After managing a rare Everyman completion the week before, I made very little progress with this and for no good reason other than I didn’t have a great deal of time to look at it and when I did I couldn’t seem to make any further breakthroughs after answering a few initially. As I have a stack of Everymans in a big clip and the book of them, this year I am trying a new approach of cutting it out on Sunday and then leaving it on the table to re-visit as and when I get chance during the week before checking the answers in the paper and here the following week.

I, too, had never heard of DILIGENCE as a coach. I rate myself as a beginner and cut my teeth on the Everyman crosswords because, as you say, they do not usually have obscure words and the clues have fairly straightforward parsing (unlike yesterday’s Guardian prize, which I only solved with lots of aids and a little help from the web.)

You make a good point, I think. The Everyman – as its name suggests, I suppose – is aimed at newer and less experienced solvers. There’s never a theme to complicate things; there are few ‘obscure’ words; and the cluing is generally pretty straightforward with a lack of cryptic definitions, which some solvers find hard. So is it a ‘beginners”puzzle like the Quiptic? Certainly not my intention to put solvers off by using that definition – I suppose if you come to this site then you’re interested enough in improving your solving to see how it all worked and hopefully do better next time. And for sure, there’s no shame in not getting it all out – that happened to all of us when we started out. It would be nice to get a few new contributions from so-called ‘beginners’ to let us know what they could and couldn’t manage. Otherwise it’s just the regular contributors who will, fair enough, say that they found it straightforward.

As for my times, I don’t really pay much attention, but I guess around 30-40 minutes. But I’m not a fast solver, and it certainly has been known for me to get stuck on the last few (this morning’s puzzle being a prime example!)

BURR was the last one in and I didn’t realise that it was just a dd, although it is strange that ‘Rotary file’ = rub . I’d also never heard of LINE for crocodile.

Lots of great clues as always and particularly liked BEHIND BARS, ONCE IN A BLUE MOON, BUFF and CHRONICLES which amused me.

Incidentally Pierre, how long does it usually take you to complete this puzzle ?. I always seem to struggle to get the last few.

I also think that to keep describing this puzzle as beginner or entry level, is offputting to new crypticians who maybe don’t get very far with it. Just my opinion.

Thanks Everyman.

What’s the one definition that you “had never come across before”? ‘Burr’ as a surgeon’s tool?

It is probably from crosswords that I knew of it but I have never set my eyes on one.

However, last year when I was on the operating table to have haematoma on both sides of my brain tapped out, the neurosurgeon must have wielded it on my head. Still I can’t pick a burr from the surgeon’s equipment.