Comments on: Everyman No. 3460 (27th January)

By: Trafities

Trafities — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 19:20:22 +0000

Lorraine

Thank you to everyone for all your comments.

I always look forward to reading them.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 18:10:34 +0000

Failed on 4a. I thought Peter Pan was a book and not a play.

By: crosser

crosser — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 11:06:46 +0000

OK, Stella, I’ll buy that. Thanks.

By: Stella

Stella — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 11:03:07 +0000

Thanks Lorraine, nice blog – just a slight slip: in 6d, *MAIN is in EXE, not after it

I think “(or coach)” serves to clarify the intention of the wordplay in 17ac, which might otherwise have been a little more obscure than is usual for an Everyman; it might have been added as an afterthought, to simplify.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 09:13:30 +0000

Thanks, Lorraine. The usual elegant and accessible stuff from Everyman here. PUT PAID TO and PLIERS were particularly good, I thought.

I too wondered for a moment or two about SCHOOL UNIFORM, crosser. The clue does work as it stands, but as you say, the ‘or coach’ part does seem redundant.

By: michelle

michelle — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 07:11:26 +0000

As a beginner-cum-improving solver I found this puzzle quite difficult, so it was especially satisfying when I eventually finished it. And like Lorraine, I enjoyed this puzzle tremendously.

My favourites were 12a, 26a, 2d and 16d.

I learnt two new words when solving 2d – dormer and ormer.

Last ones in were 18d and 21a. I had inserted ‘alarums’ as the answer to 21a (‘in conflict with’ but of course it was just a guess and I couldn’t parse it), and had all but given up on 18d. I think that often I get in a panic when certain sports are referred to in the clues, and so in this case I wrongly assumed that the answer was a famous boxer and I spent a lot of time on google looking for a boxer whose name starts with “H”. When I finally managed to read the clue correctly, it was much easier to solve ‘HANDLER’, and then I was able to correct 21a ‘alarums’ to ‘AGAINST’.

Regarding 5D, although I did put in ‘ENGLISH MUSTARD’, I could not parse the mustard part, so thanks for this blog, Lorraine. I enjoyed reading your detailed parsing of all the clues.

By: crosser

crosser — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 06:55:00 +0000

Thanks, Lorraine. After I’d solved 17a, I couldn’t account for “(or coach)”, which puzzled me a bit. Surely it’s redundant because “train” already does the job?