Everyman 3,943

45 comments on “Everyman 3,943”

1. Thanks, Everyman and flashling!

   Gentle it is. Yes.

   GET DRESSED and CHARGES are pretty good. Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.

2. A couple of minor points:

   * I read 24a as CIVIL union rather than CIVIC
   * 1d is I for the setter aboard GGS — horses.

   Thanks to setter and blogger

3. I enjoyed this.
   GET DRESSED was my last one in and a fav when I got it. Misdirected by ‘acquire habit’. Was it getting addicted, accustomed to something, or when a nun enters her order/takes vows? Loved the roly-poly pudding with a date inside.
   Also enjoyed the fifty soldiers in the transport ordinance.

   Great surfaces evoking sights and smells. The degenerate duke lying back topless, and meat with a pungent taste. The incendiary crusaders for truth appealed to the higher parts of the cerebellum.

4. Enjoyed this and made steady progress last Sunday except for my last two which I finally got yesterday.

   Liked LEGISLATION, FIRELIGHTERS (made me smile), EVEREST, LAMBASTING, ACCORDIONS

   Thanks Everyman and flashling

5. Thanks, a couple of things…10a, I have never heard of DA = DAD. One-to-one remember.
   I don’t understand 7d, which I failed on…
   A) What is ABRUPTLY doing?
   B) What in the clue tells you to ‘disrobe’ “I’VE DISROBED”?
   Enjoyable, but annoying to miss 10a and 7d.
   Thanks both.

6. Hoofit@5 7A abruptly means shorten the fodder.
   Baking is the anagrind.

7. paddymelon @6 Ah, thanks, another to remember.

8. I did civil union and gigs like Aphid @2. Liked transport for elation, Pic was o, and the awful fiscal reforms. Ta both.

9. … Pic ass o .. bleeping autocorrect …

10. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was ideal as you say, Fiona Anne and PDM have mentioned my favourites .
    HYD@5 DA for father was in fairly recently. I thought it was North East England ( from When the Boat Comes In ) . Other people had many other examples.

    [ Lunar eclipse tomorrow morning for the UK, starts about 02.30 , will reach totality before the moon sets about 05.30 . Best viewed on the West coast while swimming in the sea ]

11. Anybody else finding the green difficult to see against the white background?

12. …. yep Roz, that show is where I met Da as well .. (and they use ‘we’ instead of ‘us’, as in ‘It’s the shop that feeds we’)

13. FIRE/WATER- we’ve seen Everyman use “antonym pairings” before, each time in symmetrical grid positions. The last few have been HEAVY/LIGHT, START/STOP and MAN/LADY, so no doubt this is by design.

    Thanks Everyman and flashling

14. Thanks Jay@13 , I did notice the FIRE/WATER last week but forgot it today. I remember looking for earth and air in the grid without success.

15. Agree with Crispy @ 11 about the green font – very hard to read on an iPad.

16. Thanks for the feedback. Yes I’ve just typed the wrong word with CIVIC and yep I meant GGs not gig. Must proof read better. I’ll remember about the green colour and use a different one in future.

17. Thanks Flashling!

18. Thank you for the blog. Looking at the time for completion, this was a straightforward solve, with lots to like.

    I think of DA as Irish/Northern Irish, as well as Northern, but I grew up in the West Country hearing dialect uses of what are now regularly called Americanisms (sidewalks for pavements, fall for autumn).

    It has to be CIVIL UNION from the anagram fodder.

19. Enjoyable puzzle but I failed to solve 7d.

    Liked FIRELIGHTERS, DECLINE, GNAT, LEGISLATION, GET DRESSED, STAGNATION, EVEREST, PICASSO.

    Thanks, both.

20. I liked this too, thanks Everyman and flashling.

    I’m sure that FIRELIGHTERS/liar fighters is a conscious reference to one of those (probably apocryphal) quotes attributed to the Rev himself:
    “Sir, you have tasted two whole worms; you have hissed all my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad; you will leave Oxford by the next town drain.”

    Everyman seems to have a thing about OTTO. It’s only two months since his last appearance, clued then as ‘German lad looking back and forth’. Perhaps the OTTO clue is set to become another Everyman trademark, like the ‘primarily’ clue and the related pair (incidentally, Jay @13, I think it’s not just rhymes or antonyms – we had COUNTRY and WESTERN a little while back). How many ways can there be to clue OTTO? It could make quite a good running gag, and certainly a challenge for the setter. Crazy over German lad? Abstemious bespectacled German?

21. Roz @10 thanks, you are a veritable fount of knowledge.
    It’s a ‘red’ moon tonight? I hope it is visible from darkest Croydon.

22. Essexboy@20 well remembered. In fact the COUNTRY and WESTERN puzzle used this same grid and those words appeared in the same 3d/11d grid positions as FIRE and WATER I’ve just noticed. I look forward to more outings for OTTO!

23. Certainly accessible, flashling. I have knocked it over just now, having been in the middle of the 6 day Overland Track last Saturday – a long way from any mobile reception! I was held up a bit by having GOOD FOR ONE, being misled by my rule of thumb that Pommy crossies use ONE(S) where I would always put YOU(R). The other ‘ordinance’ would be ‘ordnance’, wouldn’t it? And, at last, a Spoonerism to like. Thanks, Everyman and flashling.

24. HYD @21 should be red, known as a blood moon. Is visible anywhere but for UK the moon is close to setting , so very low in the South West, you need a good horizon.

25. Extravagant old cycle (4) .

    [If anyone is ever tempted to try Azed then today is very friendly indeed. Start in the top right, you may surprise yourself. ]

26. Roz I thought I was getting smarter. Another illusion shattered 🙂

27. I agree about the pale green, and I’m on a laptop. I actually like the answers in bold black.

    The puzzle was enjoyable — I got all of it first time through.

    Thanks, Everyman and flashling.

28. Not even whelmed, again, I’m afraid.

    9 Across’s ‘roly-poly’ doesn’t do it for me, and is GET DRESSED a thing in dictionaries? I wouldn’t have thought so. 12 Across I’m fairly certain transportS would be needed to cover the noun as used here. 16 Across I was only mildly persuaded by the definition, but see what he means. 25 Across I would say that ‘on’ needs to be a part of the first definition to have any value in the clue, and 26 wasn’t for me Everyman’s finest hidden. Downs had at 1 GGS for horses, which is fanciful at best (they are surely gee-gees as in gee up, not related to the letter G), at 4 ‘with’ didn’t seem to be doing a lot, 7 I couldn’t make much sense of, and 22 repeated the idea about taste used at 14.

    On the plus side, and I accept that this is usually a woefully short list for TLPs everywhere, 20 A and 11 and 14 D I thought were good.

29. [ Bodycheetah@26 perhaps we are both getting smarter. I have a long record of times for Azed and today is my fastest ]

30. Thanks, flashling and I agree about the green!

    Another enjoyable and accessible puzzle.

    Just one pedantic point re-12A. If you were thinking the ‘other’ type of ordinance was artillery-related, then that is spelt ORDNANCE

31. The comments about ordinance means my attempt at subtle silly humour failure on my part. Ref the fonts Mrs Flashling says there’s an obvious solution. Don’t use those devices and use something that works. 🙂

32. It’s not really legislation though. But shh.

33. I liked the font colours though. It reminded me of a selection of marmalades.

34. I can’t say that I agree with any of tlp@28’s fastidious fault-findings of this puzzle, but I get almost as much pleasure in reading them as I’m sure he gets from writing them.

    Now it is DISGRACEFULly late to GET DRESSED, so I will SIGN off. Thanks Everyman and flashing for the fun.

35. Thanks flashling and Everyman. I thought this was fine Sunday morning fare.

    essexboy @20 – ‘Turkish man eliminated German boy’

36. [W @35: 🙂
    ‘German, tired and emotional, missing old cars’ (4) ]

    tlp @28, re transport
    “In her transport at finding such treasures, Heidi even forgot Peter and his goats.”
    Re the surface reading of 7d
    ‘Like the rainforest?’ = ‘How are you finding life in the jungle?’
    ‘Baking:’ = ‘It’s absolutely scorchio – even hotter than the Costa del Lancashire!’
    ‘I’ve disrobed abruptly’ = ‘In fact it’s so hot I’ve had to interrupt this conversation and strip off, pronto’
    Time for a cooling moonlight dip, methinks.

37. I wasn’t comfortable with this at all, although I can say that as a long-time Everyman solver, I’ve been disappointed in recent years. To take the above example, whilst I’m sure essexboy is right with reference at least to the example he quotes, that meaning is beyond the bounds of what one has a right to expect to be confronted with as an Everyman solver. You feel that The Observer has got the style all wrong! This is supposed to be an elegant entry-level puzzle, and that it is certainly not.

38. Nice and simple, nothing to see here.

39. MrEssexboy@36 we like to keep quiet about Costa del Lancashire so that our deserted beaches remain that way . The eclipsed moonlit swim was ruined by the clouds , this frequently happens.

40. Think I only got a couple on the first sweep but then it all fell into place quite quickly. 1A and 4D were probably my two favourites. 9A was too close to an indirect anagram for my Ximinean taste.

    GG for horse is standard crossword fare.

41. I particularly liked 12a, 8d, 11d and 14d. 9a was last one in and I couldn’t be bothered to parse it – a 20a, 25a of Everyman’s 26a use of tortured surfaces, if you’ll firgive the 14d.

42. Oops. Firgive = forgive obvs.

43. It is CIVIL not CIVIC union surely.
    I don’t’ like the green
    Yet again another Otto
    But i did like the Spoonerism.

    Rob.

44. Get dressed, really, not impressed. Too contrived for my liking, say.
    Did it all and enjoyed it – had a citizen of the USA to assist and he is still a little off colour with colour.

45. And well spotted Bobby Hunt – the kiwis are on the ball (and the Australians by thr look of the footy last night).

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