Everyman 3,950/26 June

by

Another well-compiled and clearly-clued puzzle from Everyman this morning. I enjoyed it, and can imagine improving solvers will have as well.

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 Subjects such as History, English, Classics on ice regrettably
SOCIAL SCIENCES
(E CLASSICS ON ICE)* with ‘regrettably’ as the anagrind.

8 Primarily Islamic republic, Azerbaijan’s neighbour?
IRAN
The initial letters of the last four words of the clue, and a cad.

9 ’80s ballad that’s ornate was fast enthralling one
PURPLE RAIN
A charade of PURPLE and I inserted into RAN gives you the Prince hit. The insertion indicator is ‘enthralling’. The ‘ornate’ sense of the colour word is most often seen in the phrase ‘purple patch’.

10 C. European city, in retrospect, used to be chilly
WARSAW
A reversal (‘in retrospect’) of WAS RAW.

11 Oddly, loner awash, swimming with toothy mammals
NARWHALS
(L[O]N[E]R AWASH)* with ‘swimming’ as the anagrind. The rather odd-looking tusk is indeed a canine tooth, and there’s a nod to that in the Linnaean nomenclature: he called the genus Monodon.

12 Great Dane cavorting in genteel eatery
TEA GARDEN
(GREAT DANE)* This one’s been round the block a bit, but it’s a puzzle aimed at newish solvers, so fair enough.

14 Scoffs wines, spirits etc loudly
BOOS
A homophone (‘loudly’) of BOOZE.

15 Pint? Regularly bleary, Everyman’s beginning to tuck in
BEER
An insertion of E for the initial letter of ‘Everyman’ in BER for the odd letters of BlEaRy. The insertion indicator is ‘to tuck in’.

16 Beautiful princess with roly-poly dessert: very excited!
PSYCHED UP
A charade of PSYCHE and PUD reversed. The reversal indicator is ‘roly-poly’. In classical mythology, PSYCHE was a princess of outstanding beauty who aroused Venus’ jealousy and Cupid’s love.

20 Ale container, a large piece of brass
BASS TUBA
A charade of BASS, TUB and A. BASS beer has been brewed in Burton-upon-Trent since 1777 and its claim to fame is that the red triangle logo is the UK’s first registered trade mark.

21 Somewhere in France, piece of offal’s acerbic
ALSACE
Hidden in offALS ACErbic. ALSACE is the part of France I know best: it’s beautiful, has interesting wines and cuisine, and in parts is very Germanic. Go visit if you get the chance.

23 Good old pancakes, finally disappeared inside cookers: frightful apparitions
HOBGOBLINS
An insertion of G, O, BLIN[IS] in HOBS. ‘Finally disappeared’ to remove two letters from BLINIS might be considered a bit imprecise.

24 Extravagant praise for dance party
RAVE
A dd.

25 Sees bronco told off on the wagon
STONE-COLD SOBER
(SEES BRONCO TOLD)* with ‘off’ as the anagrind.

Down

1 Arise in plane, perhaps
SURFACE
A dd.

2 Ice creams consumed by deaconess
CONES
Hidden in deaCONESs.

3 A nation with naval strength, we’re told: it’s in the mains
AC POWER
A homophone (‘we’re told’) of A SEA POWER.

4 The queen to cross parting water (that is, lake), finding dog
SPRINGER SPANIEL
An insertion of ER for Elizabeth Regina and SPAN in SPRING and IE, L. The insertion indicator is ‘parting’.

5 The writer had 50 hesitant expressions: they won’t work
IDLERS
A charade of I’D, L for the Roman numeral 50 and ERS.

6 Cold spot, Norway: the European’s replaced by another
NORTH POLE
A charade of NOR and TH POLE. For the second particle, Everyman’s inviting you to take the E for ‘European’ out of THE and replace it with POLE (another, specific, European).  NOR is the three-letter abbreviation for the country in the ISO-3166 Alpha-3 listing.

7 Being somewhat high-minded, I blessed foodstuffs
EDIBLES
Hidden in high-mindED I BLESsed.

13 It’s used for pumping reggae with sun out
GREASE GUN
(REGGAE SUN)*

15 Corroborate order to get some distance from Paddington?
BEAR OUT
A cd cum dd. The second part is an instruction you might give to the famous bear from Peru with the red hat and blue coat.

17 Lectures caught by young women
CLASSES
A charade of C and LASSES.

18 Show half of mum’s brothers having left
UNCOVER
A charade of UNC[LES] and OVER.

19 You should see Papa before seeing this city!
QUEBEC
Referencing the fact that ‘Papa’ comes before QUEBEC in the phonetic alphabet (yes, I know it’s not phonetic, but that’s what everyone calls it).

22 Abandon in brushwood
SCRUB
A dd.

Many thanks to Everyman for this Sunday’s puzzle.

43 comments on “Everyman 3,950/26 June”

  2. Three connected alliterative answers this week: SOCIAL SCIENCES, SPRINGER SPANIEL and STONE-COLD SOBER. And lots of playful use of C and S sounds – BASS, PSYCHED UP, SURFACE, QUEBEC etc etc.

  3. Pierre, the anagram fodder for 12a is (great Dane)*. I agree that blini is already plural, PeterO @1 (I have a Polish father-in-law). I got stuck on HOBGOLBLINS/QUEBEC – partly, I am sure, because Quebec is the province – the city is Quebec City. Otherwise enjoyable. Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.

  4. Surprising about Bass and trademarks, Pierre, I’d have guessed they dated from much earlier, like silversmiths marks etc, but hey ho.

  5. And here I was trying to ”pancake” bits of GOLD into HOBGOBLINS.
    I liked BOOS for the misdirection with ”scoffs”. Also the entertaining surfaces in EDIBLES, GREASE GUN and BEER.

  6. Enjoyable Everyman but nothing really stood out. The three alliterative pairs helped to get started. Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  7. Thanks for the blog , by coincidence Alsace was in the Quick crossword yesterday and it said it was German from 1871 until 1919, I presume the Franco-Prussian War until Versailles.
    The triple alliteration gives another S for Jay’s list , S must be winning now.
    PDM@5 has a good list, I will add SURFACE for the double meaning and PSYCHED UP for the roly-poly.
    AC POWER ? perhaps I should let it go, just about okay for a crossword.

  8. Seeing the grid I realised that we must be looking for each of the three interlocking long clues to have the two words in each clue beginning with the same letter and so it was. I was surprised that it was S as that was the letter used the previous two times this device was used – Thanks to Jay for giving me the list of letters used in past crosswords.

    I found this one harder than usual. I made good progress at first but then got stumped by some in the SW corner. Finally got them but was not really convinced by BEAR OUT and didn’t parse QUEBEC – but bunged it in as it was the only city I could think of that fit the crossers. Had forgotten it and “papa” were in the phonetic alphabet which was annoying as I usually get these clues.
    Liked HOBGOBLINS but it took me ages to get it.

    Didn’t get BOOS – homophones often stump me.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre

  9. Roz @ 7 we crossed – I took a long time to type my comments.

    Looking at Jay’s list S has been used 5 times now so yes is in the lead.

  10. Roz and Fiona Anne, ???yes, it’s the fifth time S has appeared as the alliterative letter and the third time in a row.
    I also noted this to be a variation to what might be considered the ‘usual’ alliteration grid in that here 1a and 25a have 14 lights rather than 13. Everyman has used this grid once before (on that occasion SUMMER SOLSTICE appeared in 1a). Both grids are slight customisations of grid no.28 in the Guardian library.

  12. PDM@11 we had it on May 8th.
    Thanks for confirmation from Fiona Anne and Jay, yes the 13 across the top is more common and gives symmetry for the down clue.

  13. I have commented here before about Everyman’s propensity to include food and, especially alcoholic, drink. Perhaps he has a link to the ‘eat out to help out’ campaign. As well as the obvious here, we have ALSACE, as you say Pierre, famous for wine, and HOBGOBLIN, a widely available BEER. (Here in Norfolk we pronounce that as BEAR, but I think that might be a stretch too far.) Perhaps it’s the mention of TEA and water which justifies the inlusion of STONE-COLD SOBER!
    I did wonder whether Everyman had considered at one point linking IRAN and PURPLE RAIN – it must have been tempting.
    Thanks both.

  14. Good use of the alliterative phrases.

    I particularly liked NORTH POLE with the clever replacement.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  15. Good call about the BLINI plural form – that makes sense. I’ve corrected my GREAT DANE/TEA GARDEN mistake.

  16. Like Fiona Anne @8, I found this one harder than usual.

    I did not parse 6d north pole.

    New SPRINGER SPANIEL; papa + quebec for radio communications (19d); 20ac BASS ale = Bass Pale Ale – never heard of it before.

    Thanks, both.

  17. Nice observation by Mike @2. SOCIAL SCIENCES and STONE-COLD SOBER both mixing S’s and C’s, but three different ways of pronouncing C.

    Across the puzzle, 5 different ways of spelling the /s/ sound: S, SC, C, PS, SS.

    3 ways of spelling the /k/ sound (but no K): C, CH, Q(U).

    Incidentally, TT @3, Québec (with acute accent) is the official name of Quebec City, in both English and French. In French they distinguish between Québec (the city) and le Québec (the province). Hence ‘in Quebec City’ is à Québec, but ‘in Quebec province’ is au Québec.

    Roz @7, quite right about Alsace. Alsace-Lorraine/Elsaß-Lothringen, comprising most of present-day Alsace and a quarter of Lorraine, returned de facto to French rule in late 1918, but not internationally recognised until the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The Alsatian language/dialect (Elsässisch) is closely related to Swabian and Swiss German, still spoken by about 40% but on the decline.

    Everyman appears to be having a little fun at the expense of historians, but I’ll say no more till next week. Thanks to him and Pierre.

  19. The problem with solving the Everyman on Sunday morning is that it’s hard to remember much about it the following Sunday, especially if it was all fairly straightforward. I do remember I wasn’t happy with AC POWER, because current is AC or DC, and that was my LOI.

  20. Shanne @ 19: surely the mains gives you AC power while a battery gives you DC? (“What sort of power does it need?” “AC”)

  21. Thanks Pierre and Everyman. I found this on the tricky side for Everyman, but that could just be me being dozy. All good fun.

    essexboy @17 – I wonder what historians have done to deserve being Everyman’s target!

  22. Is “AC” as in 3d not 1,1. & 5, rather than 2 &5? Sorry if that sounds hair splitting in the extreme, but it fooled me. Not sure AC is a word. I get the homophone but eyebrows still raised. Rest of it reasonably straightforward. Have I missed a change of compiler recently? Lots of references to the new setter.

  23. MrEssexboy@17 thanks for all the extras on ALSACE, I did suspect it from the dates.
    [Your Azed clue for today is 9D which you will get very quickly, so look at 23Ac because it is brilliant and 23D. A fairly recent Guardian blog had a compound anagram that needed “this” in the clue to work properly, 23D shows how it is done ]

  24. AC POWER is wrong in so many ways but people do use the term as noted by Simon @ 20 so it is okay for a crossword.

  25. Sara@22 time is relative but I think the ‘new’ setter has been with us for three or four years.

  26. Sara @22. I don’t think there has been a change of compiler since February 2019, when Colin Gumbrell retired as the setter. Between his last puzzle and the current compiler, there was – even by Grauniad standards – a massive balls-up when the Observer editor (who he?) realised that they didn’t have any more puzzles by Colin and ended up publishing a parish magazine contribution found in some random corner of the internet which was blogged by Peter O here.

    The current setter started the week after, so after three and a half years, we should perhaps stop referring to him or her as ‘new’. I personally think their puzzles usually hit the spot for what Everyman is meant to be – an easy-end introduction to cryptics that is tractable enough to be completed by newish solvers.

  28. Failed to get BOOS, oh the shame of it !. The answer is of course obvious but _O_S gives 26×26 possibilities I think.
    Is that right Roz ?. Anyway, I enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks to P and E.

  29. I hadn’t thought of HOBGOBLINS as frightful, and google agrees, characterizing them as more mischievous and even occasionally helpful.

    essexboy, thanks as at many times for delightful linguistic tidbit.

    Cavy@28 Yes, _O_S gives 26 squared possibilities, but most of them are easy to dismiss.

    Thanks to Pierre and Everyman

  33. Goujeers @30 – I came here precisely to see if anyone had mentioned it. But per muffin @31, best not to go into detail until the blog is published next week 🙂

  36. [Valentine and Petert – merci vielmal
    And thanks too to Roz @23, I’ve been out all day but I’ll have a look at them tomorrow.]

  37. Late to the table for this review, though with lashings of good coffee and toast ‘n’ jam, though ‘regrettably’ for another so-so run-out with the Sunday specialist. Agree with Goujeers about the unmentionable. Whoops! Thanks Pierre and setter.

  38. Simon @20 if you’re still reading, AC POWER would lose you a mark at least, as demonstrating a serious misapprehension in GCSE science papers so, having taught variations thereof, I wince when I see it. Generally, the mains grid provides AC current, batteries provide DC current. Power used is dependent on the electrical device being used, washing machine heating cycles, kettles and irons all being on the higher end. The more power used per hour the higher your electricity bill.

  39. Since when did a graduate of history get a BSocsci!
    I certainly didn’t and a quick look shows universities now still give you a BA.
    This threw me

  41. DNF for me. Failed on Quebec and a couple of others in SW. Queen Psyche a new one on me too, that was a biff n shrug.

  42. I didn’t think hobgoblins were apparitions but more like mischievous elves and was stuck on finding agas for the cookers but a good clue nonetheless
    Very much liked :Ac power
    Idlers, SSpaniel, bass tuba and Warsaw
    Didn’t know about psyche and hadn’t heard of bear out

Comments are closed.