Everyman No 3,554 (16/11/14)

by

Everyman is my usual gentle warm-up early on a Sunday morning before moving on to the likes of Azed, Inquisitor and Beelzebub and today was no exception. Nothing held me up for long though 10ac did have to wait until I had all the checked letters as I was not familiar with either the actress or the film.

My favourite clue by far was 9dn even though it is a practice that I deplore and which, I’m glad to say, is now illegal. For those who would like more details about pyramid schemes see here.

Across
1 Prepare training information (4)
DOPE – DO (prepare) PE (training)

3 The sort of display in which tumblers shine? (10)
ACROBATICS – cryptic def.

10 Very poor actress in The Thin Man touring her country  (5)
LOUSY – LOY (actress in The Thin Man) around (touring) US (her country) – this actress and this film

11 Game played by one / Bond girl (9)
SOLITAIRE – double def. – the character in Ian Fleming’s second Bond novel “Live and Let Die”, played by Jane Seymour in the film of the same name

12 Try not to attract attention of warlike people abroad (4,1,3,7)
KEEP A LOW PROFILE – an anagram (abroad) of OF WARLIKE PEOPLE

13 Name of a small child wearing blue (9)
ARCHIBALD – A plus CH (small child) in (wearing) RIBALD (blue)

15 In which you’ll find this African mountain range? (5)
ATLAS – cryptic def. – this mountain range

16 A car / moves along on wheels (5)
ROLLS – double def.

18 Ainslie, for example, chats with many at sea (9)
YACHTSMAN – an anagram (at sea) of CHATS MANY – this yachtsman

20 Quantitative data Miss World will have supplied? (5,10)
VITAL STATISTICS – cryptic def. – 36/24/36 for example, or 914/609/914 in today’s money (which doesn’t have quite the same ‘ring’ to it)

23 Song in small religious ceremony (9)
SPIRITUAL – S (small) PI (religious) RITUAL (ceremony)

24 Buddhist concept that could make one more relaxed, it’s said (5)
KARMA – a homophone (it’s said) of ‘calmer’ (more relaxed)

25 Certain trees always found on parts of golf courses (10)
EVERGREENS – EVER (always) GREENS (parts of golf courses)

26 With last of deliveries, spinner gets close (4)
STOP – [deliverie]S (last of deliveries) TOP (spinner)

Down
1 Hostile alien in valley close to park (5)
DALEK – DALE (valley) [par]K (close to park)

2 Potty uncle upset French composer (7)
POULENC – PO (potty {chamber pot}) plus an anagram (upset) of UNCLE

4 Conventional courts may, unusually (9)
CUSTOMARY – an anagram (unusually) of COURTS MAY

5 Deck game set up – runs restricted (5)
ORLOP – POLO (game) reversed (set up) containing (restricted) R (runs)

6 Painter’s philosophy painting for the sole benefit of Arthur? (3,3,4,4)
ART FOR ART’S SAKE – cryptic def. with the second ART being the diminutive of ‘Arthur’ – the origin and history of this phrase can be found here

7 First home, tail wagging, carrying one (7)
INITIAL – IN (home) plus an anagram (wagging) of TAIL around (carrying) I (one)

8 Southern events lost on Scottish writer (9)
STEVENSON – S (southern) plus an anagram (lost) of EVENTS plus ON – this Scottish writer

9 Daringly simple dodgy marketing ploy (7,7)
PYRAMID SELLING – an anagram (dodgy) of DARINGLY SIMPLE – I would have liked to have included ‘dodgy’ as part of the definition but then it would be doing double duty. One could even say that the whole clue is suitable as the definition making it an &lit.

13 Upstart‘s rare visit perplexed (9)
ARRIVISTE – an anagram (perplexed) of RARE VISIT

14 Athletic event put on circling ruined chalet (9)
DECATHLON – DON (put on) around (circling) an anagram (ruined) of CHALET

17 Grille in room described by the Parisian (7)
LATTICE – ATTIC (room) in (described by) LE (the Parisian)

19 Policeman playing ragtime (7)
MAIGRET – an anagram (playing) of RAGTIME – this policeman

21 Brought up short key ceasefire (5)
TRUCE – CURT (short) reversed (brought up) E (key)

22 Keen, son on stringed instrument (5)
SHARP – S (son) HARP (stringed instrument)

21 comments on “Everyman No 3,554 (16/11/14)”

  1. I thought this was another very hard Everyman and the comments on last Sunday’s Answerbank back that up.
    I solved none of 1a,10a, 1d and 2d .Of course if I’d got one the others may easily have followed.
    1a I think that prepare=do and training =pe and very hard to get and information =dope is hardly the first thing that springs to mind. Easy once you’ve seen it but with no crossing letters, hard.
    10a This is the sort of clue that drives me nuts and in my opinion is out of place in Everyman. If you know the film or google it,it’s done. If you have never heard of the film or the actress and only have ????y what can you do?
    1d I got obsessed by alien =ET
    2d I’d never heard of him and with only ????e?? had thought potty was telling us to anagram uncle and then look for a two letter word meaning upset.
    13a With only a???i?a?d and thinking that it is was a shade of blue, I couldn’t get this. Even if you had told me that blue here meant smutty, I doubt if ribald would have come to mind.

    Also failed on 22d and 26a . The former I should have got but for 22d I thought I was looking for a stringed instrument and with s?a?? I thought that I either had s + four letter word ?a??meaning keen or four letter word s?a? meaning keen and s.

    Which way round does “on” mean please?

    I’ll be interested to see how others found it.

  2. Thanks Everyman & Gaufrid.

    Of course, in 10 I was thinking of The Third Man, doh! 🙁 I had heard of Myrna Loy but needed Google to get it. I don’t think there is a problem in having to check/find things on Google if you don’t know the answer. Films are a trademark of Everyman’s puzzles. Like Bamberger, I got a bit obsessed with alien=ET until the crossers came to my aid.

    Bamberger: ‘on’ in a down clue usually means above. In an across clue it can mean either end although the most popular consensus is that it means after.

    I liked the anagram for KEEP A LOW PROFILE.

  3. Thanks Everyman and Gaufrid

    I really enjoyed this puzzle, and the blog has explained the clues I did not understand.

    I did this crossword last Sunday, and if I remember rightly it took longer than my usual three hours.
    DOPE needed the crossers. LOUSY I googled ‘The Thin Man’. AINSLIE I googled. SOLITAIRE googled to find Bond connection. ARCHIBALD I got in the end from the crossers, it made no sense to me.
    ORLOP (the spell check is not recognizing this) was new to me even though as a girl I went two and a half times round the world in the old steamships (and four of them had more than four decks).
    PYRAMID took a while (then I remembered Madoff who made off with the money).

    Liked DALEK, POULENC, LATTICE and STOP among others.

  5. Morning all, and thanks to Gaufrid for blogging.

    Bamberger, I always appreciate you commenting, because it’s salutary for those of us who enjoy the Everyman and can finish it every week to realise that there are those out there who can’t. We were all there at one stage. Did I find this one hard? In parts, and I agree that LOUSY is a bit of a stretch. But this is Everyman, and you’re going to get old films …

    Things like DOPE for ‘information’ (it’ll reappear as GEN soon) and PE for training are just crosswordspeak: like learning a foreign language, the more you see it, the more you’ll remember it.

    I got confused with ‘Ainslie’, thinking the chef and not the yachtsman. KARMA was good.

  6. Nice crossword but not too keen on DOPE in that it’s stretching it a bit to have “do” meaning prepare. I suppose you might say “I’ll do the vegetables, dear” – perhaps unlikely in my case.

    I know it’s crosswords but I have never heard anybody use “pi” in the sense of pious or religious. Maybe it’s boarding-school usage that I missed in my childhood reading of Jennings, Billy Bunter, etc.

  8. Thanks Gaufrid,

    The same high standard from Everyman and very enjoyable too. I found this puzzle far easier than the previous week’s
    which I did find harder than usual. So many good surfaces of which I’ll pick DOPE, KEEP A LOW PROFILE, POULENC (who I
    had heard of), DALEK and MAIGRET (so simple). Thanks Everyman.

  10. This took an hour and miles easier than last week although I didn’t parse all my answers so thanks for explaining 1, 13, 15 and 23 ac all of which I got but didn’t quite get, esp 13. Hadn’t heard of Arriviste (but now have a new name for my precocious daughter) or Orlop. Heard of Art For Arts Sake from some song and Maigret was on telly in Blighty years ago.

    Thanks Gaufrid (explain that name please?) and Everyman.

  11. Hi Barrie
    “(explain that name please?)”

    Gladly. According to Chambers my real forename is “prob a conflation of two names, Gaufrid, district peace (peaceful ruler), and Walahfrid, traveller peace (peaceful traveller)”.

    As I only ever use the diminutive of my forename, I chose the first derivation in Chambers as my pseudonym when I joined the 15² blogging team.

  14. While the majority of the puzzle was readily resolved only 9d and 12a were in the NE corner. As pointed out above unless one has some letters in one can remain in a quandary for some time so I had to return and once dale+k = dalek, 1a became dope (not data) and google confirmed Poulenc (new to me) Archibald belatedly arrived! I don’t have a problem with finding LOY from Google and inputting US I think that that’s all part of the challenge and a satisfying resolution to the problem.

    Thanks Everyman and to Gaufrid for the blog.

  15. It throws me when I can’t get the north west corner, I then struggle to work my way back. Silly I know! As far as using electronic assistance I believe is justified when the brain says enough! Ainslie was familiar to us Kiwis as a yachting nation. Enjoyed this one.

  18. I found this relatively easy and I got it right out with the help of google. Lousy and dope were difficult. I did not realise 12 across and 9 down were anagrams. I liked Miss World’s vital statistics. There was a photograph and article about Miss World on MSN Internet news this morning.

  19. I had the same problems as most people with the NW corner being the stumbling block, and didn’t get Orlop or dope, or lousy or Archibald.
    I have come across Pi for pious years ago in children’ s books, usually set in the UK. I seem to remember that it was a derogatory term for someone overly pious.
    Nevertheless I enjoyed this puzzle and did all but the NW corner before bowls today and finished as much as I could afterwards when I’d dried out after playing in soaking rain.

  20. Finished the Eastern part in next to no time but was stuck on Western for a while. Then got a break with VITAL STATISTICS and nutted out the SW corner. Couldn’t finish off the NW side though. Guessed ARCHIBALD but I think “name” as a definition is pretty weak. In hindsight I should have got DALEK and then perhaps cracked LOUSY and POULENC. Till next week.

Comments are closed.