I think.

  65. Nikola Tesla was a rival of Edison. An Austrian now Croation American and a great inventor. Invenred the bruhless ac motor which was the great driver to have ac power rathrr than dc power. Brilluant but notbwell known.
    AB Parnell

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