The Observer crossword from Aug 2, 2020.
A typical well-written and enjoyable Everyman crossword to accompany my Sunday brunch.
I did have to check a few things, especially in the right-hand side of the grid – not a bad thing as it makes solving a bit more spicy.
As ever a Primarily clue and a related couple (4dn, 9dn).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | AMATEURS | High, as mature hams (8) |
| Anagram [high] of: AS MATURE | ||
| 5 | USABLE | Working with American on island, heading west (6) |
| US (American), followed by a reversal [heading west] of ELBA (island) | ||
| 10 | PLATEAU | Level up late, audacious to some extent (7) |
| Hidden solution, indicated by to some extent: uP LATE AUdacious | ||
| 11 | OVERDUE | Unsettled, startled, devoured abruptly (7) |
| Anagram [startled] of: DEVOURED, after removing the D at the end (the shortening indicated by abruptly) | ||
| 12 | AESOP | On 2nd of March, sit back for storyteller (5) |
| The 2nd letter of MARCH, followed by a reversal [back] of POSE (sit) Not that it is important (let alone, intentional, I assume) but I noticed that all of today’s solutions contain at least one of the letters A,E,S,O,P. |
||
| 13 | A CAPPELLA | A better piano? Fitzgerald is unaccompanied (1,8) |
| A + CAP (better, as a verb) + P (piano) + ELLA (Fitzgerald, the famous jazz singer) | ||
| 14 | NOBODY’S FOOL | Failure for starter, summer pudding: one’s not swallowed much (7,4) |
| NOBODY (failure), followed by the first letter [for starter] of SUMMER + FOOL (pudding) | ||
| 18 | MONARCHICAL | Manic choral arrangement befitting royals (11) |
| Anagram [arrangement] of: MANIC CHORAL | ||
| 21 | DIATRIBES | Races after admiral, oddly wanting to make speeches (9) |
| D,I,A (being: ADMIRAL with the odd letters left out [wanting]) + TRIBES (races) I think diatribes are a bit more than just speeches. |
||
| 23 | EMILY | A Brontë vacuously missing the point (5) |
| EMPTILY (vacuously) with PT ((the) point) removed | ||
| 24 | END-USER | Customer spluttering ‘Rudeness!’ cut short (3-4) |
| Anagram [spluttering] of: RUDENESS, after removing the S at the end (indicated by cut short) | ||
| 25 | AWFULLY | Horribly legally decapitated (7) |
| LAWFULLY (legally) minus the L at the start (indicated by decapitated) | ||
| 26 | NUMPTY | Greek character, politician, heartless tiny fool (6) |
| NU (Greek character) + MP (politician) + TY (being: TINY minus its ‘heart’) Perhaps, some solvers would have liked Everyman to indicate the mainly Scottish usage of the word ‘numpty’? |
||
| 27 | I DARE SAY | It’s likely that Ray’s idea is kinky (1,4,3) |
| Anagram [(is) kinky] of: RAY’S IDEA A clear nudge to Ray Davies, leader of the legendary Kinks. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | APPEAL | Request loudly a spa treatment (6) |
| Homophone, indicated by loudly, of: A PEEL (a spa treatment, in which a layer of facial skin is removed) | ||
| 2 | AGASSI | Tennis champ‘s a lot of fun in Spain, I agree (6) |
| A GAS (a lot of fun), followed by SI (in Spain, I agree – Spanish for ‘yes’) Jumpin’ Jack Flash is a gas gas gas. |
||
| 3 | EYE-OPENER | Perhaps Magritte, creator of unsettling images, the old revolutionary, produces revelation (3-6) |
| RENE (perhaps Magritte, famous Belgian surrealist painter) + POE (creator of unsettling images, Edgar Allan) + YE (the, old), and then the whole lot reversed [revolutionary] | ||
| 4 | RHUBARB RHUBARB | Fruit salad ingredient? That’s not technically a fruit etc etc (7,7) |
| RHUBARB (a possible fruit salad ingredient) + RHUBARB (which is often used as a fruit (although it is ‘technically’ not)) Not my favourite clue today but, then, rhubarb isn’t my favourite food anyway. Blah blah blah. |
||
| 6 | STEEP | Expensive taste epicure has (5) |
| Hidden solution, indicated by just has: taSTE EPicure | ||
| 7 | BAD BLOOD | Gall bladder – boo! – removed without hesitation (3,5) |
| Anagram [removed] of: BLADDER BOO, after ER ((an expression of) hesitation) is left out | ||
| 8 | EYEBALLS | Examines cocktails in the Queen Vic (8) |
| The solution is how those in The Queen Vic, the pub in Eastenders, might pronounce HIGHBALLS (cocktails) – swallowing the H | ||
| 9 | COWARDY CUSTARD | Cruddy actor was cast as Chicken (7,7) |
| Anagram [cast] of: CRUDDY ACTOR WAS ‘Chicken’ as in someone who is easily scared or timid. This is surely the companion clue to 4dn – one’s RR, the other’s CC. But, of course, there’s more to it than just that: traditionally rhubarb and custard go well together in the British cuisine. Also, many who were young once may remember Roobarb & Custard, stars of a 1974 children’s TV series that was rejuvenated in 2005. |
||
| 15 | SILVER FIR | Horribly evil friar’s removed a tree (6,3) |
| Anagram [horribly] of: EVIL FRIAR’S with the A removed | ||
| 16 | SMIDGEON | A little insect eaten by son (8) |
| MIDGE (insect) inside SON | ||
| 17 | IN TANDEM | Everyman is grabbing ten and dancing together (2,6) |
| I’M (Everyman is) going around an anagram [dancing] of TEN AND | ||
| 19 | RIFLES | Searches for weapons (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 20 | SYZYGY | Primarily, something your zodiac’s ‘yoking’ gives you? (6) |
| Indicated by Primarily, the first letters of: Something Your Zodiac’s Yoking Gives You The perfect (multiple) pangram word. The answer was, of course, a write-in but I had to check whether it all made sense. This is what Collins tells us: “Either of the two positions (conjunction or opposition) of a celestial body when sun, earth, and the body lie in a straight line: the moon is at syzygy when full”. |
||
| 22 | RESET | Regularly defective drier’s best turned off and on again (5) |
| Only the even letters of: dRiEr’S bEsT, after discarding the odd ones (which can be indicated by regularly defective) | ||
SYZYGY: a great word; esp. in lower case with all its descenders.
I suspect Everyman had looked at the etymology to get “yoking”. Oxford has:
early 17th century: via late Latin from Greek suzugia, from suzugos ‘yoked, paired’, from sun- ‘with, together’ + the stem of zeugnunai ‘to yoke’.
I enjoyed the humour in this puzzle but I did not parse EYE-OPENER, EYEBALLS (never watched Eastenders but have vaguely heard of it.)
Liked: DIATRIBES, EMILY, NUMPTY, NOBODY’S FOOL
New: SYZYGY
[Can I just mention how tired I am of hearing the words level up, uptick, ramp up whenever I watch any news of the UK on television (mainly SKY online). When I saw the words ‘level up’ in the clue for 10ac I actually groaned.]
AESOP two weeks running? Is this a new Everyman trend? RHUBARB – twice – with CUSTARD and as a FOOL was a nice touch. I constructed NUMPTY from the wordplay and then checked it actually exists – not known Down Under. And there is no way I could have got SYZYGY if it hadn’t been a ‘primarily’ clue! A very pleasant way to spend a part of Sunday. Thanks Everyman and Sil.
Sil, thank for your always enjoyable explanations, and background references. I’d forgotten (until I checked) this usage of rhubarb, which I think may be relevant here. From Chambers: “ the continuous murmured sound made by actors to give the impression of indistinct background conversation, made especially by constantly repeating the word ‘rhubarb’. “. Is that what you had in mind by ending your comment with “blah blah blah”? Thanks also to Everyman for an enjoyable puzzle.
You’ll also find rhubarb and custard in a jar at the sweet shop.
A good Everyman puzzle.
I particularly liked the ‘I balls. I didn’t much like ‘removed’ as an anagrind; ‘moved’ could have been used as an alternative in the clue without the surface suffering.
Thanks Everyman and Sil.
Tassie Tim, I wonder whether you could be correct – I was surprised to see ‘summer pudding’ reused in a clue this week!
This was one of those Everyman puzzles where I felt a little bit like the rules of crosswords and language had changed subtly without anyone telling me.
A pleasant Sunday entertainment. I initially went down a blind alley on 21a DIATRIBES, thinking “admiral” and “speeches” must be something to do with H(ORATIO N)elson. The crossers soon disabused me of that idea!
Sil: what an interesting comment re 12a! Firstly, what on Earth made you think to check that all the solutions contain at least one of the letters A,E,S,O,P? But secondly, as those letters include the three most common vowels, isn’t it likely that quite a high percentage of English words contain at least one of them? (I don’t know if there’s a way of checking that?)
Many thanks both.
Interesting puzzle but AESOP was not only two weeks running but a similar clue, except adjusted from a D in 3850 to A in 3851 “Storyteller stuck up attitude” for the D version and “set back for storyteller” in the A version. Perhaps Everyman is now making coupled links in time as well as space?
I find myself surprisingly miffed that the cluing of 21ac uses oddly while going on to select the even letters of the word admiral.
PB @ 11
It’s “oddly wanting”, ie the odd letters are missing.
Lord Jim @9 : you might start here
http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/frequencies.html
I’ve had to wait an entire week for the parsing of 8d, the answer of which I only got after all but one of the crossers had been filled. Perhaps the fact that I’ve never watched a single full episode nor paid particular attention to any of Eastenders lets me off the hook?
@14
The absence of a homophone indicator goes a long way to letting you off the hook.
I thought this was mostly a lot of fun, but was not sure if we were to take MU or NU in 26a: I know of both MUMPTY and NUMPTY. However the crosser decided this. Why is SUMMER ubderlined in the bl
og for 14a? A typo I assume? Thanks both!
Enjoyed this one. Thanks, Everyman and Sil.
In particular, thanks for the parsing of 23a. I got there from Bronte and a crosser, but have spent much of the week trying to figure out how DR_A could be removed based on “missing the point”. Emptily, not Dreamily… of course.
(First time poster, semi-long time reader. Thanks to all who contribute, this is invaluable for those of us who get “the rules” but are miles away from effortless solving.)
Reference to Eastenders too parochial I thought. Otherwise one of the best of recent Everymans I thought. I liked Rhubarb which brought a sly smile when I solved it.
Really enjoyed this one, esp Numpty and Eyeballs. Keeping us sane here in Auckland, NZ!
I’m with Boffo @8 on this.
A number were bunged in unparsed, including (largely due to the unindicated homo) 8D.
Unsatisfactory for the supposedly sand pit Cryptic.
I quite like it and did ok, But I simply do not understand how anagrams can be indicated using 1ac ‘high’ or 15d ‘removed’ I am stumped as to how either of those words can mean a rearrangement of letters. Can anyone help me out
my few definite favourites this week were eyeballs, awfully, appeal, smidgeon, rifles
Took a long time and finally managed it. Did not know that high in 1a was an anagram marker. Explanation for eye- opener was extreme – got the answer but unsure we will ever be able to derive such answers directly from the clue.
Found this one to be miserably hard. Needed to use wild card dictionaries a lot, and could not parse many of the answers. I think the parsing of 3 down (“eye opener”) is so obscure as to be virtually impossible. How on earth did Sil work it out?
Funny to read some comments from Down Under being less favourable.
Or, at least, asking more questions than those from Up Above.
‘High’ as an anagram indicator should be seen in the sense of ‘rotten’, ‘spoiled’, ‘gone off’ (of meat, for example).
It can also mean ‘drunk’ which is a well-known anagram indicator in its own right.
‘Removed’ should be seen as ‘re-moved’, ‘moved again’ (into something else).
Sometimes setters even use just ‘again’ – which, actually, I find rather odd.
3dn (EYE-OPENER) wasn’t a real problem for me.
I don’t think Descartes and Poe are obscure, and ‘the old’ always makes you look for YE.
For the first time in a long time I managed to fill the grid, but I couldn’t parse 3d or 8d. Still for the teeth sucking, this was better than a number of too challenging recent puzzbles, so I am thankful for that.