This puzzle can be found at https://observer.co.uk/puzzles/everyman/article/everyman-no-4130
A more or less common or garden Everyman puzzle, albeit without the usual linked/rhyming pair of solutions – unless you see 2d and 7d as linked by the words ‘common’ and ‘garden’. Just a thought.
My personal favourites this time round: ADIEU for the disguised definition, SEMICOLON for its pleasing double usage of Mark/mark, and the clever RIOTOUS. Thanks to Everyman and merry Christmas one and all.
Moh’s festive cruciverbial hardness scale rating: Ho ho ho
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | AGASSI |
American great Andre – super server incarnate, primarily (6)
|
| First letters (primarily) of the first six words of the clue, referring to the US tennis player Andre Agassi
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||
| 5 | DIRECT |
Outspoken usher (6)
|
| Double definition, the second being a verb | ||
| 8 | READING ROOM |
Location of Gaol on rolling heath, as can be seen in library (7,4)
|
| READING (location of Reading Gaol, where Oscar Wilde was incarcerated and wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol) + reversal (rolling) of MOOR (heath)
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||
| 11 | OVERBUILT |
Louvre: bit ugly, with too much development (9)
|
| Anagram (ugly) of LOUVRE BIT | ||
| 12 | ODOUR |
Band with grim smell (5)
|
| O (band, as in a round thing) + DOUR (grim) | ||
| 13 | OFFBEAT |
Eccentric very loudly getting into flipping Korean exercise (7)
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| Insertion (getting into) of FF (very loudly in musical notation) into a reversal (flipping) of TAE BO (Korean fitness discipline)
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||
| 14 | PASSKEY |
Recast, Peaky Blinders actors ultimately getting access to multiple places (7)
|
| Anagram (recast) of PEAKY and the last letters (ultimately) of blinderS actorS. Nothing to do with the oddly stylised TV crime drama series Peaky Blinders | ||
| 15 | CURDLED |
Sour, nasty, heartless, dead cruel (7)
|
| Anagram (nasty) of D[ea]D (dead, heartless) CRUEL | ||
| 17 | LAMPOON |
Satirise nitwit hiding electrical unit (7)
|
| LOON (nitwit) around (hiding) AMP (electrical unit) | ||
| 20 | ADIEU |
Take care of gold-plated cube (5)
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| AU (chemical symbol for gold) around (hence ‘gold-plated’) DIE (cube) | ||
| 21 | SEMICOLON |
Lion comes to represent Mark (9)
|
| Anagram (to re-present) of LION COMES for the punctuation mark. The capital M is there partly for misdirection, but also because the winged lion of St Mark is used in various places (notably Venice) as a symbol of the evangelist
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||
| 22 | UNDER A CLOUD |
Our dad and uncle misbehaving in the doghouse (5,1,5)
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| Anagram (misbehaving) of OUR DAD (and) UNCLE | ||
| 23 | MERSEY |
Duck leaving Rome? Yes, swimming in river (6)
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| Anagram (swimming) of R[o]ME (duck, or 0, leaving Rome) YES | ||
| 24 | LEERED |
Looked unpleasantly flushed following return of slippery character (6)
|
| RED (flushed) after reversal (following return) of EEL | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | GARDEN FURNITURE |
Harry nurtured a fringe that’s brought out in summer (6,9)
|
| Anagram (harry) of NURTURED A FRINGE | ||
| 3 | SHAMBLE |
Some characters from Lewisham blearily totter (7)
|
| Hidden solution (some characters from) in lewiSHAM BLEarily. As a former resident of Lewisham, I found this word picture entirely believable | ||
| 4 | INITIATED |
Everyman’s description of restaurant trip – given starter of daikons – kicked off (9)
|
| Everyman’s description of a restaurant trip might, employing poetic inversion, be ‘IN IT I ATE‘, plus (given) D (starter of Daikons), another name for mooli or Japanese white radish. They’re very good roasted
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| 5 | DIGIT |
What to do to a whole (reportedly) number!? (5)
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| The clue (rather than, as more usual, the solution) contains a homophone, of ‘hole’ (whole, reportedly). What to do to a hole? DIG IT | ||
| 6 | RIOTOUS |
Rowdy: summary of journey starting in S America, ending in N America? (7)
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| If you take a journey from RIO TO (the) US you start in S America and end in N America | ||
| 7 | COMMON KNOWLEDGE |
It’s generally understood what’s possessed by Wombles (6,9)
|
| Double def, the second referring to the children’s books by Elisabeth Beresford – the Wombles were furry creatures who lived on Wimbledon Common in SW London and generally tidied up after humans. They were early proponents of reuse and recycling
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||
| 9 | POLO |
Game in which you need a horse or a car (4)
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| Double def, the second referring to the VW Polo | ||
| 10 | PRAY |
I ask you for victim, did you say? (4)
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| Soundalike (did you say?) of ‘prey’ | ||
| 14 | POLEMICAL |
Belligerent, the writer’s sent up European state cops (9)
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| POLE (European) + CAL (California, state) around (cops) a reversal (sent up, in a down clue) of I’M (the writer’s) | ||
| 15 | CHAR |
Burn arch in ruins (4)
|
| Anagram (in ruins) of ARCH | ||
| 16 | LOURDES |
Splash of colour desired in holy site (7)
|
| Hidden answer (splash of) in coLOUR DESired | ||
| 18 | MICROBE |
Nick covered in rodents: this might make you sick (7)
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| ROB (nick, steal) inside (covered in) MICE | ||
| 19 | NINE |
Square getting verbal refusal in Rheinland (4)
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| Soundalike (verbal) of ‘nein’ German for ‘no’, hence ‘refusal in Rheinland’ | ||
| 21 | STRAY |
Holy man with beam? Get lost (5)
|
| ST (saint, holy man) + RAY |
I liked ADIEU. i also liked 14a PASSKEY, 4d INITIATED and 5d DIGIT. A pleasant and very enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks. Festive greetings!
I liked the ‘ho ho ho’ rating. Great blog moh. Thanks.
My faves: AGASSI, U A CLOUD, INITIATED and RIOTOUS.
Why have the regulars abandoned this place?
Not difficult. I liked RIOTOUS, DIRECT, SEMICOLON, and the homophones. Alas for the rhyming pair… Thanks Everyman and MOH!
KVa, probably because Observer have put up a paywall> A shame for me because it’s one of the few cryptics I can usually complete
Rod@5
I am able to access the puzzle after just logging in (no paywall).
Thank you Everyman and moh. I thought this was a good Everyman. Riotous was the last in and it made me laugh when I got it. Thank you moh for the explanation of Initiated which I put in but failed to fully parse.
Thanks everyone – yes, I’m sure some/many of the regulars have been put off by the paywall. It does seem weirdly irregular though. A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t get in without the £1 trial demand, but the following week I could. Then this week again I can’t get in, even though I’ve logged in. Clearly, some people such as KVa are still able to gain free access, so I’m unclear whether this is a deliberate policy or a technical glitch.
I’m able to access after logging in. Clearing the cache/ history helped but I lost the data of guardian cryptic and prize puzzles.
Thanks to moh and Everyman. Another vote for RIOTOUS – loved it. Reading the comments over the last few weeks, I’m very glad that I’m continuing (so far!) to have a blessedly painless access to the Everyman each week!
Rod@4 etc al: there is no paywall, though you do have to register an email address (as you do for Fifteensquared if you want to comment). Presumably it’s to allow you submit solutions for the prize.
I think reading room/lampoon is you rhyming pair
I’m logged in but can’t get past the big semicircular paywall banner to see the puzzle. Based in UK.
As #8 miserableoldhack said, been like this for a few weeks – sometimes getting in, sometimes blocked. One week I struggled to get it to log in until I did a password reset to exactly the same thing it had been!
Can’t complain too loudly as Everyman was a free puzzle but it is a bit of a shame to have to give it up. Can’t be going through 15mins of rigmarole of logging in/logging out; clearing cookies etc, etc in hope of getting in
Further to above – I can get into Everyman easily on my phone. All issues mentioned in #13 are Windows desktop
Yep, same experience for me as HG – I’m signed in, having registered my email address several weeks ago, but still can’t get past the big semicircular payment demand. I’ve tried clearing cache and cookies, using a different browser, etc, but still no access. Except when, as last week, there was. Hadn’t thought to try it on my phone, so thanks for that HG.
Sorry, Tony @12, I missed your comment. You may well be right about reading room and lampoon, though usually the rhymers are of the same length and placed symmetrically in the grid. But maybe Mr E has decided to ring the changes this time.
Nice to get a name check in 7D.
Thanks for parsing POLEMICAL MOH, I just couldn’t work that out.
As with Mr Womble @16 I wasn’t able to parse 14d POLEMICAL, so it was very helpful to have that one explained. I got bogged down with POLICE being in there, but then had no idea of what to do with the M, A, and L. And COP is in POLEMICAL too. Then I had I’M (up) plus the E for European in the middle, but obviously that didn’t go anywhere either. Still, a very enjoyable Everyman, all completed and all bar one parsed, so not too bad.
In terms of access, the weeks when I don’t get around to buying the paper I download and print the PDF, which is still easily accessed without any need to register.
The linked clues are 2&7d as the phrase COMMON-OR-GARDEN is pretty well known.
I access the pdf from a link given a couple of weeks ago and just change the date in the URL.
Thanks to both for the fun.
#8 miserableoldhack and #13 HG – my experience is (I think) the exact opposite!
I come up against the paywall if I try to access Everyman via the app on my (Android) phone but have no problem on my (Windows) laptop. I’ve had to resort to printing it off.
I may regret saying this but the foolproof way seems to be to register if necessary, then if you get the big payment demand, leave the page, go to Settings>Privacy>Site data or similar (wording depends on browser). There you will find a list of all sites storing cookies, which you can sort alphabetically. Select observer.co.uk and delete just that. Or delete the lot of them if you don’t mind losing access to home banking etc. Then go back to the crossword page, reload it, log in if necessary and voilà !
By Jove, that worked for me, this time at any rate. Thank you BobM!
We get the paper.
On the easier side but very enjoyable, esp digit and the Rio clue.
Polemical was a bit tortured, bunged it in with a shrug. Not sure of cop as an inserticator.
Yes, it’s a shame the blog has become a helpdesk, and many of the regulars have scarpered. Good fun again this week. I liked Initiated, Digit, Riotous and several others.
On the easier side . Liked LOURDES, MERSEY, READING ROOM, ADIEU.
When all else fails look for a run-on!
Good to see other Aucklanders at this
I enjoyed this this hard to start tho.
Minor point I would have said re what to do with a hole, you can’t really dig a hole if it’s already there
But guess you can make it bigger
Faves: lampoon leered and common knowledge
Thought the explanation for polemical a bit iffy
Great time spent in this glorious …at last …akl weather
I live in Auckland New Zealand and always will.
Liked this week’s puzzle, most of the answers were parsable, ( is that a word?)
Thanks to all.
Struggled due to far too much imbibing at the Spirits (aka gin) Festival …
ADIEU; DIGIT; COMMON KNOWLEDGE our picks; didn’t get POLEMICAL- too cryptic for us this weekend!