I think this is one of Everyman’s better efforts. There are some very nice clues and the surfaces (except for one of them, which I grumble about in the blog) are on the whole tight and sensible.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (homophones, juxtaposition, missing letters, reversals, anagrams, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.
The rhyming pair 13ac and 17ac are indicated, as is 23ac (the primary letters &lit). There’s usually something else, I can’t remember now; but no complaints: it’s quite an achievement to get long words or phrases that rhyme with each other. I hope someone will help me with 6dn. And I’ve just remembered that the self-referential clue is at 7dn and that should be in colour, but it’s too late.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ARMED TO THE TEETH |
With choppers battle-ready? (5,2,3,5)
|
| CD — I got this straight away although CDs are usually a problem: the enumeration helped — choppers is a slang word for teeth | ||
| 9 | OSSETIA |
Excellent: Miss ‘d’Urberville’ and love to return, finding border region (7)
|
| (A1 Tess O)rev. — A1 = excellent, Tess is Miss d’Urberville (as in Thomas Hardy’s novel “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”, although I can’t see why Everyman puts her surname in quotes), O = love — Ossetia is, as Wikipedia says, ‘an ethnolinguistic region on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians’ | ||
| 10 | PASTEUR |
Mouldy Frenchman tears up when cleaned up (7)
|
| (tears up)* — referring to Louis Pasteur, the French scientist, and his discoveries concerning mould | ||
| 11 | AMIGO |
Is the writer to be sold, my friend? (5)
|
| am I go — I think — ‘am I’ = ‘is the writer’, go = to be sold (??) | ||
| 12 | AFORESAID |
Poorly raised oaf, as previously discussed (9)
|
| *(raised oaf) | ||
| 13 | ILL DRINK TO THAT |
Evil doctor to tattoo most of infants? Covering bottoms up (3,5,2,4)
|
| ill Dr. ink tot[s] hat — ill = Evil, Dr. = doctor, ink = to tattoo, tots = infants, hat = covering — “bottoms up” is a (rather old-fashioned) toast as one drinks | ||
| 17 | UNSATURATED FAT |
With endless fury, aunt tasted a dodgy, unhealthy ingredient (11,3)
|
| (fur[y] aunt tasted a)* | ||
| 20 | RENOVATOR |
Fixer-up ran over to stable? No (9)
|
| (ran over to)* — with a rather unusual anagram indicator: if it isn’t stable then it’s unstable, so is jumbled | ||
| 23 | RATIO |
Principally relative association that indicates odds? (5)
|
| The first letters &lit. | ||
| 25 | IBERIAN |
Spanish maybe brainier – almost | devious (7)
|
| (brainie[r])* — The Iberian peninsula contains Spain and Portugal | ||
| 26 | SWINGER |
Acrobat, one who in 60s was iconic (7)
|
| 2 defs, one of them referring to ‘The Swinging Sixties’ | ||
| 27 | NO MAN IS AN ISLAND |
Is Douglas on a peninsula … ? (2,3,2,2,6)
|
| CD — Douglas is on the Isle of Man, and this is a reply to the question in the clue, “No, Douglas is on the Isle of Man, which is not a peninsula: Man is an island” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ALOHA |
A cow’s audible ‘Goodbye’ (5)
|
| “A lower” — a cow is something that lows — in Hawaiian ‘aloha’ can mean both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ | ||
| 2 | MISDIAL |
Offer ring to one who’s not intended? (7)
|
| CD — a ring is a telephone call here | ||
| 3 | DOT DOT DOT |
Spot Mark and point … (3,3,3)
|
| dot = spot, dot = mark, dot = point — the definition is the ellipsis (…), which is sometimes described in this way | ||
| 4 | OSAKA |
Poo-poos a kabuki’s characters in Japanese port (5)
|
| Hidden in Poo-poOS A KAbuki | ||
| 5 | HIP POCKET |
Spooner’s advice to Great Expectations lad considering using pawnbroker where money may be found (3,6)
|
| Spoonerism of “Pip, hock it” — Pip was the character in Dickens’s Great Expectations, to hock something is to pawn it | ||
| 6 | TASTE |
Judgment in hearing’s parallel (5)
|
| “something that is a homophone of something equivalent to parallel” — no, sorry, I can’t think what it might be | ||
| 7 | EYEWASH |
Everyman practises hygiene, you say? Baloney! (7)
|
| “I wash” — the self-referential clue | ||
| 8 | HEREDITY |
In this place, heartless simple tune that’s passed down (8)
|
| here di[t]ty — here = in this place, ditty = simple tune | ||
| 14 | IRRITANTS |
Pests playing sitar – with tin whistler at the end (9)
|
| *(sitar tin [whistle]r) | ||
| 15 | ORDERLIES |
Calm rests for hospital staff (9)
|
| order lies — order = calm, lies = rests | ||
| 16 | GUARDIAN |
One shooting around | outstripped hare, backing over – primarily, this one’s charged to protect (8)
|
| gu([h]ar[e] (aid)rev.)n — what a clunky clue, but I would say that wouldn’t I because I can’t parse it to my satisfaction: gun = one shooting, ar = outstripped hare (ie the outer parts of the word are stripped away), aid = backing — but the definition seems odd, because a guardian (of a child) is charged to protect that child, but what is ‘primarily’ doing? It’s not necessary to the definition, and the initial letters of the words before and after it don’t feature in what is so far as I can see the answer | ||
| 18 | SUNBEAM |
Source of warmth, lad’s pronounced grin (7)
|
| “son” beam — son = lad, beam = grin | ||
| 19 | ANTIGUA |
Opposing bulk of US territory, Caribbean island (7)
|
| anti Gua[m] — anti = opposing, Guam is a US territory: as Wikipedia says, it’s ‘an island that is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean’. | ||
| 21 | V-SIGN |
What may you get from chavs, ignobly? (1-4)
|
| Hidden in chaVS IGNobly — &lit | ||
| 22 | RISEN |
New England gentleman getting up, out of bed (5)
|
| (NE sir)rev. — NE = New England, sir = gentleman | ||
| 24 | OARED |
Cockney mob loudly rowed (5)
|
| ” ‘orde ” — all Cockneys in crosswords drop their h’s; horde = mob |
6d – I think ‘hearing’s parallel’ is just alluding to TASTE and hearing both being senses? I don’t think ‘hearing’ is suggesting homophone on this occasion
And 16d – I think ’primarily’ refers to the fact that a GUARDIAN is a primary carer?
My usual Everyman gripes, some great clues but a bit more editing wouldn’t go amiss; if it was a Meccano model I’d want to get busy with the spanner tightening things up, some of the clues are too rattly IMO. Lovely blog, thanks John!
Maybe Alan Connor/Everyman clued GUARDIAN as signing off on the Guardian site. From today it’s to be on the Observer site . I haven’t been able to find today’s in the Observer. The information from various sources said it wouldn’t be behind a paywall for now. Is anyone able to help?
Everyman 4097 is at https://observer.co.uk/everyman
No obvious paywall
Thanks Major.
AMIGO
I think…
to be sold=GO in the sense of ‘This item will go/be sold for 100 Euros.’
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND was my top fave.
RENOVATOR: An innovative style.
Thanks Everyman and John.
Are 1d and 16d combined alluding to this being the last one to appear under the original ownership? If so I reckon we need to look out for “Hello” and “Observer” down the left side in 4097!
Enjoyed this, although I could not parse 6d.
Thought 27a was brilliant.
Thanks Everyman & John.
The other regular Everyman feature is a geographical place name eg city or country, of which there are several here.
Very nice puzzle. My favourite was NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. I also liked the mouldy Frenchman, PASTEUR, for the definition and the Spooner clue, HIP POCKET.
Agree with Hadrian@1. I also saw taste and hearing as parallel senses (after a while).
Thanks to Everyman and John.
My thoughts too GrahaminSydney@8.
I only learned doing this Everyman that ALOHA can be either hello or goodbye but translates more like love and peace.
Had the same picks as Sue @9.
I remember when doing this last week that the clue for RISEN had “gentlemen”. Another post publication edit by Everyman that wasn’t flagged on the puzzle site.
{Earworm: The Beatles’ 1d, 1d (1967) …
… with its ’45-second 2nd coda … a “Maori finale – a mistake for ‘Hawaiian’ (aloha).”‘}
It occurred to me at the time that ALOHA GUARDIAN might have been a coded message, and subsequently it appears to have been confirmed as Everyman’s “goodbye to the Guardian”.
Thanks Major@5, I couldn’t find it either. Not allowed to comment on this week’s but alloah, alloah, what have we here.
Thanks John and Everyman.
Thanks for the blog , it is Tess Durbyfield hence the inverted commas for OSETTIA . The less I say about this puzzle the better , I hope the newer solvers will have their say later .
I was glad to see SWINGER used with the original innocent sense , I can’t use this term anymore with my students .
As a (still) newer solver I found this more difficult than usual and didn’t really enjoy it.
I didn’t finish it last week and forgot about it till this morning.
Where do I find the Everyman crossword now? I can’t find a link!
Dave puzzled@18. See Major@5.
Is there an error in the new 4097 Everyman. 1down and 16 down from 4096 have been repeated in 4097. While one fits, the other appears to be the clue. Maybe it’s me.
Thomas Dawson @20. It isn’t just you. Much as I hate mentioning this week’s puzzle on the day it appears, I think this is an exception.
[DT and Crispy @20/21 , there is no error , but let’s end the discussion there , I suggest]
Roz @16 thanks! This was like pulling teeth. Slow and confusing and DNF after 7 days. Stuck on a few in NW corner which I would never have got. And then 7D ‘baloney’?? And 13A had me stumped 😑
[Jay@22. Let’s see what others think. Incidentally, are you solving on-line, or from the actual newspaper? ]
I wrongly entered MISCALL for 2d and partly as a result of that, I failed to solve 11ac, 1d as well as 6d TASTE.
I liked NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. But isn’t it saturated, rather than UNSATURATED FAT, that’s suposed to be unhealthy? Or have the nutritionists changed their minds again?
Anyway, having seen the state of the Observer website, this is probably the last Everyman I shall do, so it was a good one to end on.
Cara @16 same for me. Few in NW corner stumped me. And familiar with hogwash as baloney, but not eyewash!
MISDIAL and TASTE were nice misdirections, and I enjoyed teasing out HIP POCKET, I’LL DRINK TO THAT and RENOVATOR.
I found this puzzle to be generally consistent in difficulty with recent offerings, and so the convoluted clue for 16d GUARDIAN seemed out of place here. And I quibble about EYEWASH; it should have been “you hear”, not “you say”, since if the solver were to say it, they’d say “YOU WASH”. Good point by Gladys@26 re the FAT, which didn’t occur to me at the time.
I feel that Everyman missed a couple of tricks here: 1a ARMED TO THE TEETH would have worked nicely with a (purely aesthetic) initial ellipsis to match that which terminates the (excellent) “preceding” 27a NO MAN IS AN ISLAND; and if 4d OSAKA had begun with one it would have more deviously hidden that used in 3d DOT DOT DOT which acts as a crafty definition (I love those!).
Still, a nice puzzle to end the Everyman run in the Guardian. I presume Alan Connor won’t be setting the Observer ones then? Perhaps that’s why he started getting involved another way via Ludwig.
So long, Everyman, and thanks for all the fishiness.
Crispy @24 I have what I believe is the correct answer, and the reason for the seemingly clunky clue, but I’ve yet to parse it successfully
Hello all. Everyone at the Guardian and at the Tortoise end hopes that all three Observer puzzles will go seamlessly from old to new home (while braced for a hiccough) with no real changes.
PS By the way, I think I’ve said here before that Ludwig is a name used by multiple Guardian setters. And I have other outlets!
PPS The left-hand column is not an error…
Thanks Alan Connor (Guardian)@30, fingers crossed for you all that it all goes smoothly. Tx for clarifying about Ludwig; I’d understood they were collaborations rather than individual works. I won’t do today’s puzzle until next week (I do them on the day of the blog), but I can make a guess at the cleverness which might explain a certain convoluted clue…
Well thank you for clarifying Alan with your PPS. I live abroad and had somehow missed the news of the sale of the Observer. I am shocked tbh. I will keep doing the Everyman because it is my favourite puzzle of the week.
Everyone seemed to like the NO MAN IS AN ISLAND clue. Me too. It really made me smile on solving. There was a related one in the Telegraph a few years ago that made me smile too.
Man is one? Yes and no! (6) = ISLAND (Telegraph 25911)
Thank you Everyman and John. I’m off to do 1 and 16 down again.
Thanks Alan Connor @30. It all makes sense now!
Today’s Observer Everyman has the same grid, plus several other hidden links in the clues, but I’ll refrain from commenting till next week.
ALOHA is not a homophone of ‘a lower’, even in the non-rhotic version, as the H is pronounced.
The new online Everyman has an annoying Recaptcha graphic partially obscuring the keyboard. Grrr.
Like gladys @26 I also wondered whether Everyman got mixed up between saturated and unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are generally considered healthy.
Does the move to the Observer mean the crossword with not be available in app form? I found it much more user friendly in the Guardian app than on the website.
I was stumped by MISDIAL. Probably because I haven’t dialled a number in 40 years – you press on buttons, real or virtual.
I thought that some of this was rather trickier than many Everymen and had to enlist the girlfriend to help with the final four.
GrahaminSydney@8 You’re not wrong.
Dom@29 Me too in the ‘yet to parse it successfully’ camp.
Once solved, I read 16d as a remark about the Guardian selling the Observer.
One shooting around outstripped hare: the tortoise outstripped the hare, hence the outstripped hare is the Guardian losing the Observer to Tortoise. Backing over (of the Guardian) that was primarily charged to protect the Observer.
It amused me anyway.
poc@34, you are correct that ALOHA is not a homophone. It is, however, a form of aural wordplay akin to a pun, and nowhere does Everyman define it as a homophone. You are fighting against a straw man.
As an aside, I am a rhotic speaker, and I had no problem with the aural wordplay in this clue.
Thanks Everyman for the fun, especially the great clue at 27a NO MAN IS AN ISLAND, and the fond farewell to the Guardian at 1d and 16d. And thanks John for the excellent blog.
Agree with Hamish@1 about TASTE.
I liked this one. Pasteur made me laugh, and so did No Man …
There were quite a few fun misdirections: I spent too long trying to make an anagram of chavs, before realising it was a hidden one!
Lyssian. If you scroll up/down you can avoid this recaptcha.
I managed to complete almost all of this one (ie not just getting the right answer, but figuring out why) given a few attempts over the week … except for 6D – which, like some others here, I still don’t really understand.
For those seeing this crossword online, and not buying the paper itself (as I do): concerning the change of Observer ownership (which has, I think, only happened a few times in its hundreds of years)… The New Review section, housing the crossword, has hardly altered under the new regime – apart from losing some of its regular columnists. (The main, news, section of the paper has had a bit of a redesign; too soon to judge it really, especially since I buy it for the content not the design!) But there is just one very obvious change in the Review section – and it does relate to the crossword. Namely, the numbers on the grid are smaller (and almost unreadable), ditto the size of the letters in the print of the previous week’s solution. I hope these points (sic) are just a teething problem for the new layouters, and not a feature.
I will, of course, hold back on thoughts about the content of this week’s puzzle until the blog appears next week.
@43 SadTortoise
Yes, but then I can’t see what I’m typing at the top of the grid, as to get to the full keyboard I have to scroll the top of the grid off the screen.
Cellomaniac@41: I didn’t have a problem solving it. It justs sets my teeth on edge.
I’m with poc: I’m generally pretty tolerant about homophone / pun / aural-wordplay clues, but ALOHA was too much for me.
It took me a while to get started but then it wasn’t too bad. I did have miscall for misdial so I had to invent AMATO for11A I was lucky that some of th phrases came into my head at the sight of a few letters 1A, 13A and I loved 27A Also liked Ossetia, unsaturated fat, heredity and swinger.
We definitely struggled a bit with this one but it’s good to be pushed. NO MAN IS AN ISLAND our favourite, and love the references to the change of ownership of The Observer – this had completely passed me by, too focused on two spoilt brats squabbling in public!
Thanks Everyman thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Not bad. Missed all the references to the move from the Grauniad and agree with those who pointed out that aloHA sounds nothing like a lower. It’s also more commonly associated with Hello than Goodbye.
Second definition in 6d is nonsense.
27a is nice but why the meaningless dots?
Barrie, the three dots are also the answer – something we’d missed before.
You have the wrong clue Lindsey and Marion. I’m talking about the Isle of Man clue. I get the dot dot dot one.
Agree with the pedants on ALOHA and UNSATURATED FAT, and am also scratching my head about what “primarily” is doing. Loved PASTEUR and NO MAN IS AN ISLAND.