A pleasant Everyman, of around medium difficulty in my opinion, except for the odd clue where we are treated to the sort of thing Everyman meets when doing The Listener crossword. All the usual trademarks, which are coloured (in random colours, simply those I thought were prettiest) in the grid.
Definitions underlined in crimson. Indicators (anagram, hidden, homophone, insertion, reversal etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | OPEN SESAME |
One-time passcode that might make sense, a poem (4,6)
|
| *(sense, a poem) — nice definition referring to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves | ||
| 6 | WAIF |
Spouse scratching backside | stopped by a ragamuffin (4)
|
| w(a)if[e] — wife = spouse | ||
| 9 | TAE-BO |
Primarily trademarked aerobic exercises, boogieing occasionally? (3-2)
|
| The first letters clue. I’d never heard of this, but here you are. | ||
| 10 | NAKEDNESS |
Raw beside Loch – because of this under kilt? (9)
|
| naked Ness — naked = raw, Ness = Loch (Loch Ness) — and if you are naked under your kilt it will be cold or raw beside Loch Ness — ‘this’ is ‘nakedness’ | ||
| 12 | MISSTEP |
Overturning favourite sofas, gutted, Everyman’s making a gaffe (7)
|
| (pet s[ofa]s I’m)rev. — pet = favourite, I’m = Everyman’s — the self-referential clue | ||
| 13 | SAWBILL |
Bird noticed notice (7)
|
| saw bill — saw = noticed, bill = notice | ||
| 14 | UNAPPETISING |
Fried pig in peanuts, hardly savoury (12)
|
| *(pig in peanuts) | ||
| 18 | EXIT STRATEGY |
Plan for how to get out: try flailing | with axes, get it? (4,8)
|
| (try axes get it)* | ||
| 21 | POMPEII |
Classical city of Greek character wherein I mope about (7)
|
| (I mope)* in pi — pi is the Greek character (letter) | ||
| 23 | NOTIONS |
Fancies new liniments, scratching head (7)
|
| n [l]otions — n = new, lotions = liniments | ||
| 24 | DONATELLO |
Artist’s party welcoming concerning amateur archer (9)
|
| d(on A tell)o — do = party, on = concerning, A = amateur, Tell = archer (as in William Tell, the legend and the opera by Rossini) — Donatello was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance | ||
| 25 | ENTER |
With no entrance, tenant to go in (5)
|
| [r]enter — renter = tenant | ||
| 26 | PREY |
Loudly plead for Merlin’s victim? (4)
|
| “pray” — a merlin is a hunting bird, so its victim will be its prey | ||
| 27 | DOWN-AT-HEEL |
Poor – and potentially sole-destroying? (4-2-4)
|
| If you are poor your clothes (including your shoes, with their soles) will be becoming destroyed — the fact that it’s not ‘soul-destroying’ leads us to the answer | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ON TIME |
Somewhat upfront? I’m early! Not late, anyway … (2,4)
|
| Hidden in upfrONT I’M Early | ||
| 2 | EVEN SO |
Yet , really knight to take place of queen? (4,2)
|
| ever so with the r (queen) replaced by N (N = knight in chess notation because the K has already been used for the king) | ||
| 3 | SHORT AND SWEET |
Ill-tempered; also ingratiating – thankfully concise (5,3,5)
|
| short and sweet — short = ill-tempered, and = also, sweet = ingratiating — ‘thankfully’ is unnecessary for the definition, indeed it makes it wrong although perhaps it helps the surface, so perhaps the definition is just ‘concise’, but what then is ‘thankfully’ doing? | ||
| 4 | SANDPIPER |
Bird generally dull in appearance? That’s rough, as Aussie tells it (9)
|
| An Australian would (?) pronounce “sandpaper” as “sandpiper” — sandpaper = rough (as a verb), or ‘that’s rough’ is a definition of the noun sandpaper — I think the second one is what Everyman intended — the clue is a chestnut, almost like clueing CARTHORSE with an anagram of ‘orchestra’ | ||
| 5 | MIKES |
Audio kit invariably preceding Novembers? (5)
|
| In the NATO alphabet Mike (= M) precedes November (= N) | ||
| 7 | APERITIF |
After outburst (anger), Dad served up drinkie (8)
|
| (fit ire Pa)rev. — fit = outburst, ire = anger, Pa = Dad, ‘up’ because it’s a Down clue | ||
| 8 | FUSELAGE |
Weld, insulate and earth aeroplane’s body (8)
|
| fuse lag e — fuse = weld, lag = insulate, e = earth (as in electrical wiring) | ||
| 11 | DOWNING STREET |
Drinkin’ G&T in which | a little slice (lime?), where the powerful are (7,6)
|
| downin’ G(s tree)T — downin’ = drinkin’, G&T surrounds (in which) s tree, s = a little slice, s[lice], lime? = tree — not sure about this because it seems very clunky, as well as not really being grammatical | ||
| 15 | ELTON JOHN |
Pop Idol Jack in | trashed hotel, sonny, stripped off (5,4)
|
| J in *(hotel [s]onn[y]) — J = Jack (as in playing cards) | ||
| 16 | HEAPED UP |
Gathered that man, clumsy fellow, to be given | upside-down cake? (6,2)
|
| he ape (pud)rev. — he = that man, ape = clumsy fellow, pud = cake — upside-down because it’s a down clue | ||
| 17 | DIAMANTE |
Did Amy and Ted never stop getting bling? (8)
|
| Di[d] Am[y] an[d] Te[d] | ||
| 19 | BOTTLE |
Courage? That’s not on tap (6)
|
| If a drink comes in a bottle it isn’t on tap — one could be pedantic and say that a bottle is not on tap (but in a bottle is not on tap) | ||
| 20 | ASTRAL |
Clip of broadcast, Rally of the Stars (6)
|
| Hidden in broadcAST RALly | ||
| 22 | IGLOO |
Where a house-warming will get you a frosty reception (5)
|
| CD — you don’t want to warm the igloo because the ice will melt; alternatively if you have a house-warming party in an igloo then it will be a frosty reception — I’m not sure what Everyman intended: perhaps both, but more likely the latter |
Hi John
Looking in out of curiosity, I can help with 3dn: “thankfully” in the clue gives the “and sweet” part of the answer, which Chambers 2016 p 1443 defines as “surprisingly or gratifyingly brief, used eg of a speech expected to be of greater length (and tedium).
DOWN-AT-HEEL
potentially sole-destroying:
Speaking of one’s shoes, if they are down-at-heel (with their heels worn down), then
their soles could potentially get destroyed soon.
Thanks PB@1 for explaining the ‘thankfully’ bit of SHORT AND SWEET. Now I appreciate the clue better.
Liked NAKEDNESS and IGLOO (I go with John’s parsing 2.0)
Thanks Everyman and John.
Thanks Everyman and Jon. Is william Tell an Archer, strictly speaking?
PB@1: I don’t think I have ever said SHORT AND SWEET without feeling grateful for the fact, so thankfully seemed appropriate and I never questioned it.
Everyman seems to vary quite a bit in difficulty, I frequently have to leave, do the Quiptic and then return with my confidence boosted. I don’t remember that happening last week. It did this week.
Thanks both.
4D Common Eurasian Sandpiper is called ruff
EVEN SO
Looks like an inadvertent error. A minor edit to do.
Def: Yet
really=EVEr SO.
There’s a great coffee-table sized book of Donatello somewhere in the nether regions of chez ginf, I should dig it out. As for saying sandpa/i/per, well most Aussies don’t, but we don’t mind the odd kipper tie joke. Fun puzzle, ta both.
Thank you John; I found some of the charades in this one quite hard to parse even after filling in the grid, so it was great to see your explanation. I enjoyed 19D; Courage being a good draught bitter (on tap).
gif@7. 🙂
I got WAIF because it fitted the grid but couldn’t parse it at all. I had to work through the explanation here carefully to understand it, but I’ve got it now.
The clue to SANDPIPER was new to me. I did solve it after some thought but it seems a bit dubious tbh.
And the extra thing in the clue for BOTTLE is that Courage is a make of beer. (although perhaps most people know that?) I quite liked that clue.
Thank you for the blog John for explaining the handful I couldn’t fully parse. Don’t think I’ve ever come across HEAPED UP as an expression.
paddymelon@11
BOTTLE
You are right in assuming that most people know ‘that’. ‘Courage’ (the beer reference) has appeared a few times in the GIFT puzzles over the last couple of weeks.
SANDPIPER vs SANDPIPER
I hear piper when my Aussie friends say paper (more so when I hear it from some cricketers like Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting).
Of course, quite often what the native speakers say and what I hear are different. 🙂
I only knew Tae Bo from the song Drops of Jupiter by Train (“she checks out Mozart while she does Tae Bo”) which is now going to be stuck in my head all day!
I agree with your evaluation John, and thanks for the blog. I liked OPEN SESAME, NAKEDNESS and SHORT AND SWEET. I agree with your parsing of DOWNING STREET, but don’t think it works very well for the reasons you said.
Thanks to Everyman.
Thanks Kva @6, blog corrected.
I enjoyed this one. Thought ON TIME was well hidden, and I liked the construction of DIAMANTE. I didn’t have a problem with the lime tree in DOWNING STREET, although I agree that the surface is a little clunky.
Thanks Everyman and John.
IMO the setter missed a trick here. Change one non-crosser letter and you could have had-
Type of bird I take out for a bit of rough as favoured by certain noted Australians (9)
Hopefully, at least fellow Test cricket fans will like it.
Drinkin’ gin with Errol Flynn was something the late mrs ginf sang, but sadly i can’t remember the rest. Anyone …?
PREY defeated me, and I still don’t get it. I get the Merlin would catch prey but where does the loudly plead come in? Rest of it was ok with some quibbles, all mentioned by John. Thanks to Everyman and once again to John for the blog, a lifesaver.
MuddyThinking @20 – “Loudly” is a soundalike indicator, and “plead” leads to “pray”, so we’re told to find something that sounds like “pray”
Sorry you couldn’t understand ‘Loudly plead’, MuddyThinking @20. In the preamble I do say that indicators (and then some examples of indicators) are in italics. ‘Loudly’ is in italics and it’s a homophone indicator. Perhaps I should add to the preamble a glossary of how I indicate things, something like ‘homophone indicators “like this”, anagram indicators (like this)*, hiddens liKE THis, etc’. But it would make it rather long.
In my youth courage beers required courage to drink it as it was invariably undrinkable. Leading to the acronym for courage real ale pubs….
Thanks to TanTrumPet and John for the clarifications. No need to add the extras John – the blog is great and much appreciated. I understood loudly as the homophone indicator but plead = pray was not obvious to me! Much to learn.
Flashling@27: I seem to remember Courage Directors as being the one to go for.
I had a Tae Bo workout video once upon a time. It was quite fun.
Lots I couldn’t get this week, thanks for explanations.
New for me: LAG = insulate (for 8d)
4d I am Australian and I never heard anyone pronounce paper as piper.
I think Kiwis are more likely to pronounce paper as piper! Great to see DONATELLO feature here. Overall a good crossword today, no complaints at all. Thanks to all involved!
On my first trip to England, several millennia ago, I was puzzled by signs saying “Courage”. I thought it was an exhortation, like “Keep calm and carry on”. Took a while before I figured out that it was a brand name.
I think referring to Aussie accent in clues is always risky but it was a bit funny especially since someone thought it was more likely a kiwi would speak like that – the nerve!
Loved this like last week’s,
exc. for Downing Street which could hv been a beauty but was too complex to be credible
I thought ‘helped up’ was better than ‘heaped up’ which I’ve never heard of
Knocked it off this morning. Good puzzle expect we could not solve D_w_n g_t_e_t for quite sometime, until we discovered that Alan had put a separating line in the wrong place.
A genuine mistake but it does make it harder and more interesting (if you finish).