Everyman 3,911

by

The Observer crossword from Sept 26, 2021
Apart from one or two things a solid crossword, not too hard for those learning the game.


Today’s linked clues? We’ll have ‘eye’ mentioned twice (in 20ac and 8dn) but I think we should go for the fruity ones at 11 and 20ac.

ACROSS
1 ALTOCUMULI
I call out madly about Greek character in the clouds (10)
Anagram [madly] of: I CALL OUT, which goes around MU (Greek character)
6 CASH
Money‘s in hiding place (as auditor perceives it) (4)
Homophone [as auditor perceives it] of: CACHE (hiding place)
We had ‘cache’ as a – for some apparently dubious – homophone of ‘cash’ in the last Everyman I blogged, four weeks ago.
9 MONTMARTRE
Time, between a day and a month, tense on Parisian hill (10)
T (time) literally between MON (a day, Monday) and MAR (a month, March), followed by T (tense) RE (on)
10 VETO
Ban covetousness? Not entirely (4)
Hidden solution [not entirely]: coVETOusness
11 SECOND BANANA
After short time, bit of a hand for subsidiary performer (6,6)
SECOND (short time), followed by BANANA (bit of a ‘hand’)
15 OGREISH
Old girl, condiment left out is repulsive (7)
O (old) G (girl), followed by RELISH (condiment) minus L (left)
Just like B for ‘boy’ is not supported by our dictionaries, G for ‘girl’ isn’t either.
Despite this, there are some setters who use them and many solvers who accept them, with a reason – I’m not one of those.
That said, if we can have OB for ‘old boy’ why can’t we then have OG for ‘old girl’?
16 YIELDED
Lie about with Eddy being abandoned (7)
Anagram [about (with)] of: LIE + EDDY
17 TBILISI
Primarily Transcaucasian, besieged inland locale: it’s strategically important! (7)
All the starting letters of the words that follow Primarily ….
…. giving us the capital of Georgia.
19 SEEDILY
Fluttering eyelids in sordid manner (7)
Anagram [fluttering] of: EYELIDS
20 APPLE OF MY EYE
Tech giant, soft at heart? As if, dear! (5,2,2,3)
APPLE (tech giant) + [s]OF[t] + MY EYE (as if!, expletive)
23 SUNG
Celebrated wildebeests returning (4)
Reversal [returning] of: GNUS (wildebeests)
24 DEVALUATES
Lowers exchange rate rashly, leaves audit without independence (10)
Anagram [rashly] of: LEAVES AUDIT minus I (independence)
25 SOHO
Some Mafioso hoodlums in New York district (4)
Hidden solution [some]: MafioSO HOodlums
Probably, Everyman went for New York rather than London because of these Mafiosi.
26 STALINGRAD
City once playing for time, half-hearted – terrific (10)
STALLING (playing for time) minus one of the letters L in the middle, followed by RAD (terrific, US slang)
Site of a famous WW2 battle (1942-43).
Nowadays the city is called Volgograd.
DOWN
1 ARMY
Topless, dotty host (4)
BARMY (dotty) minus the B at the beginning [topless]
2 TANG
Hint: it’s a Chinese dynasty (4)
Double definition
3 COMPETITIVE
Comedy not half seen: Everyman’s suppressing tantrum over IT, getting aggressive (11)
Half of COM[edy] + I’VE (Everyman’s), together going around {PET (tantrum) + [over, on top of] IT}
4 MURDOCH
Baron (who’s Australian); Dame (who wrote) (7)
Double definition
Rupert Murdoch & Iris Murdoch.
Pure GK and not really cryptic (at all).
5 LURIDLY
Graphically clearly, Charlie turning into Romeo (7)
LUCIDLY with the C (Charlie) changed into R (Romeo)
7 ALEXANDRIA
Beer (unknown quantity) and Spanish wine (no OJ) in old city (10)
ALE (beer) + X (unknown quantity) + AND + RIA (which is RIOJA (Spanish wine) minus OJ (abbreviation for ‘orange juice’))
Here‘s a tour of this ancient city.
8 HOOK AND EYE
As Boyle may be heard to mention pioneers in elastics for back of bra? (4,3,3)
Homophone [may be heard] of what Boyle could have said: HOOKE AND I
I’m not a physicist but those who are will surely have something to say about this clue.
Elastics? That stretchy stuff? I would say ‘elasticity’, I think.
12 AT EVERY TURN
Incessantly consumed, extremely sour (2,5,4)
ATE (consumed) + VERY (extremely) + TURN (sour, as a verb)
13 LOST CAUSES
Hopeless situations when cassoulet’s prepared (4,6)
Anagram [prepared] of: CASSOULET’S
14 FRUIT PUNCH
A bit of fizz in cup Ruth stirred for cocktail (5,5)
The first letter [a bit of] of FIZZ, followed by an anagram [stirred] of: IN CUP RUTH
18 IFFIEST
In 50s, doddering, most uncertain (7)
Anagram [doddering] of: FIFTIES (50s, fully written out)
I’m usually not really bothered about link words but I thought here ‘in’ was a bit unfortunate.
19 SKYFALL
Broadcaster to decline to show spy film (7)
SKY (broadcaster) + FALL (decline)
There he is again: James Bond!
21 STIR
Right, it’s flipping porridge (4)
Reversal [flipping] of: R (right) + IT’S
22 USED
American, educated, gets employed (4)
US (American) + ED (educated)

38 comments on “Everyman 3,911”

  1. Thanks for the blog, I enjoyed this overall and most clues pretty sound .
    Is SECOND BANANA an actual saying ? I have only heard TOP.
    RAD is new to me, probably far too modern, fortunately the answer was obvious.
    MURDOCH ?? easy , but as you say , not at all cryptic.
    ELASTICS ? Robert Hooke could be said to have worked on the theory of elastics loosely, however , although Hooke worked with Boyle on the properties of gases I am pretty sure that Boyle did not work with Hooke on the properties of materials .

  2. Sil, yes, we can have ‘OB’ = Old Boy (in the sense, as I take it, of a male alumnus of a school) because that abbreviation IS supported by both Chambers and Collins online, and probably by others, albeit B on its own = boy is not. The fact that ‘OG’ = Old Girl is not present in either source is a tad discriminatory, I feel, and Everyman has my support in granting equal rights to unabbreviated alumnae everywhere.

  3. Easy puzzle this week, and quite enjoyable.

    I liked: ARMY; IFFIEST; SECOND BANANA; FRUIT PUNCH (loi).

    New for me: scientists Hooke and Boyle (for 8d); ALTOCUMULI.

    Thanks, both.

    * Roz @1
    I have heard SECOND BANANA being used as an actual saying.

  4. Not bad, but not one of the most enjoyable Everymans, IMHO. There’s a fruity flavour to this. I quite liked how AT EVERY was split into “ate very”. Gases are elastic under compression – think gas filled suspension, for example. Boyle’s Law deals with this (amongst other things). Hooke built Boyle’s experimental apparatus.
    Note: Rupert Murdoch is not an Australian. He renounced his Aussie citizenship to take out American, for business reasons – and they are very welcome to him. Doesn’t stop him doing his damage here though, unfortunately.
    Thanks, Everyman and Sil.

  5. Thanks, michelle @3. Like Roz, I had blinked several times at SECOND BANANA as if to say ‘really???’ So I am pleased that it is in use out there somewhere, although I rather doubt if I shall ever have to call on it.

  6. SECOND BANAnA didn’t cause me to blink at all. Playing second banana to someone else in various contexts sounds very familiar. With the (not Australian) baron in 4d , it’s crypticness ( if that’s a word) relied on the misdirection by associating Dame and Baron in the clue. So it seemed a reasonable clue even though it needed a range of GK. My favourite was ALTOCUMULI which took me back to working at the Met Office many years ago. Plus I thought MONTMARTRE was a straightforward but very nicely constructed from a range of crossword old favourites. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  7. Enjoyed this. Managed to finish although did not parse CASH – seemed too easy. Last one in was ARMY which for some reason took me ages to get. RAD and ALTOCUMULI new to me.

    Favourites: APPLE OF MY EYE, LURIDLY, MONTMARTRE, ALEXANDRIA

    Thanks Everyman and Sil

  8. [ Sorry TassieTim but gases are not elastic in this context. elastic means return to the same size and SHAPE when a distorting force (or pressure) is removed. Gases will return to the same volume but the shape can be completely different. Elastics is referring to Hooke’s work on springs and other materials, pretty sure Boyle was not involved but will check in the library tomorrow ]

    Thank you Michelle never heard it myself so glad to hear it is in use somewhere.

  9. I’ve heard top banana, but never second, so thanks Michelle.

    Straightforward and well clued, with some nice surfaces too.

    I liked the nod to Aristophanes in 1A.

    Lastly I would say that TBILISI is a rather clever &lit.

    Thanks Sil and Everyman.

  10. I’m sure the beer in ALEXANDRIA must have been a conscious reference to Ice Cold in Alex – or to the Carlsberg commercial in the 80s which used footage of the famous bar scene at the end. (It was Carlsberg’s riposte to the Griff Rhys Jones comic mash-ups for Holsten Pils – unlike the Holsten ads, no doctoring was necessary as the name of the lager could clearly be seen on the glass in the original.)

    I enjoyed the ALTOCUMULI, the fluttering eyelids and the cassoulet’s/LOST CAUSES anagrams; thanks Everyman and Sil.

  13. A little patchy, but enjoyable enough. I did enjoy constructing MONTMARTRE.
    [Roz@8 – I’m with my Antipodean namesake on the elasticity of gases, as indeed was Boyle in his 1662 paper entitled “ . . . Experiments . . . Touching the Spring of the Air . . . .”.
    Also the collision between molecules in a dilute gas are perfectly elastic.<a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/gas-state-of-matter/Behaviour-and-properties&quot;
    Sil is right though – “elastic” is clumsy.
    Thanks to Everyman and Sil.

  14. Thanks Everyman & Sil. SECOND BANANA is new to me too, but entirely plausible and fairly clued. Like CanberraGirl @6, I would credit Everyman with a mildly cryptic element in 4d, with R.Murdoch not being a literal baron, but the clue feels a bit half-hearted and could have done so much more with this potentially interesting idea.

    I’m entirely with SC @2 with regards to the #everydaysexism – I entered OG without batting an eyelid and didn’t think to check if it was listed in the usual sources. Tbh, I have more of a problem with T for tense in 9a, even though that is in the BRB. Which just goes to show the somewhat arbitrary nature of dictionaries, and – I would argue – their fallibility. But I suppose as crossword solvers, we aren’t concerned with the justification for inclusion, only the fact (or not) of it. Resigned sigh emoji goes here.

    On a more positive note… Bodycheetah @12 – thanks for the reminder of that!

  15. Pleasant Everyman; I found it a little difficult to get started but then it all fell into place.

    Despite the comments above, I liked HOOK AND EYE and AT EVERY TURN. For once, the primarily clue earned its place – I expect Sil likes this capital! I think in 18D it would have been better to put ‘most certain’ at the front. I thought it was a bit naughty to use unindicated American slang in RAD in STALINGRAD. MURDOCH could have had some wordplay eg RUM</DOC/H or some such; that would have been better than just two pieces of GK, IMHO.

    Thanks Everyman and Sil.

  16. Quite challenging for me this week – it didn’t help that I didn’t know that meaning of pet in 3d & wasn’t au fait with the cloud formation. Liked 8d & 26a . Nice to see other Robert Wyatt fans on here.

  18. TimW @13 gases cannot be elastic in a material sense because they have no fixed shape to return to.

    Perfectly elastic collisions is a completely different concept, it means no loss of kinetic energy, nothing to do with material properties.

  19. Thanks, Robi @17. I see that there OG= ‘old girl’ denotes one’s mother. I could not imagine its being used in the US to denote a former student (female).

  20. [ Bodycheetah @ 12, thanks for the reminder, Nothing Can Stop Us. You must realise though that the Battle of Stalingrad was fake news, Britain defeated Germany single-handed, in fact Churchill did most of the fighting himself ]

  21. Roz @8, 18. In the case I cited of gas filled suspension – or, indeed, of the apparatus Hooke made for Boyle when the latter collected his data – the gas does indeed return, elastically, to its original shape, being constrained as it is. Just because there are conditions under which it doesn’t, does not mean it isn’t elastic. The elastic rebound of rocks that have been under a load – e.g. an icesheet – will not return them to their original shape if at any point the forces exceed their strength, and the rock fractures – i.e. jointing or faulting.

  22. Regarding “second banana”, I have a CD of a well-known Texan guitarist which has this as a song name. Maybe it’s more of an American expression. Like others, I’ve never heard of RAD. This puzzle was much easier than some recent ones although I often find E hard to get into. Thanks to Sil and E.

  23. I like the linked pair SECOND BANANA and APPLE OF MY EYE
    Unlike others, I have heard RAD a lot – albeit mainly from an American podcaster.

  24. “Hooke is best known to those who study elementary Physics through Hooke’s Law, which states that the extension of a spring is proportional to the weight hanging from it; this work sprang from Hooke’s interest in flight and the elasticity of air.”
    http://roberthooke.org.uk/?page_id=2

  26. Even after the explanations here, I had to look up PET meaning tantrum. Never heard that one, having grown up down south, whence it apparently originated, and studied dialects in my job. I am told I should look it up in the full OED! Seems a little obscure, but maybe it’s crossword-speak.

  27. Enjoyed that, thanks setter and blogger. I found the discussion on the elasticity, or otherwise, of gases very educational but it would seem that John’s quote @24 is the clincher, at least for justifying its use in this crossword. “Having a pet” when cross about something seems quite common usage to me, Ben @26, even if I would use it for a fit of sulkiness rather than an outright tantrum. As for “rad”, I guess its origins must be American but it is commonly used in those board based sports where daring and spectacular moves are admired. It’s also much used by commentators on freestyle kayaking, skiing and BMX.

  28. Found this difficult but very satisfying when I finally got it out. Just about every answer was an “Ah-ha!” Had none of the quibbles that others seem to have had. I’m quite
    familiar with the expressions “pet” (for tantrum), “second banana” and “rad”. No problems there.

    Thanks to Everyman and Sil.

  29. I found this harder than those of late, and perhaps as a consequence less enjoyable. Never heard of ‘devaluates’ (and I work in finance), only devalues, or the cloud, or the banana (other than the top one).

    Meh. So’s the weather.

  30. With the weather being what it is, wet, I finished 3911 in a relatively short space of time. I was able to parse most of the clues once I had solved them, which is unusual for me.
    Thanks to plotter and blogger. I look forward to my weekly battle with Mr or Mrs Everyman.

  31. This one was an easy finish for me, although some of the answers I got before understanding why. Thought seedily was clued well. Really liked Tbilisi even if it was an obvious “primarily”. I might be a bit dim but cannot equate banana and hand. Will keep head scratching until a light goes on. Thanks all.

  35. Finished on Sunday morning. Just as well as the Irish have tried to ruin my birthday, so I needed something to go right.
    Tough puzzle, but no complaints. Just hard!

  36. Can anyone explain to me where the indicator is to remove one L from stalling in 26ac ?
    my favourites:
    Ogreish for its clumsiness, Montmartre, Apple of my eye, skyfall
    Also don’t get why Stir = porridge ? if anyone knows that one? I had grits on the mind but that can’t have anything to do with it. thanks all

  37. Vanessa @36
    The indicator is ‘half-hearted’, ie one of the two middle letters is removed.
    Stir and porridge are both slang terms for prison.

  38. Jail must be one of those words with heaps of other names – porridge, prison, gaol, stir, time, the nick, chokey, bird, can, clink, slammer, cooler, jug, a stretch…all good to know in crossword land

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