I’ve been rather busy this week so I’m writing this blog six days after having done the puzzle. I don’t remember getting particularly stuck on anything, and seem to remember plenty of pretty obvious anagrams and a few too many “Take the first letter of this and put in a word meaning this.” clues for my liking.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | LOCUST – LOCUS = place + (coas)T |
| 4 | SWELLING – dd |
| 9 | CONCORDAT – A + T(ime) after CONCORD. Concord is the New Hampshire state capital. |
| 11 | TABLE – B in TALE = lie |
| 12 | OVERT – OVER = finished + T(urnberry) |
| 13 | THRESHOLD – (HELDSHORT)* |
| 14 | SISTINE CHAPEL – (LIESINPATCHES)* |
| 18 | FIT FOR PURPOSE – (OFFERISUPPORT)* |
| 20 | ANTIPASTO – A + N + TIP + AS TO = about |
| 22 | PIPER – P(layed) in PIER |
| 24 | AGNES – N in AGES. Agnes Grey is an Anne Bronte novel. |
| 25 | AUNT SALLY – AUNT’S ALLY. Aunt Sally is a fairground game involving throwing sticks at something, a bit like a coconut shy, as well as a term now used to mean a scapegoat. |
| 26 | AFTER ALL – dd. |
| 27 | RUPERT – RU + PERT |
| Down | |
| 1 | LACROSSE – LA + “CROSS” = trial as in “a cross to bear” |
| 2 | CANOE – (ONCEA)* |
| 3 | SHORT LIST – dd with record doing double duty |
| 5 | WATERSHIP DOWN – WATERS DOWN outside HIP. I’m not sure how Richard Adams would feel about having his bestselling novel clued as the “film” that followed it! |
| 6 | LOTUS – US after LOT = fortune |
| 7 | IMBROGLIO – RO in (BIGLIMO)* |
| 8 | GREEDY – DEER< in (ar)GY(ll) |
| 10 | DOTHEBOYS HALL – (LOATHEDBOLSHY)*. Dotheboys Hall is the horrible school in Nicholas Nickleby overseen by the cruel Wackford Sqeers. |
| 15 | SAFETY NET – (YETFASTEN)* |
| 16 | PARI PASSU – PA in PARIS + US<. Pari passu means together, or hand-in-hand. |
| 17 | PEER GYNT – PE + (GENTRY)*. Peer Gynt is a well known Ibsen play. |
| 19 | PANAMA – PAN = criticise + AM + A |
| 21 | POSER – dd |
| 22 | PULSE – (PLUS)* + E |
Common crossword abbreviations this week:
British = B
new = N
north = N
game = RU [for Rugby Union]
run out = RO [from cricket]
father = PA
gym = PE [as in the school subject]
American = AM
energy = E
For some strange reason 27a RUPERT defeated me until a friend explained it . Doh!
Thank you v. much Arthur for supplying a blog at all for this fairly lame piece. But I don’t find RO for run-out all that common, nor do I like AM for American much. RO I’ve never seen, in all my years which are considerable — unluckily! And American is usually US, or at the outside A in my experience.
Many thanks for your blog.
Shirley – sorry mate but RO for RUN OUT was used in the Everyman a couple of years ago.
It was also blogged here.
Maybe being a cricket fan I’m more accepting.
http://fifteensquared.net/category/everyman/page/7/
Sorry – better link
http://fifteensquared.net/2007/03/18/everyman-3154mar-11/
Hi Shirley,
The idea of the bit at the end was to include some abbreviations that you might expect to encounter in the same guise at some point in the future, rather than being synonyms or clued anagrams/parts of the words in the clue. Common, therefore, is probably the most appropriate if not entirely accurate adjective. The main reason for putting the abbreviations in a seperate block is that I didn’t want to clog up all of the explanations with lots of subsidiary explanation, but since the Everyman is generally regarded as the easiest and best “starter” crossword, I didn’t want to leave the abbreviation explanations out completely (as is normally done in the daily puzzle blogs where a slightly higher level of solving ability is generally assumed). Having said that, cricket terms are definitely fair game, and do appear quite often (particularly in the Times if my memory serves me correctly).