A pleasantly accessible crossword from Everyman this week. There is nothing so far as I can see that is controversial.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (homophone, hidden, containment, anagram, juxtaposition, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.
I suspect Everyman has run out of rhyming phrases etc. At any rate the colouring of the grid is rather rudimentary: just the self-referential clue and the first letters one. I couldn’t find anything else, although that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to be found. [As Jay@1 points out, the phrases at 11ac and 20ac have old/new]
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SCRUMMIEST |
Seconds: extremely cheap and most delicious (10)
|
| s crummiest — s = seconds, crummiest = extremely cheap | ||
| 6 | OPUS |
Making comeback, builds upon incomplete work (4)
|
| Hidden reversed in buildS UPOn | ||
| 9 | STEM GINGER |
Repress redhead that’s spicy in the kitchen (4,6)
|
| stem ginger — stem = Repress, ginger = redhead | ||
| 10 | URSA |
Guard’s van regularly out of service: bear up? (4)
|
| [G]u[a]r[d]’s[v]a[n] — Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (Great Bear and Little Bear) are constellations, so ‘up’ | ||
| 11 | OLD WIVES TALE |
Divorcées getting dog, we’re told: it may not be true (3,5,4)
|
| old wives “tail” — divorcées = old wives, tail = dog (the verb) | ||
| 15 | READMIT |
Let back in to study at Cambridge University (7)
|
| read MIT — a nice trick that is well-known but bears repeating: Cambridge University doesn’t refer to that place in The Fens, but to the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts called MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) | ||
| 16 | SCOURGE |
Anathema: jerk takes over company (7)
|
| s(co)urge — surge = jerk (??, but no doubt some dictionaries have it; not Collins at any rate), co = company | ||
| 17 | DURANGO |
Led government that’s welcomed by pair in Mexican city (7)
|
| du(ran g)o — duo = pair, ran = Led, g = government | ||
| 19 | AMNESIA |
Forgetting a name is awkward (7)
|
| (a name is)* | ||
| 20 | NEW HAMPSHIRE |
Ashen, whimper pathetically somewhere in the USA (3,9)
|
| (Ashen whimper)* | ||
| 23 | IPOD |
Sample from Antipodean music held here (4)
|
| Hidden in AntIPODean | ||
| 24 | RETROSPECT |
Reports, etc. edited in contemplation of the past (10)
|
| (Reports etc)* | ||
| 25 | LATE |
And others sent back behind (4)
|
| (et al.)rev. — et al. is something one sees in academic references; it is short for ‘et alia’ and possibly other similar expressions, Latin for ‘and others’, for example ‘Poole et al. 2011’, when the work was written by Poole and several others | ||
| 26 | OSTENSIBLE |
So-called noblesse – it’s dubious (10)
|
| (noblesse it)* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SUSS |
Primarily solve / understand (somewhat slangily!) (4)
|
| The first letters CD — and one could say that the word ‘suss’ is a bit of a slang word | ||
| 2 | RUED |
Regretted being audibly crass (4)
|
| “rude” — rude = crass — ‘audibly’ applies to ‘crass’ not to ‘Regretted’, because of the ‘being’, which causes ‘audibly’ to be next to ‘crass’ | ||
| 3 | MEGALOMANIA |
Everyman broadcast main goal: modicum of admiration (a delusion) (11)
|
| me *(main goal) a[dmiration] — me = Everyman — modicum of is an indication of the first letter — the self-referential clue | ||
| 4 | I KNEW IT |
Wine Kit’s drunk: that’s no shock (1,4,2)
|
| (Wine Kit)* | ||
| 5 | SHELVES |
Suspends from ledges (7)
|
| 2 defs | ||
| 7 | PERMAFROST |
Performs at resort in which it’s always cold (10)
|
| (performs at)* — one can see the anagram indicator as resort — re-sort, imperative | ||
| 8 | SIAMESE CAT |
What could be represented as ‘eats mice’? (7,3)
|
| *(eats mice) — &lit. — a Siamese cat could eat mice | ||
| 12 | SPOONERISMS |
‘Bird watching’ is one for these? (11)
|
| CD: You could regard a spoonerism as an example of word botching (and it’s also a fairly well-known example of one), which is a spoonerism of bird watching | ||
| 13 | CREDENTIAL |
Interlaced characters arranged for an entitlement (10)
|
| (Interlaced)* — the characters (letters) are arranged, ie it’s an anagram | ||
| 14 | NARROWBOAT |
Note describing quarrel over grain in vessel (10)
|
| N(arrow)B oat — NB = note, arrow = quarrel, oat = grain — a quarrel is a rare word for a square-headed arrow as for a crossbow — describing means surrounding in the sense of moving round the outline of (here, at any rate) | ||
| 18 | OPPRESS |
Act dictatorially towards operation by newspapers (7)
|
| op press — op = operation, press = newspapers | ||
| 19 | ASH TREE |
A quiet time, breeze regularly blowing in bit of woodland (3,4)
|
| a sh t [b]r[e]e[z]e — a = a, sh = quiet, t = time, breeze = breeze — not sure about ‘blowing’: I suppose you could say that an ash tree blows [As Roz@5 points out, it’s probably the letters b, e, z that are removed from breeze. I think this is much better.] | ||
| 21 | HERB |
Bertie and Rosemary? (4)
|
| 2 defs: Bertie could be short for Herbert (Herb) and Rosemary is a herb | ||
| 22 | STYE |
Ocular irritant in some dusty environs (4)
|
| Hidden in duSTY Environs |
The symmetrically positioned antonym prefixes NEW and OLD are the pairing this week. Everyman likes to do this from time to time as an alternative to the rhyming pair.
We’ve previously had Black/White, Hot/Cold, Grand/Little, Back/Front etc.
As this was the last Everyman of the year, here is a list of all the people Everyman has introduced us to and all the places he’s taken us in 2025…
PEOPLE
Oberon, Tracey Emin, Edison, Orlando Bloom, Edgar Allan Poe, Verdi, Henry Moore, Bertrand Russell, Matisse, Ben Stiller, Elton John, Rockefeller, Goldman Sachs, Pasteur, Jan Paul Sartre, Mandela, Uma Thurman, Hillary, Sharon Stone, Anne Boleyn, Henry Moore, Sir Keir Starmer, James Graham, Ibsen, Michelangelo, McKellen, Dali, Mark Antony, Achilles, Clapton, Dawkins, Carole (King), Desmond Tutu, Gide, Marlow, Lloyd George, Brad (Pitt), Anna Pavlova, Dudley Moore
PLACES
Rangoon, Oslo, St Kitts, Adriatic Sea, Uganda(n), Ukraine, Ecuador, Barra, Liberia, Adriatic Sea, Afghanistan, Utrecht, Gulf of Aden, Kyoto, Teheran, Chicago, Peru, Pompeii, Rome, Chianti, Iceland, Bethlehem, Casablanca, Senegal(ese), Ossetia, Osaka, Antigua, Ghana, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Austria, Dresden, Gulf of Oman, Guatemala, Caracas, Myanmar, Bremen, Azerbaijan, Ohio, Aruba, Arabian Sea, Tasman Sea, Nepal, Catalonia, Edgbaston, Bangladesh, Ouagadougou, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Crimea, Rangoon, Armenia, Nassau, Damascus, Salerno, Tokyo, Africa, Caracas, Guam, St Barts, Estonia, Port of Spain, Minnesota, Geneva, Adriatic Sea, Palermo, Baku, Burkina Faso, Nepal, Madagascar, Negev, Lourdes, Mersey, New Hampshire, Durango
And here are the links to the blogs with similar lists for 2024 and 2023.
Thanks to Everyman and all the Everyman bloggers for a fun year!
Thank you Everyman and John. I finished this but had some queries which John has explained. i worried why URSA was up. I did not fully understand HERB or the spoonerism clue. I did not parse the ARROW in NARROWBOAT. LATE was one of the last in and caused a chuckle when I got it.
And DURANGO, I guess, is the geographical clue this time. Thanks Jay for a comprehensive roundup of Everyman’s people and places in 2025! Thanks to E and to John for the blog.
Thanks for the blog and thanks to Jay for the lists .
Pretty good overall , a few old ideas but this is the right place so that new solvers see them . SPOONERISMS was very neatly done .
ASH TREE , I had – breeze regularly blowing – meaning b e z removed .
Surge and jerk are certainly not the same in my book.
SPOONERISM was a stand-out nice one for me in a generally good puzzle, with a mix of clues suited to beginners and older hands alike.
Cheers one and all.
I had “Duran Duran” – the pop group – as representing the pair in 17A
Jerk and surge are both terms used for rate of change of acceleration , used in rollercoasters etc .
I’ve never heard of ‘scrummiest’ – where’s that used? I was trying to fit a misspelt ‘scrumptious’ into the space, but gave up! But otherwise I managed it all, so a good end to the year. All the best to everyone for the year ahead.
Queen Elizabeth had a scrummy dream about ponies in Blackadder 2. So it;s a short step to scrummiest.
If it’s in Blackadder it must be OK! At least you didn’t say ‘it’s in Chamber’s’ … 🙂
@Lloyd’s: It’s also in Collins, for what it’s worth.
By the way, has anybody managed to reach today’s Everyman? On my phone, it appears behind an unremovable overlay inviting/forcing me to “Unlock THE OBESRVER – Est. 1791 – Start your £1 trial!”. I can only get through to my previously completed puzzles. If this is some sort of a New Year’s resolution on Observer’s side, the last week’s Everyman may well be my last indeed 🙁
Found this hard – in my version (online) 14D was 10 letters, not 2 words…would never have seen 6A and I still don’t understand which part of clue gets to go in grid : for 25A I added ‘etal’ – how do you know it’s ‘late’ ?
Comment #15
jayuu @13: does this link work for you?
https://observer.co.uk/puzzles/everyman/article/everyman-no-4133
jayuu @13: does this link work for you? I find it an increasing struggle to access the puzzle each week, but managed it via the menu on the puzzle for the week before.
https://observer.co.uk/puzzles/everyman/article/everyman-no-4133
Mike @ 17: Thank you! The link opens with the same overlay I see when trying to navigate through Observer’s menu system. I tried to make a screenshot and upload it to Google, not sure though if it’s accessible for all
23a held me up because I had ODEA instead of IPOD!
@Jayuu and Mike,
Here is a pdf link should you still be having trouble accessing this week’s puzzle.
Interactive puzzles have now effectively disappeared behind the paywall.
PressReader, available via your local library, is another way to access them.
Many thanks @Jayuu – I tried hard to download in the usual way but got stuck begind the paywall. My only interest is Everyman so the monthly cost of £16 is excessive!
Is it possible for me to create such a link?
David @ 21
The last eight characters before .pdf are the date of the puzzle
You just need to alter them as necessary
Re Cara @14:
14D is one 10-letter word.
25A is LATE because it’s “and others sent back“.
Re poc @6:
In physics, the third differential of position with respect to time (ie the rate of change of acceleration) is given the name jerk. And that might be experienced as something we’d call a surge.
I especially enjoyed SPOONERISMS.
And I always appreciate the 10-letter (sometimes even more…) one-word to one-word anagrams, such as CREDENTIAL in this one.