Lorraine: Fairly easy this week again, just love doing Everyman; I cannot wait for Sundays to arrive. Thank you Everyman.
Nick: 6dn is interesting; ‘The Lord of the Flies novelist?‘- Collins defines ‘Lord of the Flies’ as Beelzebub, and ‘DICKENS‘ is a euphemistic word for the ‘Devil’.
Legend to solution comments:
* = anagram.
< = word reversed.
Across | |||
1. | LIGHT-HEADED | cd | |
9. | BLIND DATE | BLIND + DATE | |
10. | MIMIC | MIMI + C | |
11. | ADDISON | IS in ADD ON | |
12. | AUSTERE | (TEA USER)* | |
13. | DISMAL | D + M in (SAIL)* | |
14, 17. | LOVE LIES BLEEDING | LOVELIES + BLEEDING | |
18. | AT THAT | ATT + HeAT | |
21. | TEACHER | ACHE in TER(m) | |
23. | UNMOVED | UN + MOVED | |
24. | HAD ON | H + A DON | |
25. | PRONOUNCE | PRONOUN + CE | |
26. | REMONSTRATE | RE + MONS + T + RATE | |
Down | |||
1. | LADYS MAID | (DAY + [13ac]DISMAL)* | |
2. | GRANNY | N in (ANGRY)* | |
3. | TREMADOC | (DEMOCRAT)* | |
4. | EMMYS | dd | |
5. | DAME EDITH EVANS | (HEAVIEST DEMAND)* | |
6. | DICKENS | cd | |
7. | ABOARD | A + BOARD | |
8. | NIL DESPERANDOM | (SPLENDID MANURE)* | |
15. | EXTEMPORE | EX + ([E + MP] in TORE) | |
16. | ENTREPOT | (ONE + PRETTy)* | |
17. | BUTCHER | CH in (BRUTE)* | |
19. | TIDIER | DI in TIER | |
20. | CUPOLA | CU + (A LOP)< | |
22. | HENIN | H + (NINE)< | |
There is a group of us who occupy (waste?) our lunchtimes doing crytics. We usually do the Telegraph or Guardian with occasional forays into the Indie, FT or Times (whenever we pick the Times, we invariably stumble on the hardest of the week and struggle to get more than 5 or 6 out). Usually we get about 80% out before we give in -so we aren’t the best in the world. . We had been told that Everyman was a good confidence booster so we duly tried it last Monday. Well we found it hard -tremadoc ,extempore, cupola , henin, addison and dickens just wouldn’t come. Maybe we had an off day or maybe it was harder than we had been told.
I thought harder than usual. Since moving to AZED, I have lost my understanding of ‘Everyman’s’ wavelength.
Bamberger, stick with Everyman and trust me it will get easier. I find that the cluing is pretty tight and fair. The solutions are easily worked out.
Lorraine.
P.S. I hope I have spelt cluing right?
Bamberger, just to underline what Lorraine has said – stick with this one. It’s how I really got back into cryptics a year or so ago and being able to solve, or mostly solve it every week is a big confidence booster. There’ll be weeks with one or two obscure clues, but usually they are pretty well signposted.
As the saying goes, the more you practise, the better you get. Keep on enjoying it!
I am feeling thick, anyone like to explain Dickens please.
And Bamberger, do persevere.
Sidey,
Read Nick’s comment at the top of our blog re Dickens.
Lorraine.
Thanks, that’ll teach me to be more careful scrolling 😉