It’s Sunday in Crosswordland. Everyman in The Observer, Filbert in The Independent on Sunday. Life is good.
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 A breeze, even at sea
PLAIN SAILING
A dd cum cd.
8 Certainly, marines get out of shape
DEFORM
A charade of DEFO and RM. DEFO is of Australian origin, apparently, a result of their borderline annoying habit of shortening words. Is it too hot down under to enunciate all the syllables? Arvo, barbie, cab sav, defo … and the rest of the alphabet if you care to look.
9 Scouts’ cabaret jokes involving new method
GANG SHOW
An insertion of N in GAGS followed by HOW. ‘The how and the why.’ The insertion indicator is ‘involving’.
10 Place where you need English and French both strange et normal
MONTREAL
(ET NORMAL)* with ‘strange’ as the anagrind. A creative way to fashion the anagram fodder: you can treat the last two words as French if you want. MONTREAL (MONTRÉAL in French) is a city where nearly 90% of the population are fluent French speakers, according to 2021 figures.
11 Cocktail has oomph with vermouth added in
MOJITO
An insertion of IT for ‘vermouth’ in ‘gin and it’ in MOJO. The insertion indicator is ‘added in’
12 Spot last year’s swallows
STYE
Hidden in laST YEars.
13 Fairy made from stone by the roadside to fill order
TINKER BELL
An insertion of IN and KERB in TELL. The insertion indicator is ‘to fill’. IN for ‘made from’ just about works, I think. ‘The statue is in/made from stone.’ TINKER BELL, as two words, is how J M Barrie spelt the character in his original book.
15 Sickly youth drinking etc, a boozy mess
WET CANTEEN
An insertion of ETC in WAN and TEEN. The insertion indicator is ‘drinking’ and the ‘mess’ is the forces canteen, in this case where alcoholic beverages are consumed.
18 Small beard cut with teeth
SAWN
A charade of S and AWN. AWN for the ‘beard’ of barley came up in one of my blogs last week, so I was onto this one straight away.
19 Bang on target for ship in a storm?
REPORT
A charade of RE and PORT.
21 Great being hot, covered with insects
BEHEMOTH
An insertion of H in BEE and MOTH. The insertion indicator is ‘covered with’.
22 Flog relics to monastery
CLOISTER
(RELICS TO)* with ‘flog’ as the anagrind.
23 Monkey really having tail clipped by horse-doctor?
VERVET
A charade of VER[Y] and VET.
24 Wrecked Syrian city contains green and free area in SE
HOME COUNTIES
An insertion of ECO and UNTIE in HOMS. Filbert certainly has an eye for how to break down common phrases into constituent parts.
Down
1 Piano heavenly maiden keeps up for English lord
PEER OF THE REALM
What was I saying at 24ac? An insertion of FOR E reversed (‘up’, since it’s a down clue) in P ETHEREAL M. The insertion indicator is ‘keeps’.
2 Distributor of loaves and fishes has job dividing drink
APOSTLE
An insertion of POST in ALE. The insertion indicator is ‘dividing’.
3 Feeling less clear about seat of power
NUMBER TEN
A charade of NUMBER in its anaesthetic sense and NET reversed.
4 African running along behind American on the outside
ANGOLAN
A charade of (ALONG)* and AN for the outside letters of ‘American’. The anagrind is ‘running’.
5 Lineker’s predecessor left a lot of people upset
LYNAM
A charade of L and MANY reversed. Gary Lineker replaced Des LYNAM as Match of the Day host in 1999. He himself will retire from the role at the end of this season, to be replaced by a trio of presenters – Gabby Logan, Kelly Cates and Mark ‘Chappers’ Chapman. Far too much footie in the Indy puzzles. Not everyone’s a fan.
6 GI’s head treated by Spooner in surgery
NOSE JOB
A Spoonerism of JOE’S NOB.
7 White lioness wandering across street? One changes sides in case
HOSTILE WITNESS
An insertion of ST in (WHITE LIONESS)* The insertion indicator is ‘across’ and the anagrind is ‘wandering’.
14 City in the Champions League playing in Devon, eh?
EINDHOVEN
(IN DEVON EH)* with ‘playing’ as the anagrind. The football team is PSV EINDHOVEN, universally known as PSV. Readers will be fascinated to learn that their most recent outing in the Champions League was a 2-2 draw at Arsenal after a 1-7 first leg loss at the Philips Stadion, with the Gunners going through to the quarter-finals of the competition by an astonishing 9-3 aggregate.
16 Dry sausage caught by software that’s unreliable, mostly
CHORIZO
A charade of C and HORIZO[N], referencing the Fujitsu accounting programme that resulted in the false prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters. Not sure why we need ‘dry’ here. Just ‘sausage’ would have done, I fancy.
17 Ban consequently restricts doctor back in Chattanooga
EMBARGO
An insertion of MB for ‘doctor’ and A for the final letter of ‘Chattanooga’ in ERGO. Most often translated as ‘thus’, but ‘consequently’ is fine as a synonym too.
18 Uranium in anti-aircraft missile curtailed sortie for old fighter
SAMURAI
An insertion of U in SAM and RAI[D]. The insertion indicator is ‘in’. SAM is an abbreviation for Surface to Air Missile.
20 Championship belt Italian holds aloft
TITLE
Hidden reversed in bELT ITalian.
Many thanks to Filbert for the Sunday entertainment. Ha’way The Lads.
I think Sundays it’s Azed in the Obs, Everyman in the Guardian, but yes, life is good and Filbert’s good too. Few bits of gk I dnk, like gang show and Lynam, tho I did know Eindhoven (maybe by osmosis from the Beeb). As for 1d, I biffed it and cqba parsing, which was my loss as it’s a bit of a ripper. All fun, thx F and P.
This puzzle is superb, even by Filbert’s gold standard.
I simply cannot fault it, so I won’t try.
I may not have cracked TINKER BELL. I took “Fairy made from stone” as the definition, and IN KERB as “by the roadside”. The Peter Pan & Tinkerbell (sic) sculpture I’m thinking of, is bronze; so my parsing is awry.
I echo Pierre, re 18(ac)…see “beard” , think AWN.
Lovely, clever, enjoyable stuff, ta, Fil & P
Are we sure defo is from down under? I sort of classed it with obvs, whatevs and totes, which in turn might be descendants of brill and absy fab. Then again yes we do like our arvos …
Just read a post, about a certain clue, in the Guardian blog for today’s Everyman which refers to its being different in the Observer. Totally confused. Does the Sunday Everyman appear in both?
MONTREAL
Is there more to the def?
TINKER BELL
Agree with the blogger’s parsing.
PLAIN SAILING
Took even as PLAIN and at sea as SAILING. However, it may well be a CD, as Pierre says.
Liked REPORT a lot.
Excellent puzzle. Neat blog. Thanks Filbert and Pierre.
DEFO: Is ‘deffo’ of the same origin?
grant@3 We used “defo” ( and “decco” ) when I was a kid in Liverpool, so that’s…..well, let’s just say, The Beatles were still The Quarrymen.
A lot of odd words came over with the foreign sailors when Liverpool was a thriving port. My old man was in the Merchant Navy, and he had a very weird lexicon, some of which is not suitable for the dinner table.
ginf @ 4
The Observer is effectively the Sunday edition of the Guardian. Despite its title they share the same guardian.com website. A few years ago there were attempts to retitle/ it as the Sunday Guardian, but the ensuing outcry meant that it didn’t happen (The Observer is, I believe, the longest continuously printed newspaper in the UK).
But now the name has been sold to the Tortoise media company, and it is expected to go behind a paywall, so the future availability of the Everyman is open to question (I guess that they might follow the lead of the FT, which is behind a paywall but makes its crosswords freely available).
A lot of the Observer staff have already departed, and there is a great deal of ill-feeling about the whole affair.
Saw WP in 1a: “even” = PLAIN; “at sea” = SAILING — as KVa@5.
Thanks both. A Filbert experience rarely varies for me, in that I contemplate defeat only for things to gradually fall into place. I caused my own problems today, having tentatively gone with holiest instead of HOSTILE WITNESS for quite a while – the problem was I googled it, and the expression does exist but the definition was so baffling it remained a strong ‘maybe’. Particularly liked CHORIZO – very topical.
I had never heard of LYMAN, VERVET, or GANG SHOW, so this was a DNF for me.
I agree with querying whether CHORIZO should have been defined as dry, not because the word is unnecessary but because it’s inaccurate. As many might know, Spanish chorizo and Mexican chorizo are two different sausages. The Spanish version is dry; the Mexican is not. But one almost exclusively finds Mexican chorizo in North America and Spanish in England, so you might get to chalk that one up as another difference between BrEng and AmEng; dunno.
MONTREAL, which I’ve been to a couple times, is an interesting experience. As I’ve often said here, I don’t speak French. Shopkeepers in Montreal always greet you in French. I always returned the greeting as “bonjour, hello,” and they knew to switch to English, which they all also spoke.
Mr. P @ 10
You have to be of a certain age, to remember that Des Lynam, presented our football TV program, on the BBC, Match of the Day (MOTD) before our England football legend, Gary Lineker, took the reins.
Not the fairest of clues, for a wider audience.
Then again…you had the Hero, for a sub-sandwich, recently. And so many US States.
Gang Shows are also very niche. You had to have been in the Boy Scouts to get that one. It’s when I realised that singing and acting was not my pigeon.
Thank you Simon S for the clear run down re the status of The Observer (and apologies my response is so many hours later).
And apols, too, to Pierre for doubting!
Thanks Filbert. After a very slow start, my morning coffee must have helped because I was able to finish this excellent crossword albeit with a few parsing gaps and lucky guesses. My top picks were WET CANTEEN (liked ‘boozy mess’), NUMBER TEN, and ANGOLAN. Thanks Pierre for the blog.
A very good puzzle, as usual from Filbert. HNO VERVET so didn’t quite make it to the finish today.