The Observer crossword from Aug 29, 2021
I really made heavy weather of this crossword.
Perhaps, because during the Bank Holiday weekend I was more focused on physical activities (walking, in particular) than on exercising my brain cells.
At one point I had completely filled the left hand side, while the other half of the grid was more or less empty.
Very strange, a new experience to me.
Therefore, don’t ask me something about the quality of this puzzle.
As often is the case, there was a rhyming couple (14ac, 17ac) – not ‘sparkling’ enough, though, to highlight in the blog.
Over to you!
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DEMARK |
Establish boundaries: Jutland’s country not Norse (6)
|
| DENMARK (Jutland’s country, Jutland is part of mainland Denmark) minus N (Norse) | ||
| 4 | TO A MOUSE |
Burns poem suggesting where deskbound worker’s hand sent? (2,1,5)
|
| Definition plus another one that’s more cryptic Here’s this poem by Robert Burns. |
||
| 9 | PARSNIP |
Attaches blame when returning veg (7)
|
| PINS (attaches) + RAP (blame), then the whole thing reversed [when returning] | ||
| 11 | DODGING |
Avoiding bungling, putting ‘depth’ for ‘breadth’ (7)
|
| BODGING (bungling) with the B (breadth) replaced by D (depth) | ||
| 12 | ROOMMATES |
Cutting costs twice, Oscar, Mark and Mike – who live together? (9)
|
| O,O (Oscar, twice) + M (mark) + M (Mike), together going inside [cutting] RATES (costs) | ||
| 13 | IBSEN |
Ad-lib sentence enthralling dramatist (5)
|
| Hidden solution [enthralling]: Ad-lIB SENtence | ||
| 14 | LORD OF THE FLIES |
Editor off, she’ll recast novel (4,2,3,5)
|
| Anagram [recast] of: EDITOR OFF SHE’LL This famous 1954 novel by William Golding. |
||
| 17 | A WORD TO THE WISE |
Here’s a tip: cultivate white wood aster (1,4,2,3,4)
|
| Anagram [cultivate …] of: WHITE WOOD ASTER | ||
| 21 | PUCKA |
Phrase uttered connoting keen approbation, primarily? (5)
|
| First letters of the first five words in the clue: Phrase Uttered Connoting Keen Approbation I only knew ‘pukka’ (with double-k). Does the surface of the clue suggest an adjective (as it should)? |
||
| 23 | WOLVERINE |
Wine-lover, slippery weaselly one (9)
|
| Anagram [slippery] of: WINE-LOVER I’ve never seen ‘wine lover’ hyphenated. |
||
| 24 | PICASSO |
Artist‘s image equally small and ordinary (7)
|
| PIC (image) + AS (equally) + S (small) + O (ordinary) Some may find AS = ‘equally’ a bit of a stretch. Perhaps, ‘as well’ meaning ‘equally well’? Or, similarly, just AS S = ‘equally small’. |
||
| 25 | SUDSIER |
Plaintiff framing police officer increasingly in a lather (7)
|
| SUER (plaintiff) going around DSI (police officer, Detective Superintendent) | ||
| 26 | SHEBANGS |
Situations when that woman explodes (8)
|
| SHE (that woman) BANGS (explodes) Personally, I would have chosen ‘in which’ instead of ‘when’. |
||
| 27 | HEDGED |
Acted evasively, being surrounded by bushes (6)
|
| Double definition | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DEPORT |
Banish Dutch figure of speech that’s come up (6)
|
| D (Dutch), followed by a reversal [that’s come up] of TROPE (figure of speech) | ||
| 2 | MARCO POLO |
Leading car brand announced: old Explorer (5,4)
|
| Homophone [announced] of MARK (or MARQUE, take your pick) (brand), then O (old), which together come in front of [(is/are) leading] POLO (car, a well-known type of Volkswagen) I found this clue quite convoluted, mainly because of the lack of a comma after ‘car’. |
||
| 3 | RENAMED |
North American, European tucked into wine with new label (7)
|
| N (North) + AM (American) + E (European), together inside RED (wine) | ||
| 5 | OLD AS THE HILLS |
He’s all doltish, confused: that’s long-established (3,2,3,5)
|
| Anagram [confused] of: HE’S ALL DOLTISH | ||
| 6 | MIDRIFF |
Diaphragm suggesting how song may abruptly end? (7)
|
| Definition plus a cryptic extension When a song ends in the middle of a riff, it will obviously end quite abruptly. |
||
| 7 | UNITS |
Servicemen with quantities of booze (5)
|
| Double definition Know your limits: 14 units a week! [It’s on the bottle next to me …] |
||
| 8 | EDGINESS |
Nervousness? Take some distilled gin essence (8)
|
| Hidden solution [take some …]: distillED GIN ESSence | ||
| 10 | PUT A FOOT WRONG |
Blunder, as tin-eared poet may? (3,1,4,5)
|
| Double / Cryptic definition I didn’t know ‘tin-eared’ was a word but I assumed it was a case of ‘having a tin ear’. And it was. |
||
| 15 | INSPIRING |
Rousing being part of espionage plot, we’re told (9)
|
| Homophone [we’re told] of: IN SPY-RING (in a ‘ring of spies’) | ||
| 16 | BAGPIPES |
Obtain smokers’ instruments (8)
|
| BAG (obtain) + PIPES (smokers) | ||
| 18 | DEAD SEA |
Spooner’s pronounced Scottish river and lake (4,3)
|
| Spoonerism of: SAID (pronounced) DEE (Scottish river) | ||
| 19 | WHEEDLE |
I’m excited, finally: Alfred Russel Wallace to attempt charm (7)
|
| WHEE (“I’m excited”) + the last letters [finally] of: AlfreD RusseL WallacE For those who wonder who Alfred Russel Wallace was, here’s more. |
||
| 20 | JEERED |
In France, Everyman – seeing beer with head regularly – laughed derisively (6)
|
| JE (French for “I”, i.e. Everyman), followed by a regular choice (in this case the even ones) of: bEeR + hEaD The ‘regularly’ device should be applied to both ‘beer’ and ‘head’, which is not how I read the clue. Unusual, to say the least. |
||
| 22 | CACHE |
Conceal money, reportedly (5)
|
| Homophone [reportedly] of: CASH (money) |
Ironically, I solved the awesome Prize puzzle created by Maskarade last week but I failed at Everyman.
Failed 9ac PARSNIP – I had guessed at PARINGS but could not parse it so gave up.
Did not parse the ‘marco’ bit of MARCO POLO but guessed that POLO might be a car brand unknown to me.
I liked INSPIRING, TO A MOUSE.
Thanks, both.
It was a week ago, but I can’t remember this being too much trouble. I enjoyed MIDRIFF and admired Everyman’s restraint in the cuing of SHEBANGS. CACHE/cash is a dubious homophone, but that didn’t make it difficult. Thanks, Sil and Everyman.
*cluing…
This one took a few sittings for me but still fun. Could 12 be a semi-&lit (comparing cost of living alone)? Thanks Sil & Everyman.
Thanks for the blog Sil.
I found this a bit more awkward than usual – in construction, not really difficulty.
I thought 4a was a double definition.
MARCO POLO was a big question mark. The car brand could have been “marque” as well for the homophone. I eventually constructed it as Marque, then Opel for the brand and the O from old, so it was an extended homophone.
I also looked sideways at the spelling of PUCKA.
Then there was SHEBANG. I agree with the suggestion it should have been “where” rather than “when”.
Still, it was a nice afternoon diversion, so thanks Everyman.
Funnily enough I managed to complete this one without any problems – which was a relief because I had found last week’s puzzle really difficult and for the first time in ages I had had to use aids to complete it. This time I managed without using any aids – phew.
Favourites were: TO A MOUSE, PARSNIP, MARCO POLO, MIDRIFF, WHEEDLE
Thanks Everyman and Sil van den Hoek
Mystogre@5 I know waht you mean about the Marco Polo homophone. My first go was “mark on pole”(position), thinking: “well, I’ve seen worse”.
Thanks Sil and Everyman
I parsed MARCO POLO along the lines of Mystogore @ 5. I thought I could justify the ‘leading’.
I don’t have a problem with that pesky word ‘with’ (or as Sil says ‘and’) between the words that need to clue only the even letters. I haven’t seen it done before, but I think it’s okay, although maybe not for an entry level crossword. It’s done with anagram fodder so why not ‘regular’ indicators.
Good point Paul, + Tutukaka@4 re ROOMMATES, definitely more cost-effective, unless your ‘roomy’ is a snorer or has smelly feet, and you have to spend a lot of money to cohabit in harmony.
As to the ‘where’ or ‘when’ of SHEBANG. It makes no difference to me. However I would think that Sil’s suggestion of ‘in which’ could lead to significant misdirection, again maybe a bit unfair to Everyman’s target audience.
I originally had a major quibble with MIDRIFF/DIAPHRAGM until I looked up the etymology. I really liked the cryptic definition though. Reminds me of my wedding when we hired a community hall and our friends who were in a band, 70s theme, when songs lasted more than 3 minutes. The power was meant to go off automatically at midnight, but at 3 am the band was still playing very extended riffs, waiting for the songs to abruptly end.
Thanks for the blog, well done Fiona Anne and I think just a bit of a Scottish theme for you.
I had MARCO POLO the same as SIl, the missing comma is fine, punctuation is always allowed to deceive.
For PICASSO I took ” equally small ” together to give AS S .
Overall I found this very sound and enjoyable.
Thanks Everyman & Sil. This made a pleasant, brief entr’acte amid the Maskarade marathon for me.
Mystogre @5 – I also initially thought of “marque” for the homophone, but took it to mean “brand” on its own. “Car brand” is simply misdirection. Sil – a comma after “car” might help the wordplay but would have rendered the surface nonsensical – not that it makes an awful lot of sense anyway.
I read “equally small” the same way as Roz @9. I often get stymied by being unable to mentally separate component parts of clues, but that actually proved helpful here.
I’m far too innocent to have any idea what TassieTim @2 is alluding to re SHEBANGS, but that one did make me think of the Stone Roses.
As with Fiona Anne I was relieved to find my cryptic brain in gear this week. Although I also completed the left side quickly. It looked really strange.
Thanks to all
I think I had car doing double duty for MARCO POLO: leading car = marque and car brand = Polo (a familiar one to me) – all “announced”. But that leaves an extra O unaccounted for, unless the def is “old explorer”. It’s a mess: goodness knows how it’s supposed to work.
[Wine-lover with a hyphen? Is there actually any rule, apart from long-established (long established?) custom and practice, that says which expressions should be hyphenated and which should not? I frequently run into this issue with an editor who insists that something I have written MUST have a hyphen added or subtracted (probably on the strength of Word auto-correct ). I usually give in, because in many cases I can see no rhyme or reason why any given expression must be one or the other.]
gladys @12 – On behalf of a fellow professional, I resent the suggestion that your editor would be guided by Word! Hyphenation is usually a house style thing. I’m not sure I would hyphenate WINE-LOVER but there’s no definitive right or wrong answer. I wouldn’t have thought it worth commenting on, tbh. See the final entry on this page if you’re interested in the rhyme and reason:
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-h
Sil, thanks for the link to the wee, tim’rous beastie which brought a smile. One of your other links has gaen agley; for those interested, here’s the man whose work prompted Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species.
I think ‘situations when’ is one of those situations where English allows more latitude than other languages. (I remember being picked up by a French friend for saying ‘la raison pourquoi’ for ‘the reason why’, when in French it should be ‘la raison pour laquelle’ – ‘the reason for which’.)
Thanks widdersbel @10 for the music; I had something different in mind for SHEBANGS. Here’s something for those who would like some Latin rhythms and a Spanish lesson.
Nice puzzle, as all the recent Everymen have been (including today’s).
A pleasant and entertaining crossword as usual. I was a bit unsure how MARCO POLO worked though the answer was clear, so thanks for the explanation Sil. I enjoyed the song ending mid-riff at 6d and the “in spy ring” homophone at 15d.
[Interesting question, gladys @12! Obviously sometimes the presence or absence of a hyphen can be vital to the meaning – “a man eating fish” is not the same as “a man-eating fish” for example. In the case of wine lover I don’t think it is vital, and I would be inclined to leave it out. (Though I suppose conceivably “Pass the wine lover” could be a request to one’s lover to pass the wine, while “Pass the wine-lover” might be an instruction to avoid an oenophile…)]
Lord Jim @15, isn’t it rather that the hyphen is vital to the understanding? If you want to say man eating fish for Jaws I think you can, as per Widdersbel @13, if you don’t mind being or maybe want to be misunderstood
I’d agree with Sil about ‘in which’ for SHEBANG. Whatever one might say in colloquial English, neither when nor where are as clear cryptically
widdersbel@13: the editor in question is not a professional and the publication nothing more exalted than a church magazine, but for all I know he may be following the Guardian style guide. I can see the logic of the usual man-eating fish examples, but sometimes the “correction” appears purely arbitrary.
[ Re missing commas, a surveyor friend once told me they never use commas in house surveys precisely to be ambiguous. ]
Phillnlivi, the legal English used in wills and deeds is likewise comma free, “for the avoidance of doubt”.
If there is a Guardian style guide, it would surely be an incredibly wide-ranging document.
My thought for 2D was that the homophone was just for MARK, as in the ‘brand’ on cattle.
Like Fiona Anne @ 6 (and unlike Sil) I found this puzzle to be on the easy side. I had some quibbles and couldn’t quite parse a few answers, but got everything out without resorting to wildcard dictionaries. Really liked “midriff” and “inspiring”.
Thanks to Everyman and to Sil for explaining the answers that I could not parse.
Let down by Sudsier. Never heard of it.
To a mouse was nice.
An enjoyable brunch solve. Thanks Everyman and Sil. 16 down was my last one in, and stupidly I wrote in Panpipes, just to have it finished. It fits the crossers and panning is a way of obtaining (in the sense of panning for gold or panhandling), bit bagpipes is now so obvious that I’m annoyed with myself.
For some reason I did ok on this, even though I found it hard to get going. I quickly realised Lord of the Flies was better than Lord of the Rings and I got everything else apart from Jeered. Liked Parsnip, Demark, Roommates, Bagpipes. I thought Pukka was the only spelling allowed, as I was pretty sure it was a Hindi import. Wheedle was a funny clue, a bit clunky but funny.
Enjoyed this one. “Parsnip” and “inspiring” made me laugh; “midriff” and “to a mouse” made me groan – but in a good way. I didn’t think pucka was very pukka at all! Thanks for the amusement.