I found this clunky in many places, but at the risk of repeating myself, I’m only the blogger.
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 Actor in bed with terror, trembling, cross
ROBERT REDFORD
A charade of (BED TERROR)* and FORD in its verbal sense. The anagrind is ‘trembling’. Together with RADICAL REFORM as the bottom across clue, we have our alliterative couplet.
8 We’re told part of foot’s to recover
HEAL
A homophone (‘we’re told’) of HEEL.
9 In frenzy, Eddy let men run riot
DEMENTEDLY
(EDDY LET MEN)* with ‘run riot’ as the anagrind.
10 Put otherwise, ‘anon’; also, dishearteningly, ‘mere’!
NO-NAME
(ANON ME)* The anagrind is ‘put otherwise’. I am not convinced ‘dishearteningly’ is grammatically correct to tell us to remove the central letters of ‘mere’. ‘Disheartened’ would work (but not for the surface). A rather clunky cad.
11 King missing Australia leadenly condemned outlaw
NED KELLY
(K LE[A]DENLY)* The removal indicator is ‘missing’ and the anagrind is ‘condemned’. The surface reading is not putting a picture in my head.
12 What happens when a golfball sliced? Already mentioned
AFORESAID
I know five-eights of naff all about golf and care less, but surely golfball is two words? I can’t find this version anywhere, and the clue doesn’t rely on it. The clue does rely on the fact that a player will shout ‘Fore!’ to warn others of a mishit shot that is in danger of crowning someone. So you definitely do need to separate out the three words: A FORE SAID.
14 US territory acceding haltingly, primarily?
UTAH
The initial letters of the first four words of the clue, and a cad, because the final part of the incorporated territory of Utah was only admitted to the Union in 1896.
15 Missing first item of agenda provokes those upstairs!
GODS
GO[A]DS
16 Where you might see stripped-off bare model with clothes removed?
ART LESSON
A charade of [B]AR[E], T for the ‘model’ [Ford] and LESS ON, and a cad.
20 Labyrinth lieutenant, old, vanquished at first? Congratulations!
MAZEL TOV
A charade of MAZE, LT, O and V for the first letter of ‘vanquished’. A phrase in Hebrew/Yiddish used in the Jewish community which literally means ‘Good Fortune’.
21 In dining-car, a feeble serving of wine
CARAFE
Hidden in dining-CAR A FEeble.
23 Emphasise superiority to partner, withholding gold, diamonds and charm
LORD IT OVER
An insertion of OR for ‘gold’ (in heraldic terminology), D for ‘diamonds’ and IT (‘he’s got it’) in LOVER. Can you have ‘withholding’ as an insertion indicator? Discuss.
24 To gather, crowd returned
MEET
A reversal of TEEM.
25 Big change: larder refitted with formica
RADICAL REFORM
(LARDER FORMICA)*
Down
1 Quickly, list some conger eel offcuts
REEL OFF
Hidden in congeR EEL OFFcuts.
2 Tree ointment when scratching bottom
BALSA
BALSA[M]
3 Perhaps writing milk-producers’ guides
RUDDERS
A charade of R and UDDERS. ‘Writing’ is one of the three Rs.
4 Victorian marvel, mushy art movement
ROMANTIC REVIVAL
(VICTORIAN MARVEL)*
5 Strip off widest annual, widest in the middle
DENUDE
A charade of the central letters of wiDEst, anNUal and wiDEst.
6 Dishes in bistro, finally: ‘Everyman, settle up’ (with slight discrepancy)
OMELETTES
A charade of O for the last letter of ‘bistro’, ME for the self-referential ‘Everyman’ and LETTES, which is a reversal (nearly) of SETTLE. The fact that a ‘slight discrepancy’ could be lots of things and the surface is borderline meaningless, with punctuation desperately trying to rescue it, means that this was not my favourite clue today.
7 She’s attractive and dangerous seller of foreign food (the French horse)
DELILAH
A charade of DELI, LA for one of the words for ‘the’ in French, and H for ‘horse’. The last particle could be based on the horse/heroin/H connections; but it’s also used in the equestrian world. The following are accepted abbreviations: m mare (female, five years or older); c colt (male, four years or younger); h horse (non-neutered male, five years or older); g gelding (neutered male, any age).
13 Ascendant Tudor essentially, Queen Elizabeth led – how she might be described?
RED-HEADED
A reversal of D for the central letter of ‘Tudor’ and ER for Elizabeth Regina followed by HEADED. The reversal indicator, because it’s a down clue, is ‘ascendant’.
15 Appeal of grand Latin lover in Paris
GLAMOUR
A charade of G, L and AMOUR.
17 Who makes us care – left and right – about espionage, ultimately?
LE CARRÉ
A charade of (CARE L R)* and E for the final letter of ‘espionage’. The anagrind is ‘about’ and the clue is a cad, referring to the spy writer John LE CARRÉ.
18 Misguided sour smile
OFF-BEAM
A charade of OFF and BEAM.
19 Not my mistake, putting junk in stable
STATIC
An insertion of TAT in SIC. SIC is the Latin term that writers (often journalists quoting others) use to indicate that the spelling or other error in the text is the original writer’s mistake, not theirs. It’s the Latin word for ‘so’ or ‘thus’ and is also the root for si in Italian or Spanish meaning ‘yes’ (and in fact in certain circumstances, in French as well).
22 Lover, fifth one after Mike
ROMEO
Think phonetic alphabet. R for ROMEO is five letters after M for Mike.
Many thanks to Everyman for this morning’s puzzle.
R is only FOUR letters after M
James in my alphabet it is 5 – NOPQR.
Favourites: GODS, ART LESSON.
I did not parse 10ac NO-NAME.
Last Sunday as I did the puzzle, in the background, the news was informing us of the death of B J Thomas who sang Raindrops keep falling on my head in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – not sure if this helped me get ROBERT REDFORD.
My last ones in were ART LESSON and LE CARRE (one of my favourites).
Loved STATIC – my COTD
Also liked AFORESAID, DELILAH, MAZEL TOV
Enjoyed the puzzle – didn’t parse BALSA – seems obvious now.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre
For 10ac I took *put otherwise* to mean turn *anon* around to give NONA then *also* add ME
Thanks for the blog, a bit of a mixed bag as usual. Fiona Anne has picked out the nice clues, I will just add UTAH as a very neat “primarily” clue and ART LESSON as a pretty decent &lit.
I thought 16ac was a feeble, barely cryptic clue (forgive the pun!) but I completely missed every element of the parsing and now think it is excellent.
Perhaps of interest, but this is the same grid as the Everyman 3,890 on 2nd May, where another trio of alliterative clues were used in the same positions, that time using ‘G’.
Good spot Jay@8, it is a nice grid. I wonder if Everyman just puts the trio in first and then fills in the rest.
When did we move from rhyming couplets to alliterative trios? Has Everyman got another poetic device under his sleeve?
What do people think about 24ac leaving the redundant “to” in the definition for “meet”? Generally crosswords don’t do this. Gather = Meet, and To Gather = To Meet. I’m interested as I’ve been setting my own puzzles. Similarly what about leaving “a” before the definition of a noun? Opinions valued.
Thanks Pierre. 3D – “Writing is one of the three R’s” Reading is the first, so presumably the third is Spelling 🙂
GrahamP@11, I would always avoid. I suppose in the case of 24a it’s there to help the surface which wouldn’t make much sense otherwise, though there are other ways in which that could have been clued to avoid the extra word
I wrote on my copy: ‘some clunky clues’.
I liked the clue for AFORESAID. What ‘Tree ointment when scratching bottom’ is supposed to mean is beyond me. I couldn’t parse 23 as I wrote in ‘hold it over’, doh!
GrahamP @11; the ‘to’ with a verb can be included sometimes if necessary for the surface (and then ignored). The use of ‘a’ or ‘the’ before a noun as definition is to be avoided if possible, but again some people do this to improve the surface.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre.
Cosmic@12, not sure if you know this or not, apologies if you are joking.
The 3Rs traditionally are reading , (w)riting and (a)rithmetic.
Much promoted by certain Education Ministers who like evidence-free policy.
Roz@12: Yes, I’ve known it since the days when the “three R’s” were drummed into me. However, I always find it ironic that ‘riting and ‘rithmetic are deemed to start with R, not least by Education Ministers, hence my suggestion that the epigram should be updated to “spelling” 🙂
A somewhat better Everyman this week: I like AFORESAID and ART LESSON and RUDDERS. But too many of the surfaces still make no sense.
20a MAZEL TOV may be often heard, but its surface makes no sense at all. What’s a labyrinth lieutenant, for heaven’s sake?
I do like “not my mistake” in 19d, though.
Thanks for the puzzle, Everyman, and the blog, Pierre (no birds today?)
Sorry cosmic@16, I did think you were joking and then I thought you might be one of our overseas contributors who was not subjected to such nonsense at school.
Robi@14
I entered ‘lord it over’ but still couldn’t parse it! Don’t like ‘it’ for ‘charm’. Loved the crossword, otherwise. (Not enjoying this week’s at all.)
Roz@19 Sorry to say school was so long ago that 3R’s was the staple diet. 🙁
For some reason I always thought the expression at 23a was “laud it over”. (Which works with “real” gold). Of course glamour put me right.
Ripped through this today. Liked mazel tov and omelette which we happened to be discussing at the time for breakfast and which sustained us to finish the crossword!
Could not get on the setter’s wavelength and struggled. Had to use wildcard dictionaries and web-searches. Could not parse many of the answers (including “lord it over” — way too complex — and “Romeo”).
Thanks to Pierre for the explanations.
Usual mixture of okay and less-than clues. 16 was indeed cleverer than I initially thought. Failed on 15D as I had (P)rods for 15A, as in stair rods.
12 should be ‘is sliced’: despite golfers’ claims to the contrary, golf balls don’t slice all by themselves.
Nothing much to startle the Hs today apart from the many nonsensical and tortured surfaces. Not that that’s that unusual. 10a, 20a, 5d, and 13d are utterly meaningless. With 7d Everyman seems to have got three quarters of the way through what was a promising idea and then given up and gone searching for something (anything!) to clue ‘h’.