My first Everyman blog, and a pleasure for me to solve it and explain it. I’ve been a fan of Everyman for many years and as usual this one didn’t disappoint. It might have been first night nerves, but I did find this harder than usual. Three-quarters of it went in pretty straightforwardly, but there were some unusual words that held me up near the end.
dd double definition
cd cryptic definition
* anagram
Across
1 Introduction to Homer, or superb Roman poet
HORACE
H + OR + ACE
4 A crooner, fellow from an Oxfordshire town
ABINGDON
A + BING + DON
Bing, of course, is Mr Crosby, possibly the best known of the crooners.
9 Irritable old servants
LIVERY dd
This is one of the clues I struggled with, mainly because the word I’d use would be liverish. Perfectly fair though.
10 Awfully foul brew could make one flounce
FURBELOW
(FOUL BREW)*
Not a word I’d come across before, but it’s clued clearly enough. ‘A flounce, ruffle or other ornamental trim.’
12 Precise, short, theatre cleaner
SURGICAL SPIRIT
Nice clue, with two definitions: of ‘precise’, and ‘short’ in the alcoholic sense.
14 Itinerant Romanians in an Italian-speaking country
SAN MARINO
(ROMANIANS)*
16 Card (king) Welshman rejected
KNAVE
K + EVAN reversed
17 A bye, perhaps, in over
EXTRA dd
19 Accept compassion is to be encouraged
TAKE HEART
21 Two pianists, drunk
BRAHMS AND LISZT
Which of course is Cockney rhyming slang for a word I couldn’t possibly elucidate for an audience as genteel as fifteensquared. Oh, all right then, it’s ‘pissed’.
24 Free wood used to make a stall
LOOSEBOX
LOOSE + BOX
I couldn’t see this even when I’d got all the crossing letters; then it was a question of ‘it must be LOOSE, what else fits?’ It’s not in the SOED, and some online dictionaries give it as LOOSE-BOX, but Collins gives it as one word: ‘an enclosed and covered stall with a door in which an animal can be confined.’
25 Guide by hand
MANUAL dd
26 Anxiety shown by South American writers at closing of bookstore
SUSPENSE
S + US + PENS + E
Nice surface.
27 Small number on team backing inventor
EDISON
NO SIDE reversed.
Down
1 Relative in his flares, bullied around start of term
HALF- SISTER
(HIS FLARES T)*
2 Right above pirate ship
ROVER
R + OVER
I spent far too long trying to convince myself that there was a ship called a RATAR.
3 Company car is damaged making for a Mediterranean island
CORSICA
CO + (CAR IS)*
5 OU sportsman keeping a woman of intelligence
BLUESTOCKING
BLUE + STOCKING
OU is Oxford University rather than the Open University. Wonder why they’re called this?
6 Beat writer, at first, with a club
NIBLICK
NIB + LICK
An old name for a golf club and a word I only know from doing crosswords.
7 During an illness, almost over, trouble a spiritual leader
DALAI LAMA
AIL in MALAD(Y) reversed plus A
One that was easier to solve than to parse.
8 Pond creature young toad initially turns into
NEWT
NEW + T
The favourite pet of 21 across.
11 Class points out what a theatre may put on
VARIETY SHOWS
Charade of VARIETY (class) and SHOWS (points out)
13 Running on tenth lap in old Olympic event
PENTATHLON
(ON TENTH LAP)* I think Everyman has inserted ‘old’ because the competition we have nowadays is called the ‘modern pentathlon’.
15 Hitchcock film noir – too darned American
NOTORIOUS
(NOIR TOO)* + US
Nicely misleading use of ‘film noir’ and ‘darned’ as the anagram indicator.
18 A grant secured by the sportsman
ATHLETE
A + TH(LET)E
Another clever clue with a lovely surface.
20 Rope with which Henry gets hauled up
HALYARD
HAL + DRAY reversed
22 Problems housing 50 in wretched dwellings
SLUMS
Insertion of L (50 in Roman numerals) in SUMS.
23 Additional matter written about learner driver
PLUS
Another insertion, of L in PUS. Pus is matter, I suppose, although not a particularly pleasant one to contemplate on a Sunday morning …
Super puzzle, thank you Everyman.
Thanks, Pierre for a lovely blog, and to Everyman – I always enjoy these. Although I solved it, I didn’t understand 18d and 23d until your good explanations. I particularly liked 21a.
Thanks Pierre for your excellent detailed blog and welcome. My thoughts on this puzzle are identical to yours even down to your reasoning with LOOSEBOX (my last one in) although I could only find LOOSE-BOX in the dictionary. Among a plethora of great surfaces, I would select HALF-SISTER as standing out although some people may object to ‘bullied’ as the anagrind. My favourite clue is this puzzle is definitely the BRAHMS AND LISZT one which gave me a laugh. I’m sure it’s been used before but maybe not clued in this way.
Thanks Everyman.
Thanks Pierre, you’ve done a good job for a first blog.
Just one quibble: I think the parsing of 27ac is ON(e) (‘small number’) after (‘on’) <SIDE
Thanks as always, Everyman.
Thanks Pierre,
Prof Google advises that the Blue Stocking Society, was a nickname for a predominantly female literary club of 18th-century London.
Hi Stella, thank you for your kind comment. I took the NO part of 27ac to simply be the abbreviation for number – like you sent us comment no. 3 today. Your way works too, though it’s a bit more complicated.
Hi Dad’s Lad, thanks for that. I knew it was something to do with a literary society and that they actually did wear blue stockings. It’s been around a bit, then.
Thanks Pierre for clarifying a few of the clues. I was convinced that 3d was Cortina and blithely assumed it was an Italian island like Capri its Ford stablemate in the 70’s. How stupid of me – I now know its a ski resort!
As far as the bluestockings go it was actually the literary men who were wearing them in the mid 18th Century