Everyman 3,985/5 March

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Another pleasing and tractable puzzle from Everyman for our Sunday morning entertainment.

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 Well enunciated, ‘doe’ and ‘a name I call myself’?
DEAR ME
A charade of a homophone (‘enunciated’) of DEER and ME, and referring of course to Julie Andrews’ famous offer to the Von Trapp children in The Sound of Music:

Well, let’s see if I can make it easier …

Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself …

4 Secretly thinks about coastal facilities
HARBOURS
A dd.

9 Like something to beat eggs for sauce?
WHISKY
In the same way that an octopus might be described as ‘army’ (copyright John Halpern, I think), the utensil hinted at in the clue could be described as ‘whisky’. And ‘sauce’ is a slang word for alcohol: ‘he’s back on the sauce’.

10 Idiot Everyman’s anger about fence regularly ignored
IMBECILE
A charade of I’M for ‘Everyman is’ and EC for the even letters of fEnCe inserted into BILE. The insertion indicator is ‘about’.

12 Organised resales around November for authenticity
REALNESS
An insertion of N for ‘November’ in the phonetic alphabet in (RESALES)* The anagrind is ‘organised’ and the insertion indicator is ‘around’.

13 Characters seen in riskier sports?
SKIERS
Hidden in riSKIER Sports and a cad.

15 Arrangements being quiet acts of atonement
PREPARATIONS
A charade of P for the musical ‘quiet’ and REPARATIONS.

18 Scepticism is what hotel guests may need
RESERVATIONS
A dd.

21 A diary not available for reflection somewhere in SW Africa
ANGOLA
A reversal of A LOG NA.

22 A whole number? That’s essential
INTEGRAL
A dd.

24 Generals call this a warm place to relax
OPEN FIRE
And another.

25 Artist arrived earlier with something to capture images
CAMERA
A charade of CAME and RA for ‘artist’.

26 Maniacal despots impounding 1,000 computers
DESKTOPS
An insertion of K in (DESPOTS)* The insertion indicator is ‘impounding’.

27 Headcases racing with oars, loudly
SKULLS
A homophone (‘loudly’) of SCULLS, which you have to read as a plural noun rather than a verb. The Isis Sculls, for example, are hosted annually by City of Oxford Rowing Club.

Down

1 Duke covered by strange powders and moisture
DEWDROPS
An insertion of D in (POWDERS)* The anagrind is ‘strange’ and the insertion indicator is ‘covered by’.

2 Worries when American soldiers surrounding gallery
AGITATES
An insertion of TATE in A GIS. The insertion indicator is ‘surrounding’.

3 Offering grouse and beef, perhaps?
MAKING A MEAL OF IT
A cd cum dd. The ‘grouse’ and ‘beef’ are used in their ‘complaint’ sense.

5 When Frenchman’s concealed top playing card is the absolute limit!
ACME
An insertion of M for Monsieur in ACE. The insertion indicator is ‘when .. is concealed’.

6 Somewhat sombre, a king (Theban) kept demanding too much money
BREAKING THE BANK
One of the longest hidden answers I’ve seen. It’s there in somBRE A KING THEBAN Kept.

7 Some footballers, some soldiers and a journalist
UNITED
A charade of UNIT and ED. UNITED is most commonly used suffix by professional football teams in England, with 15 of them. ‘City’ is a close second, used by 14 clubs. You learnt that here.

8 Sibilant, harsh expostulation expressing seething huffiness, primarily?
SHEESH
The initial letters of the first six words of the clue, and a cad.

11 Cars in landed properties
ESTATES
A dd.

14 Invariant, having peeled off, writhing in blissful state
NIRVANA
The surface reading is not putting a picture in my head, but it’s ([I]NVARIAN[T])* with ‘writhing’ as the anagrind.

16 Means of announcing arrival in refurbished bordello
DOORBELL
(BORDELLO)* with ‘refurbished’ as the anagrind.

17 Say a law’s corrupt, typically
AS ALWAYS
(SAY A LAWS)* with ‘corrupt’ as the anagrind.

19 Finally vanquish a queen and aged king
HAROLD
A charade of H for the final letter of ‘vanquish’, A, R and OLD. The consequences of the Battle of Hastings weren’t great for King Harold, but it certainly led to modern English being a rich language for setting cryptic crosswords.

20 Feels sorry for having run off at first seeing birds
EGRETS
[R]EGRETS. Everyman seldom gives me a bird, so mustn’t grumble. EGRETS are essentially herons. The one you’re most likely to see on these shores – particularly on the south coast and in East Anglia – is pictured in the obligatory Pierre bird link – the Little Egret. It’s a recent colonist to these islands, establishing itself from colonies in France and first breeding in Dorset in only 1996. Now there are over a thousand breeding pairs.  Somebody tell Suella Braverman.

23 Snare‘s component inverted
TRAP
A reversal (‘inverted’, since it’s a down clue) of PART.

Many thanks to Everyman for this week’s puzzle.

24 comments on “Everyman 3,985/5 March”

  1. Thought BREAKING THE BANK was a great hidden clue and one for Jay’s list.

    Good puzzle and got most of it quite quickly for me.

    Other favourites were: EGRETS, SKULLS, PREPARATIONS, IMBECILE, HARBOURS (LOI)

    Thanks to Everyman and Pierre

  2. Thank you for your fine blog Pierre and your beautiful egret pic.’
    Yes, the wordplay for nirvana didn’t strike me as inspirational or blissful.
    MAKING A MEAL OF IT my favourite for the 2 ingredient recipe.
    Also liked the primarily clue SHEESH for the sibilants in the first 6 words.
    AGITATES is one of those words which annoy me, like ‘aggravates’, but I see that ‘worries’ is one of the dictionary meanings.
    WHISKY I simply saw as a sauce, although now Pierre has reminded me of the general alcohol meaning.
    First recipe I found when looking it up was haggis with whisky sauce. Yum!!

  3. Thanks for the blog, I agree with Fiona Anne about BREAKING THE BANK , pretty spectacular for a hidden. I thought this was very good though the rhyming pair is a bit weak. SKIERS is a hidden &Lit , I have rarely seen these. EGRET(S) migrated to another puzzle on the same day. DOORBELL fits the criteria for Jay’s list.
    I was a bit unsure about INTEGRAL , OF a whole number maybe. Chambers just about gives cover.

  5. I think of MAKING A MEAL OF IT as “over-complicating” something as opposed to complaining. I also enjoyed the hidden cutting 5 words as it does, perhaps we can look forward to 6.

    We also have ?MAKING/BREAKING? as an antonym pairing, something that Everyman has done before.

    On a slightly Everyman-related note, following Paul’s mention of Sphinx in yesterday’s puzzle, I rewatched the episode of Inside No.9 in which that fictional setter appears and noticed in the credits that the “crossword consultant” was Alan Connor!

  6. Apologies, DuncT, I see you had already mentioned making/breaking.

    And I forgot to add thanks to Everyman and Pierre.

  7. Another enjoyable puzzle. Agree with all above on the magnificent hidden. Initially I had a gripe with Snare’s as the definition in 23, but with Pierre’s helpful underlining I now see it reads as “Snare is” which is fine.
    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  8. Strong supportive seconding for our sharp-eyed/sharp-eared sibilant-spotter in second slot this Sunday 🙂

    Roz @3, interesting that Chambers gives cover for INTEGRAL (?) My thought was that he was mixing up integral and integer. Collins includes “a complete thing; whole” among its definitions for ‘integral’ as a noun, but that’s not quite the same thing as a whole number.

    And talking of sibilants and calculus, very easy to confuse ʃ and ∫

    A choice of follow-ons today:
    PSST/SHEESH for the sibilant-savourers
    Alternatively, SONG AND DANCE = making a fuss = MAKING A MEAL OF IT (cf. Jay @5)

    Thanks E & P

  10. SHEESH brought back memories of Snagglepuss. I enjoyed WHISKY and, like others admired BREAKING THE BANK. And thanks for the idea of bloody egrets coming over here, taking our frogs.

  11. MrEssexboy I would tend to agree about integer , but Cambers does give – a whole – for integer and integral . The old English s symbol became the symbol for integration from Sum , it is an infinite sum of infinitesimals .
    Good spot SONG AND DANCE a very clear follow-on.

  12. Great follow on suggestions essexboy @8.

    We’ve also got ANGOLA to add to the places list. I’ve seen little EGRETS wading at Southend and in the fields in the West Country.

    I found this a nicely pitched Everyman, thank you to Pierre and Everyman.

  13. Fairly straightforward but enjoyable solve.

    Now I know why I’ve got a QM against my entry of WHISKs! As others have said, the concealed BREAKING THE BANK was a tour-de-force. I also liked OPEN FIRE for the ‘Generals call this’, and EGRETS that I wasn’t sorry to see.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  14. eb@9 Are your two symbols the integrate sign and some phonetic representation of a sibilant phoneme? I assume so. But I can’t imagine a minimal pair where the two could be confused, no matter how alike they look!

    Nice puzzle, thanks Everyman and Pierre. No (r)egrets here.

  15. [Roz @11 /Valentine @14 – yes, both the integral sign and the ‘esh’ (used in phonetics to represent the ‘sh’ sound) come from the old ‘long s’.

    When using HTML codes however, which is how I get non-keyboard characters to come out on 15², there are three different ones:

    Long S – ſ
    Esh – ʃ
    Integral – ∫

    No one’s ever seen the last two in the same room together – until today!

    Interestingly, the slash/solidus also evolved from the long s, written as an abbreviation for shillings/solidi in eg 2/6, ‘two shillings and sixpence’.]

  16. Sometimes the crossword is a walk in the park compared to trying to understand essexboy’s or Roz’s contributions! 😉

  17. Chambers does indeed cover INTEGRAL as a whole number. A surprise for me, and both Collins and the OED give definitions that represent only a WHOLE or a NUMBER used singly. If I remember any calculus at all, an integral isn’t necessarily an integer.

  18. Nice crossword showing the regular improvement in Everyman (and the long hidden is a tour de force). Like several others I was uncomfortable with INTEGRAL = a whole number, which I think it isn’t despite several people’s attempts to justify it. It would have been so easy for the clue to have avoided this so that it was ‘of a whole number’, something like ‘Essential quality of a whole number’; I’m sure Alan could have done better than this. And I didn’t think much of the surface of 2dn: ‘Worries when American soldiers surrounding gallery’, which seems illiterate and I should have thought would have been improved by having ‘surround’ instead of ‘surrounding’.

  19. Nice symmetry with 1a and 27a being examples of aural wordplay. (Hint, hint, Pierre 😉 )

    Whisky is my favourite, and I like the clue at 9a as well.

    Like many others, I am impressed by the 5-word hidden BREAKING THE BANK at 6d.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre for the fun.

  20. Didn’t time this, as I was doing other stuff at the same time, but it seemed pretty straightforward. I liked DEAR ME.

  22. I agree with others that “integral” does *NOT* mean “whole number”. (It can mean “whole” or “entire”, but not “whole *number*”.) And as others have pointed out this defect would have been easy to remedy.

    “Making a meal of it” does not mean complaining. It means spending more time or energy doing something than is necessary. I got the answer anyway (it was “obvious” from the crossers and the letter counts) but the incorrectness of the clue was annoying.

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