Everyman 3,905

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All was pretty straightforward and it seemed that this was another crossword from Everyman that maintained the recent good standard. But, although they were both quite sound, I took absolutely ages on a pair of clues that I just couldn’t do. One of them was fine really, and I kicked myself afterwards; the other was rather obscure I thought; if an answer is going to be an obscure word, then in my opinion the clue should be pretty straightforward. This one wasn’t. Thank goodness I eventually got there.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (anagrams, hidden, reversal, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this} or (like this)*

 

ACROSS
1 BAR GRAPH
Chart showing pub and hotel stocking mostly pinot, perhaps (3,5)
bar (grap[e]) h — pub = bar, hotel = h, pinot is a type of grape
5 CLASPS
150 snakes offering embraces (6)
CL asps — CL is 150 in Roman numerals, asps are snakes, perhaps because, as Dudley Moore suggested, ‘asp’ stands for ‘a stinging personality’
9 IMMERSED
Placed in water, bananas simmered (8)
*(simmered) — bananas and nuts are regular anagram indicators in crosswords
10 ECLAIR
Sent back kind of pudding the French consumed: it’s very rich and creamy (6)
(rice)rev. round la — the pudding is rice pudding, ‘la’ is ‘the’ in French
12 GIVE THE GAME AWAY
Divulge what they do in ‘Danny, the Champion of the World’ (4,3,4,4)
I know nothing of the Roald Dahl book by this name, but (although I’m not that keen to plough through its details) it seems that in the book they give some pheasants (game, in another sense) away
13 TEST BED
Liability set to return in experimental environment (4,3)
(debt set)rev. — debt = liability
14 GRAN
Elderly relative‘s fragrant (to some extent) (4)
Hidden in fraGRANt — not necessarily though, I should have thought: you can be a grandmother in your 40s (and legally even before then) and that is hardly elderly
18 AMIS
A little sad, Everyman’s a rejected novelist (4)
(s[ad] I’m a)rev. — Kingsley or Martin — Everyman appears in the clues, as always — one could be picky and say that ‘a little sad’ doesn’t actually indicate the first letter of sad: it could be any of the letters, but the convention of the first letter is well established, whether or not it is logical
19 STATION
Perhaps Victoria, perhaps Dave (7)
2 defs: Victoria station and the Freeview channel, something that will be lost on our overseas solvers I fear
23 TAKE IT ON THE CHIN
‘No hit’, twice: Kent ace resolved to accept defeat (4,2,2,3,4)
(no hit hit Kent ace)* — I got this quite quickly but it took me ages to work out and I kept thinking the setter had made a mistake. But no. — one might criticise the surface, which doesn’t really seem very natural, although I suppose the picture intended is of some brilliant Kent cricketer missing the ball twice and becoming resigned to the impending loss
24 APIARY
Not very quiet birdhouse – it’s full of bees (6)
aviary with its v replaced by p: one has to read the clue as ‘Not v but p in a word meaning birdhouse’
25 ROSALINE
Romeo, gutted; teardrops, perhaps – for his love? (8)
R[ome]o saline — Rosaline was a character in Romeo and Juliet; no doubt she had some sort of amorous dealings with him — saline is to be seen as a noun, salt solution, and teardrops are salty — thank goodness I eventually got this as it would have been rather embarrassing to have posted a blog with one answer missing, and it was not without much electronic help; I didn’t know much about the play and had never heard of Rosaline
26 OBSESS
‘Horrible Bosses’ to occupy one’s thoughts (6)
*(Bosses)
27 ASSESSES
Rates some classes’ sessions (8)
Hidden in clASSES’ SESsions — my pet hate, ‘some’ intended to mean ‘some of the letters of”; does it?
DOWN
1 BRIDGE
It’s used in snooker game (6)
2 defs — the bridge is the (usually left) hand placed on the table to provide a channel through which snooker players send the cue on a straight line; the card game
2 REMOVE
Take out a degree of indirectness (6)
2 defs — if you remove something you take it out, and as in ‘at one remove’
3 RARITIES
They’re seldom seen: essentially drab grim items of neckwear (8)
[d]ra[b] [g]ri[m] ties
4 PRESENTATION
Illustrated talk giving position of baby in the womb (12)
2 defs — Collins has for the 9th definition of ‘presentation’, ‘medicine the position of a baby relative to the birth canal at the time of birth’, something that was new to me
6 LICHEN
Loudly compare fungus and alga (6)
“liken” — although I’ve gone through life pronouncing it to rhyme with ‘kitchen’ (it seems according to Collins that either is OK), and Collins also tells us that lichen is formed by the symbiotic association of a fungus and an alga
7 STAR WARS
Film‘s leads hiding – icy, stuck up (4,4)
stars round (raw)rev. — the film is Star Wars — leads = stars, raw = icy — one has to ignore the hyphen: the leads are hiding (icy, stuck up)
8 STRAYING
Distracted stingray wandering off (8)
*(stingray)
11 LAMENTATIONS
Listen to a man performing Old Testament book (12)
(Listen to a man)*
15 SANTIAGO
Opposed to puncturing starch in the City (8)
s(anti)ago — opposed to = anti, starch = sago, and Santiago the town is, no doubt, a city — there are so many ways of defining a city that ‘town’ will surely do — as Wikipedia says, ‘Sago is a starch extracted from the spongy centre, or pith, of various tropical palm stems’
16 PINK GINS
Serviceman, new, sporting flowers and booze (4,4)
pink(GI n)s — the serviceman is a GI, n = new, the flowers are pinks
17 LOVELACE
Programmer‘s dearest material (8)
love lace — love = dearest (both are terms of endearment), lace is the material — this refers to Ada Lovelace, Byron’s daughter, who is often regarded as the first computer programmer
20 TIGRIS
Terminating in Gulf, river irrigating Sumer, primarily? (6)
The first letters clue that has become a regular in the Everyman: T[erminating] i[n] G[ulf] …
21 CHOIRS
Some singers some paper reported (6)
“quires”, the similarity in sound of ‘quires’ and ‘choirs’ indicated by ‘reported’
22 KNEELS
Arising, well-groomed entertaining knight prepares for investiture (6)
(slee(N)k)rev. — N = knight (in chess it has to be distinguished from the king) — this was the second answer that took me ages, for no other reason than my own incompetence

51 comments on “Everyman 3,905”

  2. Favourites: STINGRAY (I loved the visual of a distracted stingray wandering off); TAKE IT ON THE CHIN, ROSALINE.

    Needed quite a bit of help from dictionary and wikipedia etc. New for me: PRESENTATION = the position of a fetus in relation to the cervix at the time of delivery; Snooker bridge; LICHEN alga; DAVE TV channel in UK; LAMENTATIONS (OT book found via google); TEST BED.

    Thanks, both.

  3. Thanks Everyman and John. ROSALINE my LOI as well, for the same reasons.

    Sil@1, Are you saying 12 and 23 are the pair? They scan for sure. I was wondering about that in today’s. Or is it LAMENTATION and PRESENTATIONS (almost).

  5. I had problems with the same two – and despite staring at them for ages did not get ROSALINE (also had not read the play) or KNEELS.

    Last one in (apart from these) was LOVELACE which I really liked. Also liked CHOIRS and LICHEN.

    Thanks Everyman and John

  7. Like Fiona Anne @5, LOVELACE was my last one in. I knew about Ada, but I couldn’t get CODER— out of my mind. I also knew the phrase ‘breech presentation’ (i.e buttocks and not head of baby towards the pelvis), so no problem there. I had to check ROSALINE (E not D at aend) too. Did anyone else go for BECKHAM for 19a? Until the crossers ruled it out. RARITIES and SANTIAGO were neat. Thanks, Everyman and John.

  8. I struggled with the same two as John, despite having seen the play fairly recently at the Pop-up Globe (no recollecton of that other love interest, though there were a few liberties with the storyline). 1d also took much longer than it should given I’ve played both (could only think of spider). All in all very enjoyable. Thanks John & Everyman.

  9. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was pretty good overall. ROSALINE was my only question mark, the clue was clear but do not know the link with Romeo.
    We do not seem to really have our usual rhyming pair or alliteration.
    Sil @1 is a nice idea. PDM @2 is a good spot but as stated , not quite right.

  11. Glad I’m not the only one who took a long time to finish this. In fact it took me longer than several Guardian puzzles during the week (including Paul’s on Friday) but I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

    For BRIDGE I was thinking of the implement rather than the hand position. (Best to avoid the Clouseau technique – it can lead to a rit of fealous jage.)

    ECLAIR reminded me of the famous Chambers definition: ‘a cake long in shape but short in duration’.

    Many thanks Everyman and John.

  12. MrEssexboy@ 11 – BRIDGE as implement ?? I thought it was just called a rest or as Paul@8 says , a spider ? My knowledge is limited so please correct .

  13. Romeo is besotted with Capulet’s niece, ROSALINE, at the start of the play, until he claps eyes on Juliet. As Friar Laurence remarks, having been asked by Romeo to marry him with unseemly haste to Juliet:

    Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
    So soon forsaken? young men’s love then lies
    Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
    Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
    Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!

    The reference to ‘a deal of brine’ may therefore be echoed in Everyman’s clue.

    Incidentally, the last time I checked SANTIAGO was the capital of Chile and therefore indisputably a city. I don’t know what other Santago John was thinking of as a ‘town’.

  14. Enjoyable everyman, I too had questions about Rosaline, so thanks SC@13.

    Roz@12 the bridge is usually made with the hand, the rest is a simple ‘X’ cross used when a player cannot reach to make a bridge. Two other specialised rests called the spider and the swan are used when other balls impede where the bridge or rest needs to sit. They are named from the shape of the ends where the cue rests.

    Thanks Everyman and John

  15. Roz @12: from wiki ‘Glossary of cue sports terms’

    bridge Either the player’s hand or a mechanical bridge used to support the shaft end of the cue stick during a shot. Also the particular hand formation used for this purpose (there are many)

    mechanical bridge A special stick with a grooved, slotted or otherwise supportive end attachment that helps guide the cue stick – a stand-in for the bridge hand. It is usually used only when the shot cannot be comfortably reached with a hand bridge.

    spider Also spider rest. A type of rest, similar to a common American-style rake bridge but with longer legs supporting the head so that the cue is higher and can reach over and around an obstructing ball to reach the cue ball.

    S’s c @13 Thanks for the ROSALINE elaboration – adds another layer to the clue.

  17. [ Thank you both for the enlightenment , spider does seem to crop up in crosswords quite a lot in this sense.]

  18. I had put CODEBASE for 17d, thinking the clue might be just a rather weak cryptic definition. Glad to see now that the actual answer is LOVELACE and it was in fact a very good clue.

  19. Roz @12 I’m with you. I thought a specific hand position was a BRIDGE.
    Maybe there is some obscure snooker tool we are unaware of?

  21. [HoofIt, you/Roz/Blah are right – rest and spider are the normal words for the implement(s) in snooker, although bridge seems to have some currency online. When posting @11 I think I was unduly influenced by Peter Sellers’ billiards masterclass. 😉 ]

  22. Another who struggled with ROSALINE. That, and my rather sketch recall of the Old Testament, meant this took longer than the usual Everyman. A good puzzle, though.

  23. Essexboy @21 It took Peter Sellers and George Sanders a whole afternoon to shoot that scene as they couldn’t stop laughing

  24. Thanks Andrew and Everyman

    I was looking forward to being a smartarse and explaing ROSALINE and BRIDGE but I see others have got there before me. [I’ve always found Romeo to be a very unsympathetic hero – such an impetuous prick.]

  28. [Widderbel@24 assuming you weren’t being most unkind about our esteemed blogger surely Romeo gets a pass due to his tender years

    EB I’ve posted to you in GD did it there as potentially a spoiler, plus a legal anagram clue for you]

  29. An enjoyable puzzle, though I thought “Danny, the Champion of the World” was a bit obscure.

    My favourite was ROSALINE which was very good. [widdersbel @24: yes it’s strange that Romeo has become a byword for the ideal lover. He is infatuated with Rosaline but forgets her the moment he sees Juliet; he kills Juliet’s cousin Tybalt and Count Paris who wished to marry her – he’s basically a hot-headed thug.]

    Many thanks Everyman and John.

  30. [ EB@21 so I was right ? the hand makes a bridge , the cross thing is a rest and the tall thing is a spider ?
    Your information was still very interesting and I suppose any sort of rest is really just a mechanical bridge]

    [ Sc @13 , just brilliant. Nice to get it from the horse’s mouth as I say }

  31. Yes, largely enjoyable Everyman.

    My first thought for 1D was spider, because as well as a snooker rest, it’s a game. I liked STAR WARS. I thought the clue for APIARY was a bit amiss; it might have been better to put ‘quiet inside birdhouse.’

    It was somewhat unfortunate that the intersecting ROSALINE and LOVELACE both needed GK, although I managed to solve them. It’s taken me many years to realise that LICHEN are a mixture of fungi and algae – who would have guessed?

    Thanks Everyman and John.

  32. Blah @28 – no, for the reasons LJ mentions @29, plus being responsible for the death of a teenage girl!

    Roz @30 – my recollection from my snooker playing days (haven’t been near a table for some years, admittedly) is that spider and bridge are used interchangeably to describe a particular kind of rest – one that allows you to play over the top of another ball, which the basic cross-head rest doesn’t. But yes, bridge is also the hand position.

  34. Another one for whom the existence of ROSALINE had failed to register. I did remember that the plot of Danny the Champion of the World had to do with poaching (feeding pheasants with drugged raisins if I recall, so they could be easily caught), but I think Everyman is a bit mean to expect this to be generally known.

    As a snooker fan since the days of Pot Black, I have only heard “bridge” used to describe the shape made by the player’s hand. Of course, other cue sports ( and Peter Sellers) may use it for an implement, but the clue does specifically say snooker.

  35. Thank you widdersbel@32 I did sort of know most of this but nice to get it all straight. Never heard of SWAN, it must be rarer, a black swan maybe.

  36. Interesting how few of you know Romeo and Juliet. In the earlier stages of the play Romeo is writing verses to Rosaline and is depressed by the situation, sent up by one of his friends in one of the exchanges, only to see Juliet and change allegiance immediately. That one I have had to teach, so I had lines running through my head as I solved the clue.

    @widdersbel – The spider is a slightly different bridge, it’s one that sits over another ball – from the snooker clue, where both the hand to provide a guide and for full sized tables, special implements.

  38. Enjoyed this one a lot. I did have and alternate reading of 21d to be TENORS with the direct definition for some singers and the homophone being TENNERS which I was pleased to recall as a British slang for a particular denomination of paper money. Fortunately the correct answer is at least as good.
    Also nice to see Ada Lovelace make an appearance even if it was my last one in (I also was stumped by an attempt to begin with coder).

  39. Shame @36 – I seem to be very much in a minority in thinking “bridge” is also used to describe a “spider”, as well as the hand position, so I’m willing to accept it’s my memory that is at fault.
    [I’m another who grew up with Pot Black, but I’ve not really followed or played the game for a while.]

  40. [Loved watching Pot Black, but Mrs ginf used to call the reverently voiced compere Whispering Death]

  41. For me the trickiest Everyman puzzle in some while. TEST BED, KNEELS & ROSALINE were the last 3 in & real head scratchers.

  42. [grantinfreo @40: Ted Lowe, to whom Mrs ginf was referring, was not the only ‘whisperer’ of that television era; there was, notably, (Whispering) Bob Harris of ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’. I hope, that said, that this does not provoke a tsunami of reminiscences about TOGWT, or we will spoil Gaufrid’s dinner.]

  43. [ginf@40 I dear say the appearance of Ray Reardon (aka Dracula) didn’t help Mrsginf’s disposition. I’m guessing you were an Eddie Charlton fan.]

  44. [ I am reliably informed that Whispering Death was Michael Holding- a West Indian fast bowling cricketer
    . Apparently there is a funny story about him but probably never actually happened. ]

  45. Found this very hard, and had to use wildcard dictionaries at lot.
    Even with that, got one wrong: “Lovelace” — put in “homepage” in desperation, though I had little hope of its being right. Then kicked myself when I saw the answer.

    Did not remember (ageing memory!) Rosaline from R. & J., but “ro” + “saline” worked so well I figured that had to be it.

    Could not parse “Star Wars” though I knew that had to be the answer.

    Thanks to Everyman, and to John for the explanations.

  46. Asked our 17yr old drama student daughter for help with Rosaline – she got it straight away! Husband got Codebase, I love Lovelace, great to see her mentioned.
    Overall harder than the last few weeks for sure.

  47. DNF for me, failed on the lover and the programmer.

    GTGA was a guess, as was Station. We get Jones here, never heard of Dave, haven’t read the Dahl book

    Otherwise a nice crossword on a grey Auckland morning as our lockdown continues

  48. I enjoyed this. I, too, was surprised at how many hadn’t heard of Rosaline. From memory I thought her name was Rosalind until it didn’t fit the clues. She wasn’t a character who appeared but Romeo was mooning about her at the start of the play.
    I had not heard of Dave but managed to guess Station.
    Nice to have something enjoyable to do during this interminable Lockdown.

  49. Didn’t get Rosaline (decades since I read R&J – must read again) or Lovelace (ashamed to say). The rest was straight forward. Apiary was cute.

  50. This one failed. Lovelace- you are kidding me. Didn’t like the answer even when explained.

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