Everyman No. 3359 (13th February)

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Lorraine:  Good day to one and all. Big thank you to Everyman; this was much more the Everyman that we all know and love, with nothing to taxing.

I managed to get 2dn & 3dn but really struggled to work out why; I hope I got the gist?
Anyhow I hope you all found this weeks offering much more to your liking also.

Across
1. Male relatives, American, in the US itself (5,3)
UNCLE SAM UNCLES+AM(erican)
5. Trim a tree (6)
SPRUCE dd
9. Appeal of centre, at York (8)
ENTREATY hidden: cENTRE AT York
10. Thoughtless concerning young lady (6)
REMISS RE(concerning)+MISS
11. Thoughtless broadcast knocked on the head (14)
SCATTERBRAINED SCATTER(broadcast)+BRAINED
14. Terribly hot service, a source of irritation (5)
THORN (HOT*)+RN(Royal Navy, the senior service)
15. Honest one managed to win (2,3,4)
ON THE NOSE (HONEST ONE)*
17. What may have been done on the dance floor – pals booed off (4,5)
PASO DOBLE (PALS BOOED)*
19. Dish from Tarsus, historically (5)
SUSHI hidden: tarSUS HIstorically
20. Also at home, young child, male, by arrangement (4,3,7)
INTO THE BARGAIN IN+TOT+HE+BARGAIN
a bit of convoluted word play
23. Fish, trout, baked – entertaining starter in bistro (6)
TURBOT (TROUT*) around B(istro)
24. Terrier shown by porter (8)
AIREDALE AIRED+ALE(porter, as in beer)
25. Take place over in desert? First to expect money back (6)
REBATE (BE(take place)< in RAT(desert))+E(xpect)
26. Song about a leader in Asia is abhorrent (8)
ANATHEMA (ANTHEM around A)+A(sia)
Down
1. Doorkeeper has no heroin for a drug addict (4)
USER US(h)ER
2. Be contrary to ordinary procedure, and include many different groups (3,6)
CUT ACROSS sort of cryptic dd?
3. Football team, until now, not expected to be promoted (7)
EVERTON EVER+(NOT<)?
Whatever next… can all place names be defined as football teams?
4. Very quickly, tenor brought in two articles on twin (2,3,6)
AT THE DOUBLE (T(enor) in between A and THE)+DOUBLE(twin)
6. Talk foolishly about the Spanish Church dignitary (7)
PRELATE EL(Spanish ‘the’) in PRATE
7. A French article, one on marriage (5)
UNION UN(‘a’ in French, un?)+I+ON
8. Simple female rabbit, ahead of rest, must be careful (4,4,2)
EASY DOES IT EASY+DOE+SIT(take a rest)
12. Drat, another obit misprinted (11)
BOTHERATION (ANOTHER OBIT)*
13. Short walk to meet nun, a relation (10)
STEPSISTER STEP+SISTER
16. Stubborn, old boy, say, round home (9)
OBSTINATE OB+(STATE around IN(home))
18. New editor on tabloid, initially from a city in Michigan (7)
DETROIT (EDITOR*)+T(abloid)
19. Part of street housing e.g. soldiers (7)
SEGMENT ST(street) around E.G. MEN(soldiers)
21. Pound, peppered broth (5)
THROB (BROTH)*
22. Put money on a Greek character (4)
BETA BET+A

11 comments on “Everyman No. 3359 (13th February)”

  1. Solved all bar 24a. Not sure about aired =shown . Is it as in “his views were aired” = “his views were shown” or something else please?
    Thanks for the blog

  2. Thanks Everyman for precise clueing as ever, and to Lorraine for a good blog. 🙂

    I agree with your parsing of 2 & 3. The second meaning in 2 is, I think, in the sense of ‘cutting across the racial divide.’ Not sure that EVER=’until now’ is particularly apt, but I suppose it suffices.

    Interesting in 24 that AIRDALE is also a brewing company that makes a porter.

    Unusual anagram indicator (peppered) in 21, which together with ‘pound’ NOT meaning ‘l’ made for a nicely misleading clue. For 13, I first had STEPMOTHER (as mother superior for nun) until the crossing letters allowed me to change to STEPSISTER. Nice unusual use of say=STATE in 16.

  4. Thanks Lorraine,

    Nothing too taxing as you say but there’s always a few clues that take me a lot longer to get than the others.
    I was even stumped for a while by BETA and it’s so so obvious. I was trying to fit a currency into the first part of the answer. Now which country uses the zet ?.

    Favourite clues were ENTREATY, SCATTERBRAINED, AIREDALE and ANATHEMA.

  5. Thanks Lorraine and Everyman. As you say, the usual precise cluing, with nothing too difficult.

    Robi@2, the use of ‘ever’ in the present perfect tense means precisely that: ‘up to this moment’, and is one of the first “rules” we teach to foreigners, ie. that with ‘ever and never you always use the present perfect, not the simple past.

    I put “rules” in quotation marks because the more aware I am of how we teach them, the more I realise how easily we native speakers flout them, so please don’t bring me to book if you can think of a instance when what I say above is not true 🙂 You can’t teach without structure!

  6. Thank you, Lorraine.

    Everyman on very good form, I thought. Particularly liked SCATTERBRAINED and EASY DOES IT. I too wondered about EVER, but Stella’s explained it for me (I think). Can you give an example, Stella? Is it something like ‘This is the best puzzle I’ve ever solved’ and ‘This is the best puzzle I’ve solved until now’?

  7. Thanks Stella @5; I did once teach EFL in Madrid, but that was many years ago! I suspect that the football fans will be more exercised by EVERTON will ‘not [be] expected to be promoted!’

  8. KD @6; the example I found (which I hope leads to Stella’s approval 🙂 ) is: nobody has ever climbed that mountain.

  9. Thanks, Robi. That makes more sense, with a negative subject. When English is your mother tongue, no matter how careful a user you are, you just can’t see it sometimes. Which I guess is why you need an ESOL qualification to teach it!

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