Everyman 3,910/19 September

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Another pleasing Sunday offering from Everyman, somewhat marred by a lack of editing leading to a clue having to be corrected after publication (on the website, at least).

 

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 My jape is silly, overshadowing isolated overnight events
PYJAMA PARTIES
An insertion of APART in (MY JAPE IS)* The insertion indicator is ‘overshadowing’ and the anagrind is ‘silly’.

8 Bootlegging, excluding number that’s suggestive
RACY
[PI]RACY Specifically, the number that is 3.1415926535 …

9 A nun, woozy with a cigar from somewhere in Central America
NICARAGUAN
(A NUN A CIGAR)* The anagrind is ‘woozy’.

10 Small amount of money Everyman’s hiding, getting stick
CEMENT
An insertion of ME for ‘Everyman’ in CENT. The insertion indicator is ‘hiding’ and the apostrophe s.

11 Without a plan to lose home, becoming derelict
UNTENDED
UN[IN]TENDED

12 Dame; unsettling macabre author, uncomfortable reading including eerie Rebecca, primarily!
DU MAURIER
The initial letters of the first nine words of the clue, and a cad. Referencing Dame Daphne DU MAURIER, author of Rebecca (and much else).

14 Some Blairism that’s essential in vision
IRIS
Hidden in BlaIRISm.

15 Tasteless rubbish! American! I’m off!
TA-TA
A charade of TAT and A.

16 Monsieur altered canton to include limits of Basel and an Alp
MONT BLANC
A charade of M and BL for the outside letters of ‘Basel’ inserted into (CANTON)* The anagrind is ‘altered’ and the insertion indicator is ‘to include’.

20 Scratching head, orthopod’s performing skilful manœuvre
DROP-SHOT
([O]RTHOPODS)* The anagrind is ‘performing’. I would always write this as two words, unhyphenated, but I can’t say that hyphenating it is wrong.

21 Haunt with unnatural sobs describing evacuated entrails
OBSESS
An insertion of ES for the outside letters of ‘entrails’ (in others words, with the middle bit ‘evacuated’) in (SOBS)* The insertion indicator is ‘describing’ and the anagrind is ‘unnatural’.

23 Leafy green – or cheese and white wine? Not half!
SWISS CHARD
A charade of SWISS and CHARD[ONNAY]. SWISS for ‘cheese’ is a bit of a stretch, although you might say SWISS CHEESE for Emmental; and of course there’s the famous Swiss Cheese plant.

24 Complain as storyteller returning
RAIL
LIAR reversed.

25 Strict type of ballerina, initially narcissistic drama queen withholding support
PRIM AND PROPER
A charade of PRIMA, then an insertion of PROP in N and D for the initial letters of ‘narcissistic’ and ‘drama’ and ER for Elizabeth Regina or ‘queen’. Can you have ‘withholding’ as an insertion indicator? Discuss. An alliterative solution to go with the one at 1ac.

Down

1 ‘Table‘ in France: a single dish with water
PLATEAU
A charade of PLAT and EAU, two French words for ‘dish’ (in the singular) and ‘water’.

2 Writer in bliss before seeing cheque … gutted
JOYCE
A charade of JOY and C[HEQU]E. James JOYCE, author of Ulysees and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

3 Troll using some ‘gammon’ stereotypes
MONSTER
Hidden in gamMON STEReotypes.

4 Correspondence from overseas resort captured Tropics
PICTURE POSTCARD
(CAPTURED TROPICS)* with ‘resort’ (or, strictly, re-sort) as the anagrind. The clue when I solved the puzzle read ‘captures’ and not ‘captured’, which would make it faulty. The website corrected it later in the day, but I’m not sure what appeared in the paper.

5 Equality – with prince becoming king – it’s seldom seen
RARITY
Everyman is inviting you to take the P for ‘Prince’ out of PARITY and replace it with R for Rex or ‘king’.

6 Ordinarily, flipping Luxembourg and Austria mostly backslide, ‘neutral; independent’
IN GENERAL
This is all a bit clunky, isn’t it? A reversal (‘flipping’) of L, A, RENEG[E], N and I.

7 They rebuke people found on roofs
SLATERS
A dd.

13 Topple after a little Negroni and fizz as starters
ANTIPASTI
A charade of A, N for the initial letter of ‘Negroni’, TIP and ASTI.

15 Pour most of the whiskey out – what you may do later?
THROW UP
(POUR TH[E] W)* The anagrind is ‘out’. ‘Whiskey’ is so spelt – with a E – because that’s the version of the word that’s used in the phonetic/NATO alphabet.

17 Also, the German harbours run as per specifications
TO ORDER
An insertion of R in TOO and DER for one of the words for ‘the’ in German. The insertion indicator is ‘harbours’.

18 Time to note: what was more savoury now more indecent
NASTIER
This time, the setter is asking you to replace the T in TASTIER with N for ‘note’.

19 Tea, followed by tea dance
CHA-CHA
CHA for ‘tea’, followed by more tea.

22 Hone temper
STROP
A dd. For the first definition, think leather straps and razors.

Many thanks to Everyman as always for this Sunday’s puzzle.

33 comments on “Everyman 3,910/19 September”

  2. 4D the print version was wrong … I’d written in the answer before I realised the anagram didn’t work, but then, it *must* be right, mustn’t it … ?

  3. Favourite: RAIL (loi)

    New for me: STROP = temper / a device, typically a strip of leather, for sharpening razors.

    I did not parse: 4d PICTURE POSTCARD (thought it was an anagram of ‘captures tropics’ but that did not work – ie left with an S but no D), or 15d.

    Thanks, both.

    * I see now it was an error with 4d (I do the puzzle online).

  4. Obviously “P” was the letter of the day.
    I also filled in 5d before I realised there was a problem and found out about the mistake later.
    Quite a lot to like here and I haven’t been able to say that for all of them. Loved 9a and had trouble parsing 15d.
    Why is SLATERS highlighted in the grid? What have I missed?
    Thanks both.

  5. Mystogre@4 – I do the puzzle online and the last clue that we click on gets highlighted. It might just be that Pierre made his screenshot when that word happened to be highlighted?

  7. I wasn’t too certain I was right in entering 8a – [PI]RACY – or 7d – SHAKERS (wooden roof tiles, those who shake their head ‘no’). Both seemed a little contrived to me, and I thought that there might be some equally plausible answer (SLATERS?). Those apart, the crossie seemed fine to me. Spotting the ‘P’ alliteration helped. Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.

  8. Me @7. SHAKERS requires a different split: they rebuke people/found on roofs. I think it is as good as – maybe better than – SLATERS.

  9. I agree with you TassieTim@8. Shakers works just as well. Better in some ways.

    My LOI was (Pi)RACY. I was too focused on N for number and bootlegging as only related to tax avoidance etc. I never noticed the mistake for 4d and enjoyed this Sunday exercise.

  10. Thanks for the blog, I must admit not noticing the D/S issue for 4D just put it in without a thought.
    Interesting alternative Tassie Tim @7 , although I do think SLATERS is stronger for rebuke.
    P alliteration this week, is anyone keeping a record of the letters to see if they spell anything ?
    I thought this was pretty good overall.

  11. Found this took me a bit longer than usual and didn’t get 8a – I thought bootlegging meant illicit distilling of alcohol and never thought of piracy. I thought 7d might be spacers but that didn’t work.

    I think my favourite clue was LIAR and I also liked PRIM AND PROPER

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre

  12. Roz@10, I’ve noted, C county council etc, G get the giggles etc, S secret service etc – they all use this grid. And of course it only works when 1a is (6,7) so that the start of the second word is the start of 4d, which is neat.
    Unfortunately I don’t think they spell anything.

  13. Thanks Jay @12 , I thought it would be random but I just wondered, yes always the same grid and a new word starts in the middle at the top and the bottom, it is a nice touch really.

  14. Thanks Everyman and Pierre. All good stuff, solid clues pitched at just the right level for a Sunday morning solve for me. Surfaces mostly very smooth too, apart from 6d, which isn’t just clunky, it’s downright nonsense! But solvable nonsense, to be fair. I didn’t have a problem with SWISS – it comes down to whether you think of Cheddar, Stilton, Edam etc as modifiers for the word CHEESE or allow them to be standalone nouns. I’m happy to go with the latter for Everyman’s sake.

    Like Roz @10, I filled in PICTURE POSTCARD without checking off the letters, so I couldn’t tell you whether or not the clue was correct in the Puzzles app.

    TassieTim @8 – “they rebuke people” doesn’t work as a definition for SHAKERS for me, sorry! Also not keen on where you’re putting the split – “people” needs to sit with “found on roofs”. SLATERS, as parsed by Pierre, is much more convincing for me.

  16. [widdersbel@14 – your comments on cheese made me belatedly realise that although I grew up with it existing in supermarkets in Australia, a quick google search reveals that in the UK and in Europe, “Swiss Cheese” has no meaning as a specific cheese. It is a US name for and generic imitation of Emmenthal.
    I agree with Pierre that SWISS for ‘cheese’ is a bit of a stretch.]

  17. Re 7D: slates are rare in our area so tilers are more likely to be found on roofs, and having been married to a Scot, “slater” conjures up a different mental image. So I needed all the crossers for this one.
    4D: My print version had the S for D error. Strangely, given it’s from the Grauniad family, I didn’t suspect a misprint, but wrote in Picture Postcard anyway.
    8ac was my loi because I focused on looking for a word where you could insert N or a short number such as TEN. After the penny dropped, I thought it a clever clue.

    Agreed that 6d is a bit contrived, and the letter substitution type of clue (5D and 18D) is in danger of overuse. Fine occasionally but maybe a limit of one per grid would be appropriate.
    Overall, another enjoyable crossword, thanks to Everyman and Pierre.

  18. Thank you, widdersbel @14, for drawing attention to the gibberish that is the clue for 6D. For me, surfaces matter, and although I do not usually criticise individual clues, or whole puzzles for that matter, the indignation occasioned by that particular word salad had been festering all week.

  19. I found this a fairly straightforward puzzle, apart from the error, which left me unsure for a while until I’d completed the rest of the clues. Thanks to those who spotted the alliteration. Just had a quick look back over recent puzzles and there is another starting ROBERT REDFORD using a different grid. I’m afraid I haven’t time to look back further. Thanks to Everyman and Pierre too.

  20. Enjoyable Sunday morning entertainment as usual. My favourite was PRIM AND PROPER, very good getting the drama queen in there. I just assumed that the s/d issue in 4d was a typo, as indeed it turned out.

    Yes, the surface for 6d is clunky, but it does make sense. The speaker is irritated by the behaviour of Luxembourg and Austria (“flipping” being the informal euphemistic term expressing annoyance), saying that normally they backslide from their commitments, and commenting on their status as supposedly neutral and independent. (I’m not saying that this is true!)

    Many thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  21. Michelle @16 – I agree it’s a bit of a stretch but I’m inclined to be generous to Everyman on this one, on the basis that Cheddar is similarly a generic term that we would allow as a standalone noun. (Btw, if we’re being picky, the relevant protected designation is “Emmentaler”!)

    SC @18 – Clunky surfaces are excusable if you can at least get a sense of the setter’s intentions (you have to make some allowances for “crossword grammar”), but it’s really hard to see what Everyman is aiming for here. Word salad indeed.

  27. Our print version was correct.

    Decent enough crossword, not as good as some other Everymans of late and a few meh surfaces. Can’t say I was moved to parse everything.

  28. LIked this one. The NZH print version had the correct clue for 4 down; no typo. I had no problem with 6 down, nor with “Swiss” for cheese. LOI and favourite was 8 across;
    fell about laughing when I finally saw it; thought it was very clever.

    Thanks to Everyman and to Pierre.

  30. Can anyone tell me why ‘What you may do later ‘ means throw up? . It just seems too far-fetched to me as a logical answer. That aside lots to like … My favourite clues were TaTa, Swiss Chard, Plateau, Racy and Rarity.

  31. Vanessa I took it to be what you might do after too much whisky. I agree it’s lame, especially since the clue talks of tipping it down the sink rather than drinking it. Classic current Everyman quirk that I don’t like.

  32. This was a bit spooky as I am presently wading through Ulysses for the second time in 40 years. I got 6d only because it fitted and thought the clue was bizarre – until I read Lord Jim @20’s explanation and now think it’s hilarious. Thanks all.

  33. thanks Barrie I totally agree, I too thought it might be to do with overdoing it on the whisky but like you said, it couldn’t be that since
    it was poured away. If no other explanation, lame is right ..Was surprised no one else minded this clue!

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