Everyman 3,810/20 October

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A decent enough puzzle from Everyman for this week, but I do have a couple of niggles.

 

 

 

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

image of grid
Across
1 IN-JOKE Elected absurdity that only amuses some (2-4)
A charade of IN for ‘elected’ in the ‘at the polls’ sense and JOKE.
4 IS THAT SO As to this charge: are you sure? (2,4,2)
(AS TO THIS)*
9 TURIN Ditching North, retire to Piedmont location (5)
TUR[N] IN
10 BOHEMIANS Unconventional bunch of cheques for the auditor? (9)
A homophone (‘for the auditor’) of Czechs, of which BOHEMIANS are a sub-set.
11 REDO First two notes in wrong order? Try again (4)
A charade of RE and DO, which are the first two notes of the tonic sol-fa reversed.
12 CLAD Invested in ‘About a Boy’ (4)
A charade of C for circa or ‘about’ and LAD. About a Boy is a book by Nick Hornby which was made into a film which starred Hugh Grant.
13 NEEPS Scottish speciality – flipping internal organ! – not liked at first (5)
NEEPS is a Scots word for ‘turnips’ and is often partnered with Tatties. A reversal of SPLEEN with the L (the first letter of ‘liked’) removed.
15 SET MENU Determined chaps united to get food at agreed price (3,4)
A charade of SET, MEN and U.
16 NEED We’re told massage is a necessity (4)
A homophone of KNEAD.
19 BLOG Ladies given latitude to opine online (4)
This seems to be an insertion of L in BOG, in which case I’m a bit niggled by two things: I can’t find L as an abbreviation of ‘latitude’ in any of my dictionaries (I don’t have Chambers); and I’m not convinced that ‘given’ is an appropriate insertion indicator.
20 RUN RIOT Little baby going around city causing rampage (3,4)
An insertion of RIO for the Brazilian ‘city’ in RUNT.
23 KENYA Country dancing yankee shaking behind (5)
(YANKE[E])*
24 ROUE Rascal, no-good rascal (4)
RO[G]UE You could equally highlight the first ‘rascal’ as the solution.
25 SKIN Removing silver plating, asking to reveal surface (4)
Everyman is inviting you to remove the ‘silver plating’, in other words AG, from ‘asking’: so it’s [A]SKIN[G].
27 PROGRAMME Expert put on weight for TV show (9)
A charade of PRO and GRAMME.
28 ALOHA A Spanish greeting: in return, a Hawaiian greeting (5)
A reversal of A and HOLA, the Spanish word for ‘hallo’.
29 DING-DONG A fight? What might end a fight? (4-4)
A dd. The second sense is that the bell might end a fight.
30 CHEESE Perhaps quark‘s revolutionary energy covering casing of electrons (6)
The surface is suggesting sub-atomic particles, but the answer’s an example of a CHEESE (of which I’d never heard). An insertion of ES for the outside letters or ‘casing’ of ‘electrons’ in CHE and E.
Down
1 INTEREST Bury the hatchet finally, suppressing second concern (8)
A charade of INTER and S inserted into E and T, the final letters of the second and third words of the clue.
2 JURY DUTY Civic responsibility that might involve a lot of time? (4,4)
A cd, suggesting that doing JURY DUTY might involve suspects you found guilty doing ‘time’ (in prison).
3 KANT Philosopher‘s hypocrisy is called out (4)
A homophone of CANT.
5 SCHADENFREUDE Send a rude chef out with malicious glee (13)
(SEND A RUDE CHEF)*
6 HUMAN BEING ‘Perhaps you smell sort of benign,’ Australian admitted (5,5)
An insertion of A in HUM and (BENIGN)*
7 THAMES River Tees engulfing northern home (6)
Nice surface and misdirection. You need to insert HAME for the Scottish word for ‘home’ (think Jazzer in The Archers) into TS for a representation of two letter Ts.
8 OBSESS To dominate, bosses about (6)
(BOSSES)*
10 BILDUNGSROMAN Story with endless bile, filth’s from Italian capital (13)
This is inappropriate for the Everyman slot, in my opinion. Even with all the crossers and a rough idea that it might end in ROMAN, I was stuck. Simply too obscure, particularly just to be clued as ‘story’. A charade of BIL[E], DUNGS and ROMAN.  If this was just to shoehorn two German language borrowings into the down clues to offer a trademark ‘theme’, then the idea was misguided, I fear.
14 REAL MADRID Substantial raving cleared club (4,6)
A charade of REAL, MAD and RID.
17 SICK NOTE Learner quits close-knit organisation with excuse for opting out (4,4)
(C[L]OSEKNIT)*
18 STONE AGE Wise to suppress mood when primitive men seen (5,3)
An insertion of TONE in SAGE. Not sure that Stone Age humans could be described as ‘primitive’.
21 SKYPED Broadcaster with power: leading journalist made a high-tech connection (6)
A charade of SKY, P and ED.
22 UNMOWN Joke’s non-starter (cry of dismay heard) needing to be cut (6)
A rather random definition, but fair enough. A charade of [P]UN and MOWN for a homophone of MOAN.
26 BACH He wrote Lutheran Masses in Welsh, my friend (4)
A dd. The composer BACH did indeed write Lutheran Masses. Fair play, as they would say in Wales. What they wouldn’t really say in Wales is BACH to mean ‘my friend’, I would hold. I have some experience in this field, having married into a Welsh-speaking family. BACH literally means ‘small’, but it is also used as a term of endearment, usually after a name. ‘How are you, Penri bach?’ Happy to be corrected by a native Welsh speaker, but I don’t think the definition is quite right here.

Diolch yn fawr to Everyman for this morning’s puzzle.

39 comments on “Everyman 3,810/20 October”

  1. Just as a different reference point, I thought 10D a reasonable piece of GK, no arguments here. As a Welsh speaker, agreed re 26, ‘bach’ is not the part of the expression that means ‘friend’, not that it stopped me getting the answer. As to 3D, to paraphrase Barry McKenzie, ‘I’m studying Kant’ – ‘aren’t we all, mate, aren’t we all’. This took me a while – stymied for ages on 14D; when will I learn club/team/side as suggesting an actual team?

  2. I suppose that known GK can’t be too obscure, so like Alun @#1 I thought ‘bildungsroman’ ok, but also like him, and for similar reasons,  struggled with ‘Bach’ and ‘Real Madrid’. Thanks to setter and blogger,’

    ‘

  3.  

    I agree with the blogger’s comment about Bildungsroman which as such an obscure imported word needed a bit more of a definition than simply ‘story’. It tells the tale of a person’s formative years (‘Bildung’ being the German for ‘education’) so is somewhat specific.

    The ‘neeps’ in ‘neeps and tatties’ are swedes (rutabagas) rather than turnips.

     

     

  4. I whizzed through this quickly until the same 14D that Alun@1 struggled with.  I was considering team names but European soccer/football teams are not front of mind for me. I also felt that 10D was reasonable GK, as much as 5D, the other German borrowing.

    i didn’t know the Welsh meaning of Bach either way, but I know the Kiwis use it for a holiday home so it seemed a likely candidate. I thought “charge” at 4A was a stretch for anagrind and wondered if it was a typo for “change”.  And I am puzzled at your hesitation at describing Stone Age men as “primitive”.  I know many women who would say the description fits a period much more recent than that!

    Many thanks to Everyman and Pierre.

  5. More challenging than the previous week which was a little too easy.
    Annoyed that I didn’t get Real Madrid.

    Bildungsroman was a new word to me which I wouldn’t have found without the Chambers app on my phone. My English-teacher daughter-in-law knew the word immediately, so I agree with previous posters that it’s reasonable GK, and am pleased to have expanded my vocabulary.

    (New Everyman has already shown a liking for French words and phrases)

    The root veg which the Scots call a turnip (“neep” for short) is what the English call a swede.

    I enjoyed Thames 

    Thanks to Pierre and Everyman.

  6. Very mixed, I thought, with too many sloppy clues.
    Agree with KLColin that ‘charge’ in 4a doesn’t quite fit, also, even with my very limited knowledge of Welsh I know ‘bach’ means ‘small’ so that could so easily have been more precise.
    The one I really don’t get is 30a. I guessed it was cheese since I have heard of quark as a soft cheese but even with the explanation I’m none the wiser. How do you get from ‘revolutionary energy’ to CHE E?
    Personally I thought it reasonable to include Bildungsroman.

  8. AJB58, ‘revolutionary energy’ is CHE (Guevara, the setters’ favourite ‘revolutionary’) and E for energy.

  13. A nice puzzle in my opinion. Like Alun and arib I thought BILDUNGSROMAN was fair because I happened to know it! I was a bit doubtful about “charge” as an anagram indicator in 4a. But I really liked the cleverly misleading surfaces in 30a CHEESE and 14d REAL MADRID.

    Many thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  14. I’m another who knew and was happy with BILDUNGSROMAN, but given we’re an extremely small self-selecting sample, I thought I’d compare the words on Google Trends. I’m not sure how indicative this is of a word’s knowledge or obscurity, but SCHADENFREUDE does get about 4 times as many searches. I wonder if that entitles you to feel some schadenfreude, Pierre?

    I also think “given” is fine as an insertion indicator.

  15. Oh, and on the obscurity front, I thought expecting us to know that Bohemia is a region of the Czech Republic was worse.

  16. One of the few times in 40+ years that I’ve not finished Everyman. I failed to get UNMOWN, DING DONG, REAL MADRID and CHEESE. Of course, when the answers are published they seem so easy. I did enjoy the puzzle despite several vague definitions. I think tunnel vision is the problem and I fixate on which part of the clue is the definition. Excuses I know, must try harder.

    Thanks to Pierre and Everyman.

  17. GK is a strange thing: this puzzle demonstrates that so well. I knew about Bohemia, worked out Bildungsroman but was totally stumped by 8d. Think that is less GK than rather loose clueing – again. Interesting that what constitutes GK for one is so different for another.
    My weekly rant, or moan, whichever way it falls, is about the looseness of the clues. Little enjoyment from this one, much frustration.

  18. Thanks both. Didn’t know BILDUNGSROMAN but have eaten the cheese (useful low fat emulsifier for pates etc). By the way Pierre, your entry for 4a should be (AS TO THIS)*

  19. Happy with the Teutonic long words, bith of which are aprt of my vocabulary (though perhaps shouldn’t be…)

    Agree that “bach”, as used by most of my Welsh friends is more a term of endearment and not a synonym for “friend” – though you might call a friend or family member, especially one who is younger than you , “bach”

    Regarding 13 ac – the vegetables that Americans call “rutabaga” are called “Swedish turnips” in the UK. The english abbreviate this to “Swedes”, while the Scots abbreviate it to the final syllable – “nips” – which they pronunce “neeps”. Compare “taxi” and “cab” as abbreviations for “taxicab”, which is itself an abbrevition of “taximetered cabriolet”, or portmanteau word therefrom

     

  20. I’ve been finding the last few Everymans (Everymen?) too hard to enjoy. I’m getting stuck midway through and having to word search and then Dan Word for the last answers. Unsatisfying. This week I’m currently stuck with only 7 answered entered.

    Is it just me or do others feel the same?

  22. Dougalf @20 yes, I’m finding the Everymans (Everymen?) to be less of  pleasant Sunday morning stroll and more of a stroll for the first mile  then  a workput for the secnd and third mile.

    I’m used to a pleasant Sunday morning stroll. Perhaps I should get used to some real exercise on a Sunday????

     

  25. HUM is an informal word for ‘smell’, jenrosend.  ‘There’s a right hum in here.’  ‘That student flat we lived in used to hum.’

  26. A DNF for me, so my instinct is to complain that it was too hard for the Everyman slot, but the ones I didn’t get (REAL MADRID and THAMES) are perfectly fair in retrospect. I’m particularly embarrassed about THAMES, which should have been obvious from definition and crossers.

    You’re right that L cannot be an abbreviation for latitude. It actually can be an abbreviation for longitude, so it would be a very bad idea to use it for latitude as well!

     

  29. It is only rarely that I comment on puzzles, but it struck me, when looking at the grid, that we have three solutions across each of two rows (11, 12, 13 Across and 23, 24, 25 Across). I know that such occurrences are to be found in a number of standard FT and Telegraph grids, but is this a comparatively rare instance in an Everyman?

  30. I couldn’t answer your question, Tom.  Your average solver isn’t, I think, that interested in the grid construction – that’s more of specialist subject for you and your fellow compilers at your get-togethers.  As long as the grid isn’t solver-unfriendly (split into four quarters, lots of clues with less than 50% checking, etc) then we are happy to solve what’s put in front of us.

  31. All I would like to know is whether this is common in an Everyman, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.

  33. I too DNF without aids, and assumed 4A had a typo which makes me all the more certain that this Everyman has no decent checkers, more’s the pity. I’m sure many bloggers here would happily volunteer if he wants any.

    I also assumed the E and T to be the last two letters of Hatchet which I disliked. Pierre’s suggestion is rather better.

    Never heard of the word in 10D and nor had many of my online aids.

  35. Found this one very tough. Several words I didn’t get; Thames, Real Madrid, unmown (*should* have got that!).  Could not parse 30 across (“cheese”) — just hammered and hoped.  Twenty-six down could’t be anything other than Bach, but the “Welsh, my friend” just sucked.

    Didn’t mind “bildungsroman”.

    Didn’t get the liteal meaing (“Perhaps you” — !!!) for 6 down.

    Obsess does not mean “dominate”.  Or am I missing something? Why did no-one else object to this?

    Thanks to Pierre for clearing up at least *some* bewilderment.

     

  36. Also too hard for me finished about two thirds which may be ok for me. Too many northern refs unknown to me : turnips, Welsh terms of E et al -it would be great if the setter gave any indication however obscure to a foreign word as a answer -unless truly part of current usage -I think 5d ok but 10d not ok
    I also don’t get Bog in19ac at all
    Anyone?

  38. To me you Brits are always smart, articulate, witty, and well read so I was surprised to see so many did not know bildingsroman. But this beginner Yank did, perhaps because I was a literature major back in the Dark Ages. But…I do need to bone up on football clubs and exotic cheeses! I do enjoy Everyman. Harder than a Quiptic but still solvable for those of us who are trying to move up. Thank you, Fifteen Squared and its denizens!

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