Comments on: Everyman 3304

By: Arthur

Arthur — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:48:18 +0000

Hi Davy. I agree about The Sound Of Music anagram being excellent, particularly given the chaste nature of the film in question. With The Everyman generally being a ‘starter’ crossword, whilst it is always diverting, it does often lack the sheer sense of fun that a few of the daily setters (such as my favourite, Paul) manage to inject their (admittedly harder) crosswords with. So anyway, it’s nice to see this sort of cheekiness included on a Sunday (as I think I said, the one I blogged 2 weeks ago certainly had a handful of playful definitions which I thoroughly enjoyed).

However while I agree that a crossword should always pose a challenge, I do think The Everyman is intended as, and has often been cited as a well crafted but easy puzzle. If all crosswords were hard then beginners would never stand a chance. Therefore, I hope David Travis did fare better this week. Of course it is all completely subjective – I personally thought there were plenty of easy clues here to get you going, whereas ones that I’ve found much harder in the past have often received “well that was easy” type comments afterwards.

My advice is always look at the grid before looking at the clue – This might sound obvious, but it is often tempting to work your way through the across clues in order and then the downs, skipping any that don’t spring to mind, and then repeat until it’s done. Often there are only a couple of words that will fit in a given space so take full advantage of that fact and have a guess before you even look at the clue. Not only will this method often hit upon a correct answer straight away, but it will also help you to see what words look like with blanks in them (which will help you when they crop up again).

By: Davy

Davy — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:09:39 +0000

Thanks for the post Arthur. I enjoyed this puzzle and managed to finish it after a little struggle. I’ve never heard of Echo Beach as a TV programme but just got it from the word play. There were some interesting clues ie the anagram resulting in The Sound of Music was excellent and also amusing.

Re #5, I’m not interested in an easy crossword, I can’t see the point really. Any crossword should at least be challenging and stretch one a little.

By: Arthur

Arthur — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:23:09 +0000

Sorry for the miscategorisation. Ticked the wrong box (my only excuse is they both begin with an E…) Seems like this one got the better of me in one way or another!

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:02:26 +0000

Thanks mhl, category now corrected.

By: David Travis

David Travis — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:58:42 +0000

I only managed 6 in this one. Let’s hope today’s Everyman is slightly easier!

By: mhl

mhl — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:43:30 +0000

Thanks for the post, Arthur – just a small thing, the post is miscategorized as “Enigmatic Variations”. We enjoyed this one, and thought it had a few more tricky clues than usual, e.g. MONSIGNORI.

I’ve never heard of the TV show “Echo Beach”, but any excuse to listen to the Martha and the Muffins song of the same name is always welcome :)

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:15:35 +0000

Something requiring little thought in Reno, surprisingly goes without support (2-7)

NO-(BRA)INER*

As you can see, IN doesn’t necessarily have to be the IN after BRA: it can be the N at the beginning with the I after bra, anagrammed with RENO.

By: Arthur

Arthur — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:13:38 +0000

Hi anax. Thanks for your help. In fact IN is part of the anagram but of course, BRA is the support (and as you say, a classic clue that I really shouldn’t have missed). Sometimes you get so fixated on one thing that you really do completely miss the obvious!

By: anax

anax — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:31:37 +0000

Hi Arthur.

Unfortunately I haven’t got the crossword so can’t comment knowledgeably on 13, but a chestnutty suggestion would be BRA = “support”. Does the clue wording include “support in…”?