Perhaps a slightly trickier Everyman this week, though there are still some easy clues to get started.
As usual, Everyman takes liberties with some rather 21a anagram indicators, and similarly the definitions are sometimes slightly dubious – but perhaps “close enough for crosswords”. Plenty to enjoy though; those who don’t like political comment with their crosswords may have been annoyed by 10a and 11a, but they amused me. 24d is an interesting trick, but I think the ingenious anagram in 1a is probably my favourite. Thanks Everyman as always.
EDIT: I forgot to mention Everyman’s usual rhyming pair of answers – here it’s 7d and 8d.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | MODERN TIMES | Dire moments represented in Chaplin classic? (6,5) |
| Anagram (re-presented) of DIRE MOMENTS. Clue-as-definition: Modern Times has Chaplin’s character enduring some dire moments during the Great Depression. |
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| 9 | RAITA | Every now and then, organist has dairy dish (5) |
| Alternate letters (every now and then) from [o]R[g]A[n]I[s]T [h]A[s]. South Asian yogurt-based side dish served with spicy foods. |
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| 10 | HOI POLLOI | ‘Listen: I get votes. Listen: “masses“‘ … (3,6) |
| HO (listen!) + I POLL (I get votes) + OI (listen!). Greek expression meaning “the many”, now used to mean “the general public”. The surface suggests someone who’s still whinging about all the votes he thinks he should have got and his rival shouldn’t have . . . |
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| 11 | UNTENABLE | … empower crazy nut as leader? Indefensible (9) |
| ENABLE (empower), with an anagram (crazy) of NUT before it (as leader). . . . and just in case the surface reference wasn’t obvious enough in the previous clue, Everyman is labouring the point here. |
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| 12 | DUCAL | Some Hindu calendar concerning a nobleman (5) |
| Hidden answer (some) in [hin]DU CAL[endar]. | ||
| 13 | LANKIER | Student, not so clean, loses money, gets more lean (7) |
| L (as in L-plate = learner = student), then [m]ANKIER (not so clean) without the M (money). I think “manky” for “dirty and unpleasant” is mainly British slang. | ||
| 15 | BRAVADO | Nowadays, character from Nato goes around boasting (7) |
| AD (Anno Domini = nowadays?), with BRAVO (the character B in the NATO signalling alphabet) around it. I’m not convinced by the definition: allegedly the word originates from the Spanish / Italian for boasting, but it generally means an extravagant display of courage (especially from someone who’s less confident than they want to appear). |
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| 17 | SAUTEED | Fried horse contains a little taste of umami (7) |
| STEED (horse), containing A + a little bit of U[mami]. | ||
| 19 | GRAMMAR | Book of little weight to cause injury (7) |
| GRAM (little weight) + MAR (to cause injury). For example, “a French grammar” = a book explaining the grammar of the French language. |
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| 21 | OUTRE | You Trekkies suppress too much (5) |
| Hidden answer (. . . suppress) in [y]OU TRE[kkies]. Outré = “beyond what is customary or proper”, or just strange / eccentric. |
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| 23 | QUASIMODO | Campanologist feigned bad mood (9) |
| QUASI (prefix meaning “as if”, or “superficially but not really” as in “quasi-scientific”, so “feigned”), then an anagram (bad) of MOOD. The title character in Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the cathedral’s bell-ringer. |
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| 25 | TENTH-RATE | Low-quality Spanish wine consumed by personnel (5-4) |
| TENT (Spanish red wine, from tinto = dark-coloured), then ATE (consumed) by the side of HR (Human Resources = what used to be called the personnel department). | ||
| 26 | GUILT | Resembling gold. Containing uranium. Shame (5) |
| GILT (covered with a thin layer of gold or something like it, so resembling gold but not actually solid gold), containing U (chemical symbol for uranium). | ||
| 27 | WASHER-DRYER | Household appliance increasingly warped as animals found inside (6-5) |
| WRYER (increasingly wry = warped), with AS + HERD (a group of animals) found inside it. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | MOISTEN | In France, Everyman gathers up water (7) |
| MOI (Everyman speaking = me, but in French), then NETS (gathers) reversed (up, in a down clue). Water, as a verb = add water to = moisten. |
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| 2 | DRAINPIPE | With end removed, India paper rolled into tube (9) |
| Anagram (rolled) of INDI[a] (end removed) + PAPER. | ||
| 3 | REHAB | Expressions of frustration and uncertainty arising in health facility (5) |
| BAH (an expression of frustration) + ER (an expression of uncertainty), all reversed (arising = upwards, in a down clue). | ||
| 4 | TOILET BAG | Something seen in bathroom; big tale to unfold (6,3) |
| Anagram (unfold) of BIG TALE TO. | ||
| 5 | MOOED | Pet noisily bellowed (5) |
| Homophone (noisily) of MOOD; pet = mood = a bout of sulking or grumpiness. | ||
| 6 | ST LUCIA | Sail cut off somewhere in the W Indies (2,5) |
| Anagram (off) of SAIL CUT. | ||
| 7 | TROUBLESHOOTS | Looks for problems, finding Russian cash, heroin, cocaine’s all around (13) |
| ROUBLES (Russian cash) + H (slang for heroin), with TOOT’S around it. Crossword setters often require us to know slang terms for illegal drugs, but “toot” meaning cocaine (or similar drugs taken through the nose) was a new one to me. I’m going to be pedantic (because someone else will if I don’t) and point out that troubleshooting isn’t looking for problems. It’s what you do when you know you have a problem, and you’re looking for the cause in the hope of fixing it. |
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| 8 | FILL YOUR BOOTS | I’ll buy soot for reunion; make the most of it (4,4,5) |
| Anagram (reunion = putting back together?) of I’LL BUY SOOT FOR. Expression meaning “take the opportunity to help yourself to as much as you want”; there are many possible explanations for its origin online, but nobody seems to have any conclusive evidence. |
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| 14 | RED SQUARE | Where Lenin may be seen as bloody bourgeois (3,6) |
| RED (bloody) + SQUARE (conventional and unimaginative = bourgeois). Public square in Moscow, the site of Lenin’s mausoleum. |
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| 16 | AMAZINGLY | In the morning, a spirit loudly evacuated, causing astonishment (9) |
| AM (ante meridiem = in the morning) + A ZING (a spirit, in the sense of enthusiasm) + L[oudl]Y (evacuated = middle letters removed). | ||
| 18 | UP TO NOW | Finally, John Woo put reboots all in the past (2,2,3) |
| Anagram (reboots = restarts?) of the final letter of [joh]N with WOO PUT. | ||
| 20 | MOONIER | Less decisive omnivore, not very prone to change (7) |
| Anagram (prone to change) of OMNI[v]ORE without the V (very). I’m not sure about the definition here, but I think moony = vague, absent-minded, dithering. I wondered about moony = prone to change (like the phases of the moon), but “less decisive” as an anagram indicator would be taking it too far even for Everyman. |
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| 22 | ETHOS | Primarily, essentially, that habitual organisational spirit? (5) |
| Everyman’s traditional clue-as-definition from the first letters of E[ssentially] T[hat] H[abitual] O[rganisational] S[pirit]. | ||
| 24 | AHEAD | In advance, or yet to come? (5) |
| Double definition: a Janus word (autantonym) with two more-or-less opposite meanings depending on context. As in “I’ll get there ahead of you” = in advance, or as in “there may be trouble ahead” = yet to come. | ||
Agreed that some of the definitions were a little loose – e.g. guilt and shame are not the same, though they often coexist – see the target of 10/11a for a counterexample. And I agree about TROUBLESHOOTS and BRAVADO. RED SQUARE, though pretty simple, was very nice. Thanks for parsing TENTH RATE, Quirister – even though I have drunk vino tinto in Spain, I didn’t know ‘tent’. And thanks to Everyman.
Found this notably easier than several other recent Everymans… with rather cleaner cluing/defns (much appreciated). And compared to some recent puzzles from others, thought the political content quite tame. Overall, enjoyed this much as I would a good Quiptic 🙂
TENTH-RATE: DNK tent for Sp wine so was baffled on that parsing… thanks for sussing it!
LANKIER: DNK mankier… instead thought of stankier, guessing st might be an abbr for sterling; online, have found STS for sterling silver, but so far not st alone?
HOI POLLOI: Saw “get” as a charade chaining connector… but could see this other way working too.
BRAVADO: Chambers online has “a display of confidence or daring, often a boastful and insincere one”. So that worked for me.
MOONIER: For moony, Collins includes “listless”, which I think can be taken as “indecisive”? (Or is that too wishy-washy?…)
TROUBLESHOOTING: During my HW/SW engineering career, we often used the term as in the clue. Specifically, testers would report something “not working right” (often no more detail than that), and it was up to engineers to troubleshoot in order to find the precise “problem” causing the incorrect behavior so it could be fixed. It’s like noting a clock keeps poor time, and troubleshooting to find the problem is a specific damaged gear.
Tip ‘o the hat to our setter, blogger, and commenters AHEAD!
I’ve encountered “tent” wine many times (though always in crosswords) so TENTH RATE came fairly easily.
Three quadrants in, I was on the hunt for a J and X to complete the pangram, which of course turned out to be a wild goose chase.
Yep a fun stroll with some eyebrow flickers, eg wry for warped, and troubleshoot, though thanks OddOtter for that nuanced justifier. No prob though with either tent or toot. Quasimodo always reminds me of an old-movie fave scene, Charles Laughton holding the girl above his head and shouting “Sanctuary!” Thanks both.
Enjoyed this one and eventually completed it.
Like others had not heard of tent so could not see how TENTH RATE worked. Will note for future. Also could not parse BRAVADO, MOISTEN.
Long time since I’ve seen/heard the word “manky” though it was in frequent use when I was a student.
Particularly liked HOI POLLOI, QUASIMODO
Thanks to Everyman and Quirister
M as an abbreviation for money? Pretty obvious, but I can’t think of an example.
[re 25a – why do so many people who work in HR pronounce it “HAYch are”?]
[gif@4’s vision of Charles Laughton at Notre-Dame rings a bell, but for a Sunday selection of music, I’ll go for My Pink Half of the Drainpipe by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band]
Not being familiar with Chaplin’s work, for a while I had MISTER MONDE for 1a, which I maintain would be a decent film title! And my teenage years of reading Adrian Mole paid off, as the restaurant he worked in later on was called 10a. One or two I couldn’t parse, so thanks Quirister for the blog, and Everyman for the puzzle.
Shirl @ 6
M = MONEY is a standard abbreviation in economics, with M0, M1, M2 ff being different definitions of (the composition of) the money supply.
Thanks Simon S @ 9, I’ll store that away for future puzzles.
Largely enjoyable Sunday outing. I didn’t know pet = bad mood, but TENT = wine is often met in crosswordland, though rarely outside, I think.
I particularly liked the clues for MODERN TIMES, BRAVADO and TENTH RATE.
Thanks Everyman and Quirister.
Agree with the comments that this was not one of the more difficult ones, but having said that, several answers came through other crossers and until Quirister did the great job of spelling it all out, I’d no idea why several were correct. 13a had to be lankier, but no idea why until now and of course it all looks so easy when one knows. Ditto 15a. I did like 7d and 23a ,but got the latter without seeing quasi =as if. I do query 20d, never having heard it before and still wondering when or if it would be used in daily speech. I had moodier, as prone to change. Overall, enjoyable but still with frustrating quirks. Guess that is what crosswords are? Thanks to Quirister for great explanations.
I loved 23a with QUASIMODO being described as a campanologist. And the surface of 8d FILL YOUR BOOTS was great.
TassieTim @1, I thought “shame” was close enough for GUILT, meaning the feeling of guilt rather than the fact of being guilty.
Many thanks Everyman and Quirister.
Lord Jim @13 – one could feel guilt but not shame – for example, one might feel fear (of being found out) rather than shame, or one might feel guilt for an action one knows to be illegal, but pride in having engaged in civil disobedience against an unjust law. I seem to remember that Aristotle discusses the difference somewhere.
TassieTim@14 I seem to recall also a distinction between shame cultures, where the focus is on the reputation of the wrongdoer and guilt cultures where the focus is in the crime/sin with shame cultures more likely to have so-called honour killings and vendettas and guilt cultures a focus on the letter of the law.
I thought manky was a Scottish term like oxter. Maybe it has more general currency
TT @14: GUILT can of course simply be “the state of having done wrong” (Chambers). But Chambers also includes for it, “the painful or uncomfortable emotion or state of mind caused by the awareness or feeling of having done wrong”. I think the latter is close enough to shame.
Manky may originally have been Scottish, but has been well known dahn sarf for at least 50 years.
Agree shame/guilt can be different (sometimes subtly), but also think there are contexts where they’re reasonable enough synonyms for xword purposes?
FWIW, Chambers online has guilt: “a feeling of shame or remorse resulting from a sense of having done wrong”. Meanwhile Collins online has shame: “an uncomfortable feeling that you get when you have done something wrong”; and guilt: “an unhappy feeling that you have because you have done something wrong”, with “shame” in the synonym list.
Lastly, wonder if the verb sense might be more satisfactory for some? As in to shame/guilt someone into doing something?
Finally back to being able to get it all out, with no help from wildcard dictionaries. Could not parse 25 across (had never heard of “tent’ wine) nor 16 down. Thanks to Quirister for the explanations. Didn’t like “quasi” equals
“feigned” in 23 across, but the answer was so obvious that this wasn’t really a problem. I mean, like, what *other* campanologist has anyone ever heard of?
Thanks Everyman. Please keep the difficulty at this level! 🙂
Thanks to Gaufrid (3874@42) for letting us Kiwis back in. After resorting to back-issues over the Xmas break The NZ Herald’s Everyman publication is now 6 weeks behind. I failed to parse 13A, 5D, 7D & 16D. Thanks to Quirister for explanations & a few new terms. I still don’t get 24D; they both seem like the same definition to me. My favourites were 13A (now I get it) & 23A where I had no problem with quasi for feigned.
Lots of words I had never heard of, I also have never heard of tent wine – no wonder it does not sounds the slightest bit palatable! Never heard of pet meaning a mood either, Toots or Tenth rate. I would use ‘third rate’. Oh well ….good to learn new terms if I can ever retain them. Liked Red square, Guilt, Grammar and Bravado best