Everyman Crossword No. 3263 (Apr 12)
Posted by C G Rishikesh on April 18th, 2009
Across
1 STAND – double def – set up/a partnership (as in cricket)
4 NET PROFIT – anag of IF TOP RENT
9 ROLL-NECK SWEATER – anag of TAKE CORNERS WELL – surface reading suggests a sports activity but the word is from the world of clothing; the def is Jersey which has false capitalisation
10 IMPOSITION – cha – I, M, POSITION
11 BLOC - del – BLOC(-k)
13 UNABLE – hid – in saUNA, BLEeding
14 ELECTRA – cha – ELECT, RA – def is ‘a type of complex’ – “a strong attachment of a daughter to her father, accompanied by hostility to her mother” (C). Named after Electra, a character in Gr. mythology. Cf. Oedipus complex.
16 EXHAUST – double def – wear out/ car part
18 MEAGRE – c/c – A G in MERE. Mere refers to “a lake that is broad in relation to its depth”
20 LAWN – rev hid – in ‘PrestatyN, WALes’
21 HINDRANCES - cha/anag -HIND, RANCES (anag of CRANES)
23 OLIVER GOLDSMITH – cha/hom GOLDS (top prizes) in OLIVER (musical) MITH (hom of ‘myth’ (tale). I got the answer readily but the anno took some time in revealing itself!
24 ON THE TROT – anag/cha – ON THE TRO (anag of TO THRONE), T (head of Tudors)
25 LONER – del – LON(-don)ER
Down
1 SPRAIN – c/c – R (runs, as on cricket scoreboard) in SPAIN
2 A SLAP ON THE WRIST – anag of TOLERANT, WASPISH
3 DANISH BLUE – anag of BUNS HE LAID
4 NECK-TIE – cha – NECK (winning margin), TIE (dead heat)
5 TUSSORE – anag of US STORE
6 REEL – hom of ‘real’
7 FATAL ATTRACTION – anag of TOTAL ART FANATIC
8 TURNCOAT – cha – TURN (develop), COAT (film)
12 METATARSAL – anag of ARM, AT LEAST – Actually, ‘metatarsi’ are “the bones in the foot between the ankle and toes” (nPED). ‘Metatarsal’ is an adjectival form. But the def in the clue is just “Bone”.
15 WELL-TO-DO – cha with c/c – WELL (source of oil), TO(D)O
17 TRIGGER – two def – start/trip – The “trip” sense eludes me.
18 MUD-FLAT - cha – MUD (malicious assertions), FLAT (apartment) – It’s a muddy stretch of water, esp. near a river mouth.
19 ESTHER – hid in ‘XerxES, THERe’. Xerxes appears in the Bible as Esther’s husband, so the hidden fodder is not weird. Prob. some caller checking whether he has the required person at the other end of the line?
22 CEDE – hom of ‘seed’ (children), “on the radio” being the hom signal
anag – anagram; c/c – container/content; cha – charade; def – definition; del – deletion; hid – hidden; hom – homophone; rev – reversal
April 19th, 2009 at 2:06 am
Thanks for the blog – good to see Everyman up here again.
Quite an enjoyable one, this, I thought – I use it as a warm up for Azed.
5d TUSSORE is obscure for this puzzle, requiring a check in Chambers.
14a ELECTRA I had to check too, as I’d not heard of this complex.
15d WELL-TO-DO was perfectly straightforward, but I just could not see the wordplay until I had all the checking letters.
25a LONER I never did see the wordplay for this one – thanks for the explanation, and now think it’s perhaps the best clue in the puzzle!
April 19th, 2009 at 6:20 am
I got 22d without understanding the word play. Thought about ‘seed’ but dismissed it.
17d TRIGGER can be noun (part of gun), or verb (e.g. Setting off chain of events).
Thanks for doing this for us beginners!
April 19th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Trip is trigger as in tripping a switch. I’m pretty sure you can trip an alarm system.
The Electra complex is interesting – whilst it is obstensibly the female equivalent of the Oedipus complex, in the original stories Oedipus is unwittingly drawn into the events whereas Electra was aware of who everyone was when she had these feelings. I’m not sure the complexes make any distinction though.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Convenient as vaguely analogous, our Oedipus and Electra myths. And discriminatory and ill-conceived, according to any number of later theorists like Felman, Kristeva, Cixous. And (as you probably know) Jungian rather than Freudian, in the case of the Electra Complex. Freud mumbled on about the ‘Feminine Oedipus Attitude’ instead.
If ‘complex’ is an anagram indicator, treacle’s always available. Smear some on your daddy today.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:39 am
Foot-bones: the metatarsus is a group of bones in the foot. “metatarsi” would therefore be two or more such groups of bones. A metatarsal is any bone in the metatarsus, so the definition seems perfectly sound. See Wikipedia, Concise Oxford or Collins. (I don’t know what ‘nPED’ means).
April 24th, 2009 at 7:33 am
nPED: (The)new Penguin English Dictionary