Comments on: Everyman No. 3440 (9th September)

By: Donna

Donna — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 16:20:13 +0000

Thank you, Everyman and Lorraine, for another enjoyable puzzle and blog. I, too, had trouble with 21 Down. I had the crossing letters and figured the answer had to be Staffordshire town, my knowledge of which is nil! I googled “Staffordshire towns,” got Leek, but now had to figure out how it worked in the clue. Actually, the first thing that occurred to me was “keel,” which would make it a reversal clue, except that there was no reversal indicator. At a loss, I googled “collapse in Staffordshire town” and learned that in November, 2009 there was the collapse of a canal bank and towpath in Leek! “Aha!” I thought to myself, “I didn’t know about it because I’m an American.” Judging from everything I’ve read from other solvers here, I may have dug too deeply! The other problem was with 2 Down. I knew the answer had to be “nomad” but for the life of me couldn’t understand how “leg” equalled “on.” Now I see that it’s a cricket term, and since I can’t even begin to understand American football or baseball, I will simply accept it and store it away in case it should surface again! All in all, a fun puzzle! I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead and that your first taste of autumn weather is as beautiful as ours is here in the northeastern USA.

By: John

John — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 10:24:12 +0000

I struggled with the parsing for 18a, as I had thought the ‘Close to’ indicated the BY, rather than the last letter of refrigerator, then I was hoping R was a standard abbreviation for refrigerator (and all a bit muddled!)!

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 08:15:27 +0000

All solved but I’ve come to realise that there are some clues that you would probably never get unless you’d seen before e.g
14d Lister =surgeon
16d

I also couldn’t see why leek

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 08:08:03 +0000

Indeed. A lovely puzzle in the Everyman style. I liked RANDOLPH, but needed you to explain LEEK, despite living a short distance from it!

Thanks Lorraine and Everyman.

By: sidey

sidey — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 05:55:58 +0000

A good bit of everything in this one. No complaints here.