Another solid puzzle from Everyman, with the usual trademarks: the paired clues, the self-reference and the initial letter cad.
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 Means of contact represented in ladies’ dreams
EMAIL ADDRESS
(LADIES DREAMS)* with ‘represented in’ as the anagrind.
9 Goes quickly: beers found here
BARRELS
A dd.
10 In France, is one almost beginning to investigate a country?
ESTONIA
A charade of EST, ON[E], I for the initial letter of ‘investigate’ and A. The EST bit is clued by ‘in French, is’.
11 Everyman’s beginning to get kiss, first to occur
EXIST
A charade of E for the initial letter of ‘Everyman’, X and IST.
12 A key assistant in S. Australian city
ADELAIDE
A charade of A, DEL and AIDE.
14 Legendary Celt in groundbreaking art: hurrah!
KING ARTHUR
Hidden in groundbreaKING ART HURrah.
15 Playful bow
ARCH
A dd.
17 We’re told that man’ll get better
HEAL
A homophone (‘we’re told’) of HE’LL.
19 A Catholic demanding act of praise
ACCLAIMING
A charade of A, C and CLAIMING.
21 Where to buy goose and gander
BUTCHERS
A dd, with a clever surface. You could buy your Christmas goose at the BUTCHER’S; the first part is Cockney rhyming slang. ‘Let’s have a butcher’s’ comes from butcher’s hook for ‘look’; and ‘gander’ is another word for ‘look’, probably derived from the goose’s habit of stretching its long neck to see what’s occurring.
23 Old photo more likely to exude its fluid, you say?
SEPIA
A homophone (‘you say’) of SEEPIER.
25 At least one northern zone redeveloped – right, duck?
NON-ZERO
A charade of (N ZONE)*, R and O. The anagrind is ‘redeveloped’ and for soft southerners and foreigners I will explain that ‘duck’ works in the surface here because it’s a term of affection in parts of the Midlands and north of England.
26 Where cuts are – and are not – performed?
THEATRE
A whimsical kind of dd, I think – cuts would be performed in a surgical theatre but not in a theatre where a play was being performed.
27 In the States, a wrong number
ANAESTHETIST
(IN THE STATES A)* with ‘wrong’ as the anagrind, and a rather clever anagram to finish the acrosses. And of course, an ANAESTHETIST ‘numbs’ you before you go to 26ac.
Down
2 Bird seen around Australia, very remote creature
MARTIAN
An insertion of A in MARTIN. You know I can’t.
3 Granite’s disintegrating; it’s not chemically reactive
INERT GAS
(GRANITES)* with ‘disintegrating’ as the anagrind. The INERT GASES – also called Noble Gases – are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon. They are so named because their full outer electron shell means that they have a very low tendency to participate in any kind of chemical reaction.
4 And some primordial soup
ALSO
Hidden in primordiAL SOup.
5 Incredibly appallingly
DREADFULLY
A dd.
6 Old flame to get to 50 and celebrate
EXTOL
A charade of EX, TO and L.
7 Increasingly fine and restrain Greek characters from the South
SUNNIER
A reversal (‘from the South’, since it’s a down clue) of REIN and NUS.
8 Model’s partner gathered nuts to do what’s necessary
MAKE THE GRADE
This seems to be a charade of MAKE and (GATHERED)* with ‘nuts’ as the anagrind; but I can’t see what the apostrophe S is doing.
9 Cause insupportable costs, as flooded river may?
BREAK THE BANK
A dd.
13 Food’s kept here; cook storms out
STOCKROOMS
(COOK STORMS)* with ‘out’ as the anagrind.
16 Most squiffy? Advice: short nap
TIPSIEST
A charade of TIP and SIEST[A]
18 Insect queen held up appendage
ANTENNA
A charade of ANT and ANNE reversed (‘held up’, since it’s a down clue).
20 Drive? Sadly, time’s up
IMPETUS
(TIMES UP)* with ‘sadly’ as the anagrind.
22 Hysterically yelling, extremely noisy animal, primarily!
HYENA
The initial letters of the first five words of the clue, and a cad.
24 Upset, hot and cold, tense: I feel irritation
ITCH
A reversal (‘upset’) of H, C, T and I.
Many thanks to Everyman for this week’s puzzle.
For 8d, I’m puzzled about the definition. Usually I woul expect to see a sentence like “he did what was necessary to make the grade”. In Canada at least, “make the grade” means succeed. Does it have a different meaning in the UK.
Language is fun. Butchers and gander are among a number of ‘look’ words, like scrute (via a Sydney Push mate, long since gtG), shufti, dekko, and gink (which died and was reborn as something else). Meanwhile, non-zero and impetus were pretty neat too. Thanks PnE.
MAKE THE GRADE:
I took ‘model’s partner’ as ‘make’ (the make and the model…).
the definition for 27A is an old crossword trick but got me again. Id solved the clue long before the “Aha” moment when I finally parsed it. Nicely played I thought and a very pleasing Everyman all round. I agree that for 8D, “model’s partner” is “make” in relation to cars, and although I also baulked a little at the definition I think it’s OK on reflection.
Thanks Pierre. You were spared the birds today, although we could have had a goose and a gander. Lol your Martian comment.
Agree BUTCHERS was clever. Interesting cultural perspective. My dad was a butcher but we don’t have Christmas geese down here, or at any time really. I did get a Turducken last year, great hot or cold. These days, and in this weather, it’s more common to get seafood to throw on the barbie. Did know the cockney.
I saw an added meaning for THEATRE. Unlike film, where there are the director’s ‘cuts’, you don’t get that in live theatre. You just have to keep going. One take.
Agree with KVa and Ray about make and model.
ANAESTHETIST was interesting, because it looked like it was an indicator for American spelling. (In the States) .But it was an anagram, and the answer is definitely not American English, which is likely to drop the ‘a’ out of the digraph, or use an entirely different word ”anesthesiologist”.
INERT GAS and ADELAIDE were pretty much write-ins for me – KING ARTHUR could have been, except it was so sneakily hidden (from me, at least). As MAKE THE GRADE seems to imply getting over the line – i.e. succeeding – then I don’t have a problem with the definition, RB @1. I liked the EST in the country which wasn’t France, and the BUTCHERS. Good thoughts on the THEATRE, pdm @5. Thanks, Everyman and Pierre (so close but so far from the bird link!).
Good puzzle which I got through quite quickly except for 19a which took me ages.
Like pm @5 I saw that additional meaning for THEATRE.
Also liked BUTCHERS (made me smile) ADELAIDE, ANTENNA
Thanks Everyman and Pierre
MAKE and BREAK are another antonym pairing. And after after last week’s * 8 key, we now have the DEL key. Might this be the start of a sequence?
Thanks to E and P
Thanks for the blog. I thought this was very good. I did think “make and model” but could not remember where from, so thanks Ray@4 for the car.
THEATRE does seem much better now after PDM@5.
Like Tassie Tim@6 I thought KING ARTHUR was very well hidden, I cut out the clues when I send the puzzle off and looking now it is on two lines with a break after the G so far trickier.
Good spot Jay@8 for the follow-on clue , I hope it is not a sequence.
I agree with several about ANAESTHETIST and BUTCHERS.
It is not known if there really was an Arthur. Or if he was a Celt.
The earliest Welsh references depict him as the leader of a gang of lads not much better than ruffians and is very remote from the character he later becomes. That was before Chrétien de Troyes and the notion of Courtly Love, of course.
I solved this crossword slightly slower than other recent Everyman crosswords, with SEPIA really slowing me up for some reason.
I only noticed granites as a >7 letter anagram, but it made two words. Also places in Estonia, Adelaide, which I don’t remember coming up recently.
Thank you to Pierre and Everyman.
Anna@10 I always thought it was Geoffrey of Monmouth who was the main culprit?? I will look up your reference tomorrow in the library.
Anna @10, legendary seems to cover the ambiguity of King Arthur. I’ve read that the stories we have are a bits and pieces known from a number of rebels combined into one hero. But if you’ve read the Venerable Bede’s histories of the saints, they are full of incidents that are unbelievable.
My thought on THEATRE – if scenes are cut from a play, then they’re ‘not performed’ by the actors – perhaps that was what Pierre was implying? (Although my first idea was Antony standing over Caesar’s bleeding body and proclaiming “This was the most unkindest cut of all” (oops, spellchecker didn’t like that 😉 ) Hopefully the actors playing Caesar don’t suffer any real surgical-type cuts.)
Jay @8 has identified a follow-on clue – other possibles are the old flame getting to 50 ( = L), after last week’s 49 (= , slightly dodgily, the IL in stencil); and Everyman continuing to riff on apostrophe-double- L in he’ll / HEAL, after the ‘LL in ILL WILL, and also “who’ll” the previous week). There’s a much more obvious one for next week, but I’ll say no more.
[Straying way out of my comfort zone here, but viewers of Pointless will know that several new synthetic elements have been added to the periodic table over recent years, including oganesson (spellcheck didn’t like that either!). According to wiki it goes in group 18 with the inert/noble gases (and was given a name ending in ON like argon, krypton etc) but unlike its fellow-columnists it is thought to be significantly reactive, and may not even be a gas under normal conditions.]
Favourites included Matt Damon and Major Tom, and Everyman’s first kiss; thanks E & P.
Morning Roz @ 12
It is suspected that Geoff was less than honest in his history. (As was quite normal for his time). As I recall, his material was disseminated in France, and gave a boost to the rise of the notion of Courtly Love there. Then it all got exported back to Britain.
I’ve got my university notes and essays (still!) somewhere in the basement, I’ll see if I can look them out later today.
Shanne @ 13
You’ve got it right, I think.
Legendary (aka downright lies) most of it is is.
I always used to have a chuckle when driving from Machynlleth to Dolgellau at an attraction calling itself ‘King Arthur’s Labrynth.’ The legend is still developing, even today.
Remember what happened with Taliesin? (Though I do agree it’s not absolutely the same, because we do know that there really was a Taliesin).
Roz @12 the book I read named Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095 – c. 1155) too, as does Wikipedia, but as I read that book when I was still at primary school, there is no hope of me referencing it properly now. But Chrétien de Troyes (fl. c. 1160–1191) also wrote extensively on King Arthur, contemporaneously.
[crossing my fingers that both links work]
Thanks Anna and Shanne , it seems the story just keeps getting embellished at every turn to reach our modern version. I did like the John Boorman film Excalibur.
{MrEssexboy@14, new elements is a bit of stretch , for these heavier ones just a few atoms are created by nuclear fusion, not even atoms really they will not have a full complement of electrons. They are checked by their nuclear decay products and will only last for milliseconds at best.
There is no spectroscopy to determine electron shells and no possibility of combining atoms to determine bulk properties, even solid , liquid gas. A few in the 90s are reasonably stable, you may well have Americium in a smoke detector in you tine hice.
Pointless really annoys me here by mispronouncing Copernicium , at least we get Meitnerium
]
Shanne @ 17
Be careful with Wikipedia. I have read lots of nonsense there.
We had to read a very large amount of Ch de T in our degree, in the original. He didn’t write ‘on’ Arthur. He wrote ‘fantasies’ around the character of Arthur.
Later, when I did a degree in Welsh, I discovered that the original Arthur (or at least what we think of at the moment as the original Arthur, because there’s nothing extant predating it) was a very different kettle of fish …..
There is some speculation (and with reason too) that the original person, if he existed, was a Roman soldier.
But we just don’t know.
I like essexboy’s explanation of THEATRE. [From a Welsh perspective, we shouldn’t ignore the role of Nennius and the Mabinogion in developing Arthurian legend]
Petert @ 22
OK, that does it.
I’ve just got to go down to the basement and retrieve my notes.
[Roz, thanks for the interesting info @19. Do you say coper (rhyming with roper) -nissi-um ?]
I have a friend called Arthur, who is a Celt (well, Scottish), and is also a bit of a legend.
8D. There is an obsolete or dialect meaning of “make”: a mate or consort (Chambers). That would account for “partner”, but not “Model’s”. If both “Model” and “partner” are intended to represent MAKE, the punctuation is at best misleading, it seems to me. Why not, say, “Former partner” (to acknowledge the obsolescence)? Or just “Model”?
[ EB @24 , sort of, I am not good at explaining this, certainly not copper .. It is named after Copernicus, you need to get a Polish student to say it for you. ]
I have been down the basement and retrieved my Arthurian essays. There’s about 100 pages of closely printed stuff !!
He is not mentioned at all by Gildas, writing about 540 AD. This was the period in which we would have expected to hear about Arthur.
There’s a reference in Gododdin (gochore brein du ar uur vaer ceni bei ef arthur). This is a reference to a soldier named Gwawrdur fighting the Saxon invaders c 600 AD. He kills them and leaves them for food for the black crows, ‘though he was no Arthur’. This may (I repeat may) be the very first reference to the Arthur who later became the legend.
Nennius, a monk writing in the 800s tells us that 960 men were slaughtered at one go in an attack of Arthur in monte Badonis. Hm. He also seems to tell us that Arthur was just a military commander but not a king – tunc A. pugnabat contra illos in illis diebus cum regibus Brittonum, sed ipse dux erat bellorum.
Theres loads and loads more, but I won’t bore you any longer.
Oh, there’s all the Arthurian stuff in Culhwch ac Olwain, too. He really isn’t too pleasant a person in that story.
[Anna @21 I was checking Wikipedia for dates, to see who predated who, Geoffrey of Monmouth or Chrétien de Troyes. That article does say the latter wrote imaginative poetry around the stories of Arthur.
@27 – I vaguely remember some of the names from maybe that book or later reading, which is what I summarised as a compound character from various historical figures, but failed to say highly romanticised. ]
Pleasant Everyman, do make and break give the paired clues?
I was rather mystified by ‘Model’s partner’ but I see from the interweb that it’s a standard crossword phrase for ‘make’, as in ‘make and model’ detailed above. I thought the two anagrams for EMAIL ADDRESS and ANAESTHETIST were great.
My contribution to the ‘Arthur’ debate is: R for mo. For those mystified, please see here.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre.
On 2d I initially thought of MERLION – I mean, Singapore is pretty remote from here – but thought Australia – Oz – O? Nah, too tenuous.
Sorry to be mundane but I found this really really hard! DNF and can’t even understand some of the parsing here…and to think I was managing to complete these a few weeks ago! Ah well…onwards and upwards and thanks to all for precious help here.
I wonder if doing something very difficult makes something that might have been difficult not so bad? I say that because Everyman was preceded by a very difficult (for me) Brendan Prize Crossword. And this Everyman seemed easier than some over recent months. I’m experiencing a repeat with today’s Everyman compared to yesterday’s Tramp. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary.
I’m impressed with how entertaining and imaginative Everyman continues to be.
And I’m enjoying the King Arthur posts 🙂
MARTIAN was a sci-fi book by Andrew Weir that became a movie with Matt Damon. It was loved/hated for being very heavy on the science side. I was about to ask Roz et al if the science was credible but NASA beat me to it 🙂
Cara @31: which bits of the parsing do you need explaining? Happy to help if you say what’s not clear.
Pierre
essexboy@14 How do Matt Damon and Major Tom and Everyman’s first kiss come into all this? Matt Damon perhaps played The Martian, I gather from bodycheetah@33. What about the others? (Your ability to make connections continues to amaze me.)
Pierre, what’s with Martian and can’t you show us a martin
Thanks to Everyman and Pierre.
Valentine @35: as you rightly guessed, Matt Damon was a reference to The MARTIAN, mentioned by bodycheetah @33. I’m firmly in the “loved it” camp, though there are scientific inaccuracies, notably the dust storm which sets up the whole story. No doubt Roz was wincing all the way through!
Major Tom famously MADE THE GRADE in David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
And I really liked the clue for EXIST, with the surface hinting at Everyman’s much-delayed amorous awakening.
Pierre, I think, cannot bring himself to break his self-imposed edict that, in order to qualify for a pic, the solution must be “the bird, the whole bird, and nothing but the bird”.
Pierre @34 – : )
11a – E Everyman and X for kiss but IST? And 8d I’ve no idea! Thank u…
Cara @37. IST – 1st
BodsnVimto @38 ahhh!!! Thank u!!
I have not seen The Martian, maybe see if it turns up on Film4, I actually prefer science fiction to be more fiction than science . Dust storms are surprisingly common on Mars, even the whole planet at times and they can last a while. It does affect the rovers as their solar panels get dusty.
Cara@37, “Make and model ” is a common phrase , for cars, TVs , even washing machines . So make is a partner to model. Gathered (nuts) = the grade.
Roz@41 thanks a lot!
I agree with Robin Gilbert @ 25 about the model/make clue. It could perfectly well have been ‘Model gathered nuts …’ and I can’t see why Everyman bothered to make the clue gratuitously convoluted.
Thanks to essexboy @14 for explaining THEATRE. I couldn’t see how it was meant to work, but no doubt you’ve got it.
eb@36 Thanks for the helpful explanation. I’d though Major Tom died, but I’m not sure I’ve actually heard the whole song. But the reason I thought he’d died was that the song was changed (I think I heard) when sung by the real astronaut aboard the real space station.
I prefer essexboy’s interpretation of the theatre cuts not being performed.
Petert/Ted/pdm – tbh I’m still not entirely sure which reading Everyman intended, but thanks for the vote of confidence!
[Valentine @45 – yes, the original Bowie version is ambiguous, but it does rather give the impression that Major Tom is left floating in space, no longer able to hear ground control, never to return to Earth. Bowie himself acknowledged the influence of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (another ending capable of multiple interpretations!); he later revisited the Major Tom character in Ashes to Ashes and Blackstar.
But thank you for reminding me of the Chris Hadfield version, which was actually recorded on board the ISS – it’s lovely, and it’s here. I can understand why he wanted to change the ending.
When the UK’s very own astronaut Tim Peake went to the ISS he was widely referred to as “Major Tim”, partly because he is a major, but partly in tribute to Bowie. I remember an interview with him on BBC radio, The World at One I think, which the presenter Martha Kearney concluded by saying “That was Major Tim Peake, who’s really made the grade”.]
Nice and quick, with a tip o’ the hat to BUTCHERS and ANAESTHETIST. NONZERO became a meme in our Blood Bowl league to mean something with a very low chance of success.
I guess it’s just me – the answer to 12 across was obvious from personal connections and I could see A and AIDE, but what’s DEL? I’m not sure what a charade is either. No-one else has commented, so I suppose it’s obvious!
Lloyd @49, DEL is a key (delete) on some keyboards. Charade is just parts of the answer in sequence, from the game Charades , people would act out words bit by bit.
Roz @50 Oh! It was obvious! Thank you.
Liked ANAESTHETIST.
I did not parse 8d MAKE THE GRADE.
Thanks, both.
A for Australia???
This was my last one. I am trying hard to think of a time when A meant Australia. Oz or Aus surely. And A is the designator for cars from Austria.
Some nice clues here, esp 21 and 27A
Didn’t much like 8D or 26A
Need to look harder whenever I see ‘key’ as my blinkers stop after the seven musical keys.
Raining again in Auckland. Might have to look at today’s Styx crossword. Or go back to bed. No bowls for you, Audrey.
Really enjoyed this one – esp 27ac and 8dn. Loved the King Arthur discussion!
Great puzzle. Lots of head and knee slappers.
Could not parse 7 down (sunnier) — missed “restrain” equals “rein” (as I often do).
LOI was 2 down.
Thanks to Everyman and Pierre.
Barrie@54, I’ve been enjoying Styx, but after staying up very late to watch the (rather thrilling) end to another drawn test match, I think going back to bed is the better option!
25a Non zero need not necessarily be 1 at the least – there are lower fractions and negative numbers.