Everyman 4,091 by Everyman

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The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/4091.

As usual for Everyman, there is a rhyming pair (12A and 20A, cornflower in the grid), the self-reference (23A, lawngreen), the geographical reference (19A, blanchedalmond), the “primarily” clue (21D, burlywood), and, for good measure, an “anti-primarily” (22D, coral).

ACROSS
1 REAR WINDOW
Bring up opportunity to see Hitchcock movie (4,6)
A charade of REAR (‘bring up’) plus WINDOW (‘opportunity’).
6 CHEF
Revolutionary, loud apron-wearer (4)
A charade of CHE (Guevara, ‘revolutionary’) plus F (forte, musically ‘loud’).
9 EXFOLIATES
Fixes ale to order and gets out of one’s skin (10)
An anagram (‘order’) of ‘fixes ale to’. To exfoliate is to remove dead cells from the skin.
10 BEAU
Fancy fellow’s drop of bottled French water (4)
A charade of B (‘drop of Bottled’) plus EAU (‘French water’).
12 CONCERT GRAND
Making racket – foregone conclusion – excellent: a huge piano! (7,5)
A charade of CON (deception, ‘racket’) plus CERT (‘foregone conclusion’) plus GRAND (‘excellent’).
15 CHUFFED
Acted like a steam train travelling over the moon (7)
Double definition, the second being ‘over the moon’ as delighted.
16 HAIRCUT
Hot air ignored? Do! (7)
A charade of H (‘hot’) plus ‘air’ plus CUT (‘ignored’); with ‘do’ as short for hairdo.
17 UNDEALT
Not fine, flaunted, displaying cards in deck like so (7)
An anagram (‘displaying’?) of ‘[f]launted’ minus the F (‘not fine’).
19 CHICAGO
Musical fashionable in the past (7)
A charade of CHIC (‘fashionable’) plus AGO (‘in the past’).
20 MARIACHI BAND
Musicians from China barmaid enlivened (8,4)
An anagram (‘enlivened’) of ‘China barmaid’.
23 EVER
Your crossword compiler is only half there – always (4)
The ulitmate in deprecating self-reference: EVER[yman] (‘your crossword compiler’) chopped (‘only half there’).
24 TRACK EVENT
Sporting fixture – racket bust – let rip (5,5)
A charade of TRACKE, an anagram (‘bust’) of ‘racket’; plus VENT (rant, ‘let rip’).
25 TIDE
Sea’s movement even, you say? (4)
Sounds like (‘you say’) TIED (drawn, ‘even’).
26 UNDERSTUDY
Stand-in actor to read European articles first (10)
A charade of UN plus DER (French and German, say, ‘European articles’) plus STUDY (‘read’).
DOWN
1 REED
Does and bucks rampant in grass (4)
A reversal (‘rampant’ in a down light) of DEER (‘does and bucks’).
2 ALFA
One (or 17) before Romeo (4)
In the NATO alphabet, ALFA is the first entry (‘one’), or counting back from R (‘romeo’), the 17th.

… and Alfa is ‘one before Romeo’ in the car manufacturer.
3 WALDORF SALAD
Walnut? Not half! And a little Discovery or Fuji’s cored, as prepared in diners, primarily (7,5)
A charade of WAL (‘WALnut not half’) plus D (‘a little Discovery’) plus ‘or’ plus FS (‘FujiS cored’) plus A LA (‘as prepared in’) plus D (‘Diners primarily’) Since Discovery and Fuji are varieties of apples, and walnut and apple are prime ingredients of a Waldorf salad, the clue has an &lit definition.
4 NUANCED
Greek character danced topless with subtlety (7)
A charade of NU (‘Greek character’) plus ‘[d]anced’ minus its first letter (‘topless’).
5 ON EARTH
A little yobbo near there, where you live (2,5)
A hidden answer (‘a little’) in ‘yobbO NEAR THere’.
7 HIERARCHAL
Around end of dinner, hail her cab, mostly arranged in ranks (10)
An envelope (‘around’) of R (‘end of dinneR‘) in HIEARCHAL, an anagram (‘arranged’) of ‘hail her ca[b]’ minus the last letter (‘mostly’).
8 FOUNDATION
Undergarment that goes on before blusher (10)
Double definition; a woman’s undergarment and a cosmetic.
11 IGNITION KEYS
In turn, they’ll get you going (8,4)
Cryptic definition.
13 SCRUMMIEST
Seconds, cheap in the extreme and most delicious (10)
A charade of S (‘seconds’) plus CRUMMIEST (‘cheap in the extreme’).
14 DUNDERHEAD
Department’s leader reporting to top teacher, an idiot (10)
A charade of D (‘Department’s leader’) plus UNDER HEAD (‘reporting to top teacher’).
18 TEHERAN
Some wrote her a note somewhere in Iran (7)
A hidden answer (‘some’) in ‘wroTE HER A Note’.
19 CUBICLE
Announced boxy workspace (7)
Sounds like (‘announced’) CUBICAL (‘boxy’).
21 PERU
Foremost of peaks enveloping River Ucayali – here! (4)
The ‘primarily’ clue in disguise: first letters (‘foremost’) of ‘Peaks Enveloping River Ucayali’; indeed, the river is in Peru.
22 STAY
Remain conscious throughout Australia Day, finally (4)
An “anti-primarily” clue: last letters (‘finally’) of ‘consciouS throughouT AustraliA DaY‘. I’m not sure what our antipodean friends will make of the surface.

picture of the completed grid

31 comments on “Everyman 4,091 by Everyman”

  1. Mostly gettable but good fun. For no particular reason, I got stuck for some time with 13d and 3d. Thanks for the &lit explanation for 3d which was DNK for me. Loved 11d for the wittiness. About 2d, I immediately thought of Alfa Romeo, then parsed it.

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO

  2. Thanks Peter O. Agree. EVER has to be Everyman’s most self-deprecating clue yet. Made me laugh.

    NUANCED my favourite today. Great surface image, and liked the definition with subtlety.
    Happy to see that NU was indicated as a Greek character. Maskarade didn’t do that with TAU in the Quick Cryptic yesterday.

    As an Aussie, I had two interpretations of Remain conscious throughout Australia Day, in the clue for STAY.
    One is the traditional national holiday, barbecues and pubs, and outdoor venues, where people get together and often consume a lot of alcohol, It’s in the middle of our summer on 26 January. So a reminder to keep relatively sober. and remain conscious.

    The other is that the observance of this date is very contentious. It is the anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet in Sydney in 1788 when Britain claimed sovereignty. . There is a movement to change the date of the national holiday, as this one is not a cause for celebration by our First Nations Peoples and supporters. Some call it Invasion or Survival Day. So an exhortation to remain conscious of this.

  3. REAR WINDOW
    If we take ‘opportunity to see’ as WINDOW, all words get utilised.
    Collins
    window
    an opportunity to see or understand something usually unseen
    a window on the workings of Parliament

    Liked CONCERT GRAND. The link word ‘making’ didn’t seem out of place for a change.

    ALFA
    Does ALFA mean one/1? Considering it’s a variant spelling of alpha, can we say alpha means one/1 in
    the expression ‘alpha male’?

    WALDORF SALAD
    Liked the clue more after reading the blog.

    STAY
    Thanks paddymelon@2 for your excellent post.

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO.

  4. As a Greek numeral 1 is Alpha (for which the alternative spelling, Alfa, is given in Collins). However, in the car make ALFA comes one before ROMEO – an interpretation that doesn’t require an alternative spelling. The correct NATO alphabet spelling is also Alfa, so 17 before Romeo.

    Thanks Everyman and PeteO.

  5. Kva @3: The spelling ALFA is used in the NATO alphabet to accommodate languages (e.g. Spanish) in which PH does not read as the F sound. In Alfa Romeo, it’s an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, for which I have just enough Italian to loosely translate as Automobile Manufacturing Corporation of Lombardy. ALFA is either one word before Romeo in the name of the car, or seventeen words before Romeo in the NATO alphabet. So no, it does not mean “one.”

  7. Oh, and continuing a tradition, always gotta applaud when my chosen home town gets a shout-out, but surely we can come up with something besides CHIC + AGO next time?

  8. [Me @5: when I went to Madrid, we changed planes, both there and back, in Philly. I was shocked to see, on the way back, that affording to the departure lists at the airport, our plane was bound for someplace called Filadelfia.]

  10. Thanks for the blog , it seemed very suitable for newer solvers .
    WALDORF SALAD very famous from Fawlty Towers .
    I rarely disagree with PDM but for NUANCED I think that dANCED is contributing too much directly to the answer.
    HIERARCHAL , I took arranged for the anagram and not part of the definition .

  16. It’s trivial but I felt my Sunday wasn’t quite complete without a specific “Primarily” clue. Obviously PERU is an acrostic and Primarily appears for the last of Waldorf Salad but neither is the usual format.

    Other than that it was another enjoyable puzzle. We’ve had a good run of reasonably quick, doable ones since December and long may it continue. As I recall I was held up at the end of TRACK-EVENT and IGNITION-KEYS and parsing ALFA / CONCERT-GRAND

  17. Very enjoyable. Many thanks to PeterO and Everyman. My favourites were HIERARCHICAL, CONCERT GRAND, TRACK EVENT and WALDORF SALAD. The latter took a long time to properly parse!
    PDM @2, thank you for the thoughtful comments on STAY.

  18. Pauline in Brum@16: it’s HIERARCHAL – which I noticed because I carelessly entered HIERARCHIC and then had to suffer the consequences when I came to solve CHICAGO. Why do we need three different endings (-IC, -AL and -ICAL), which make no difference to the meaning, for the same word?

    Rant over. I liked the mental image of Che Guevara in his apron.

  20. [Gladys @18, you are quite right. I got it right when I did the crossword but wrong here. As to why so many endings? No idea, it certainly serves to confuse. If memory serves me correctly I got CHICAGO first…]

  21. Roz @10
    In 7D HIERARCHAL, I have removed ‘arranged’ from the definition. Thanks for pointing out the slip.

  22. Coincidentally “Bring up opportunity for picture (4,6)” was 1 Across in a Daily Telegraph puzzle 3 weeks before this. Great minds etc.

  23. Re gladys @18, and the confusion of suffixes – is it “…archical” or “archal”? I sometimes get this sort of thing wrong; they’re not always interchangeable.
    Some years back I had a letter published in the Guardian relating to linguistic and other diversity in the former Yugoslavia, in which I referred to “the sub-dialectical variations of Serbo-Croat” [long story…]. A good friend, and fellow-pedant, pointed out that the Graun really should have corrected it to “sub-dialectal”. He said that “sub-dialectical” in that geographical/political context immediately put him in mind of small ideological splits within Tito’s regime…

  24. 7 “Normal” spelling is hierarchical. There’s a reference in OED from 1890s to hierarchal also in Webster’s 1909 New International Dictionary. I guess either is still acceptable. I’m from Canada, what’s the verdict on this from across the pond?

  25. All gettable other than the Band, which I haven’t heard of.

    Thought Alfa in NATO was Alpha. My bad obviously.

  26. WALDORF SALAD and NUANCED our top picks this week. Finished after a strong coffee helped us see clues more clearly! Off to Gindulgence in Auckland today, have a lovely weekend everyone.

  27. No complaints, and quite a few ticks. A very quick solve apart from being held up by ‘Ignition Key’ for 10 minutes. I thought the answer would be more alimentary. LOI when I twigged!

  28. Barrie, probably not really appropriate on this blog, but I did my first Styx today, and got it out! Is there anywhere like the excellent Fifteen Squared where you can check your answers? I’ve had a bit of a Google but nothing popped up.
    Thanks in advance.

  29. Rod I’ve chucked yesterday’s so can’t prove this but if you just google the whole clue there are a couple of sites that give you answers and they often list other clues from the same crossword. No explanations though, not a patch on fifteensquared.

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