This is the second appearance of Everyman in its/his new home on observer.co.uk
… and there was some consternation on fifteensquared last Sunday when the website was still displaying the previous week’s puzzle. We’ve been used to Everyman showing up around midnight, UK time, but when I got my first coffee of the day at 6.30, there was nothing for me to get my gnashers into. Much miserableness ensued. Rather worse, of course, for our significant cohort of solvers in Australia/NZ, who would have been waiting for most of the day. I’m not sure if this was an oversight, a technical glitch, or the new normal. I guess time will tell.
As for the puzzle itself, this is the same old Everyman we’ve come to know and love/like/tolerate (delete as applicable). The rhyming solutions, the primarily clue, the self-reference are all present and correct, and highlighted in the grid below. I particularly enjoyed the clever construction of MANDELA, I SUPPOSE SO, PESETAS (though I don’t think any bread worth eating could possibly have a 30-day shelf life) and 16a for the image of Everyman getting on his bike. Thanks to Mr E for an enjoyable ride.
Having been somewhat discombobulated by the puzzle’s late appearance it took me a bit longer to complete than normal. Hence…
MOH’s utterly unscientific hardness scale rating: Fluorite
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SAFARI PARK |
S American footballers damage animals’ home – again! (6,4)
|
| Charade of SA + FA (footballers – though I don’t think the FA hierarchy – see here – has many actual footballers in it) + RIP + ARK (animals’ home). “Animals’ home” is having to do double duty as definition as well as part of the wordplay, hence “again!” | ||
| 6 | PUMP |
Ask many questions where real ale delivered (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 9 | I SUPPOSE SO |
Leads on models, love? Sounds plausible (1,7,2)
|
| Charade of IS UP (leads) + POSES (models) + O | ||
| 10 | FAIR |
Declare provision of food ‘passably good’ … (4)
|
| Homophone (declare) of “fare”. Not sure “provision of” is strictly necessary here as “fare” can simply mean “food” | ||
| 11 | TORTILLA CHIP |
… top it all off with rich snack item (8,4)
|
| Anag (off) of TOP IT ALL RICH | ||
| 15 | ELOPERS |
They have run off before the match (7)
|
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 16 | EN GARDE |
Everyman’s beginning to cycle round garden: watch out (2,5)
|
| E (Everyman’s beginning) + cycling of “garden” to make NGARDE | ||
| 17 | BLOSSOM |
Become lovelier – or succeed, showing one’s magnificence, primarily? (7)
|
| Everyman’s always simple, yeah? Primarily | ||
| 19 | TRA LA LA |
Performing, fall apart: neither piano nor forte and I can’t remember the words (3-2-2)
|
| Anag (performing) of FALL APART with neither P (piano) nor F (forte). If you’re a performer who suddenly can’t remember the words in the middle of a song, you can do significantly better than sing “tra la la”, as the peerless Ella Fitzgerald showed while doing Mack the Knife in a 1960 West Berlin concert | ||
| 20 | ABANDONS SHIP |
A group on stage’s vacuously trendy? Leaves in a hurry (8,4)
|
| Charade of A + BAND + ON +SS (Stage’S vacuously) + HIP | ||
| 23 | DRIB |
Drop turkey perhaps on the counter (4)
|
| Reversal (on the counter) of BIRD (turkey perhaps) | ||
| 24 | REGISTRANT |
Main point hidden in concerning tirade: he’s on a roll! (10)
|
| Insertion (hidden in) of GIST (main point) in RE (concerning) and RANT | ||
| 25 | NONE |
Less than one sister escaping from trap (4)
|
| Homophone (escaping from trap) of “nun” | ||
| 26 | PATRONISED |
Frequented – with scorn? (10)
|
| Double def that plays on two meanings of PATRONISED | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SLIP |
Pipsqueak, second with attitude (4)
|
| Charade of S + LIP (attitude) | ||
| 2 | FOUR |
Oscar wearing fleece, a square (4)
|
| Insertion (wearing) of O into FUR | ||
| 3 | REPROCESSED |
Predecessor redeployed, prepared for new task (11)
|
| Anag (redeployed) of PREDECESSOR | ||
| 4 | PESETAS |
Spanish bread, once risen: gorge before 30 days (7)
|
| A reversal (risen) of SATE (gorge) + SEP (30 days) | ||
| 5 | RESOLVE |
Overcome bottle (7)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 7 | UMA THURMAN |
Hollywood superstar I don’t know hurt a bad guy (3,7)
|
| UM (I don’t know) + A THUR (anagram (bad) of “hurt a”) + MAN | ||
| 8 | PORK-PIE HAT |
Invention: what’s uncovered when we see headgear? (4-3,3)
|
| PORK PIE (invention – rhyming slang for “lie”) + HAT (what’s uncovered, ie without its first letter). The words “when we see” strike me as somewhat redundant. Anyway, this brings to mind another jazz reference, Charles Mingus’s elegy for the great Lester Young, later covered by Jeff Beck and (with lyrics) by Joni Mitchell on her Mingus tribute album, among others. But I digress… | ||
| 12 | AFGHANISTAN |
Fans, hating a touring country (11)
|
| Anagram (touring) of FANS HATING A | ||
| 13 | HERB GARDEN |
Separate beds for Rosemary and Basil? (4,6)
|
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 14 | CORONATION |
After Mexican beer, one put into empty taco new way of serving chicken (10)
|
| CORONA (Mexican brand of beer) + insertion (put into) of I into TO (empty TacO) + N, for the mildly curried, mayo-heavy chicken salad supposedly invented to mark the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Though it seems her grandfather, George V, may have been ahead of the game on this | ||
| 18 | MANDELA |
Fellow, revolutionary was in charge, leader in Africa (7)
|
| Charade of MAN (fellow) + reversal (revolutionary) of LED (was in charge) + A (leader in Africa). A sort of clue as definition, I suppose. | ||
| 19 | TASTIER |
By replacing pinch of nutmeg with a little turmeric, what was increasingly unpleasant becomes more savoury (7)
|
| If you replace N (pinch of Nutmeg) with T (a little Turmeric), then NASTIER (what was increasingly unpleasant) becomes TASTIER | ||
| 21 | DAIS |
Stand a drop of hollandaise (4)
|
| Hidden answer (a drop of) in hollanDAISe | ||
| 22 | STUD |
Hunk overstudious? Not entirely (4)
|
| Another hidden answer (not entirely) in overSTUDious |
@miserableoldhack, have to say your moniker’s a misnomer. The blog’s a lot of fun, with all that jazz. Great ad libbing from Ella. TRA LA LA my pick today. Your entry for BLOSSOM fooled me for a minute.
Can’t say I enjoyed the crossword. As an Antipodean I gave it away last week when it was missing, and only came to it yesterday, so it’s a fresh memory. Similar questions as MOH re apparently extraneous words in the clues for PORK-PIE HAT and FAIR.
escaping from trap has another outing here and once you’ve seen it ……
ABANDONS SHIP also a recent appearance, can’t remember the setter though.
Thanks for the blog. I had forgotten Ella’s version Mack the knife and was delighted to be reminded. It’s a long time since I heard Goodbye Pork Pie Hat as well.
I got the puzzle on Monday, I’m in Vietnam, and it’s not available yet again this week. So I’m wondering when they post it. It’s still a Sunday paper, isn’t it?
Unlike pdm I did enjoy it.
The new one is there now (1 pm, Aussie Eastern Standard Time).
I liked SAFARI PARK, I SUPPOSE SO, BLOSSOM, HERB GARDEN and MANDELA.
Thanks Everyman and MOH. Flourite it was.
Thanks for the blog , I enjoyed it more than the puzzle . REPROCESSED a very neat and long complete anagram . Calcite for me but it should always be talc .
TRA LA LA – Jimi Hendrix singing Hey Joe on the Lulu Show forgets the words , so he sings – I forgot the words .
I’ve just realised that the Everyman now only has one URL, where the current puzzle lives. Instead of a unique URL for each week’s puzzle as on the Guardian’s site.
So imagine my face when I went to the tab in which I had last week’s uncompleted Everyman, so that I could compare it with the answers here, only for it to refresh and load this week’s Everyman instead. I guess everything I worked out last week is gone.
Maybe the solution is to use the “Play together” icon, copy the URL, and visit that page in the browser instead. It looks more unique, so maybe the crossword will persist there.
A shame there’s not (yet) an archive of crosswords building up on the new Observer site though.
Thank you, I thought I was going mad not being able to find my solution to this to check!!
I found quite a few of the clues on this just as hard as the recent Vlad puzzle’s, but completed both. My angle is that any clue that you can’t easily solve is hard.
REGISTRANT was my last one in.
Have an enjoyable Sunday all.
Annoyingly, I was defeated by two of the shortest solutions: 23a DRIB and 1d SLIP, so many thanks to MOH for explaining those.
Also I miss the anagram solver on the Guardian versions. I know there are others available online, but it’s useful to have it on the same page. Then again, perhaps I should return to the old ways of pen & paper – good for the aging brain, I suppose 🙂
I liked the performing where one couldn’t remember the words for TRA LA LA, the REGISTRANT on a roll, UMA THURMAN hurting a bad guy, and the CAD for MANDELA. Aficionados fitted in quite nicely for fans in 12D but, of course, didn’t parse.
Thanks E and MOH.
Is there any point delaying this blog by a week given that we cannot go back and look at last week’s puzzle and it is no longer a prize crossword? When you complete an Everyman on the website it tells you that you have it all correct.
It is still a Prize in the paper , entries with postmark up to next Saturday .
If you go to observer.co.uk/everyman and scroll down to the pdf option you can choose which date’s puzzle you want to download.
So in a sense an archive is building.
Why does “on the counter” mean reverse? I worked out what the answer must be, but haven’t seen on the counter before
Further to the discussion on it being a Prize, when I completed this puzzle last Sunday – a message popped up and congratulated me saying it was all correct. Throughout there was also an Assist button which became a Result button up by the Settings button. I assume that was all a mistake related to the late publishing. No button or Congrats message on completing today’s puzzle (11 May 2025).
@15 Alison … sometimes people refer to counterclockwise meaning something goes backwards to clockwise
I join with others in thanking MOH for the links to the two jazz classics. They made the blog, as Roz said, even more enjoyable than the puzzle. Of course, we should also thank Everyman for inspiring those links, and for giving us our Sunday treat.
Aw, thanks paddymelon, nicbach, Roz and Cellomaniac – you’re very kind! And yes, GrannyJP, I agree that the lack of an anagram function is a pain and, like you, I’ve had to revert to p&p.
[UMA THURMAN hurting a bad guy was hopefully an intended reference to her role in Kill Bill, a rather violent but very enjoyable romp released in two parts in 2003/4.]
meta-comment: sure is nice to be able to the helpful tab key to cycle between clues again (rather than the awkward square brackets).
Ah thanks HG@17!
Found this puzzle *very* difficult, even when using wildcard dictionaries. Still didn’t get it all out; put “drip” rather than “drib” for 23 across. Didn’t see that “drib” was “bird” backwards.
Could not get on the setter’s wavelength. No fun at all.
I agree with Rolf, no fun at all
No one of my favourites either.
We struggled with this one, maybe two late nights imbibing gin isn’t the best start to cryptic crossword solving!
Hoping for a better effort from us next week. Didn’t like SAFARI PARK, EN GARDE & TRA LA LA the top two for us.
I too found this tough for an EM, but I suppose the likes of ‘on the counter’ and ‘escaping out of trap’ will become more normal over time. Oddly enough I solved the ‘none’ clue by thinking (wrongly) it was something to do with von Trapp. Right answer, wrong parsing.
And does one ever encounter a single drib in the wild without any drabs?
Can anyone help me understand what the meaning of escaping out of trap, is that meaning something spoken out of mouth (trap) How weird. Too obscure. For me this actually was a horrible puzzle sorry if the setter reads this. Didn’t enjoy it at all. Sorry better to be honest.
Vanessa yes, trap = mouth as in ‘keep your trap shut’ so if something escapes from it I suppose it’s spoken. Can’t say I’m a fan either but I fear the horse has bolted.