My sense when solving and blogging this one was that it was rather clunky, with some overlong surfaces. Your experience may have differed, of course.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Cake Rubens represented having risen badly, current missing in heaters
BUNSEN BURNERS
Rather a convoluted and clunky surface reading to kick us off. A charade of BUN, (RUBENS)* and (R[I]SEN)* The two anagrinds are ‘represented’ and ‘badly’; the removal indicator is ‘missing’; and I is the symbol for electrical ‘current’ (which comes from the French intensité du courant, since you ask).
8 Primarily, clever lyrist inhabiting Olympus?
CLIO
The trademark ‘primarily’ clue, with the intial letters of the last four words of the clue giving you the answer. A cad. CLIO is one of the muses, and in some accounts is the muse of lyre playing, hence referring to her as a ‘lyrist’.
9 Time, perhaps, for every one old to call about cold
PERIODICAL
This is a bit clunky as well, in my opinion. To arrive at the answer, the surface needs ‘for every one’, but to read properly, it needs ‘for everyone’. Is it a Grauniad typo? Who knows. It’s a charade of PER, I, O and C inserted into DIAL. Referring to the American magazine.
10 Queen’s after exotic fruit: that’s increasingly plain
UGLIER
A charade of UGLI and ER for Elizabeth Regina.
11 Account involving narrative, extremely droll, one tells everyone for starters?
ANECDOTE
An insertion of NE for the outside letters of ‘narrative’ in AC for ‘account’, followed by the initial letters of ‘droll’, ‘one’, ‘tells’ and ‘everyone’. It’s what I would describe as an extended definition.
12 Oarsman flailing about in landlocked country
SAN MARINO
An insertion of IN in (OARSMAN)* The insertion indicator is ‘in landlocked’ ‘about’.
14 Christmas in retirement in Spanish kingdom
LEON
A reversal of NOEL.
15 Give medicine to those in Brooklyn
DOSE
A dd. The second element is referencing the stereotypical th-stopping aspect of the New York City accent, where ‘thirty-third’ famously sounds like ‘toidy-toid’. But the th sound of the fricative in ‘thirty’ and ‘those’ is different (try it and listen), and a look online at some dialect studies says that the two fricatives can be replaced by /t/ and /d/, so I think Everyman’s on firm ground to say that ‘those’ would become ‘dose’. The stuff I looked at also suggests that the ‘classic’ NYC accent (like Dustin Hoffman’s character Ratso in Midnight Cowboy, say) is becoming more diluted, or even disappearing, as the demographics of the city change.
16 Distressed damsel in Alfa Romeo
LADIES MAN
‘Alfa’ is given in dictionaries as an alternative spelling of ‘Alpha’ for the phonetic alphabet, so this is (DAMSEL IN A)* and a great surface.
20 A Spandau Ballet song, a Joni Mitchell song and a Madonna song
TRUE BLUE
Requiring a bit of musical knowledge over several decades, but once you had the crossers, falling into the ‘it must be that’ category. True is a Spandau Ballet song; Blue is a Joni Mitchell song; True Blue is a Madonna song.
21 Cry-baby mostly unsettled and grouchy
CRABBY
(CRY BAB[Y])*
23 Bribes ‘small, insubstantial’: low-value banknotes with one note missing
SWEETENERS
A charade of S, WEE and TE[N]NERS.
24 We’re told drawing of the sea … is … drawn
TIED
A homophone of TIDE.
25 Writer spending energy once in novel, Torch, Belt & Beret
BERTOLT BRECHT
Another subtractive anagram (TORCH BELT BER[E]T)* or a variation thereof. The ‘once’ is telling you to remove only one E. I am not a fan of these made-up book title clues.
Down
1 Express disapproval about Latin grammar: not advisable, initially, somewhere in Italy
BOLOGNA
More initial letter indications. A charade of L inserted into BOO followed by GNA for the first letters of ‘grammar’, ‘not’ and ‘advisable’.
2 I complain about old mother-in-law
NAOMI
A reversal of I MOAN gives you Ruth’s mother-in-law in the Hebrew Bible.
3 Beethoven’s fifth concerto describing a kind of penguin
EMPEROR
A dd, and an opportunity for the obligatory Pierre bird link. There are between 17 and 20 species of penguin, depending on which sources you follow, but the Emperor is the largest, with both sexes as adults measuring more than a metre in height. They are also the heaviest, but the males lose substantial amounts of weight during the two-month period when they incubate their egg.
4 A tribesman began to crumple, having been knocked down
BARGAIN-BASEMENT
(A TRIBESMAN BEGAN)*
5 Greek island which will lead, they say, to Italian city
RHODES
A homophone of ROADS, because ‘All roads lead to Rome’.
6 Everyman’s shown up with drunken English lords and sinners
EVILDOERS
A charade of I’VE (‘Everyman has’) reversed (‘shown up’) and (E LORDS)* I would always write this with a hyphen – EVIL-DOERS – and most dictionaries agree with me.
7 Spare part installed by artisan after losing first four
SPARTAN
An insertion of PART in SAN. The latter element is [ARTI]SAN.
13 One armed with sword (in fiction) and firearm (in reality)!
MUSKETEER
A dd, the first part of which is referring to Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.
15 A bit of Poldark we bit-torrented in lawless online world
DARK WEB
As contrived surfaces go, this is up there. BitTorrent (no hyphen) is a communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing. Hidden in PolDARK WE Bit-torrented.
17 Tooth seen in bionic bits you’re oddly ignoring
INCISOR
The even letters of bIoNiC bItS yOuRe.
18 Relaxing, Bambi? Entirely? Not entirely
AMBIENT
Hidden in BAMBI ENTirely.
19 A little classic board game getting to grips with homicide, in the end?
CLUEDO
A charade of C for the first letter of ‘classic’ and and insertion of E for the last letter of ‘homicide’ in LUDO. A cad.
22 American shiraz technician bottles
AZTEC
Another hidden answer: in shirAZ TEChnician.
Many thanks to Everyman for this week’s puzzle.
I agree with you, Pierre, that this was one of the clunkier (and thus less enjoyable) Everymans. (Everymen??)
Thanks Pierre. I think the insertion indicator in SAN MARINO is ‘about’ – it’s a landlocked country.
Thanks Everyman.
Isn’t the S in DOSE pronounced differently for the NY ‘those’ (‘doz’)?
Vague definition for Naomi I thought. And the Dark Web (by the dictionary definition at least) includes e.g. Police sites that require login.
Gonzo@3, DOSE appeared in a recent puzzle (Brendan, 28,217) with an eye-rhyme theme. It was pointed out then that it is pronounced by some (Scots mainly?) as “doze”. I have since heard it said that way. So while I would agree with your quibble re 15ac, there are some for whom Everyman’s clue works as written. I think that is inevitable for any homonym clue.
Thanks, Pierre, I take your point about the “th” pronounced “d” in 15a, but it was the pronunciation of the “s” that got me, like Gonzo @3. KLColin @4 refers to a Scottish pronunciation with the “s” pronounced “z” but I’ve never heard any of my Scottish relatives use that. Can anyone throw any light on this?
Thanks, Pierre. In 18a I was surprised to see “ambient” as a synonym of “relaxing”. Is this correct?
Joni is my era, Spandau is our kids’ era, but it didn’t help [the only thing I know about Madonna is the framed shot of her in our son’s gym smoking a cig while hitching down Sunset Boulevarde in nothing but heels and handbag]. The Emperor, otoh, no problem. Loved the counterpoint of Poldark in the 18th C and the dark web in the 21st, and Cluedo was nicely put together. Quite fun on a Sunday, thanks P and E.
For me, it was okay apart from a few clues.
Did not parse 11a or 9a.
New: NAOMI = mother-in-law of Ruth.
Thanks, P+E
Thanks, Gonzo, for the correction – blog updated.
I think you mean 18d, crosser, but yes, I personally have heard ‘ambient’ used in this way, although it’s informal. However, none of the thesauri I looked at give this sense, so your surprise is not surprising.
Pierre and crosser
“Ambient music”, as invented, more or less, by Brian Eno. “Music for airports” was issued as “Ambient 1”.
Started last Sunday then ran into a brick wall. Tried again yesterday and completed it. Last two took me ages then just clicked – TRUE BLUE and CLUEDO – really liked CLUEDO. Also NAOMI, LEON, LADIES MAN
Been saying DOSE out loud to try and work out how I say it (I’m Scottish) – and it is closer to doze than dose and I pronounce both words the same way.
Thanks to Everyman and Pierre.
Thanks both. Had to research the popular beat combos in 20a. And AMBIENT threw me as well, as I just thought of it as “surrounding “.
Muffin @18. Eno’s “Ambient Music” was intended as a replacement for “piped music” which was instrumental reimaginings of middle of the road pop tunes and, in the 70’s, was commonly played in supermarkets and elevators (hence the alternative term “elevator music”). As such, “ambient” was meant in its usual meaning of “atmosphere “. “Music for Airports” is, however, also relaxing and soothing (perhaps intended by Eno as an antidote to the stress of navigating an airport?). One wonders whether this “new” meaning derives from this?
Oops 1 – Muffin @10 not 18.
Oops 2 – thanks to Pierre for the blog and Everyman for the puzzle.
What a lot of early birds this Sunday. Anyone would think it was an hour later. I was happy with the ambient/relaxing equation in the musical context as referenced by muffin @10: it seemed ironic to me at the time (1970’s) that the most ‘far out’ member of Roxy Music should end up pioneering what I felt to be disappointingly bland music. But then I’d tried to enjoy kraut rock as well and the whole electro thing just didn’t do it for me. Respect him as an influence though – and I live in the same town as his frequent collaborator, Robert Fripp. Small world.
As a lover of smooth surfaces, this Everyman wasn’t my favourite and Pierre’s one line summary is about right for me. That said, LADIES MAN was lovely and I quite like SWEETENERS though I don’t think it needed the inverted commas in the clue. BARGAIN BASEMENT is a splendid anagram and a misleading clue and (whilst I’d also expect hyphenation) EVILDOERS had a nice surface and I liked SPARTAN. EMPEROR, however, was dire: barely a crossword clue at all and so off par I almost wondered if it were a mistake. (Its only saving grace is giving our blogger a chance to link a cute picture! Unbelievable what those birds go through. It reminded me of a superb book – The Worst Journey in the World – which, whilst it covered Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, was actually named after the trip three of the explorers took, in mid winter, to the emperor penguins’ breeding grounds.) Ho hum. On to this week’s then.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre
Self @15: reflecting on Eno, I’ve maybe been a little harsh. I did enjoy his – for me, non-ambient – album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) and can still remember the words of The Fat Lady of Limbourg after 45 years! And one of his ambient pieces – the title track of Another Green World – was used as the hauntingly evocative intro music for the arts programme Arena.
Well, I guess it must be inflation, but I wouldn’t class a TENNER as a ‘low-value’ banknote (what about a fiver?) – the clue would seem to work OK without it. I thought ‘bit-torrented’ was a bit obscure but maybe that’s just my age.
I thought the clue for LADIES MAN was particularly pleasing.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre.
I was always puzzled by The Three Musketeers always using swords instead of muskets, so I enjoyed that clue. A great example how the brain works in the background as I finally parsed PERIODICAL 8 hours after finishing the grid, just as I was falling asleep.
Re 25a BERTOLT BRECHT, I would usually agree with you, Pierre, about made-up titles of works of art, in that they give the setter too much scope to use any random set of words. Occasionally however they can be funny and/or apposite, and I thought Torch, Belt & Beret had a really good Brechtian and proletarian ring to it.
I also really liked 16a LADIES MAN.
Many thanks Everyman and Pierre.
For DOSE, I concur re the s/z pronunciation mismatch but didn’t see it as a problem. I took this as a case where the wordplay gave the spelling of the answer, not necessarily the exact pronunciation, and (in my experience here in the US) ‘dose’ is a common enough written representation of the NY accented ‘those’ to get the job done. But I certainly can commiserate with UK solvers finding this a bit esoteric… it’s no doubt much the same feeling as I have when encountering cockney rhyming based clues/refs 🙂
Overall this was pretty smooth sailing, but technically a DNF as CLUEDO just didn’t click. Here in the US the game is just Clue… nor did Ludo come to mind (I’m far more familiar with variants like Parchisi, Sorry, or Aggravation).
Tip of the hat to our setter/blogger/commenters…
For 9a the explanation should be “for everyman” not “for everyone” to give “I”, surely?
My impression is that Everyman could do with more vigorous editing. There are too often things which aren’t right cryptically, mistakes, and “rules” downright broken. Which is a pity, because there’s lots of good stuff in there week by week.
I baulked at ambient for relaxing but found it in a dictionary!
Lin, re 9a, “for every”=PER, and “one”=1=I, so “for every one” works; “for everyman” would make parsing for PER problematic.
I liked PERIODICAL and the BB triplet (though I was looking for ‘echt’ rhymes before the alliteration possibility hit me). Joni gave me BLUE, and then Spandau jogged TRUE, but I had to check Madonna’s track (pretty confident she must have, though). Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.
Phil @13
Apparently Eno composed “Music for Airports” while waiting for a delayed flight at Cologne Airport.
Thanks OddOtter. If ‘dose’ is a common way of transcribing the NY pronunciation of ‘those’, the clue does (doz.?) work.
Agree with all the above and would lob in that the German writer is hardly a household name. (nor in Chambers).
I don’t like made up titles either.
Some nice clues here though, Ladies Man probably the standout.
Enjoyable crossword & comments. Harsh homophone critics though. Unlike Pierre I thought the surface of 15d was one of the more credible, given bit-torrent is a common tool for pirating videos. Thanks Pierre & Everyman.