Comments on: Everyman crossword No 3,358

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:36:57 +0000

I should have previewed that!

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:55:17 +0000

Hi, DRDolittle, in answer to your queries, ‘con’ is a synonym for ‘study’; and ‘orchid’ comes from ‘o’, an cricket abbreviation, followed by ‘r(ch)id’: to rid or free someone of something)around an bbreviation of child. The definition is ‘bloomer’, ie. ‘flower’.

I hope this helps.

By: DrDolittle

DrDolittle — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 06:45:58 +0000

Can someone please explain to me the following

1) Where “CON” in 10 Across comes from ?
2) I don’t understand 13 Across

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 14:48:24 +0000

bamberger, I think as sidey says, there have just been a number of slightly more tricky Everymans recently – I’m sure it’s not a deliberate thing. What I liked about the Everyman puzzle when I started to get back into cryptics a while ago is that it is pretty formulaic: I mean that in a good way, in the sense that you know you’re going to get a good sprinkling of anagrams to get you going; there will be two or three longer, multi-part clues with a familiar enough phrase cleverly clued; not too many cryptic definitions; and if there is a more unusual word then you’ll get very clear clueing and some helpful crossing letters.

So you know that every week there’ll be a good challenge, and the more of them you do, the more you’ll improve and be able to tackle some of the tougher daily cryptics. That’s how it worked for me, any road up.

By: sidey

sidey — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 13:29:40 +0000

I wouldn't worry bamberger, Everyman varies in difficulty. It's not that long ago there were accusations of them being too easy.

By: bamberger

bamberger — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 12:05:26 +0000

I think it would be a shame if this started to get harder. There are numerous cryptics that cater for the more experienced but not so many that cater for the novice.
I thought that auld reekie, red biddy , hines, skiddaw and dinette were very hard.

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:09:43 +0000

Thanks to all for your comments, and to Robi for practising your links to introduce me to a more appetising Red Biddy

EB@1, you may well be right. I think it works either way.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:51:44 +0000

Many thanks Stella for your wonderful analysis.

I really enjoyed this and it was certainly a very caring gesture for Everyman to visit 225 and post the corrections.

Thank you Everyman … I very much doubt if every other man or woman would have bothered to drop by.

You are a star!

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:28:57 +0000

Thank you, Stella for a comprehensive and colourful blog. Comment has been made about Everyman sharpening his claws a bit recently, and there were one or two here I struggled to understand before your explanations: PUT THE SQUEEZE ON and MOTOWN in particular. All fairly clued as always though.

I’d never heard of RED BIDDY (my drink problem hasn’t got quite that bad yet) but guessed it and confirmed in the dictionary. To describe TEESSIDE as an industrial region is fair enough, but it’s certainly not as industrial as it was when I was growing up near there. I’ve seen it hyphenated as well – TEES-SIDE – but unhyphenated is more common now.

The wrong enumeration is so frustrating. There was another example in the Grauniad cryptic this week where it was shown as (6) but should have been (3,3). It was good of Everyman to drop in last week to correct it, but of course there’ll be a good many solvers who’ve never heard of 15sq (poor deprived souls) and would have been left scratching their heads.

Anyway, good puzzle as ever.

By: Robi

Robi — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:11:20 +0000

Thanks, Gaufrid. OK, just to prove I'm not completely stupid; it should be here