I thought this was good but on the hard side for an Everyman and some clues held me up for quite a while. There are the usual Everyman extras which are highlighted in the grid. Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (homophone, hidden, containment, anagram, juxtaposition, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in olive.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | EASY CHAIRS |
Where to comfortably enjoy Spooner’s schmaltzy music (4,6)
|
| If you spoonerise this you get “cheesy airs” | ||
| 6 | HEWS |
Talked of colours in prunes dramatically (4)
|
| “hues” — hues = colours — nothing to do with cutting parts of a play, just that if you hew, you prune heavily or dramatically. I think. My last one in and this took a while | ||
| 9 | MANAGERIAL |
Concerning boss’s hidey-hole, say, an American in retirement (10)
|
| (lair eg an Am.)rev. — lair = hidey-hole, eg = say, an = an, Am. = American | ||
| 10 | ASIA |
Perhaps ChatGPT’s a step back for most of humanity (4)
|
| (AI’s a)rev. — AI = Perhaps ChatGPT, a = a, step back is the instruction to reverse (I think we need to see ‘step’ as an imperative) — the majority of the world population lives in Asia | ||
| 11 | NO HARM NO FOUL |
Dodgy moolah for nun: forgive the transgression (2,4,2,4)
|
| *(moolah for nun) — not an expression I knew, but it’s in Google | ||
| 15 | EARACHE |
What makes a lug smart? (7)
|
| CD — if it aches it smarts | ||
| 16 | POT-HERB |
Swap other basket – that contains culinary flavouring (3-4)
|
| Hidden in SwaP OTHER Basket | ||
| 17 | IMPINGE |
Everyman’s to send text: Everyman’s beginning to intrude (7)
|
| I’m ping e — I’m = Everyman’s, ping = send text (typically an email), E[veryman] — the self-referential clue | ||
| 19 | SPIDERY |
Abrupt notion: run into intelligence agent like Black Widow? (7)
|
| sp(ide[a] r)y — idea = notion, so the ‘abrupt’ shortens it, r = run, spy = intelligence agent — ref. the Black Widow spider | ||
| 20 | TURKISH TOWEL |
What gets wetter when it dries up in Istanbul? (7,5)
|
| CD — taken literally it’s a description of what happens in Turkey, but it also refers to towels used in Turkish baths | ||
| 23 | ATOM |
Tiny thing seen in first half of dictionary (4)
|
| The first half of the dictionary is A-M (A to M) — at any rate that’s what my SOD has although I’ve seen A-N | ||
| 24 | AUSTRALIAN |
Gold pin Arthur’s taken back – is he from Perth? (10)
|
| Au (nail Art’s)rev. — Au = gold (the chemical symbol), nail = pin, Art = Arthur | ||
| 25 | TANK |
Cistern to fail – at great cost (4)
|
| 2 defs — I was unsure about the ‘at great cost’ since in my experience to tank simply means to fail, but Collins has ‘(esp commercially)’ | ||
| 26 | STREET FOOD |
Trendy dining option: Coronation chicken? (6,4)
|
| street food — street = trendy, food = dining option — I’m rather vague on this but it looks as if it’s right, if only because it’s the only thing that fits: the wordplay is OK but do they sell coronation chicken on the street? [the reference, which I stupidly missed and has been pointed out by several, is to the soap Coronation Street] | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ELMS |
Key limes regularly seen in trees (4)
|
| [K]e[y] l[i]m[e]s | ||
| 2 | SINS |
Seven in number. Satanic? Originally (4)
|
| s[even] i[n] n[umber] S[atanic] — the first letters &lit. referring to the seven deadly sins — unlike the usual first letters clue, this wasn’t a write-in for me: I went down the wrong track thinking that ‘Seven’ referred to 7dn and the east of ‘Eden’ was the letter n, so looked up ‘sinx’ to see if it was a word … | ||
| 3 | COGNOSCENTI |
Unimportant employee with no trace – bit of inkling they know (11)
|
| cog no scent i[nkling] — cog = unimportant employee, no = no, scent = trace — ‘bit of’ is by convention the first letter (even though really it could be any letter) | ||
| 4 | AIRFARE |
Broadcast: food’s price to go up (7)
|
| air fare — air = broadcast, fare = food, with a clever tricky definition: you go up in an aeroplane | ||
| 5 | ROAD MAP |
Perform hiphop about old admiral? I’ll tell you where to go (4,3)
|
| r(o Adm.)ap — rap = perform hiphop, o = old, adm. = admiral —I don’t know much about this sort of music but I should have thought rap was a bit different from hiphop | ||
| 7 | EAST OF EDEN |
English feasted on novel – one from 1952 (4,2,4)
|
| (E feasted on)* — E = English — a novel of 1952 by John Steinbeck, later made into a famous film with James Dean | ||
| 8 | STABLE BOYS |
So let baby cavort; they won’t frighten the horses (6,4)
|
| I think this is correct, but am not sure: it looks like a mistake, but the definition seems a bit odd and (so let baby)* only gives nine letters and there is an s missing; I suppose that stable boys are trained to treat the horses well so that they won’t frighten them; and it fits — so I’m going with this and reckoning that there has been a mistake, although I may well be wrong [no I wasn’t wrong, and according to the comments it has now been corrected in the online version. But that doesn’t help those who initially solved it. Of course mistakes get made, but the job of a crossword editor is to avoid them. I don’t think the Puzzles editor is the Crossword Editor, so …] | ||
| 12 | OUTSIDER ART |
Creation on the fringes: bizarrely, it’s our trade (8,3)
|
| *(it’s our trade) — again, not an expression I knew | ||
| 13 | REGISTRANT |
One signing in and restarting after revision (10)
|
| (restarting)* | ||
| 14 | PROPER NOUN |
May, say, but may … not (6,4)
|
| CD — May (when it refers to the month) is a proper noun, but when it doesn’t it is probably a common noun or a verb — a slightly odd construction that I don’t fully understand | ||
| 18 | EXHAUST |
Sap getting a kind of pipe (7)
|
| 2 defs — tire out/as in exhaust pipe | ||
| 19 | SCOTTIE |
Small bed with couple and pooch (7)
|
| s cot tie — s = small, cot = bed, tie = couple (verb) | ||
| 21 | CIAO |
A friendly ‘hello’ in Naples – or quite the opposite (4)
|
| ‘ciao’ means either hello or goodbye in Italian, so ‘or quite the opposite’ refers to the fact that it’s hello or goodbye, not to its friendliness | ||
| 22 | ENID |
Maybe Blyton’s a bit uneven? I daresay (4)
|
| Hidden in enevEN I Daresay — ref. Enid Blyton the author, and the surface is arguably true |
John: ‘Coronation’ in 26a is a reference to the long running UK soap “C… Street”.
I also fond this harder than usual with 2 NHOs (11 & 20) but got there in the end. I also agree with the issue in 8d, I too think there’s an ‘S’ missing
Thanks to Everyman & John.
There’s more to Coronation Chicken.
Is a Turkish towel a thing, like Egyptian cotton? And doesn’t a sting smart while an ache, well, aches? Whatev, mere quibblettini. smooth puzzle, ta John and E.
[Turkish baths are a great institution. The one I frequented was built round a huge low granite outcrop, slightly convex, on which you lay and slowly melted. Then someone scrubbed you and chiropracted your bones. All for about a dollar. Bliss!]
An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks for the blog.
20A must refer to a type of good quality cotton towel. I have no idea what’s supplied in a Turkish Bath.
26A might also refer to all those street parties for the coronation of Elizabeth II where coronation chicken was served.
Thanks John. HEWS was also my LOI. I got stuck on ”reds” with crossers and couldn’t see my way past that. Agree with your parsing with ”dramatically”. STABLE BOYS may be an error, or it’s just a leap in Everyman’s mind that we’re meant to follow, from singular to plural.
TURKISH TOWEL. Any towel gets wetter when it dries up. In Istanbul gives the Turkish bit.
PROPER NOUN. May or may not, I think just means that a capitalised “May” is a proper noun, but lower case “may” isn’t.
The STABLE BOYS clue was changed online and in the pdf later in the day last Sunday to include the errant “S” in the fodder.
Agree with earlier comments regarding the intended Coronation Street soap reference and PROPER NOUN relating to the capitalisation of May.
Thanks to E and J.
It felt like a regular Everyman, not too difficult. Entering NAME instead of NOUN held me up for a while in SW; I regret not parsing ATOM, which is a great clue. I also liked COGNOSCENTI. Didn’t know SCOTTIE but it is easily constructed. For TURKISH TOWEL, the first word was clear but the second could be anything, so the rhyme helped. Thanks Everyman & John!
If you put “Turkish towel” into your favourite search engine, you will see ads for so-named particularly fluffy towels
Although, I finished this, I felt it was rather loose. I ended up with several question marks because I could not parse or understand the answer. Thank you John for explaining 23a. However, I still have trouble with 8d and 14d. 15a and 20a were not particularly cryptic and 20a is also very loose. I did not think this was one of Everyman’s best efforts, but then I like tight clues – difficult but once you have got them, you know they are right.
I agree with John about the missing S in clue for 8d. [I did the puzzle online before the error was fixed as reported by Jay@7]
New for me: no harm no foul.
Christopher@10. See Jay@7 for both 8d and 14d (or me@6 for the latter).
As for 15a and 20a, both are cryptic definitions, which some solvers like and some don’t.
In the clue for 15a, What makes a lug smart, does it help to have this definition of lug from Onelook: “A large, clumsy, awkward man; a fool”? For me that’s the cryptic/misdirection part, both in terms of lug/ear, and smart/ache..
I haven’t heard the expression ‘No harm, no foul’ and I agree that an ache is very different to a smart – which is surely sudden and sharp, eg TCP on a grazed knee?
I agree with Christopher @10.
The looseness of Everyman’s clues drives me spare.
The missing S in 8D is clearly an error.
(And 20A is weak, at best. “What gets wetter as it dries” is a chestnut so old it may now be a fossil)
Michelle@11. I also didn’t know the phrase NO HARM NO FOUL, but I was looking for an expression asking for forgiveness for a transgression. But the phrase, as far as I could see when I looked it up, is from the person forgiving the transgression. It was a bit of mind-bender for me, and I’m not sure if the grammar is right or the clue is complete.
Jay@7. I was just about to refer Wellbeck@14 to your post, but thought I should check first. I can’t find the corrected/errant S in STABLEBOYS in either the online or PDF version.
Thanks John. Very hard for me again. Feels like a different level for now and like I’m going backwards! Looking forward to a breakthrough.
Hi paddymelon@15 – I think the clue for 11ac works if we think of the definition (= forgive the transgression) in the imperative tense as in the offender telling the offended/the victim, ‘if a mistake or transgression caused no real damage, there is no reason to be upset or complain about it.’ Does that work?
Thanks Everyman and John
I took the definition in 26 to be “Trendy dining option”, as street food is very fashionable these days, with the wordplay being Coronation to give street and chicken as an example of food, with the final question mark being a dbe indicator applying to both words.
Correction Jay. Have found the missing S. They’re both there ónline and in the PDF. So lets baby. But how many people would go there after the event? When Alan Connor/Everyman made a booboo in the Guardian, as he sometimes did, he’d come back with a Special Instruction and a correction. Doesn’t help the Observer solvers or any of us who did the crossword last week,
paddymelon@16 and Wellbeck@14
I just had a look and the corrected clue for 8d in the online version now reads as:
So lets baby cavort; they won’t frighten the horses (6,4)
EDIT: sorry, paddymelon, our posts crossed.
And I agree with you, once I have completed the puzzle, I never go back to look if a clue has been corrected.
I agree this was more difficult than usual and hew was my last one in. But nice to have more of a challenge sometimes! Always look forward to Sunday morning for fifteensquared and the explanation and parsing so thank you John and Everyman.
Layman@8. Scottie is a breed of terrier dog. They are black or white. Also, they are associated with Scotland.
I don’t know Michelle@18 as I’m not familiar with the phrase. I thought from looking it up it was the other way round.
As Everyman/Alan Connor is the Editor of the Guardian crosswords, and, as far as I know, there is no (other) Editor of the Observer crosswords, does he have a test solver to pick up these glitches? It’s all very well to have the ability to ask the techs to correct these errors, but it doesn’t help solvers in the meantime.
Paddymelon @25 and Michelle [passim]:
I agree. While there’s some slight satisfaction in learning, after the event, that someone or something persuaded Alan Connor to correct a mistake, there’s no practical benefit for the frustrated solver. The correction happened long after I’d downloaded the puzzle and spent a good while trying to make sense of that clue.
The editor’s job is to check for errors before publication, not after. Alas, since Alan Connor is both crossword editor and the Everyman setter, there’s nobody overseeing his own work.
Paddymelon@25: The Observer Puzzles Editor is Caitlin O’Kane. I know because I recently had an email from her in reply to my complaint about the online submission form not accepting apostrophes in surnames. Not surprisingly (in view of her own name) she agreed and said she’d look into it.
I also thought ‘tank’ was overly specific. It just means to fail.
I did know NO HARM NO FOUL. I think it’s originally an American expression, which should probably have been indicated.
I found this one tricky…some of the clues were a bit loose(20a); prefer to know when I have the right answer!
Got 13a, though had it the wrong way round at first as have never heard the expression. Didn’t get 14d!
3d was fun!
Keep persevering cara@17, this one was definitely harder than usual. Not helped by the faulty clue & by not having heard of either half of the rhyming pair or POT HERB. Some nice clues though: AIRFARE & PROPER NOUN both very clever.
Not sure if anyone can help, but some time this week the Everyman puzzle interface changed (am accessing on mobile in Safari) and now it resets every time I navigate away from the page and there seems to be no way for it to save answers. Anyone had a similar issue?
The hardest Everyman I can remember for a long time. A big struggle. Some clever clues – like ATOM which i just couldn’t parse until this blog. But quite a few words I’ve never heard of. On to the next one!
I agree with Cara@17. The last few puzzles do seem to be more challenging. ‘Hews’ only came to me on yesterday’s dog walk so a full week of chiselling away at it. Thanks to all who post here with the parsing explanations, it really does help.
Tony@30, yes I have had the same issue. I’ve completed the grid three times now and given up trying to get it to retain the answers. Touch wood, I don’t seem to be having the same issue with Gemelo.
Thanks to Everyman and John.
This one has been a right tussle for me. I think I’ve got about 60% so far. My hot chocolate, which usually gets me through the puzzle, was finished early on. Not a good sign. 26 across made me smile, and I surprised myself by solving 1 across almost immediately. I take a while to get that type of clue.
A
On Google Chrome, I can see this week’s Everyman, but nothing else, even though I completed most of them and submitted them. Last week’s was there this morning, but has gone now.
I agree with Simon S@19 that the more likely def for 26a is “Trendy dining option” although it could work as a double def.
Couldn’t get HEWS. The first time we’ve failed to complete an Everyman since lockdown!
NO HARM, NO FOUL to me as an American does not mean forgive the transgression but the same as “no harm done”. It is said by the “transgressee” not the transgressor, so I think it is a bad clue. Forgive the transgression is something the transgressor would say.
I thought Everyman was supposed to use more common knowledge or vocabulary, I had never heard of a few things on here
We agree that the clueing is getting sloppy and ambiguous, a lot of the more vague clues look like they belong inside a Christmas Cracker.
15 across… I was convinced that it was Auricle, with just the last c and e. And I still maintain it is a better answer than earache….Auricle/ oracle….oracle’s are smart arent they?? I gave way to the inevitable though.
I should also speak up for the poor bunch of insomniacs who like to get it “hot off the press” just after midnight….I stayed up till after 1 AM last night refreshing like mad, and still no new Everyman.
Isn’t NO HARM NO FOUL a football refereeing term? If an action might technically be a foul, but it’s marginal, then if there’s no harm done it isn’t blown as a foul. Once known as the Advantage Rule?
I thought Coronation Chicken was a recipe published as an idea for something to prepare for the street parties at the time of the queen’s coronation back in 1953.
I thought some of the clues in this puzzle were very clever and amusing; some I found difficult, but most of those I got in the end by keeping the page from the paper and coming back to it during the week. But I needed the solutions in this week’s paper (and this blog) to get to the bottom of a couple of them…
I did realise there was potentially an S missing in 8D, but kind of persuaded myself it was parsable without.
I entered STREETBIRD for 26a. STREETBIRD is a very trendy dining option in the US, featuring fried chicken. Street for Coronation plus bird for chicken? is a perfectly good parsing for a perfect definition, which then made 21d CIAO impossible to get. I therefore refuse to accept defeat gracefully. 😊
The spoonerism (I call them roonerspisms) at 1a EASYCHAIRS was my favourite – witty definitions made for a great surface.
I couldn’t parse 10a ASIA, so thanks, John, for the explanation – another excellent clue.
I have the same problem with the puzzle resetting as Tony@30. Anyone found a solution please?
@42 and others, I contacted the puzzles editor and they said they were aware of the issue and working to solve it, but that it was complex and would take some time. Fingers crossed!
Glad that it wasn’t just me who thought that this was rather on the hard side. I think it was one of 2025’s toughest, and I wouldn’t have been able to finish it without a bit of assistance from Chambers (both the dictionary and the thesaurus). Couldn’t parse MANAGERIAL at all, although it couldn’t have been anything else, but it’s always frustrating to have an un-parseable correct answer, so thanks for the help with this one. ATOM I thought was an enjoyably clever clue, as was PROPER NOUN. With STREET FOOD, I’m in agreement that Coronation Chicken is a reference to the street parties of 1953 at which much of the stuff was apparently eaten, although I’ve never seen Coronation Street, so maybe it has some reference to that too – I just can’t quite see what chicken has to do with Coronation Street. The spoonerism at 1a was good, although I think that all of AC’s spoonerism have been pretty good – they’re definitely one of my Everyman highlights.
Very hard. Very sloppy.
Sloppy yes, and I have given up complaining that the setter has no checker (or if he does they are useless). Atom was a good clue, others were poor and obscure (what the hell’s a Turkish towel?)
Lots to love today. Totally and nearly totally backwards LAIREGANAM and NAILARTSUA. Nice spoonerism and “restarting” anagram. A-to-M for half a dictionary. A bit perplexed by singular horse attendant but guessed a setting error, and dining options until CIAO went in. Otherwise happy just to roll with the punches. BTW a Turkish towel, being thinner, gets wetter but dries faster on a line.
I agree with my fellow Kiwis, I go back to my theory of at least 2 Everymen. This one was from the brother who is more devious.
Difficult, to say the least. 11ac is an American phrase I’ve never heard ( I think basketball is one of the most boring sports ever and i ) even though I had ” No harm done” going through my head . And an anagram that isn’t at 8d. I watch a fair bit of EPL and I’ve never heard this phrase.
PS A Turkish towel is more like a tea towel. Modern fluffy towels only became common in the 1840’s.
Turkish towels have been around for decades in the Western world – generally thinner, striped, with or without tassles, dry much faster.
Anyway – this cryptic really tested us and was a DNF not helped at all by putting in IONS for ATOM which is now my favourite clue of the week!
No quibbles, a hangover & general end of year fatigue defeated us as much as the tricky clues.
Meri Kirimihate /Merry Christmas everyone!
For NZH subscribers today’s Styx is quite good. Struggled with three the rest not too hard.