An enjoyable outing from Everyman
Nothing too tricky here, which is as it should be. Most, if not all, of the standard Everyman clue types are present and correct (and highlighted in the grid). My personal likes: 9ac and 26ac for the surfaces, plus the cockney oarsman in 18dn and the sweet hair product in 19dn. Thanks, as ever, to Everyman.
Moh’s cruciverbial hardness scale rating: Talc
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FIRESTORMS |
Reformists resolved blazing issues (10)
|
| Anagram (resolved) of REFORMISTS | ||
| 6 | IBIS |
One wading regularly in bliss (4)
|
| Alternate letters (regularly) of In BlIsS | ||
| 9 | REMEMBER ME |
Humble representative, cycling: do I ring a bell? (8,2)
|
| MERE MEMBER (humble representative) with the first ME moving/cycling to the end | ||
| 10 | BAKU |
What’s originally displaying big Azerbaijani khanate urbanity? (4)
|
| A variation on the ‘primarily’ clue – first letters (what’s originally displaying) of Big Azerbaijani Khanate Urbanity – BAKU being the capital of Azerbaijan | ||
| 11 | PLAYS IT BY EAR |
Tries to win at tag: mostly stands around yard and thinks on one’s feet (5,2,2,3)
|
| PLAYS IT (It being another name for the playground game tag) + BEAR[s] (mostly stands) around Y (yard) | ||
| 15 | LEOTARD |
Sign sailor’s Dutch: tight- fitting clothing (7)
|
| LEO (sign of the Zodiac) + TAR (sailor) + D (Dutch) | ||
| 16 | SARCASM |
Scorn South African racism, wanting independence – and reform (7)
|
| SA (South African) + anagram (reform) of RAC[i]SM (racism wanting independence, ie without the i) | ||
| 17 | CENTAUR |
He’s a bit of a nag (7)
|
| Cryptic def, a centaur being part human, part horse/nag. At first I thought I was looking for a part of a horse’s anatomy that was also a man’s given name, but the crossers soon put me right | ||
| 19 | ALI BABA |
The Greatest Pudding, one from Arabia that’s a bit of a legend (3,4)
|
| ALI (the boxer Muhammad Ali, known as The Greatest) + BABA (the rum-soaked pastry eaten as a dessert) | ||
| 20 | SWITCHES GEAR |
Changes approach and whips Kit (8,4)
|
| SWITCHES (whips) + GEAR (kit – the upper-case K is only there for misdirection) | ||
| 23 | EELS |
Slippery types rest up (for the most part) (4)
|
| Reversal (up) of SLEE[p] (rest for the most part) | ||
| 24 | WELL-EARNED |
Justly deserved, like some oil? (4-6)
|
| Double definition, the second a bit flighty. I suppose oil that comes from a well (rather than a nut or a seed, say) could just about be described as ‘well-earned’. Sort of. | ||
| 25 | PART |
Leave rôle (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 26 | GRACIOUSLY |
I’m surprised to have exhausted Lady in elegant fashion (10)
|
| GRACIOUS (I’m surprised, as in ‘good gracious’) + L[ad]Y (exhausted lady) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FORD |
Cross off, or delete, removing most (4)
|
| Hidden (removing most) in ofF OR Delete | ||
| 2 | RAMP |
Pram struggling in incline (4)
|
| Anagram (struggling) of PRAM | ||
| 3 | SIMPLE AS ABC |
Miss Capable flourishing, very straightforward (6,2,3)
|
| Anagram (flourishing) of MISS CAPABLE. I shall refrain from putting a link to the obvious earworm… | ||
| 4 | ONE-EYED |
Seed money M&S wasted unwisely with vision restricted (3-4)
|
| Anagram (unwisely) of [S]EED [M]ONEY (minus M and S/’M&S wasted’) | ||
| 5 | MEMOIRS |
Everyman with pretentious reference to self rambles vacuously in recollections (7)
|
| ME (Everyman) + MOI (pretentious reference to self. Pretentious? Moi?!) + R[amble]S (rambles vacuously, ie emptied of its inner letters) | ||
| 7 | BEAVER AWAY |
Labour’s account of why dam construction incomplete? (6,4)
|
| Double definition, the second whimsically suggesting that if the beaver’s away, the dam doesn’t get built | ||
| 8 | SQUARE MEAL |
What some Shreddies and cheese slices will give you? (6,4)
|
| Cryptic definition. Shreddies breakfast cereal and cheese slices both tend to be square. Probably best not eaten together though | ||
| 12 | BURKINA FASO |
Leader of blasted UK on safari touring African country (7,4)
|
| Anagram (touring) of B (leader of blasted) UK ON SAFARI | ||
| 13 | BLACK SHEEP |
Bad son, perhaps, that may get you sacked thrice? (5,5)
|
| Reference to the nursery rhyme ‘Baa baa, black sheep, have you any wool?’, although that song has ‘three bags full’ rather than sacks, so this is perhaps a little stretchy | ||
| 14 | COUNCILLOR |
Local official also therapist, we’re told (10)
|
| Homophone (we’re told) of ‘counsellor’, therapist | ||
| 18 | ROE DEER |
How the Cockney oarsman got to this doe-eyed creature? (3,4)
|
| Homophone. If a Cockney oarsman was asked how he got somewhere, he might reply that he “rowed ‘ere” | ||
| 19 | ANGELIC |
Hair product with a nice short casing: sweet! (7)
|
| A NIC[e] (a nice short) around (casing) GEL (hair product) | ||
| 21 | ONUS |
Uncapped perk? That’s a liability (4)
|
| [b]ONUS (perk without its first letter, ie uncapped) | ||
| 22 | GDAY |
Victorian greeting, ultimately relaxed, welcoming … carefree? The reverse (1’3)
|
| Envelope (welcoming) of GAY (carefree) around D (ultimately relaxeD). ‘The reverse’ because the clue initially suggests it’s the other way about, ie ‘ultimately relaxed’ around ‘carefree’ |
Liked REMEMBER ME, BAKU, MEMOIRS, SQUARE MEAL and GDAY.
Great blog moh.
Thanks Everyman and moh.
Bunged in an unparsed edgy at 22d (an antonym of carefree, and the given number count on my e-copy was 4, not 1’3). Hey ho, nice puzzle anyway, ta E and moh.
A slight grumble about “up” being a reversal indicator for 23 ACROSS but I thought this a good Everyman.
Thanks E & moh.
I did not get on so well with this because I thought there were several loose clues. However, thanks for your explanations for 19a and 18d which I now understand. I really do not understand how we were meant to get 7d.
Thank you.
I couldn’t get 7d but found it a humorous clue after seeing the answer. I also had ‘edgy’ for 22d the only reasoning being the reverse of carefree. The website displayed it as a 4 letter word answer.
‘Up’ in an Across clue shouldn’t be used to indicate a reversal. It can be an anagrind, but then it would be indirect, which is also frowned upon.
Tricky challenge.
New for me: BAKU – capital of Azerbaijan.
I could not parse 22d but guessed the answer. Like grantinfreo@2 and Mr Biue@5, I also considered EDGY but couldn’t parse it apart from EDGY being the opposite of carefree.
EDIT:
Is the Everyman only going to be a PDF from now on? That’s it for me, I’ll be skipping it from now on.
Ground to a halt with 24A, 26A, 7D, 21D, and 22D incomplete with no idea at all what the answers could be, even with crossers. So I found this tough, vague, and not much fun. That’s two weeks in a row Everyman’s 4 letter words have defeated me.
Never heard of BAKU or BURKINA FASO. Only heard of baba when preceded by rum. Couldn’t parse BLACK SHEEP, so thanks for the explanation – yes, a bit of a stretch.
Michelle@7: today’s Everyman seems to be online now, maybe it wasn’t earlier.
Thanks moh and Everyman
Re Michelle at 7,
I’ve tried a desktop and 2 Macs this morning and still get a big blank space instead of a crossword puzzle!! My wife’s IPad got it straight away though, which is odd because IPads always were the weak link, it never worked well on them.
Since the Observer separated off from The Guardian, there have been gaffs galore… I remember fondly the puzzle with no word lengths after the clues, introducing a whole new world of jeapardy and second guessing!
It doesn’t seem a lot to ask of a newspaper….papers do it all the time after all!
But I agree, it crossed my mind this morning, perhaps a 50 year habit of Everyman is coming to an end. Sad reflection on the Editorial staff of the new paper.
Thanks Everyman and moh
Re ‘up’ in an across clue, I think you can just about justify it if you think of eg upstream or upwind, both of which mean going against the natural direction.
I liked BLACK SHEEP when the penny finally dropped – as I was nodding off yet again.
Cheers everyone.
Thank you, I couldn’t parse REMEMBER ME to save my life. My LOI was BEAVER AWAY. I knew the second word would be AWAY but had to wade through virtually all the alphabetical possibilities on the three non-crossers of the first word before landing on the AHA! moment of BEAVER.
Humble Tim #9. Everyman (and other setters) seem to have a fascination with BURKINA FASO. It’s been clued several times, as well as its capital OUAGADOUGOU (that’s a doozie) which Everyman clued in July this year.
BEAVER AWAY was nice, but it defeated me: it had a look of a CD and the best I could manage was ‘blares away’ (Labour — Tony Blair …), which I know is no good.
Fairly new to cryptics, but thrilled that I managed to finish this one! A lot of guess first and parse later, but I found it fun. Probably just on the right wavelength that day.
I have a question- could 2 DN have been pram struggling ‘on’ incline- rather than ‘in’ incline? Is there a rule for the connector words?
Thanks
[terry@10 – I use a Macbook Air and I always do the Guardian puzzles and Everyman online using Firefox. Today I could only access the Everyman puzzle as a pdf with Firefox, but when I switched browser to Google Chrome (which I dislike using), I could do the Everyman online as usual. Weird!]
Mandash#16: I think ‘in’ as the link between wordplay and definition is saying that in a word meaning ‘incline’ you will find an anagram of ‘pram’. ‘On’ would not accurately convey that message. It’s a pity, because in normal speech do we ever say, when struggling to push a pram uphill, that we’re in an incline rather than on it?
Michelle@17: Firefox works for me, so perhaps there’s something else going on. This is version 145 on Linux.
poc@19 – must be something else going on. It/firefox worked for Everyman last week but stopped today. I am using Firefox 145.0.1. Maybe it will work again next week 😉
Defeated by BEAVER AWAY, which I think makes this my first Everyman failure in getting on for a year.
Regarding PLAYS IT BY EAR. I was thinking the PLAYS IT part references “tries to win at tag”, as the person who is “it” must try to tag the others. I was held up for quite a while by this, and I think part of the reason is that where I grew up (in the West of Scotland), that person was referred to as “het” rather than “it”. I wonder if this harks back to some European migration in earlier centuries, “het” being Dutch for “it”. Funny where crossword clues lead you.
Thanks Everyman and moh.
Re. TanTrumPet: Similarly, whenever we played hide-and-seek (or similar games) in (or in the vicinity of) Dowanhill Park in Glasgow, the seeker was ‘het’, but I always thought it was a West of Scotland version of ‘heated’ or ‘hot’.
Hector@18 I couldn’t figure out how ‘in’ worked, but what you said makes sense. Thanks!
(Ta!nTrumPet# 21 and Luciano Ward #22 Your comments about ”het” reminded me of ”het up”, a phrase I use. I see etymologically it’s from dialect meaning “heated” or “hot”, surviving in Scots and Northern English. )
Humph@3 I agree. This use of “up” would be fine were this a down clue but didnt work for me.
Otherwise the puzzle was enjoyable
Thanks
I enjoyed this one – though there were a few answers where I needed the blog in order to parse them. I loved 9A (once I’d got it!); and thought 7D was especially amusing.
Re paddymelon@24 – I’m not sure whether you mean het for hot is a northern/Scottish dialect, or whether you mean “het up” is; in which case, I must say that “het up” has been a normal phrase all my life in London.
Concerning comments about technical problems, and how “a newspaper” should do better … well, the _newspaper_ does; it seems those with problems aren’t reading the newspaper itself but a website. None of these difficulties exist in the actual Observer newspaper.
Failed on a couple, 7D and 20A, the latter as I had the wrong homonym for 14D.
Getting a bit bored of obscure places I haven’t heard of, and I echo the criticism of ‘up’ in 23A. If he used upstream or upwind as suggested I’d buy it, but up on its own is just plain wrong.
A bit tricky. None of the N Hemisphere comments mention Victoria, Australia in their solution for G’day. A soft one for those of us down under.
Took me ages to get ONUS. Liked ALI BABA, WELL EARNED, PLAYS IT BY EAR.
All good.
Defeated by 7d which was a good clue.