Everyman 3,902/25 July

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A generally pleasing puzzle from Everyman this week, but – and there is often a but – with one or two clues that for me didn’t quite work.

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 ‘Do OK in exam?‘ ‘Dunno‘
PASS
A dd. The second element is a common response in everyday speech, but is best known (and may even have its origins in) the TV quiz show Mastermind.

3 Everyman on cycling trip with odour, glimmering
IRIDESCENT
A charade of I, RIDE and SCENT.

9 Even so, setter is creature seldom seen
YETI
A charade of YET and I.

10 Romcom reboot ‘timeless’: any need of it?
ONE FINE DAY
(ANY NEED OF I[T])* The anagrind is ‘reboot’ and the removal indicator is ‘timeless’. The reference is to the 1996 film with Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney.

11 Distracted wives romance soldier
SERVICEWOMAN
(WIVES ROMANCE)*

15 Atop donkey is Greek millionaire
ONASSIS
A charade of ON, ASS and IS, and referencing Aristotle ONASSIS.

16 Recipients of ‘horse’ in jars not happy
TROJANS
(JARS NOT)* with ‘happy’ in its ‘drunk’ sense as the anagrind. Referencing the Trojan Horse in the siege of Troy. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, and all that.

17 Winged beast with rising stench, regularly in rage
GRIFFIN
I carelessly entered GRIFFON at first (which is an alternative spelling). A reversal of NIFF and IRG for the odd letters of In RaGe. Can you have ‘rising’ as a reversal indicator in an across clue? I think not, but you may think differently.

19 Summer in France, sun hidden, snarl up lasting forever
ETERNAL
A charade of ÉTÉ, the French word for ‘summer’ and ([S]NARL)* The removal indicator for the S for ‘sun’ is ‘hidden’; the anagrind is ‘up’.

20 OK … oddjobber taking year to become reliable type
RIGHT-HAND MAN
A charade of RIGHT and HAND[Y]MAN. The removal indicator is ‘taking’.

23 Scupper long tree
SCOTCH PINE
A charade of SCOTCH and PINE.

24 Source of music in Antipodes
IPOD
Hidden in AntIPODes.

25 Next, I reply clumsily, clumsily
INEXPERTLY
(NEXT I REPLY)* with the first ‘clumsily’ as the anagrind.

26 Goddess seen in pigsties now and again
ISIS
The even letters of pIgStIeS give you the Egyptian goddess.

Down

1 Plan to spend a penny?
PAY-AS-YOU-GO
A cd cum dd. The first part is a straightforward description of – most commonly – a mobile phone payment plan. The second is whimsical and referring to the fact that if you needed to ‘go’ to a public toilet in days gone by, you would need to pay an old penny to gain entrance. Most readers will probably not remember this device. It was massively discriminatory against women, of course, because men could have a slash in a urinal for free.

2 Wild Australian revelry
SATURNALIA
(AUSTRALIAN)* SATURNALIA was the Ancient Roman festival held around the winter solstice celebrating the pagan god Saturn. Christmas has nothing on it when it comes to revelry.

4 Football team runs, gets exasperated
RANGERS
A charade of R and ANGERS give you the Glasgow footie team.

5 Starters of duck egg fried, potato cake shortly put in microwave?
DEFROST
A charade of DEF for the first letters of ‘duck’, ‘egg’ and ‘fried’ and RÖST[I]. The removal indicator is ‘shortly’.

6 Islander to intone a critical review describing mineral deposit
SINGAPOREAN
Not a meaningful or smooth as silk surface, you’d have to say. A charade of SING, A and ORE inserted into PAN. ‘Critical review’ is a nounal phrase and PAN in this sense can only act as a verb, so I don’t think this clue works. You could have ‘critically review’, but then the surface grammar wouldn’t work.

7 Cockney’s intoxicating, in a whirl
EDDY
I’m not convinced by this either. It’s [H]EADY, but then you have to rely on the ‘Cockney’ instruction to signal a homophone as well as a dropping of the aitch. Can you do that? Discuss.

8 Pugs‘ playthings?
TOYS
A dd. The first is a reference to the dog.

12 Resort trip a fiasco, I confess
IT’S A FAIR COP
(TRIP A FIASCO)* You have to read ‘resort’ as ‘re-sort’ to make it an anagrind.

13 Much champagne pours out without hint of restraint: great work!
MAGNUM OPUS
A charade of MAGNUM for the big bottle and (POU[R]S)* The R comes from the first letter (‘hint’) of ‘restraint’ and the removal indicator is ‘without’; the anagrind is ‘out’.

14 Guides plan a descent taking in waterside walks
ESPLANADES
Hidden in GuidES PLAN A DEScent.

18 Theatre work … um … non-starter
NO-HOPER
A charade of NOH for the Japanese ‘theatre’, OP for ‘work’ (see 13dn) and ER.

19 Essential to hooch, a naturally occurring liquid, primarily?
ETHANOL
The initial letters of the first seven letters of the clue, and a cad. ETHANOL is chemically an alcohol, but more importantly for this clue, the alcohol that we describe as ‘alcohol’ in everyday usage.

21 It’s a flipping fizzy wine
ASTI
A reversal of IT’S A. ‘Flipping’ is a reversal indicator that would work in both a down and an across clue.

22 Noisily rise, being peeved
SORE
A homophone (‘noisily’) of SOAR.

Many thanks to Everyman for this morning’s puzzle.

32 comments on “Everyman 3,902/25 July”

  1. Enjoyed this. Was also not sure about rising used as a reversal in an across clue for GRIFFIN. But was fine with the EDDY clue, maybe because cockney refers to pronunciation and type of pronunciation.

    Favourites were ONE FINE DAY, NO-HOPER, ESPLANADES, TROJANS

    Not sure why pugs = TOYS

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre

  2. Liked ETERNAL.

    New: IT’S A FAIR COP.

    I think that 17ac would be better as a down clue.

    Fiona @1 – when i googled toy pug, I discovered there are miniature/toy/teacup pugs. Does it maybe refer to that breed of dog?

    Thanks, both

  4. Very pleasant. I had no quibbles. I agree with Lin @3 about the pair – non-rhyming in this case.

  7. Thanks for the blog, I agree that GRIFFIN had to be a down clue to work.
    PUGS are a member of the TOY group for dogs, other groups used for dog shows as well, working dogs etc..
    Not heard of IPOD, I thought it was Ipad so lucky for me it was a hidden clue.
    3AC would be better with glittering , very different meaning to glimmering.
    SATURNALIA was in very recently and using Australian.
    Good spot Lin@3 , I was looking for a rhyming pair and did not spot these two.

  8. Good puzzle and fairly straightforward. I thought 11a & 2d were both excellent anagrams. Agree 17a has the wrong orientation. The only way rising could work is as an indirect anagram indicator, but let’s not go there. Thanks Peirre & Everyman.

  10. I would acquit Everyman on two out of three charges. Wiktionary has ‘pan’ as a noun meaning ‘strong adverse criticism’ (9th definition!). A new one on me, but guessable because the verb form is so well known, and verbs often get pressganged into nounal usage: if you re-write something, it’s called a re-write, and if you can write the answer in too quickly, people will call it a write-in. 😉

    On EDDY, I’m with Fiona Anne @1. ‘Cockney’ has already got us thinking phonetically, so there’s no need for a separate homophone indicator.

    Which leaves us with ‘rising’ in an across clue, which I think is just a boo-boo. A pity because otherwise I thought this was good and enjoyable stuff. I particularly liked the thought of ONASSIS on his ass, and the ETERNAL French traffic jams.

    Thanks Everyman for the puzzle, and Pierre for the write-up.

  11. Thanks both. “Returning” would have better than “rising” in 17a, and the surface would still have worked.

  12. Re: the griffin, from last week’s Guardian:

    It was because of that clue that I flipped the grid towards the end of setting, so that all the acrosses became downs and vice versa. And yet here we all are looking at the unflipped version. My apologies.

    I should probably add that while the above might read as buck-passing, it absolutely is not!

  14. michelle @ 22 and Roz @ 7

    Thanks re pugs = toys. I had wondered if that was the case but wasn’t sure.

  16. Another good Everyman – several in a row now. Thanks for the explanations and to Everyman and his/her contribution here.

  17. Which I guess would also explain why the two paired answers are across not down?

    Some of those anagrams were great (as are some today), loved Australian turning into Saturnalia and the IT’S A FAIR COP from TRIP A FIASCO (there’s a radio 4 comedy from Alfie Moore about policing called that).

  18. It’s a fair cop, and thanks to Everyman for the mea culpa.

    I, too, thought that EDDY was OK because cockney already means a type of pronunciation as Fiona @1 says. I wasn’t sure if SATURNALIA was a chestnut; if not, it was a good anagram spot.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  19. An enjoyable puzzle as usual. Shanne @17, I was just about to say that I thought “Resort trip a fiasco, I confess” was brilliant.

    I didn’t recall having seen the SATURNALIA / Australian anagram previously, but I guessed that it probably had been done before. A quick search shows it appeared in an FT puzzle in June (16,810).

    Many thanks Everyman for the crossword and for dropping in to explain the orientation issue, and thanks to Pierre for the blog. (What about a picture of a GRIFFIN? It is part bird.)

  21. Saturnalia/Australian is a great anagram. I’ll charitably assume Everyman discovered it for himself rather than cribbing it from the FT. I think we can also let Everyman off the hook for the non-rising Griffin.

    Aside from that, I also particularly enjoyed the “primarily” clue here.

    Thanks Pierre and Everyman.

  22. Probably the best Everyman in months, despite the tree I’ve never come across. Scots Pines, on the other hand, are a delight in parts of Scotchland.

  23. widdersbel @21, Everyman is certainly not the first to have used the (very nice) Saturnalia/Australian anagram.
    That said, when I used the Site Search option it came up less than I would have expected.
    Not even double figures but Everyman’s in good company: Arachne, Rufus [more than 10 years ago], Chifonie, even Araucaria!

  24. SCOTCH PINE is in Chambers as an alternative so no objection from me, I love trees but I could do without the Scots Pine, so ugly.

  25. Roz @24
    This is the first part of the Wikipedia entry
    “Pinus sylvestris, Scots pine (UK), Scotch pine (US)”

  26. The OED actually has earlier citations for “pan” as a noun meaning a negative review than for the corresponding verb form, so I think Everyman is on solid ground on 6dn. I also wondered about the use of “rising” in an across clue at 17ac, but this seems like a minor sin at worst.

    SATURNALIA / AUSTRALIAN is a great anagram pair. I’m not surprised that it’s been used before, but it was new to me.

  27. Another goody, no complaints from us. Trojans was our favourite along with Pay As You Go. Eddy another good one (always drop the H!)

  28. Flipping error aside, a good crossword. Did 1A and 1D as first clues in, and was put in a sunny mood for the rest of the solve.

    Thanks to Pierre and Everyman.

  29. First time I’ve finished one on a Saturday and one eye on the US Open men’s tennis since I got the paper in at 7.30 am and they’re still at it!

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