Another Sunday, another Everyman. Lots to like in this one, as well as some stuff that might grate with some solvers. It’s been nice to see some new contributors to the blog in recent weeks who’ve identified themselves as beginners or near-beginners. I have tried to explain the clues fully, but if there is something that I’ve assumed you know but you don’t, just ask.
The characteristic paired clues this week are the two long, rhyming downs: OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, PRESTON NORTH END. They are just for fun. We have another ‘primarily’ clue this week, the likes of which seem to divide opinion. And some science and natural history, which always goes down well in this house, especially the bird of course.
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 ‘Unit of energy’? … ‘inert gas’? … technical gibberish
JARGON
A nice science-y clue to get us going. A charade of J for Joule, the ‘unit of energy’ and ARGON, the ‘inert gas’ with atomic number 18. It forms just under 1% of the air you are breathing in as you read this.
4 Trump’s, perhaps, after getting elected: ‘Bigly!’
IN SPADES
A charade of IN for ‘elected’ and SPADES for what could be ‘trumps’ in a number of card games, but most commonly bridge. You have to ignore the apostrophe in the surface reading.
9 They loathe seeing radiators losing energy
HATERS
H[E]ATERS
10 Perhaps pen letters in Athens describing ‘the empty pasty’
MUTE SWAN
Nice misdirection, with the ‘pen’ required being of the avian rather than the writing instrument variety. An insertion of TE for ‘the empty’ (in other words, with the H removed) in MUS for Greek letters, followed by WAN for ‘pasty’ (pronounced with a long, rather than a short, A). And after all that, a chance for the obligatory Pierre bird link. The MUTE SWAN is what most people would recognise as the species (as opposed to the Whooper Swan and Bewick’s Swan, whose range is more limited in the UK). They are so called because they are less vocal than their sister species; but they can be aggressive when aroused so letting them near small children is not a good plan. Nor indeed near adults.
12 Revolutionary in charge, suppressing Polish: sweet
CHERUBIC
An insertion (‘suppressing’) of RUB for ‘polish’ in CHE for the setters’ favourite ‘revolutionary’ and IC for ‘in charge’.
13 Lager, one repeatedly called for by Brando
STELLA
A dd. The first is a brand of lager; the second is a reference to Brando’s role in the 1951 film version of Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s an iconic scene from the movie that launched Brando’s career. If you’ve not seen it, it’s here; but pay attention, because it’s a really short clip.
15 Found the goat striving to run amok
GET OUT OF HAND
(FOUND THE GOAT)*
18 Beast that’s not spotted in the wild, clapboard elk
BLACK LEOPARD
(CLAPBOARD ELK)* The anagrind (uncontroversially) is ‘wild’ and the anagrist is randomly meaningless.
21 Chorale not about to be arranged for Asian city
LAHORE
([C]HORALE)* The anagrind is ‘to be arranged’; the removal indicator is ‘not’; and ‘about’ is C for circa.
22 Italian physicist, with anger, becomes prolific essayist
VOLTAIRE
More science (and literature as well). A charade of VOLTA and IRE gives you the French writer and philosopher. Allesandro VOLTA is credited as being the inventor of the electric battery and has the SI unit the volt named after him; in his spare time, he discovered methane.
23 Waiting, backed up; EU repeatedly getting into N. Ireland question; good!
QUEUEING
A charade of EU twice in NI Q reversed; and G. The insertion indicator is ‘getting into’ and the reversal indicator is ‘backed up’. Queueing and queuing are both accepted spellings; cf clueing and cluing. Mainly because I’m contrary, I personally write ‘queueing’, but ‘cluing’. Blame crosswords.
25 Brief pint, drinking ‘Queen & Country‘
BELIZE
An insertion of LIZ for Her Maj, Brenda, Elizabeth Regina, in BEE[R].
26 Yech! I’d nastily consume beasts like anteaters
ECHIDNAS
Hidden in yECH ID NAStily.
27 What drug pusher might say at entrance: ‘Sweet dreams’
IDEALS
A charade of I DEAL (which might be a pusher’s opening line) and S for the first letter (‘at entrance’) of ‘sweet’.
Down
1 Avant-gardist seen in can, euphemistically (prison)
JOHN CAGE
A charade of JOHN for ‘can’ (strictly these are both euphemisms for ‘toilet’) and CAGE. More general knowledge, but it’s pretty clearly clued and there are some helpful crossers. The American composer perhaps best known for 4’33”, which I won’t provide a link to since there’s next to nothing to hear.
2 Perhaps gîtes in the Dordogne to be overrun with vermin
RETREATS
Another subtle piece of misdirection, because your brain automatically wants to consider ‘gîtes in the Dordogne’ as one concept; but you need to separate them out to solve the clue. It’s an insertion of ÊTRE (the verb ‘to be’ in the Dordogne and elsewhere in France) in RATS.
3 Novel, one that’s familiar to you and Everyman
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
A cd for Dickens’ work.
5 Not a single American displays common sense
NOUS
A charade of NO and US.
6 Blasted horns, portent before goal for team
PRESTON NORTH END
A charade of (HORNS PORTENT)* and END for the long-established football team currently playing in the second tier of English football.
7 Primarily, delay a while, delay, loiter endlessly?
DAWDLE
Here we go again: the first letters of the last six words of the clue, and a cad.
8 Arrangement with cheap horn for Spooner
SYNTAX
A Spoonerism of TIN SAX. This was a tricky clue (some might say for an ‘easy end’ puzzle unnecessarily so). If you’re a beginner or near beginner, then this might have been chewy for several reasons: Spoonerisms are by their nature imprecise; TIN for ‘cheap’ is not an obvious synonym; there are quite a few ‘horns’ even once you’ve twigged that it’s a musical one; and SYNTAX as a synonym of ‘arrangement’ is not the one that most folk would gravitate towards. Just saying.
11 Desired broccoli, essentially producing wind
SIROCCO
The central letters of deSIRed brOCCOli.
14 Most ayatollahs brought up a vegetable
SHALLOT
Hidden reversed in (most of) ayaTOLLAHS.
16 Largely unadorned little Italian church? Actually, for starters, it’s anything but!
BASILICA
A charade of BASI[C] and LICA, the initial letters of ‘little’, ‘Italian’, ‘church’ and ‘actually’. An extended definition.
17 Head after comic figure, sloth
IDLENESS
A charade of [Eric] IDLE, the Python, and NESS.
19 It commemorates an unpleasant mixture of bacteria and saliva
PLAQUE
Another one that’s best described as an extended definition, although PLAQUE = ‘it commemorates’ is straightforward. The second reference is to dental PLAQUE, which is a film of bacteria in the mouth and on teeth.
20 Beat with run in the silence
THRESH
A charade of R inserted into THE and SH! for ‘silence’.
23 Ancient empire where bionic man oddly not seen
INCA
The even letters of bIoNiC mAn.
Many thanks to Everyman for this week’s puzzle.
New for me: mute swan, Preston North End.
Thanks to Pierre and Everyman
I knew about pens (and cobs) and completely missed this one.
With a few crossers, I put in END at the end; then the middle word might be either SOUTH or NORTH (I tried the wrong one first) and then what was left made itself into Preston, which all sounded like a place so could be a team.
I haven’t yet remembered about the rhyming long clues, it may take me awhile.
Being at the lower end of the Mensa spectrum, we, (it takes our 2 brains to get results…) struggled with several of these this week. Preston North End took me ages to find on line.
As usual, your explanations take the wool from our eyes.
Thank you.
Agree with everything Pierre said about SYNTAX. I’m not a fan of spoonerism clues and the vagueness of the definition doesn’t help. Also not fond of brands as answers.
Having said that, these seem to be improving. But still a long way from the beautifully elegant Everymans that I cut my solving teeth on in the 1970s.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre
I loved RETREATS, but I thought the clue for STELLA unfair. It relies on having seen a rather old film; it’s a brand name; in fact, it’s only half of a brand name (the lager is Stella Artois). As for the Spooner….
I agree with muffin @5; the clue for STELLA has two pieces of GK, and the film reference is somewhat arcane – could have gone for a homophone of stellar instead.
Oh no, another ‘primarily’ again today!
It must be difficult to compile a good crossword every week and this was not a bad effort, notwithstanding the quibbles above.
Thanks Everyman and Pierre.
I was happy with this – a pleasant solve. Finding a SHALLOT in the Ayatollas was a lovely moment. I also liked the double dose of the EU. [My son says, having a British passport through his mother, “I used to have a passport to all of Europe, but now it only gets me into a damp, grey island”.] I have to admit to learning – but only after last week – to look for (a) long rhyming clues and (b) the word ‘primarily’. It does help.
Should be noted that Everyman has snuck in a pangram here. I am a pretty good pangram spotter and used the fact to fill in BELIZE.
I found it a bit crunchier than normal, which was a pleasant challenge for a Sunday.
It’s perfectly normal to say ‘Trump is spades’, so the apostrophe in 4a is valid.
Spoonerisms tend to divide opinion. Normally I like them, but I think in 8d “arrangement” was just too vague a definition for SYNTAX.
I liked 12a CHERUBIC (where would setters be without Mr Guevara?) and 1d JOHN CAGE (I’ll have that 4’33” going round my head all day now…)
Thanks Everyman and Pierre.
I just did this yesterday, after forgetting about it when it didn’t appear on the Guardian mobile app last week.
I agree with some of the other observations here. SYNTAX was a tough one for an Everyman, and anybody who is new to cryptics should give themselves a pat on the back if they got there (and not be downhearted if they didn’t). I can see why STELLA might be controversial, even though it was the easiest clue on the grid for me. For a UK solver the lager is extremely well known (and I’ve never heard anybody order a Stella Artois, only a Stella), but I don’t know how well the reference would travel to other countries. The Brando reference might work better in that respect , but is not without problems of its own. The film was an old one even when I was a kid, and probably has niche rather than mass appeal. I would guess that most people aren’t into 70-year-old domestic dramas. Personally I like Williams, and have seen Streetcar staged a number of times, most recently in Manchester about four years ago, with Maxine Peake and Ben Batt. I also watched the NT Live screening just last week, with Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster. It’s still, primarily(!), a play for me. But the film, and that scene in particular, has some iconic status. I believe the “Stellaaaa” quote was in the original set of Trivial Pursuit questions.
Delighted to see a reference to CAN in 1d. To my ears, one of the finest bands ever to enter a recording studio. I reckon the run of material they recorded between 1968-73 would stand comparison to any five year period in any other band’s existence.
A shout out too to OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, possibly Dickens’ most underrated work?
Another week over, I hope everyone is well.
Also, thanks to Pierre for the lengthy explanations this week.
That’s a good spot for the pangram, Boffo – thank you. For newer readers, it’s when a setter includes all 26 letters of the alphabet in a puzzle. Just for fun.
Talking of newer readers, welcome to Benjamin + 1 (if this is your first comment). Not sure Mensa membership is required for mastering cryptics – just a love of language, a reasonably wide range of interests, perseverance and regular visits to Fifteensquared, I reckon. As well as the advice in the first part of Scutter’s second paragraph. Not finishing a crossword is not a fail, just a work in progress.
I found your last comment very encouraging! I like the idea of not managing to complete a puzzle as “ a work in progress “
Thanks!
So grateful to Pierre for the explanations. This one beat me: 10a was just too much, as was 8d. Probably me, but it does seem obscure in the extreme. Guess different people find different clueing easy and difficult, but I thought Everyman was supposed not to be the hardest ever cryptic? Either this went seriously wrong, or I’m losing it! I’d rather do without the primaries and have some more of the clever ones (11a) and fewer of the just plain wholly obscure.
Just saying!
I’ve been doing lots of crosswords during lockdown and I’m getting a lot better. I just missed SYNTAX this time.
PRESTON NORTH END brought back great memories of going onto the Millennium Stadium pitch before kick-off at the Play-Off Final, when West Ham won promotion.
Thanks so much to Pierre and all the comments here. Especially the ‘work in progress’. Will always keep that in mind now as I struggle through the week and only solve half of the clues! Learning all the time thanks to 15Sqd…
Sara (and others), don’t beat yourself up about SYNTAX. I chuntered about it in the blog because I agree, it is just a difficult clue. But that doesn’t make it a bad crossword overall, or mean that Everyman is a rubbish setter. It’s just out of place in what is, as you say, supposed to be ‘not the hardest’ of the regular British cryptics. And just to underline the ‘work in progress’ concept, I will fess up that it was my last one in, and that I used a wordsearch to get it. Would I have seen it without that if I’d been less impatient, or left it and come back? Probably. But there was a blog to write …
I have been a keen solver of The Guardian puzzles for over five years now. It is amazing to see from this blog how passionate people are about crosswords and how discerning and sometimes quite unsparing in their criticism of setters. I enjoy visiting the blog but comment only occasionally. I live in Chennai and I owe my initiation into crosswords to The Indian Express and The Hindu, the crosswords in the latter being my staple fare every day, now along with The Guardian. I find the Fifteensquared blog simple and enlightening. Many thanks to Pierre and his colleagues as also to The Guardian setters.
Good to see my team Preston North End getting featured in Everyman…..though I didn’t actually get that one!
I’m fairly new to cryptic crosswords and have been working my way through the Everyman crossword each week. To begin with, a lot of it was guesswork to get the answers and then working out how I got there from the clue, sometimes completely stumped as to the explanation. Then I came across Fifteen Squared and finally I am now beginning to understand the clues and even work them out most of the time – thank you Pierre for the explanations although there is still a long way to go and I definitely still need to check on a number of the more obscure ones. Regarding this week’s Everyman – 10a you gave the “letters in Athens” part of the clue as MUS and I am still none the wiser. Help! Please elaborate. Much appreciated.
Jane – mu is a letter in the Greek alphabet, equivalent to our M, so more than one of them would be mus. (And I suppose if they were online, they could be emus – there might be an idea for a clue there!)
Hi Jane.
MU is one of the letters in the Greek alphabet, so MUS is its plural. ‘Letters in Athens’ to mean ‘in Greek alphabet’ comes up quite a bit. Thanks for asking – I’m always conscious that I will assume knowledge on the part of solvers when I shouldn’t.
Guesswork, being stumped, but finally beginning to get it is the route most of us followed, I think. Having fun along the way is part of it too, though.
You beat me to it, Lord Jim.
Ah, thank you Pierre and Lord Jim, that makes sense and I now understand.
We tend to save Everymans for Saturday mornings instead of the Prize (to be looked at later), hence a few weeks behind and too late for comments.
However had to come on and give a ‘lol’ to Lord Jim’s emus.
And while I’m here, an appreciation of Pierre’s clear explanations and comments so useful to many.
Some really nice clues like 19d 24ac 9ac 22ac my favourites. But I found some of the clues unfathomable Could not see how we could get 10a or 8d or 13ac for that matter
A shame because there are always a handful of clues that spoil the whole effect and don’t seem to belong to the same mindset of the setter due their contrived make-up.
Yes, WIP for me as well, primarily NE corner. Liz for The Queen is a bit unusual for a normal Everyman, but then this setter isn’t normal. Knowing this was a pangram might have helped, but probably only one in a hundred would be so a bit of a long shot.
Ah, I knew there was another quibble. Whilst I got 4A I reckon the dbe is the wrong way round.
Spades are an example of trumps. Trumps are not an example of spades.
I found this puzzle to be not quite, but almost, impossibly difficult. I managed to get it out with a *LOT* of help from wildcard dictionaries (and a bit from Google). I had of course never heard of “Preston North End”. (Who, other than an English football devotee, would have heard of it?)
Could not parse close on one third of the answers, e.g. “Belize”, “ideals”, “mute swan”, “retreats” …. Thanks to PIerre for the explanations.