The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3848.
As usual for Everyman, there is the ‘primarily’ clue at 27A, and the rhyming pair at 4D and 9D. This offering is notable for the several misdirections to keep solvers on their toes.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FAIL-SAFE | Fluttering leaf? As if! Sure! (4-4) |
| An anagram (‘fluttering’) of ‘leaf as if’. | ||
| 5 | TROPIC | Subject is suppressing resistance ring (6) |
| An envelope (‘is suppressing’) of R (electrical symbol, ‘resistance’) in TOPIC (‘subject’). ‘Ring’ as in Cancer or Capricorn. | ||
| 10 | SLAMMER | Conman not about to get left in prison (7) |
| A substitution: SCAMMER (‘conman’) minus the C (‘not about’ – C for circa), replaced by L (‘to get left in’). | ||
| 11 | OLD DEAR | Pensioner disrespectfully told ‘not to start reckless dare’ (3,4) |
| A charade of ‘[t]old’ minus its first letter (‘not to start’) plus DEAR, an anagram (‘reckless’) of ‘dare’. | ||
| 12 | IRISH | Rishi’s reconstruction – people allegedly lucky (5) |
| An anagram (‘reconstruction’) of ‘Rishi’. | ||
| 13 | ORATORIOS | We’re told, alternatively, a conservative has debts or works (9) |
| Sounds like (‘we’re told’) OR A TORY OWES (‘alternatively a conservative has debts’). The ‘works’ are musical. | ||
| 14 | ANNE HATHAWAY | Actor in Shakespeare’s Trouble and Strife (4,8) |
| Double definition, for two people: the American actress (real name) and Shakespeare’s wife (rhyming slang). | ||
| 18 | VELOCIRAPTOR | Unlikely apricot-lover? (12) |
| An anagram (‘unlikely’) of ‘apricot-lover’. As we know from Jurassic Park and the fossil record (although the latter shows that they were the size of a turkey), velociraptors were carnivorous. | ||
| 21 | STINK BOMB | Furore with turkey as practical joke (5,4) |
| A charade of STINK (‘furore’) plus BOMB (‘turkey’ in the sense of a film or play which flops). An alternative description of the clue would be “definition and literal interpretation”. | ||
| 23 | IRATE | Everyman, rank and fuming (5) |
| A charade of I (‘Everyman’) plus RATE (‘rank’). | ||
| 24 | ON-STAGE | Performing male’s accepted by Everyman formally (2-5) |
| ‘Performing’ immediately suggersts an anagram. Not so; it is an envelope (‘accepted by’) of STAG (‘male’) in ONE (‘Everyman formally’ – the impersonal personal pronoun). | ||
| 25 | NIGERIA | Frightful migraine, head splitting somewhere in Africa (7) |
| An anagram (‘frightful’) of ‘[m]igraine’ minus the first letter (‘head splitting’). | ||
| 26 | SUSSEX | South American congress assembled ancient kingdom (6) |
| A charade of S (‘south’) plus US (‘American’) plus SEX (‘congress’). As the ‘-sex’ bit suggests, the kingdom existed in Saxon times, after the Romans and before the Norman conquest (although the kingdom ceased to be independent long before that, being under first Mercia and then Wessex) | ||
| 27 | SYNTH-POP | Primarily, style Yazoo notably tried, having plenty of pep? (5-3) |
| Everyman’s trademark: ‘Primarily’ ‘Style Yazoo Notably Tried Having Plenty Of Pep’. Yazoo was a duo in the style of the answer. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FOSSIL | Geological evidence from UFOs? Silly (6) |
| A hidden answer (‘from’) in ‘uFOS SILly’. | ||
| 2 | ITALIC | Regularly seen in mist, tall birch tilting (6) |
| Alternate letters (‘regularly seen in’) of ‘mIsT tAlL bIrCh’. | ||
| 3 | SYMPHONIC | University rejected movement of ‘phony music’ like Beethoven’s 5th (9) |
| An anagram (‘movement’) of ‘phony m[u]sic’ minus the U (‘University rejected’). | ||
| 4 | FOR LOVE OR MONEY | Move one lorry of bananas at any cost (3,4,2,5) |
| An anagram (‘bananas’) of ‘move one lorry of’. | ||
| 6 | RADIO | Auntie’s known for this: some flipping rheumatoid arthritis (5) |
| A hidden (‘some’) reversed (flipping’) ‘rheumatOID ARthritis’. ‘Auntie’ is a (generally) fond term for the BBC. | ||
| 7 | PREVIEWS | Quiet about struggles to include Western trailers (8) |
| An envelope (‘to include’) of W (‘Western’) in P (piano, musically ‘quiet’) plus RE (‘about’) plus VIES (‘struggles’). | ||
| 8 | CURTSEYS | Brief agreement written up, son’s respectful gestures (8) |
| A charade of CURT (‘brief’ – for once not an indication of a shortened word) plus SEY, a reversal (‘written up’ in a down light) of YES (‘agreement’) plus S (‘son’). | ||
| 9 | NOT A HAPPY BUNNY | Like Bugs when bugged? (3,1,5,5) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 15 | HOOFING IT | Walking in fog, lost, going after love, wearing belt (7,2) |
| An envelope (‘wearing’) of O (‘love’) plus OFING, an anagram (‘lost’) of ‘in fog’, in HIT (‘belt’, verb). | ||
| 16 | EVASIONS | Excuses given by European missing in attacks (8) |
| A charade of E (‘European’) plus [in]VASIONS (‘attacks’) minus IN (‘missing in’) | ||
| 17 | ELLIPSIS | Spies ill prepared … (8) |
| An anagram (‘prepared’) of ‘spies ill’. Note the underlined definition. | ||
| 19 | PAIR UP | Dog holding tune, Come Together (4,2) |
| An envelope (‘holding’) of AIR (‘tune’) in PUP (‘dog’). | ||
| 20 | REVAMP | Vicar gets electronic kit to modernize (6) |
| A charade of REV (Reverend, ‘vicar’) plus AMP (amplifier, ‘electronic kit’). | ||
| 22 | KNAVE | Somewhere in church, reported villainous character (5) |
| Sounds like (‘reported’) NAVE (‘somewhere in church’). | ||
A fairly straightforward solve this week, although I had SCAMMER (to me, it looked like the replacement was the other way around). I like the ‘primarily’ clues – often amusing, and I always know I won’t be empty handed at the end of my first run through! I really liked finding a FOSSIL in a UFO, and FAIL SAFE had a lovely surface. ELLIPSES was clever, too. I wasn’t keen on ORATORIOS (my LOI) because (a) I hate looking at all vowels – except a final ‘S’ -when I am stumped and (b) they don’t both sound the same to me. Thanks Everyman and PeterO.
I thought it should be ‘for love NOR money . . .
Did not parse 13a OR/A/TORI/OS bceause I incorrectly entered OR/A/TORI/ES .
Also did not parse 9d NOT A HAPPY BUNNY
Thanks Everyman and PeterO
I loved NOT A HAPPY BUNNY. I don’t think I would have got SYNTH-POP if it hadn’t been a “primarily”.
Thanks PeterO. Thanks for the explanation of 13A as I took “We’re told” as the definition, like Michelle @3 I inserted ORATORIES and got stuck. 14A somewhere long ago I saw this clued (not Everyman I’m sure) with some allusion to Shakespeare’s explanation for his choice of wife as “Anne Hathaway no other woman hath”. If anyone recalls this please let me know; its been bugging me since this time last week.
Yes, thanks, Peter0. I do like the reprinting of the actual grid, makes it so easy to check. I had scammer too. Like TassieTim I couldn’t decide which way round. Fairly straightforward, but with some nice clueing, 9d I liked.
Not hard, just amusing. Agree with Muffin, synth pop had to be a primary, otherwise, no hope!
My favourite was 19d PAIR UP. As I think Sil said last week, this sort of clue is much more satisfying when the title of the song (or novel etc) is a real one rather than made up – I liked the idea of the dog having a go at Here come old flat top.… And I liked 9d NOT A HAPPY BUNNY.
Nobody’s yet said they didn’t know the rhyming slang in 14a! (Interesting how often in rhyming slang the latter part is dropped – “china (plate)” for mate and so on, but sometimes, as in “boat race” for face or “trouble and strife” for wife, the whole phrase is used.)
Many thanks Everyman and PeterO.
Cosmic @5 If you scroll up to the top of this page, you will see ‘site search’ on the extreme right. If you enter ‘Anne Hathaway’ in the search box, it will return all references, in both clue and answer, across all the puzzles covered by this site.
I’ve had a look, and the most likely match seems to be in the Independant, No.6972 by Tees, from Feb 2009. Unfortunately, this was before the the time when the clues were given in the blog, so only the answer, and a brief explanation are given. Hope this is useful to you. Good luck!
thanks greensward@8 If I dont find it I’ll claim it as my own 🙂
Nobody’s complained about the rhyming slang? I do not Adam and Eve it!
Enjoyable puzzle and not too difficult. I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned 18a as being a great clue and anagram. Must have taken E quite a while to come up with apricot lover as an anagram of VELOCIRAPTOR. Well done. Especially liked also NOT A HAPPY BUNNY and PAIR UP.
Many thanks to Everyman and PeterO.
This was a little easier than of late. I also liked the apricot-eating dinosaur. The ELLIPSIS clue was nice enough, but shouldn’t the next clue have started with the ellipsis to finish the disguising of the definition in 17? Something like “19 … to come together with dog keeping tune”, say? The “primarily” trademark is a little obvious, now that we see it every week, IMHO.
Thanks, PeterO and Everyman.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the ‘Primarily’ clue is sophisticated in any way, but it’s quite interesting seeing what nonsense Everyman will come up with each week. This week’s tickled me.
Enjoyed the ELLIPSIS clue this week, otherwise a so-so puzzle.
Failed on Sussex, had to cheat on the dinosaur.
Everything else good.
Liked the … Had been disguised it would a) be doing double duty maybe and b) have been too hard.
Found this a lot more enjoyable and even managed quite a few quite quickly. Unusual for me for this setter. Almost thought it was a new setter but reading the explanations cleared that assumption up with some explanations I couldn’t love
. Favourites were Bunny, love nor money, knave
some how or other, I got these answers but did not like the convoluted way they were put together: Old Dear, stink bomb, On stage, Sussex
Must have been the beautiful sunshine today gave me more clarity with this crossie, despite the re-imprisonment. sigh
Had to use a wild-card dictionary to get velociraptor; Quinapalus failed (unusually) to solve “apricot lover”. Stayed in bed longer to finish it this morning as we are locked out of church in Auckland.
Good puzzle. Like others I got 10 across the wrong way around and put “scammer” rather than “slammer”.
Needed to use wildcard dictionary for 26 across (LOI); had no idea that Sussex was an “ancient kingdom”. Also was hung up on thinking that the word was of the form “***met”, met=assembled. Oh well!
Lindsey & Marion Roke @16
Quinapalus knows about velociraptor if you use the Union dictionary selection – at least, it does for me, and I assume the dictionary selection is universal. Union throws up too many weird and wonderful words to be generally useful, but it is worth keeping in mind for proper names and oddments like this.
Not sure that walking is hoofing it. When we hoof it, we walk fast. Sussex was too hard and not sure it is really ancient in the big picture. Maybe if your focus is on one island it qualifies as ancient.