Everyman 3,891

63 comments on “Everyman 3,891”

1. Sil van den Hoek – I share your grumpiness, and most of your comments. FORE was also my LOI, and by then I cared little about the quality of the clue, just that the pain was over. Sadly, I’m down to the last couple of clues in this week’s offering, and it’s just as grim.

2. Trust me, this week’s offering is nowhere near as grim as this one with its duff clueing at 23ac.

3. I enjoyed this puzzle though I didn’t get FORE. And ENDS took me ages but finally just bunged it in.

   I loved ARCHIPELAGO although I spelled it incorrectly at first (with IGO at the end) which gave me problems with DRAMA QUEEN until I checked my spelling. I also put outgrow instead of OUTCROP at first so couldn’t get SPLEENLESS until I realised my mistake.

   Other favourites were: SUFFUSE, LET IT GO

   Thanks Everyman and Sil van den Hoek

4. As it happens, I disagree with most of what appears to be cavilling. A compiler is allowed a certain amount of leeway, especially in the Everyman which is not supposed to be as taxing as the more complicated weekly and “prize” crosswords (and thankfully never has that unnecessary addition, a “theme”). All of the answers above have a reasonably obvious relation the the clue or “clue as definition”, such that there are no obvious alternatives (as there are, for example, in yesterday’s Prize at 22d, according to many of the comments there).
   That’s my penn’orth, anyway.

5. I failed 23ac – FORE.

6. Thank you for the blog, very thorough and I find myself agreeing with everything.
   Glad to see the ….. and italics and brackets not present.
   Rather an excessive use of ? or ! or even both. Is the setter a chess player ?

7. A couple of firsts for me in connection with this puzzle!!! My first Everyman where the rhyming pair actually aided my solve – and first time I’ve shared comprehensive grumpiness with Sil as blogger (and therefore first time I’ve agreed with Roz on everything)??? FORE remained unsolved and, even now, I don’t see any definitional element – either as cad, &lit or anything else??? There are plenty of ways to foul up in lots of ball games so nothing to link this to golf and plenty of ways to foul up in golf that would not require a call of ‘Fore’!!! And, being in a grumpy mood, even though SELF DEVOTION appears in the dictionaries, it won’t go down in my book of useful phrases for the future! The combination of words could be interpreted as exactly the opposite of generosity and it seems somewhat tautologous: I’m not sure how you can devote someone else? The examples given in dictionaries of its use – “he died because of his self-devotion to science” would surely work just as well without ‘self’?

   I’ll also agree with Sil that ARMADILLO was a top notch exception but not sure it qualifies as saving grace!

   [Hope I put in enough question and exclamation marks for Roz?!]

8. [ MrPostMark @7 I do not agree that we have agreed on everything, is this an example of Frege’s paradox ? I only do the Everyman out of nostalgia, it is the first crossword I could do, so I do try not to complain too much. I think the compiler has missed a trick by not using a homophone for 21D. ]

9. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say I’m more John E @2 rather than rodshaw @1 with regard to this week’s puzzle.

10. [It may indeed be Frege’s paradox, Roz, but it sounds reminiscent of Groucho Marx’s attitude to club membership]

11. I am with Andy+Luke with this. And with John E on this week’s. Thank you Everyman and also to Sil despite his (for ne rather ibexplucable) grumpiness. Have a good Sunday everyone.

12. I can’t say I was grumpy at this one – with the exception of FORE which I never did get (despite considering the word a number of times). A lazily entered LET IT BE made OUTCROP rather difficult – but as a geologist, I am happy for a [rocky] spur – common enough – to be an outcrop. A spur doesn’t have to be a mountain range: it can be a small ridge from a mountain – an arete, for example – which will quite commonly be rocky. Thanks, Sil and Everyman.

13. “invigorating” can be an adjective so I think Everyman’s off the hoek there. SELF DEVOTION for gratitude seems a stretch but if stretch synonyms are off-limits then Tramp And Imogen clearly didn’t get the memo this week. Slightly clunk cads drum to be a thing with this setter so I just biffed it in and moved on. Overall a meatier challenge than usual for which many thanks to all involved

14. Bodycheetah @13: I’m wondering if that’s a cheeky typo that’s slipped in. Did you mean ‘gratitude’ or ‘generosity’? I suspect the latter but you might be seeing something I’m not.

15. In 6a and the r – p typo (?). In quantum mechanics where traditionally r and p refer to position and momentum they dont even commute.
    I waited all week for the explanation of FORE and discover it wasnt just me who had the problem.
    Thanks Sil

16. Whoops – I thought I had done so well completing this last week. Even unto ‘FORE’, although I agree with Sil’s comment about it. However, the App hadn’t given me a Tick – one of the good things about it – so I knew I had erred somewhere.
    It was 25a.
    Michael Prophet was a prominent Ska singer so I entered SCAR.
    Lazy on my part.
    Thanks to Sil for the blog.

17. [Postmark@14 yes! – since installing a phone update a few days ago my swipe text input app seems to have formed an unholy alliance with autosuggest – see also drum = seem???]

18. Almost a year into my attempt to get better at cryptic crosswords and this week I failed to complete both Quiptic and Everyman, so I was relieved to find others found that FORE was not clued in a fairway.

19. [bodycheetah @17: I was able to work out what might have gone on with the slip I queried. Your ‘drum’ remarks had me completely beat.]

20. I began Cryptics last year as something to do during lockdown. My friends and I used to joke that the rules and conventions were masochistic nonsense. Occasionally we will do one together, where I’d hope that maybe this crossword will be the one to fully convert them to real fans. However, a handful of clues, including the infamous FORE, drained the light from their eyes before the end. A shame, as there were some very enjoyable clues too.

    Thanks Setter and Sil.

21. I’m not a golfer but surely yelling ‘fore!’ is another way of yelling ‘ball!’ it worked for me.

22. Thanks for all the help with the crossword that was a major challenge for me. However I can see the clue of 18d “outcrop”: “out” = to outdo and “crop” = to cut hair.

23. Sil, you have expressed precisely what I thought – not for the first time. 23a defeated me entirely and also my crossword buddy with whom Sunday WhatsApps are regular. Very rare is the occasion when both of us are unable to complete Everyman. I am choosing to think this time it is Everyman’s loose clueing and not the two of us reaching senility. It did cheer me to see I wasn’t the only one. 7d was another puzzler although it went in with all the crossers present but like you, not a favourite.
    John E’s comment fills me with trepidation for my usual Sunday morning.
    Thank you, Sil, for such clear explanations.

24. Hmm…! I thought FORE was ok. The synonym being “BALL!” (With exclamation mark.)

25. I also questioned “fore” – I wondered if it was a cad in that a duffer might get hit (and ‘fouled up’)by the ball if they ignored the warning?
    Failed to solve 18d, but thought it was clever when I saw the answer – a ‘crop’ is a style of haircut, so the winner would ‘out crop’ the other contestants.
    I’m astonished, Sil, that you’ve never heard “Let it go” – lucky you, it was hard to avoid when the film was released and inevitably results in an earworm.

26. Overall, reasonably enjoyable; I particularly liked the French fizzy water (despite the definition being a bit vague) ENEMIES and ARCHIPELAGO.

    I did get FORE, but wrote beside it: ‘Where’s the definition?’ I guess the intention was a cad where a duffer sends the ball in the wrong direction; fore might then be called, but it’s rather an indirect link. I agree with BC @13 that invigorating can be an adjective (meaning fresh as an anagrind). I did also raise my eyebrows slightly over vacuous meaning ‘remove only the middle letter’. However, I have seen other compilers use it in that way.

    I was ready to put in ‘let it be’ for 17 but it didn’t parse, and then OUTCROP made it impossible. I think that latter one is a definition + cryptic definition.

    Thanks Everyman and Sil.

27. It seemed to take until Lin@25 to appreciate the outcrop joke, which the setter signalled with an exclamation mark at the end. Apart from that, rather a good clue I thought.

28. Yes, I really struggled this week too – had to check here for the last 5 clues (FORE, SELF-DEVOTION, SPLEENLESS, SUFFUSE and OUTCROP). Thanks for validating my own grumpiness!

    Favourite of this week was ARCHIPELAGO, which took some talking through in whatsapp group chats to solve.

29. How can GENEROSITY be self-devotion? It looks like egotism and selfishness to me. Okay, apparently it’s devotion OF self, but it looks like devotion TO self, anything but generous.

    Petert@18 Neat one!

    Thanks Everyman and Sil.

30. Petert@18

    I too started trying to learn how to do cryptic crosswords about a year ago – had always wanted to and lockdown seemed a good time. As I learn I use various aides such as the check button and crossword dictionaries to help and then of course 225.
    I have been getting better at Everyman and since last week am not using any aides (and of course can’t use the check button). Got all of last weeks and all but FORE for this week. Will keep on trying. Maybe in a few weeks I will apply the same rule to Monday’s cryptic.
    I didn’t get on well with last week’s quiptic either.

31. [ MrPostMark @ 10 Grouch paradox is simpler, if A then not A. This one is if you totally agree with me then you agree with my statement that we disagree, similar to the set of all sets that do not contain themselves. ]

32. Surely the winner of a hairdressing contest will OUT-CROP all the rest?

    I also struggled with this: fiddly wordplay leading to vague definitions.

33. Indeed Gladys (and Lin and Wil Ransome), the hairdressing connection for OUTCROP wasn’t the problem (sort of cryptic definition part of the clue).
    However, I had to check how ‘spur’ was linked to the solution.

34. [Sorry, Roz @31: it is a principle of mine never to read or reply to your comments 😉 ]

35. [ predicate p = being a predicate which cannot be predicated of itself or who shaves the Barber of Seville ]

36. FORE, as I recall, was one of my first in. It looked like the solution had to be an anagram of either DUF+O or FER+O, and I took the quotation marks as an indicator that the solution was an utterance. (Sometimes quotation marks have a significance, even in an Everyman puzzle.) Words from the clue (duffer, ball) and the notion that something had been “fouled up” led to… FORE.

37. Thanks for the struggle Sil. Down here we never talk about an OUTCROP without putting “rocky” in front of it but, to me, the clue worked.
    The rest was almost doable and my major problem was ENDS as I did not like that middle letter removal technique, but the answer couldn’t be anything else.
    Thanks for the work out Everyman.

38. The fall of (Every)man. Such sins!

    I had problems relating either to grammar or unwarranted (i.e. having zero point) abuse of convention in all but ten of the clues, and I wasn’t exactly knocked out by the wit or wisdom of the rest of it. 24ac I almost liked, though that too is somewhat flawed (as the plates cover most of the body).

    Gah, such a disappointment, which sadly continues week by week. Sorry to have to say, but this really is just bottom-of-the-heap Guardian stuff, and a far cry from the craftsmanship we once knew.

39. Agreed, paul b – even the idiot Hoskins in the Indy with his idiocy outclassed this effort by a country mile today!

    Whoever the Everyman is should be ashamed of themselves – so many bad and clunky surfaces, tenuous defs and general rubbish it seems they are a setter without an editor; a new setter; a setter who is overworked; a setter who just plain doesn’t care; a pro setter who thinks they are better than they are or a setter who has forgotten they actually have a solver.

    Burn them, I say. BURN THEM AND DO THE INDY INSTEAD!

    Having said that, I did think the FORE clue worked: the duffer shot badlt so FORE!

    BTW, Sil – is that right that a transitive verb with ING form can’t be used after the fodder? You are making a drunkard review puzzles here so enquiring minds want to know.

40. *badly

41. Perhaps the only thing in credit for the Everyman setter is a conscience. He does not work for a nasty, right-wing, billionaire, tax-dodging bully.

42. Hoskins @39, some commenters have made clear that ‘invigorating’ here should be seen as an adjective – which is all right.
    What I meant in my blog about the ING thing was this.
    Let’s say ‘invigorate’ means ‘give vitality (to)’ as per Collins.
    Then ‘fodder invigorating’ is for me ‘fodder giving vitality to’ – but it should be ‘fodder given vitality to’ (and so ‘invigorated’).
    However, ‘invigorating fodder‘ , in that order, is what I would like to see – but doesn’t make sense here.
    That said, I’m not saying this is law.
    ps, there is also an unwritten law that those who are setting themselves should not be (too) critical about colleagues – at least, publicly.
    In that sense, I am quite surprised by @38 (which was a rather civilised comment, to be fair) and @39 (which, I think, crossed a line).

43. #41 Roz: so the Grauniad of today is true to its founders’ principles? A matter for debate, one suspects. I think it a mediocre centrist bumrag. The Satanic Bible Magazine is much better, especially where honesty is any sort of a yardstick.

    #42 Sil: well, Hoskins was drunk so should be exonerated utterly. So was I, but obvs should know better at my age, although curmudgeonliness is a feature of the elderly, it’s often said. Just look at Rick Wakeman. And then stop looking at him. I mean, it’s sad to see the desecration of our ancient monuments, don’t you think, and obviously some dread cabal of the ham-fisted has taken the reins here.

44. Sil@42 – thanks dude. I woke up this morning – well, this afternoon – and thought – oh yeah, all about the subject/lack of subject and even got an editorial message to that effect to confirm it (coincidental on a puzzle rather than to do with this convo). Obviously I had just got some of me crossword grammatical learnings botty about face as is my wont.

    PS, If there is a line to be crossed or a joke to be made then I’m your man. Luckily I fink I was only joking (apart from the ‘do the Indy’ bit) and surely doing some sort of satire of something or the other … the only saving grace of the whole thing is that there is no way the Everyman will be reading any of this. 🙂

45. Well, Harry, I’m not annoyed, offended or you-name-it.
    However, I think Everyman does read these comments (because he did that in the past).
    Where I wholeheartedly agree with you is when you say ‘do the Indy’.
    And not just because I am part of that story myself, although very modestly.

46. Hello, I’m a keen reader of your blog though have never commented before. I can generally solve the Everyman but this week I didn’t get 23ac, even after considering fore as the solution. But reading it again on here, the clue has clicked in a slightly different way… does anyone else think that ‘fouled’ could be the anagram indicator and ‘up with ball!’ Could be the synonym for fore? As in ‘look out, there’s a ball in the air’? I didn’t enjoy it either but it seems the neatest use of all the words in the clue!

47. Could be , Rebecca (and welcome!!).
    The clue as a whole is within quotation marks, and so it looks that it has to serve as the definition.
    However, as it is formulated here (with a duffer coming in), it seems to me more like a statement than a warning.
    And why should it be about golf? There are more sports using balls.
    Anyway, my main point was that we couldn’t get anywhere without crossers.
    But we got there in the end, didn’t we?

48. Glad to hear it, Sil @45 and hello to the Everyman if they are reading … hope you got where me jokes was at!

    As for FORE, Rebecca @46, I still think the phrase ‘Duffer’s not half fouled up with ball!’ could be shouted out on a course after a bad shot and as such warn folk of impending ball-based troubles, therefore being roughly the same as shouting ‘fore!’.

49. You play golf nowadays, Hoskins?

50. Nope, but I once was walking the greens (not a euphemism) when I heard someone shout “Duffer’s not half fouled up with ball!” and fell to the ground instinctively as the little white thing sailed over my head. I was very glad for the warning. 🙂

51. I didn’t do this and only came here to see what Harry had written that made someone complain on General Discussion. However, I think I can explain 23ac. The whole thing is in quotation marks (it stands for a vocalisation) and ends with an exclamation mark (a vocalisation with feeling) and stands, as a whole, for the shouted warning “FORE!” To shout that some duffer has , e.g., sliced (or otherwise fouled up) a ball is to give warning that one might be hit by a stray ball, is it not, just as the conventional single-word warning is? Therefore it is an &lit with wordplay as explained by Sil. I think that’s what H was saying @50, more or less, isn’t it?

52. Hey Tony – hope all good with you and yes, that is what I have been suggesting in various different attempts in this thread as an explanation for the all-in-one surface definition that defines the answer that the wordplay leads to.

    It isn’t perhaps a super-elegant &lit and is quite tough when set aside from a grid, but I think that it works and has a charm and style of its own. Not all of crossworld needs to be laser-accurate (as long as it is accurate – yeah, go figure!) as half the fun is the way words and phrases can make us think in interesting ways and have fun along those ways.

    The aforementioned clue is, I fancy, a cryptic clue in which one must think about in a different way and that, being an &lit, also has not only wordplay to help the solver to the answer, but also enumeration and crossing letters, too.

    Basically, saying ‘fore’ as a warning for a ball played in golf (errant or not) is surely a much more boring way of saying ‘An idiot just hit the ball wrong!’, which would be a warning to anyone in hearing on a golf course that that ball could be heading in unexpected and dangerous directions as much as saying ‘fore’.

    Having said that, I think I would prefer ‘fore’ to be shouted dependent on how close I was to the old duffer wot struck the ball due to the brevity of the time it takes to say … but double then again, this is a crossword and not a golf course. 🙂

53. Compare this, from Radian’s Independent crossword that reappeared in yesterday’s “i”:
    A loud warning by driver: “Halt! Tree planting here!” (13).

54. Hoskins@52 I believe I referred all the way back @4 to the understanding that crossword setting, especially at the “agreed” level of the Everyman, allows for a reasonable amount of lassitude, so I’m pleased to have it supported by a respected setter himself.

55. Hoskins@52, I’m all good thanks, Harry. Trying to remember not to comment on the internet when I haven’t got a clear head. 🙂 “Fore” is nicely succinct for use in giving timely warnings, isn’t it?

    Andy+Luke @54, lassitude? Can’t help noticing that s and t are, to borrow Sil’s words, “not really close to each other on a keyboard” (even if closer than p and r).

56. Well, that was one of the most enjoyable blog-and-comment sessions on this site ever! I only came here having read the complaint about Hoskins on General Discussion, and yes – I did the crossword before reading the blog. Failed on FORE, of course. That clue was on a completely different level of difficulty, it seems to me. Or do I mean lassitude?

    Love the typos!

    Thanks Sil. Way to write a blog with both grumpiness and respect for the setter! Have another exclamation mark: !

57. Harder than usual for me. I had no problem with Fore once I got it – quite a clever clue, as was Armadillos which I didn’t get. Thanks Sil & Everyman.
    ps: Shame about the trolling on this blog. Are setters somehow considered beyond reproach?

58. I still have a problem with the use if ‘fore’ as related specifically to a duffer. If I hit a perfect shot down the middle of the fairway, and some body wandered into its path, I would call ‘fore!’
    Admittedly, the wanderer could be a duffer, but he/she could also be blind, or just taking a shortcut home.
    How terrible to let the ball hit somebody, for fear of being seen as a duffer!
    Otherwise happy with all solutiob and commentary.

59. Surely self-devotion is the *opposite* of generosity?
    (As Postmark@7 pointed out.) So the clue for 11 down is self-contradictory and makes no sense.

    On the whole this puzzle was a shambles. I put in “fore” for 23 across, but was and still am, completely unconvinced of its justification and by the pseudo-justifications offered by others. I am in complete agreement with Sil’s grumpiness.

60. Thought this was just awful. Not a patch on what the Everyman crosswords used to be.

61. One advantage of having the memory of a goldfish is I can now do the Everyman when it comes out on line and have another go when its printed in the NZ Herald six weeks later. Admittedly it was easier the second time, but still satisfying – small things.

62. Got as far as fer+o and still did not see fore! It seems ball had to be used 2x.
    Got self devotion but , like almost everyone else, did not feel that meant generosity.
    I’m guessing Sil doesn’t have grandkids or they’d know “Let it go”
    Nice to know other kiwis ( or do we have to be Aotearoans now?) are out there reading our comments.
    ,

63. Reasonably easy this week, not.
    Bu we survived and eventually succeeded
    Even for fore, which we got last with some debate. Perhaps Alan’s 28 handicap was useful for once, given he has experience with using the term.

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