I thought this was rather harder than usual, but perhaps that was because I was having dreadful trouble with my mouse. The blog took longer than it usually does. The usual rhyming pair, the self-referential clue and the ‘primarily’ clue are all as usual and coloured in the diagram. Some nice clues, one or two that I don’t understand, and one or two mild criticisms.
Definitions in italics, underlined in crimson. Indicators (homophone, reversal, anagram, missing letter, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SAGA |
Decline a long story (4)
|
| sag a — sag = decline, a = a | ||
| 3 | BROWN BREAD |
Prepare what may be toast for deceased? (5,5)
|
| Cockney Rhyming Slang: brown bread = dead — one might use brown bread to prepare toast | ||
| 9 | OHIO |
Loves to embrace welcome somewhere in America (4)
|
| 0(hi)0 — 0 0 = love(s), hi = welcome, Ohio is a state in the USA | ||
| 10 | MAINTAINED |
Kept in diamanté purses (10)
|
| (in diamanté)* — purses the anagram indicator, a bit odd but OK perhaps: one purses one’s lips and that means one does unsettling things with them | ||
| 11 | TRADE BARRIER |
Tear off | with rare bird: it prevents a sale (5,7)
|
| (tear rare bird)* | ||
| 15 | BOLSHIE |
Primarily, ‘blasted obdurate’; likewise: socialist, hectoring in extremis! (7)
|
| The first letters clue that is a feature of Everyman | ||
| 16 | DOUBLES |
Lookalikes in nightcaps, maybe (7)
|
| 2 defs | ||
| 17 | ROCK COD |
Stagger company with | ultimately rancid fish (4,3)
|
| rock co [ranci]d — rock = stagger, co = company — the rock cod | ||
| 19 | AMNESIA |
Getting names wrong, Everyman, a kind of absent-mindedness (7)
|
| (names)* I a — I = Everyman (the self-referential clue), a = a | ||
| 20 | MARSH HARRIER |
Flying creature from the red planet, very hard and | disappointingly rarer to capture one (5,7)
|
| Mars HH *(rarer) round 1 — Mars = the red planet, HH = very hard (as in pencils) — a marsh harrier is this type of bird | ||
| 23 | AZERBAIJAN |
Somewhere in W Asia – obtained from bazaar – tajine? No thanks …! (10)
|
| *(bazaar [ta]jine) | ||
| 24 | RIAL |
… foreign currency in den, from the East (4)
|
| (lair)rev. — lair = den — the rial is the currency of Oman, Iran and Yemen | ||
| 25 | INTERPRETS |
Reads hype from Milan footballers: they’ve come a long way! (10)
|
| The only word that fits and looks vaguely possible: to read is to interpret, as in ‘Rubinstein’s reading/interpretation of the Chopin études’, the Milan footballers are Inter, or Football Club Internazionale Milano, but what the coming a long way is all about goodness knows I’m afraid. So this answer may well be wrong [It’s Inter + PR + ETs, thanks GrahaminSydney@2] | ||
| 26 | IDLE |
Redundant, a false god? So they say (4)
|
| “idol” — an idol = a false god | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SPORTS BARS |
Wears underwear twisted in the middle in drinking spots (6,4)
|
| sports = wears, then bras with the two internal letters ‘twisted’ to make bars — sports bars are bars that show sport, a new (presumably new, only becoming needed when big screens showing football etc were introduced) term that isn’t in Chambers yet and is only in Collins under American English | ||
| 2 | GUITAR LICK |
In Kigali, dancing | with curt rocker’s flourish (6,4)
|
| (Kigali curt)* — not sure that ‘in’ helps with the wordplay — I’d never heard of this, but research indicates that it is a thing | ||
| 4 | REAL ALE |
Stagger and feel sick audibly: it’s the booze (4,3)
|
| “reel ail” | ||
| 5 | WINE-RED |
Claret? Flipping claret!? (4-3)
|
| claret is red wine, and if it’s flipped (not in the usual way, but by reversing the words) it becomes wine red | ||
| 6 | BLADE RUNNER |
Sci-fi film: drunken lunar bender (5,6)
|
| *(lunar bender) — the 1982 sci-fi film starring Harrison Ford | ||
| 7 | ETNA |
Volcano regularly lost heat and area (4)
|
| [h]e[a]t [a]n[d] A — A = area | ||
| 8 | DIDO |
Legendary queen performed at Globe (4)
|
| did O — did = performed, O = globe (I suppose so) — Dido was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, although sources are not utterly convincing | ||
| 12 | ECHO CHAMBER |
E China, golden place where contrary views unheard? (4,7)
|
| I’m lost here: certainly in an echo chamber, where sounds are reflected, contrary views are unheard; and amber = golden; if E China = E Choch then fine but it doesn’t I imagine; let’s hope that by the time I finish the blog the penny will have dropped (no) [It’s E = Echo, then Ch = China, amber = golden, thanks PeterO@4; also paddymelon@1 for a definition of ECHO CHAMBER] | ||
| 13 | CLASSIFIED |
Secret kind of ad (10)
|
| 2 defs | ||
| 14 | ESPADRILLE |
Daft pedaller is in rope-soled footwear (10)
|
| *(pedaller is) — the ‘in’ is superfuous but is presumably there for the surface | ||
| 18 | DOSSIER |
Perhaps info from spy that’s increasingly lazy (7)
|
| to doss around is, according to Chambers, to lead an idle or aimless existence, but I can’t find ‘dossy’ in the usual dictionaries, so this is a sort of made-up word: ‘dossy-er’, or ‘more dossy’; so shouldn’t there have been a question mark at the end of this, to show that the word was only fanciful? | ||
| 19 | AT HEART |
Swim topless, ‘creative work’ – truly! (2,5)
|
| [b]athe art — bathe = swim, art = ‘creative work’ | ||
| 21 | DALI |
Artist, somewhat sesquipedalian (4)
|
| Hidden in sesquipeDALIan | ||
| 22 | KENT |
Notebook entry describes this English county (4)
|
| Hidden in NotebooK ENTry |
Thanks John. I also can’t parse the second half of INTERPRETS, and have a similar question about DOSSIER.
ECHO CHAMBER I am familiar with this definition from Oxford Languages:
an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered.
I had INTERPRETS as INTER + PR (public relations = ‘hype’) + ETS (extra-terrestials who have presumably come a long way.)
I also have no idea for ECHO CHAMBER 🙂
Thanks Everyman & John.
Thanks GrahamInSydney@2 for interpreting INTERPRETS.
@John, have found dossy in Urban Dictionary and slang dictionary with the meaning of lazier or easier, but funnily enough it can also mean fashionably pretentious.
Thanks John. I read 12D ECHO CHAMBER as a charade of ECHO (‘E’, NATO alphabet) plus CH (‘China’ not IVR) plus AMBER (‘golden’ colour, near enough).
[Correction: lazy or easy.)
Thanks PeterO@4. That looks right; using the NATO alphabet in reverse to the usual crossword-land usage is the key.
Top Faves: AMNESIA, INTERPRETS and BLADE RUNNER.
BROWN BREAD
prepare what may be toast=Make the bread brown=BROWN BREAD (brown as a verb)
An additional layer (may not be part of the wordplay): toast=dead.
MAINTAINED
purse (Chambers app)
to contract or draw into folds or wrinkles (purses=wrinkles both as verbs should work?)
GUITAR LICK
In WP, Def. ‘In’ is needed for the surface. Seems ok.
ESPADRILLE
WP in Def. Most setters seem to be fine with this format. Of course, ‘in’ is needed for the surface as John says.
DOSSIER
Agree with the blogger that there should be a ? at the end of the clue.
DALI
Wanted to know if Dali was verbose. Seems he was not. Doesn’t affect the clue anyway.
Thanks Everyman and John.
I didn’t think this was an Everyman level puzzle.
I don’t think I have ever heard the term “wine-red” I bunged it in but it seems like a made-up word to me.
Thanks John
Agree with early commentators in the parsing of INTERPRETS and ECHO CHAMBER.
Also with KVa@7 that brown should be considered as a verb.
Very good I thought.
Thanks to Everyman and John
Thanks for the blog , some nice clues but I have had so many complaints this week about this puzzle . Have to agree with Fiona@8 , I have also noticed that there are far fewer comments from newer solvers each week .
Far fewer comments in general, Roz @10. I suspect it’s because a lot of those who used to access Everyman through the Grauniad site haven’t bothered to chase it to the Observer.
I do, but I am puzzled that I seem to get the same ‘score’ every week.
It’s a week ago, but this one seemed ok to me, in memory. Thanks, Everyman and John.
I was a bit mystified on a few but the only ones that escaped were INTERPRETS and CLASSIFIED. I thought of interprets but apart from Inter Milan I couldn’t see any reason for the -prets part. It was all a bit naff. Whereas ECHO CHAMBER defied proper parsing but it was clearly the answer. Sadly, I have had so little to do with classified ads that this answer, reasonable though it was, just didn’t occur to me. Those double definitions – you see them or you don’t.
Tassie Tim @11. You get 10 points for each correct answer but lose points for revealing. Bonus for beating target time. It’s explained in How To Play. (Click on the 3 horizontal lines.) Using an Amazon tablet I can see no way to reveal or check. So if I finish with an error then I don’t get the Congratulations message but have no way to sort out the problem.
Thanks for helping me sort out the ones I couldn’t understand/ didn’t get!
I also thought it was a bit too tricky this week, though I suppose there were still enough I could do. I find the format on the observer website annoying- it makes me want to give up on Everyman
Perhaps not a beginner’s puzzle, but a glimpse of deeper water now and then’s probably a good thing.
Cheers one and all.
I agree with others that this wasn’t the easiest Everyman. However I’m feeling a little chuffed that I managed to parse 25ac as INTER+PR+ETS. ECHO CHAMBER fitted the definition fine, but I didn’t spot the E=ECHO. I had come across WINE-RED as a colour. Agree that 18dn really needed a ‘?’.
Thanks Everyman.
I disliked the use of ‘purses’ as an anagrind in 10a. It makes no sense to me and I think the blog’s justification is weak.
I enjoyed this. I thought the parsing of ECHO CHAMBER was quite obvious..I don’t mean to sound smug! Still not sure about INTERPRETS though.
Thanks for the blog and all the comments.
Branwen@18
INTERPRETS
You have likely read GrahamInSydney@2.
hype from Milan footballers: hype from INTER(Milan)—–>INTER PR
they’ve come a long way: Extra terrestrials—>ET’s—>ETS
I nearly didn’t follow Everyman to the new Observer site, but I’ve been doing it for close on 50 years, so loyalty won in the end.
My indecision was because I have to admit I’ve found it a lot less satisfying recently, but I think I am getting more used to the new setter, and of course change is inevitable. Didn’t really have any trouble with this one.
But talking of change, is it no longer a prize crossword? I do it in the app, so haven’t seen a print copy, but the score when I finish suggests that my answers are correct, as indeed they prove to be when I look on here the following week.
CCL@20 , yes in the paper you can still send it off and they print 5 winners . From July 6th they are introducing online entries .
As someone who’s pretty much at Everyman level (I found the last Brockwell incomprehensible, for example, and never bother with Paul’s), I thought this was a good standard. I managed all of it without understanding the odd analyses that others have commented on.
This was one of my faster Everyman times. I know sometimes it’s just whether you’re on wavelength or not rather than the difficulty of the puzzle. For reference, today’s took me twice as long. Getting a lot of the long answers on the first pass helped a lot with this.
My parsing for INTERPRETS and ECHO CHAMBER are identical to previous commenters. INTERPRETS being my favourite clue.
Cheers Everyman and John.
CCL @20
“I think I am getting more used to the new setter”
Alan Connor has been setting the Everyman since about 2020!
Wine-red/dark both appear in the online dictionary, the latter used by Patrick O’Brian in The Wine-Dark Sea.
I really enjoyed this one because for once not only did I manage to finish it (gasp) but it only took one afternoon dipping into it every so often. Probably means the next one will be a stinker.
Anyway, the only clue I really struggled with was 25A. After getting ‘Inter’, I was stymied and only got the rest once the puzzle was complete, based on what fitted, so thank you for the PR and ETs – that does now make sense as PR = hype and ET was a long way from home. Can’t beat a bit of humour.
Re some of the comments here about wine red – it is the description of a colour, not a made up term.
Dossier I think is made up of dosser (as in lazy person) plus the ‘I’ from I Spy which would make it increase in length to ‘dossier’ and information would be in a dossier so I though the clue was ok
I can’t agree with you Elaine. OK I is part of I-spy but there is no indication that it is that I which is removed from it, indeed there is the word spy but no indication that it’s actually I-spy. And what’s the definition then? Perhaps info? The whole clue? Neither convinces me.
As John@27 says, “I spy” isn’t in the clue, let alone any indication that an I should be placed within dosser. I agree with the blog’s parsing and that it should have had a question-mark (even if “dossy” is in Urban Dictionary!).
On the point of fewer comments and fewer newer solvers in particular, I’d place myself in that category, and whilst I have made the transition to the Observer’s version, the fact that it overwrites each week has ruined my routine.
I used to complete it (as far as possible) on a Sunday, chipping away through the week if anything was more stubborn. I’d then review the next Sunday to see if there was any parsing I struggled with, before visiting the blog.
Now, I still complete it on a Sunday, but have mostly forgotten what I struggled with by the time the blog is up and the new puzzle has overwritten the previous week’s.
As far as I remember, I enjoyed this though! Thanks to John and Everyman!
Holypeanut@29 – take a screen grab is what I do so if it does get overwritten then at least I have something to refer back to.
Re: newer solvers – consider me one by all means. Have manged to solve the last three weeks Everyman crosswords and find these a good level for me at the minute. Much better than the Quiptic which I find can be utterly awful at times in that there is no consistency from week to week and so I end up getting very frustrated in my attempts to take that next step up from the Quick Cryptic.
Looks like I am one of the few that liked 18D but that is quite possibly down to me parsing it successfully and feeling a little bit smug as a result. Definitely didn’t parse the second part of 25A though.
Basically impossible. If the blogger found the parsing of some clues to be beyond him, then what hope is there for ordinary mortals like me?
Wel…. I’ve filled it in and it’s correct. Some of the parsing was tough
I didn’t like interprets . INTERCEPTS MADE MORE SENSE SPORTS Bars are common in Aus & NZ. Trade Barrier in the papers these days. Didn’t find anything amusing. My daughter ran the Taupo Marathon this morning and I’m not sure who had more of a struggle.
I have no idea why I had success but I managed this one when I usually struggle
I don’t understand reasoning for echo chamber at all but it fitted so it was a fluke really.
Favourite clue was sports bars.
‘Interprets’ obscure but only word that made any sense and should there have been an east end ref to brown bread ?
The bras in 1D looks suspiciously like an indirect anagram to me although solvable enough. Agree with those who said Brown is a verb and what is done to bread to make it toast. Failed to parse 25a.
Purses as anagrind? Not a fan.
Rolf in Birkenhead, you and me both, mate.
Guitar lick , really? Anyway, gives us something to talk about!
Thanks John for unraveling and to Everyman for your knowledge and talent to try us weekly.
We are the outliers here in Aotearoa NZ- we enjoyed this crossword. Definitely made us really think & pick apart our parsing but surely that’s a good thing?
Thanks Everyman and John for the blog. No complaints from us!
Done. Some fun.