Our fellow blogger Sil has been a bit unwell recently hence his missing a couple of blogs, so during his convalescence I’m going to be standing in for him.
Get well soon Sil and we’ll share a glass or two of vino sometime.
Good grief I’d not done a blog in over 3 years and now it’s 3 in a week, it’s a bit like buses except folks want the bus to arrive, I’ll get the hang of this blogging malarkey soon or not – I’ve been trying for 12 years or so to get it right, so probably not.
I’ve seen mixed reviews for Everyman here recently – I found this a bit of a mixed bag for me, nothing too taxing but still unsure about the last one (27a) across though.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DISTRIBUTES |
Doles out insulting remarks, hiding compliments (11)
|
| TRIBUTE inside DISS | ||
| 9 | ALBANIA |
Primarily, Arnauts’ land; Balkan; Adriatic notably; Ionian additionally! (7)
|
| Initial letters of Arnauts’ Land etc and extended def | ||
| 10 | UNAWARE |
A conflict between UN and Spain is unenlightened (7)
|
| UN & A & WAR & E – Spain | ||
| 11 | GONER |
King George welcoming a toast (5)
|
| Toast as in brown bread – dead. ONE inside GR for George Rex | ||
| 12 | SCRAPING |
Scratching nail into neck (8)
|
| PIN for nail inside SCRAG – neck | ||
| 14 | INDISCREET |
Popular recording about alien life form is giving too much away (10)
|
| IN (popular) & DISC (recording) & RE (about) with the setters’ favourite alien ET | ||
| 15 | BEAR |
Tolerate a beast (4)
|
| Double def | ||
| 17 | HOLE |
Intact, we’re told: there’s a gap! (4)
|
| Sounds like WHOLE | ||
| 19 | MONTE CARLO |
British field marshal and Mexican artist in conversation in upscale resort (5,5)
|
| Sounds like MONTY & (freda) KAHLO – the artist | ||
| 21 | NEUROTIC |
Anxious card player with twitch hiding money (8)
|
| N(orth) a card player in Bridge & EURO & TIC | ||
| 23 | DUG IN |
Oddly ignored odour before booze consumed with gusto (3,2)
|
| Odd letters of oDoUr & GIN for the booze | ||
| 25 | EARNEST |
Not having fun seeing some letters in Learn Estonian (7)
|
| Hidden in lEARN ESTonian | ||
| 26 | ROMANCE |
French perhaps fabricated accounts of love (7)
|
| Looks like triple def to me | ||
| 27 | DUNDERHEADS |
In the end, England falling short with runs: idiots! (11)
|
| I see (englan)D & UNDER for running short but perhaps I’m missing something that HEAD = RUN | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DEBONED |
In bed, upset and down, there’s Everyman, lacking spine etc (7)
|
| BED reversed & ONE for Everyman & D(own) | ||
| 2 | SUNDRESS |
Son to strip off warm-weather wear (8)
|
| S(on) & UNDRESS | ||
| 3 | ROAD |
Heading off in wide thoroughfare (4)
|
| (b)ROAD with no heading | ||
| 4 | BRUSCHETTO |
Performing Schubert: Trout and Alleluja’s openings providing something to chew on? (10)
|
| A performing [SCHUBERT T(rout) A(lleluja)]* Quite neat this one | ||
| 5 | TIARA |
Comeuppance for a bounder having stolen one item belonging to princess (5)
|
| A RAT reversed with I inserted | ||
| 6 | SEASIDE |
Digression following home counties coast (7)
|
| SE for the home counties of England & ASIDE – digression | ||
| 7 | BARGAIN HUNTER |
Thrifty shopper unearthing bra, pants (7,6)
|
| An anagram “pants” if [UNEARTHING BRA]* Pants seems to be getting a bit hackneyed these days but with the bra fodder it works quite well. | ||
| 8 | GEIGER COUNTER |
Touring Greece, playing instrument (6,7)
|
| Not the most obvious def for instrument – I was looking for musical ones but a playful [TOURING GREECE]* | ||
| 13 | DR DOLITTLE |
Titled lord recollected the animals were his friends (2,8)
|
| A recollected [TITLED LORD]* | ||
| 16 | ACADEMIA |
A stinker finally strove to aspire to ascend in scholarly life (8)
|
| A CAD & end of (strov)E & AIM aspire reversed | ||
| 18 | LOUVRED |
Museum director’s in arrangement with boards (7)
|
| The Parisian museum the LOUVRE & D(irector) | ||
| 20 | REGENTS |
Royals are beheaded, chaps (7)
|
| A beheaded (a)RE & GENTS – chaps | ||
| 22 | ODEON |
Poem concerning classical theatre (5)
|
| ODE & ON | ||
| 24 | ARCH |
Cunning aspect of anarchosyndicalism (4)
|
| Hidden (of) answer |
DNF as I had ABRADING for 12a (‘brad’ for mail, but couldn’t figure out the ‘neck’ bit). I knew that was wrong, as then 4d would have 2 “B”s, and the differ didn’t, but I couldn’t see what else might fit 12 a. Thanks anyway, Everyman, and flashling for putting me right.
re: 27a — RUNS = HEADS.
She runs the department / she heads (up) the department
11 — I don’t see brown(ed) bread, but someone who is doomed. “I slept in and missed that important meeting — I’m toast”
Thank you flashling. Sorry to hear Sil has been unwell. Speedy recovery Sil.
I saw RUNS/HEADS as xworder says.
I liked DR DOLITTLE for the surface, GEIGER COUNTER for both the fodder and the definition, and LOUVRED for (what was to me) a misdirection.
[Growing up in Queensland, our louvre(d) windows were all glass, to let the air in before the days of air conditioning. But hell in a hail storm. We also had louvre(d) Venetian blinds. Makes me laugh now to think of such grand European names for such basic, and sensible adaptations to the Queensland climate.]
My last two in were DEBONED or GONER – for some reason took me ages to be sure I had parsed them correctly. Also wondered about DUNDERHEADS but it couldn’t be anything else.
My favourites were: INDISCREET (not seen ET for a while) and TIARA. Also liked the homophone MONTE CARLO
Thanks Everyman and flashling.
Calgal@3. flashling was referring to rhyming slang.
I think that 4D is BRUSCHETTA, with an A not an O.
Agree Charlie @7. Everyman would have need to reference Schubert opera. I enjoyed all of this. Nothing particularly remarkable, but a good solid Everyman. Welcome back from retirement Flashling & wishing Sil a speedy recovery.
paddymelon@6, thanks for the lesson
Me @1 not differ: fodder.
Calgal.@9. I hope you didn’t think I was ‘teaching’ you to suck eggs. They’re also good on toast : -)
As a Calgal you might come from Calgary or California? Any which way, our language has evolved from the former British empire. It’s interesting how many words we have which come from rhyming slang.
Thanks for the blog and best wishes to Sil. I thought this was pretty good with GEIGER COUNTER my favourite of course ( Muller always gets missed out .)
Hans Geiger and Marsden carried out the Rutherford alpha particle scattering experiment that established the nuclear model of the atom. Sitting in the dark for hours every day counting the flashes from a zinc sulphide screen. It is no wonder he helped to invent a better method.
Like Fiona Anne@5, my last two were GONER and DEBONED. It was only yesterday that I tried again and got them.
This was a bit trickier than usual but enjoyable.
Thanks both and best wishes to Sil.
Thanks for runs and heads, obvious really, just didn’t see that meaning.
All the best to Sil; thanks to flashling for stepping in, and to Everyman for a puzzle that I too thought was slightly trickier (eg SCRAPING).
Also thanks Roz @12 for the GEIGER COUNTER extras – hadn’t heard of Müller, but just looked him up and found the Geiger-Müller tube.
I initially thought of heading/running for the hills, but xworder’s suggestion works better.
Glad to see Fiona Anne’s approval of MONTE CARLO – I wondered if the Carlo/Kahlo homophone was going to cause problems in Scotland 😉
No rhyming pair this week as far as I can see, but we do have two UNTERs, in BARGAIN HUNTER and GEIGER COUNTER.
I liked MONTE CARLO, too and BRUSCHETTA. I was held up for a while by entering the word for not differentiated into distinct parts instead of the one for giving too much away.
Mr Essexboy @15 , we call it a GM-tube ans scaler but Geiger Counter is common usage so the clue is fine.
I have seen Rutherford’s original apparatus in the Schuster Building in Manchester. It is hard to believe how primitive it was. They sat in the dark looking through a microscope for hours each day counting flashes with a mechanical clicker.
Once again I find myself less than inspired with the Everyman. 1 across, can DISS be a noun? The dictionaries I looked at say not. 11 across I can see TOAST for ‘a goner’ but not just ‘goner’. 25 looked a bit definition for wordplay which some of us don’t like. 26 and 27 I shared the blogger’s perplexity. Downs were better for me, but did not go a bundle on ‘one’ to equal ‘Everyman’. I think for 18 down the ‘in’ has to be included in the definition.
Thanks Everyman, and thanks Flashling. Nothing much to add but best wishes to Sil. Get well soon.
Thanks flashling for stepping in, and best wishes to Sil.
I thought this was largely OK, and I particularly liked TIARA, GEIGER COUNTER and LOUVRED.
Thanks Everyman.
I did not parse 12ac SCRAPING or 26ac ROMANCE – why does French = romance?
It felt strange to have the repeat of ONE in 1d and 11ac.
Thanks, both.
Thanks Everyman and flashling
I think the first definition in 26 is ‘French perhaps’, as a dbe of French as a Romance language.
Indeed Simon a minor cock-up on the underlining front there and it seems a silly typo in 4d oh well.
SimonS @ 20
thanks for explaining about 26ac
Still seems iffy to me. It seems weird to me to think of Portuguese = romance, or Romanian = romance…
Also with romance = fabricated accounts, isn’t there a mismatch of singular plural?
You are so right essexboy. Carlo=Kahlo?
It made we think of that brilliant song by the Proclaimers.
“I’m just going to have to learn to hesitate
To make sure my words
On your Saxon ears don’t grate
But I wouldn’t know a single word to say
If I flattened all the vowels
And threw the ‘R’ away”
I wonder if a very uvular French “r” and some kind of Mexican “h” might sound similar?
I stared at 8d for the longest time… until finally it clicked!
All good fun, thanks Everyman and Flashling
michelle @ 24
Trying not to get too academic, back when I studied linguistics languages were broadly held to derive from Proto-Indo-European (there were exceptions). The two main strands which evolved were Romance (ie latin-based) and Germanic. English incorporates elements of both.
michelle @24 – I don’t think there’s anything iffy about French being described as a Romance language, but I agree the plural is a bit odd. The answer seemed obvious enough but I hesitated to write it in because of that.
Re the last plantagenet @18 — I’ve definitely heard DISS used as a noun (over here in the US), but I don’t think DISS (singular) should be defined by “insulting remarks” (plural). I think you can spell the word with one S, so I suppose it could be a lift-and-separate (“insulting remark + s” = DIS + S), but I can’t say I’m very happy with that.
Ted @ 30
I think it’s the construction of the clue at 1A that’s awry. ‘insulting remarks’ is giving DIS and ‘compliments’ is giving TRIBUTES.
I know it’s a crossword standard, but ‘home counties’ for ‘SE’ always gets me a bit – it seems to me the equivalent of having, say, Hull for ‘E’…
You could always resort to southeast …
Simon S and Widdersbel
I am fine about French, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish etc being described as Romance languages. I just find it a bit of a leap from ‘romance’ (or even romance perhaps) to Romance language. The way I understand it, French is not a romance, but it is a Romance language.
Maybe I am bring too picky about this? Or maybe I did not realise that the term ‘Romance language’ can be abbreviated to be simply ‘romance’.
Ahh welll bien sur Michelle French is the language of love n’est pas?
michelle @ 34
Think about it along the lines of “The following languages are Romance: French etc etc”.
michelle/Simon – it might help if we think of ‘French’ as an adjective – French dialects are examples of Romance dialects. I think it’s OK as a noun too, though, albeit a bit specialised: historically, French emerged out of Old Gallo-Romance, a subdivision of Western Romance.
[See also the Oaths of Strasbourg (842). “Louis the German swore his oath in Romance so that the soldiers of Charles the Bald could understand him. Likewise, the latter recited his in Germanic so that Louis’ soldiers would understand.”]
[Peter @26 – definitely not claiming expertise in varieties of Mexican Spanish, but Frida’s dad was Guillermo Kahlo, born Carl Wilhelm Kahlo, who emigrated to Mexico from Germany. In German the H is a Dehnungs-h, i.e. it tells the reader to say the A as a long AH sound.]
Sorry to hog the blog, I’ll shut up after this.
A lot of issues with singular/plural today, but I thought they were all OK
Fiction (sing., as a genre) comprises many books (pl.), so I think ‘romance’ (sing.) as a genre is acceptable as a synonym for ‘fabricated accounts’ (pl.)
Similarly, a collection of ‘compliments’ (pl.) can be put together as a TRIBUTE (sing.), and maybe a series of ‘insulting remarks’ (pl.) can be regarded as ‘one big DISS’?
Best wishes to Sil for a speedy recovery
All the best to Sil for his recovery and thanks, flashling, for stepping in.
Re MediumOne at #32, I think SE = home counties is rather different than saying Hull (a single place) = E. I think SE works all right.
Second week in a row that the ruling pair helped, except this week they didn’t rhyme. Still helped me get counter.
Other than the singular / plural mix up in 1A I thought this was fine.
UK readers may be interested to know that we are now a long way behind, this appearing in the NZ Herald on 7 May. I mention that only as relevent to cut off dates for this blog.
Sil has been away for a while, hope he is on the mend.
I did wonder what had happened to to our NZ solvers so hi Barry and all. Unfortunately I’ve heard no more about Sil but my intermediary Gaufrid is also suffering health issues.
Another DNF for me; couldn’t get “goner’. Just didn’t see the “toast = dead” connection. 🙁
Otherwise liked the puzzle. Favourite was geiger counter.
Thanks to Everyman and Flashling; get well wishes to Sil.
Favourite was Monte Carlo. Better puzzyfor me this week but missed a few.
Goner was the only word I could make from the crossers but it took 20 minutes of head scratching and bad language before I parsed it. Not a bad way to start a beautiful day, and always a joy to read the blog and further my education through the comments.
Enjoyed this one with Dr Dolittle a personal favourite for bringing back memories, Geiger Counter, and Academia for a good clue. Hope Sil is back on deck soon.
11a – wrongly parsed; 19a and 4d odd.
Good puzzle. Enjoyed it all including Monte Carlo where Alan stayed once in Mr Drakes penthouse ( that is mr Drake of Drake personal). Nothing like going from sleeping in the combi van to Residence Europa 5 star A.