My colleague John introduced last week’s blog with the sentiment that the puzzle there was one of the best Everyman offerings that he’d had on his watch. I thought this one continued in that vein: sound constructions, a good variety of devices, and an easy-end level of difficulty.
For collectors of such things, the rhyming couplets this week are GOSPEL SINGER and LITTLE FINGER. Folk from places like where I live in Derbyshire would pronounce the G in both, but that’s not true for all English speakers, of course …
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 Shake up failing orangeries
REORGANISE
(ORANGERIES)* with ‘failing’ as the anagrind.
6 Bird‘s hiding in hibiscus
IBIS
Hidden in hIBIScus. A chance for the obligatory Pierre bird link. The self-indulgent link been around for long enough, and IBIS is a common enough answer, for me to have had it several times before, but luckily there are many species. The one I’ve chosen today is the straw-necked ibis for the beautiful iridescence on its feathers, but especially for our Australian readers: it lives in that country and pretty much nowhere else. A bit like quite a few other animals, I suppose.
9 Student getting in to poor folk’s banter
PLEASANTRY
An insertion of L in PEASANTRY. The insertion indicator is ‘getting into’. PLEASANTRY wouldn’t be the first synonym that comes to my mind for ‘banter’.
10 Country‘s drier, we’re told
EIRE
A homophone of AIRER.
12 Ordained priest taking jab next to outhouse
ESTABLISHED
An insertionof STAB in ELI, followed by SHED. The insertion indicator is ‘taking’.
15 Manages a warning
HEADS-UP
A dd. The first would be written without a hyphen.
16 Drunkard now offering defiant expression
SO THERE
A charade of SOT and HERE.
17 Shifting a drop of Sancerre in wine glasses might help them focus
RETINAS
Everyman is inviting you to move the S in RETSINA three places to the right.
19 Most of newspapers getting letter: ‘Flog, in advance!‘
PRE-SELL
A charade of PRES[S] and ELL for a transliteration of the 12th letter of the alphabet.
20 Sportsman angers as aid redistributed
ANDRE AGASSI
A definition that allows for thousands of answers, but the crossing letters were helpful and he is/was pretty well known. (ANGERS AS AID)*
23 A practice exam delivered orally: that’s crazy
AMOK
A charade of A and a homophone (‘delivered orally’) of MOCK.
24 Clobber living things – desire’s suppressed
BELONGINGS
An insertion of LONG in BEINGS. The insertion indicator is ‘suppressed’.
25 Frame that’s worn over shoulder
SASH
A dd.
26 More toasts raised here?
STATEROOMS
(MORE TOASTS)* with ‘raised’ as the anagrind. A cad.
Down
1 Criticises what hip-hop artist does
RAPS
A dd.
2 Fictional captain looking up for a sign
OMEN
A reversal of NEMO. Since it’s a down clue, the reversal indicator is ‘looking up’.
3 Vocalist, Spice Girl, slopes off part-way through
GOSPEL SINGER
An insertion of (SLOPES)* in GINGER. The anagrind is ‘off’; the insertion indicator is ‘part-way through’; and GINGER was, well, the ginger one.
4 Incessant refusal in Lyon: diners get no soup in the end
NON-STOP
A charade of NON for what they’d say for ‘no’ in Lyon and STOP, which is the last letters of ‘diners get no soup’.
5 Writers‘ second copies’ entertaining energy
SCRIBES
A charade of S and E in CRIBS. The insertion indicator is ‘entertaining’.
7 Song, live, enthralling: indeed, indeed
BRIGHT EYES
Again, a definition that could lead to myriad solutions; you might have arrived at the correct one more easily if you were an Art Garfunkel fan. An insertion of RIGHT for ‘indeed’ in BE for ‘live’, followed by YES for ‘indeed’.
8 Primarily slender perennials, encroachers extraordinaire, dwelling within England’s landscaped lawns, sadly!
SPEEDWELLS
The initial letters of the last ten words of the clue, and a cad.
11 Body part: it gets rubbed up. Wait around
LITTLE FINGER
An insertion of IT and FELT reversed in LINGER. The reversal indicator is ‘up’, since it’s a down clue, and the insertion indicator is ‘around’.
13 Who’s not to be trusted, nastier than rascal?
CHARLATANS
(THAN RASCAL)* with ‘nastier’ as the anagrind.
14 Meticulous, firm, Everyman had promises to pay later
FASTIDIOUS
A charade of FAST, I’D and IOUS.
18 Recommend extremely self-satisfied Frenchman leaves
SUGGEST
S[M]UGGEST. M for Monsieur or ‘Frenchman’ is very common.
19 Deal to collapse
PASS OUT
A dd.
21 Details concerning nickel written up
INFO
A reversal (‘written up’) of OF and NI.
22 Goddess seen in Ellis Island
ISIS
Hidden in EllIS ISland.
Many thanks to Everyman for this Sunday’s puzzle.
I enjoyed this one too. Annoyingly I just couldn’t get 17ac even though I had all the crosses so gave up and used a word finder and then was very annoyed with myself that I didn’t get RETINAS as I really liked it.
Also liked BELONGINGS, SCRIBES, BRIHT EYES, LITTLE FINGER (memories of Game of Thrones), FASTIDIOUS
Thanks Everyman and Pierre
bright eyes obviously
A good summary, Pierre – though I did find the last few more difficult. For some reason – not easy to discern now – BELONGINGS held out for the longest time. Thinking back, it was probably because ‘clobber’ means ‘clothes’ and not ‘stuff’ to me, but with all the crossers and the wordplay it shouldn’t have ben so hard. Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.
Thanks for the blog, I agree with Fiona Anne’s list and I will add SUGGEST
Not totally happy wit h raised 26AC and nastier 13D to give anagrams, but very minor quibbles really.
I thought the clues were very neat and the standard very high.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre. Nothing to add to a thorough blog (enjoyed the bird pic), except to say that GOSPEL SINGER was my personal fave for the nice Spice Girl misdirection.
I wondered about nastier as an anagrind too and was held up for a while with BRIGHT EYES, but I agree with Pierre’s assessment that this was Everyman on form. Nice IBIS, too.
Yes, another’s nice one that seemed hard at first and then started revealing itself. Which is just what I want from a crossword. I do have one quibble with 13d. “Who’s” indicates a singular solution. Shouldn’t it be “who are not to be trusted”?
As another Derbyshire resident, I echo Pierre’s sentiments – an easy- end level of difficulty. I have no pretensions to being a solver of highly complex cryptics but I do enjoy a bit of a brain stretching on a Sunday morning. This was a good one for me, a few anagrams to get things going, a bit of thought and one or two I kicked myself for not getting sooner. I have long given up on expecting all clues to be totally accurate, though some still annoy me more than others. On this count, fewer “poor” definitions than some others of late. Here’s hoping for an equally smooth experience today.
Mostly enjoyable, apart from the awful “homophone” at 10a. To add insult to injury, no Irish person would pronounce Eire as “airer”, nor vice versa.
I did struggle to parse 3d despite the answer being clear from crossers, so thanks to Pierre for clearing it up.
I echo others’ comments that this was Everyman on good form.
I ticked ESTABLISHED, RETINAS, GOSPEL SINGER and LITTLE FINGER.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre.
GrahamP @7: When we use ‘who’ as an interrogative (rather than a relative) pronoun, it’s often followed by a singular verb – after all, when we ask the question, we might not know whether the answer is going to be singular or plural. Who’s singing on that record?/Who’s in that photo?/Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?… could all have either a singular or a plural answer.
The answer to ‘Who’s singing?’ could be ‘It’s the Beatles’. Once we know that we’re dealing with a plural entity, the next question could be ‘And who are the Beatles?’
poc @9: I normally defend non-rhotic homophones, but I do agree it’s unfortunate to clue EIRE by means of a homophone that doesn’t work in EIRE! (As a matter of interest, is it just the final R that’s the problem, or is there also a difference in the initial vowel sound?)
On the other hand I say a-muck for AMOK, but I see that both pronunciations are in the dictionaries, so I think it’s fine.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre.
‘The Beatles’ is singular actually.
To be fair to Everyman, the audio samples for EIRE in online dictionaries seem indistinguishable from Airer to me, and that’s the way I’ve always pronounced it. I wouldn’t argue with someone from Ireland who says it’s wrong, but I think any setter going along with RP for homophones is perfectly fair.
If you want annoyingly nitpicky, I’m not sure the apostrophe-s works technically for IBIS, although the answer is obviously clear.
paul b @ 12: “The Beatles has a huge influence on popular music” – really?
Really, yes. No-one these days uses the singular, or rarely, for which football seems to me to be largely responsible. ‘Southampton are losing a lot these days’ for example (unfortunately true as well). But The Beatles is a group, and Southampton FC is a football team.
paul b@15 Doesn’t it depend on context? “Southampton was established in the 19th century” when you think of the club as an entity, and “Southampton don’t seem to be getting any better” when you think of 11 players who don’t necessarily act as a coherent whole.
Maybe because I’m not British, 10 just makes no sense to me. I put in Niue because at least it does sound like “new” although there’s no connection to “drier”. But I don’t see how drier leads to “aired” either so. Otherwise a fine and enjoyable solve.
Thanks to Pierre and Everyman.
Dewey@17 we have something called a clothes horse or clothes AIRER, ti is an open frame for hanging lots of washing. Put it in the sun if we ever get any to dry the washing.
An enjoyable solve, if over rather quickly. By coincidence OMEN clued as a reversal of (Captain) Nemo was in the Indy crossword las Monday. Setters’ minds do tend to think alike at times.
Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.
Essexboy@11: the initial vowel sounds in EIRE and AIRER are close enough for a crossword and would be somewhat regional in any case. If one wanted to pick a further nit, the word is actually ÉIRE (with a “fada” or long stress) – though diacriticals are fair game of course – and is the Irish word for Ireland, but not clued here as foreign 🙂 But I digress …
PLEASANTRY and RETINAS were my personal faves here. As Pierre says, on the easier side.
A good puzzle again, though I would prefer “glasses might help to focus on them” in 17. RETINAS don’t do the focussing.
Favourites: INFO, AMOK, RETINAS.
I did not parse 4d.
Thanks, both.
I web-searched on how to pronounce “Eire”, and found that it is usually pronounce “air” but in Ireland itself is pronounce “eye-ruh”.
Neither is a homophone of “airer”.
I thought this quite a step backwards from last week’s I’m afraid. A reversion to some totally nonsense surfaces and iffy cluing. I’m OK with the Eire/Airer homo, but I agree with those who didn’t like the implied singular in 13D or the definition of Retina. Haven’t heard of a Speedwell but maybe that’s me as no one else commented on it. Call me Grinch.
I have no idea what Speedwells are either, Barrie@25.
I do know how to pronounce Eire but did not connect it with that clothes drying rack.
This was nowhere near as good as last weeks, in my opinion. A dnf for me.
All done but a struggle to start with. While all clues were defendable, they generally were somewhat opaque and we had to juggle multiple strategies cotemporally. That is not necessarily bad, but a harder clue with a more definite answer night be preferable to clues with variable answers.
I’m with Barrie on this one, last week’s puzzle made sense, this week’s made nonsense!
Thanks to the setter and the blogger though, it’s all part of the learning curve!
We really liked this one, definitely a tad trickier than previous ones. Thank you Everyman!