Everyman 3,957

by

Nothing remarkable to be said: a very satisfactory Everyman of about the right level of difficulty, with the usual things we are now used to finding in this crossword.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (anagram, homophone, juxtaposition, etc.) in italics. Anagrams are indicated (like this)* or *(like this). Link-words in green.

 

ACROSS
1 HALF-TRUTHS
Quick drink, tipsily strut about hotel where some pork pies might be found? (4-6)
half *(strut) round h — half = quick drink, h = hotel — ‘pork pies’ = ‘lies’ in Cockney Rhyming Slang, commonly found in Crosswordland — but actually the pork pies are the half-truths, not the place where they might be found — I suppose the idea is that you can find some lies among some half-truths
6 TIER
Row with flipping concerning Italian (4)
(re It.)rev. — re = concerning, It. = Italian — initially I felt like making my usual grump about ‘with’ being used as a link-word, but here it’s ‘with flipping’ as the reversal indicator. I think.
9 SCREWBALLS
Eccentrics, according to Spooner, jeer at scribbles (10)
Spooner would (?) say ‘boo scrawls’ — boo = jeer at, scrawls = scribbles
10 THUG
The stunted not-half ugly lout (4)
Th[e] ug[ly]
11 TRAINSPOTTER
Educates boy wizard, one seen on King’s Cross platform? (12)
trains Potter — trains = educates, Potter refers to Harry Potter, who even I, who have never read any of it or seen any of the films, know is a boy wizard and also that he had something to do with King’s Cross Station, not that that last bit is essential to the clue since it’s a perfectly good definition as it stands
15 OBSERVE
Celebrate detailed newspaper (7)
Observe[r], referring to The Observer newspaper — celebrate = observe as in a religious festival — detailed has to be read as de-tailed
16 EYEBALL
Closely examine peculiar shelled jellybean (7)
*([j]ellybea[n])
17 FOUNDER
Architect, so to speak, to collapse (7)
2 defs — the architect of something is in a sense its founder
19 BATTERS
Pastes group of cricketers, now (7)
2 senses of ‘batters’ — I remember when I first saw ‘battered fish fingers’ for sale: I thought that the fish fingers had fallen to pieces, had been shaken around in their boxes and been battered (pasted); the thought that they had been smeared with batter (pasted) never occurred to me — ‘now’ because this is the word that we are now asked (by the English Cricket Board) to use rather than the old ‘batsman’ or ‘batswoman’, so as to avoid any suggestion of sexism — some people don’t like this, but Stephen Fry, in an interview after being named as the next MCC President, said how sensible and sensitive it was, and I agree with him. We’ll all be used to it very soon and it won’t seem at all odd
20 GLOBETROTTER
Keen tourist, German, given piece of brain and pig’s foot (12)
G lobe trotter — G = German, lobe = piece of brain, trotter = pig’s foot
23 RAYS
Some light fish (4)
2 defs, although lots of fish have no -s for the plural. However, there seems to be no problem with ray/s
24 ABSTAINING
In pursuit of muscles, taking exercise? Right away, refusing to take part (10)
abs t{r}aining — abs are the muscles, training = taking exercise, and ‘in pursuit of’ tells you that ‘training’ comes after ‘abs’
25 SASH
Band essential to salsa shows (4)
Hidden in salSA SHows
26 STABILISED
Fixed unhealthy Basil’s diet (10)
*(Basil’s diet)
DOWN
1 HOST
Compère presenting piece from Shostakovich (4)
Hidden in SHOSTakovitch
2 LARD
Sightseer bloated, ultimately, following the French calorific ingredient (4)
calorific in the sense that it is full of calories — la [Sightsee]r [bloate]d — ‘la’ is ‘the’ in French
3 TOWER BRIDGE
English getting run, going after draw: game in London location (5,6)
tow E r bridge — tow = draw, E = English, r = run, bridge is the card game
4 UNALIKE
Ian and Luke, wildly different (7)
(Ian Luke)*
5 HOLY SEE
State whose borders are all land – or entirely water, we’re told (4,3)
“wholly sea” — the state in question is Vatican City, which is landlocked
7 IN HOT WATER
Encountering trouble, like one using 19? (2,3,5)
Since 19 is ‘bathtub’ if one is using the bathtub one is probably (hence the ‘?’) in hot water — but this one threw me because there are two clues 19 and I spent a long time wondering why one was in hot water if using batters — it should have said ’19 down’
8 REGARDLESS
Ignore more, by implication anyway (10)
If you ignore things more the implication is that you regard things less
12 OVER THE HILL
Getting on in the Runaway Train’s destination (4,3,4)
Not sure about this: is there some song? — probably not this one, but it seems a bit familiar. Perhaps it was something in my youth which I’ve forgotten. Anyway it seems clear enough that this is the answer, since it fits the definition and there are lots of checking letters that stop it from being much else
13 CONFIGURES
Shapes wobbling about: refocusing (10)
*(refocusing) — ‘shapes’ a verb
14 PSEUDONYMS
So send up my silly aliases (10)
(So send up my)*
18 RAREBIT
Regionally associated refreshment: evidently beery, invariably toasted, primarily? (7)
The first letters clue that we always have: ‘evidently beery’ may have been a bit of a stretch, but otherwise nice
19 BATHTUB
Flutter, only hot when rising in location for washing (7)
bat (but h)rev. — bat = flutter, but = only, h = hot
21 MICS
Everyman’s up and about on front of stage, needing help to address audience (4)
Short for microphones: (I’m)rev. c s[tage] — I’m is Everyman, the usual self-referential clue, c = about (circa)
22 EGAD
For example, a daughter giving antiquated oath (4)
e.g. a d — e.g. = for example, a = a, d = daughter — ‘Egad, sir’

46 comments on “Everyman 3,957”

  1. “The runaway train went over the hill and she blew, she blew. “. Popular childrens song from goodness knows when. My last one although it shouldn’t have been. I could argue the the hill was not the destination as the train keeps going over many more verses.

  2. Thanks John and Everyman. For 7D, there is a kind of convention that eg. 19 refers to 19D in a down clue, but would refer to 19A in an across clue – and the D or A would be inserted if the other were referenced.
    Ray @1
    All the verses of the song say “The runaway train came down the track etc” until the last:
    The runaway train went over the hill,
    and the last we heard she’s going still,
    and she blew, blew, blew, blew, blew.
    So ‘destination’ nearer the mark, if still questionable.
    A version of the song (I think the one I grew up with) is here.

  3. HALF-TRUTHS:
    Your explanation is interesting John.
    Calling ‘pork-pie’ ‘lie’ is a half-truth in itself…
    Hmm… Liked it.
    RAYS:
    Another interesting (so what if elementary) point made. All rays in this world make just one fish.
    BATTERS:
    I think alike on getting used to ‘batters’. We will discuss it for a while and then get used to it.
    Still, when we say ‘The Zimbabwe national cricket team’, it means ‘the men’s team’. The women’s team is qualified with ‘women’s’ in it. Maybe this will change over time as the women’s game gains further popularity, I guess (like in various track and field events, swimming etc., where we mention whether it’s a men’s event or a women’s event.)

    With PeterO on the 19D bit.
    Liked IN HOT WATER.
    Also liked REGARDLESS.

  4. Found this harder than the last few week’s and still had five to get when I gave up on Sunday.

    But when I went back to it on Monday, once again the rhyming pair came to my aid to get TRAINSPOTTER and since the others intersected with it or each other I quickly got the rest.

    Liked GLOBETROTTER (one of my first ones in) and also HOLY SEE, ABSTAINING, REGARDLESS

    SCREWBALL was my LOI.

    Thanks Everyman and John

  5. Having sought our attention with PSST/PSSST, Everyman now tells us to OBSERVE, EYEBALL, SPOT, REGARD. What’s next I wonder?

    I also noted that the BATTERS are accompanied by a pair of BALLS.

    Thanks to E and J

  6. Well done Jay, you’re clearly following the instructions. Another enjoyable Everyman for me. I thought the “now” qualification for BATTERS was clever. Is the batter – pasting equivalence where the slang pasting for beating comes from? It seems to use the other meaning of batter. My favourite clue was CONFIGURES for the elusive anagram. Someone recently offered an explanation as to why some anagrams are more difficult due to the same letters having different sounds, so this must be a case in point.
    Thanks John and Everyman.

  7. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was very good again, I agree with you on the “19” , I prefer to see it labelled properly. Ray@1 has the song I recalled, Fiona Anne @4 has the rhyming pair.
    Well spotted Jay@5, I totally missed this but I will now add SEE from 5D.
    Like Paul @6 I took the other meaning of batters/pastes as in beats thoroughly, often in a sporting sense.
    PSEUDONYMS took me a while, had to get the P in the right place.

  8. I agree – excellent. TRAINSPOTTER was lovely, lots else to like. Have to start looking for continuation themes – thanks, Jay, John and Everyman.

  9. The first time I’ve not only finished, but finished with no mistakes at last! Thanks to everyone here for the help
    and guidance over the weeks…still have trouble understanding some of the parsing though (how does the ‘r’ in 15A disappear??)

  10. Well done Cara, you will be helping others soon.
    15A is a typical trick , detailed = de-tailed meaning remove the tail. The tail of Observer is the r right at the end.

  12. Nicely OBSERVEd/SPOTTEd/SEEn, Jay and Roz. I missed that entirely, and the BATTERS with their BALLS. Where are the bowlers? We can see their FIGURES.

    [KVa @3 – as a matter of interest, are you based in Zimbabwe? (though I guess from time of posting you’d have to be doing the night shift). We have regular contributors from all over the UK, as well as the US, Australia, NZ, Canada, France, Switzerland, Finland… (I’ve probably missed someone) – would be good to see some from Africa too.]

    [Since listening to PeterO’s ‘Runaway Train’ link @2, I’ve had that annoying experience of hearing a tune, possibly from childhood, going round and round in my head, but being unable to place it. It has a very similar rhythm, and the Runaway Train words would fit exactly, but it’s in a minor key, and I seem to remember something like, ‘Hurrah, hurrah!’ in place of ‘She blew’. Does that sound familiar to anyone?]

    Like others, liked this; thanks Everyman and John.

  13. Liked this one a lot. I think it was a reaction to the previous cryptics, which I think I struggled with. Getting older, how can I remember this week, let alone last week?
    I found this weeks Everyman far more difficult in parts. 1a and the bottom half stopped me in my tracks and I could not find a rhyming pair, although I rarely spot a theme and have never noticed a NINA, so maybe just me.
    Jay and Roz, the PSST series carries on.

  16. I liked REGARDLESS. I’m not sure I welcome the memories of Children’s Favourites with Uncle Mac, but well done to Lord Jim.

  17. [Thanks Lord Jim @14 for putting me out of my misery! 🙂 Here it is, with a nice, if short, guitar solo. I wonder which came first, and if anyone sued for plagiarism?]

  18. All the usual Everyman features present and correct, a nicely constructed but not too tricky puzzle, as I have come to expect. CONFIGURES is probably my favourite, just because I always like a word for word anagram (“refocusing”) with no adding or subtracting.

    Last week, posts by essexboy and Roz mentioned yet another Everyman quirk, clues that link one puzzle to that of the previous week. This adds yet another dimension to the Sunday solve, and the link this time is actor Daniel Radcliffe.

    In Everyman 3957, 11 across, we have “Educates boy wizard…” referring to Harry POTTER in TRAINSPOTTER. Harry P was played by Daniel Radcliffe in the films.

    In Everyman 3956, 12 across (same position on the grid) referred to a “Much performed play”, WAR HORSE, which also famously starred Daniel Radcliffe in a West End run.

    Thanks to Everyman and John, as well as essexboy and Roz!

  23. Yes, I had a QM for the ‘now’ in 19 – now explained.

    I liked TOWER BRIDGE for the double-meaning of draw, and HOLY SEE for the good homophone.

    Thanks Everyman and John.

  24. Danny B @20: welcome to the club! I have a proven track record for spotting themes which aren’t there. Petert even wrote a poem about it 😉

    KVa @21: thanks, that explains the early post! We used to have a regular poster (and before that, blogger) called Rishi, who I believe was based in Chennai, but he sadly passed away last year.

    Lord Jim @22, you are a veritable etymologist of song.

  26. Danny@18 I was convinced until I read the next post, valiant effort.

    For anyone tempted by Azed it is rather friendly on the whole today.

  27. I, a baseball-speaking Yank to whom “batter” is the normal word for someone at bat, will mildly miss “batsman” (though I totally get the point) because it’s British and quaint.

    John@18d Beer may be a stretch, but beer is a traditional ingredient in Welsh rarebit, at least when I make it.

    Thanks, Everyman and John.

  28. Everyman is my favourite setter. I think I’m on his wavelength, somehow. He’s slightly easier than the setters during the week, and almost always parsable.

  29. [essexboy@ 17 and Lord Jim@22. Video unavailable down here, but thanks to you both I have an earworm, same melody. Will just have to imagine the guitar solo and the soothing sounds of the choof choof choof as I head for bed .

    I grew up with steam trains and followed them in both hemispheres as they were being decommissioned. Still have the sound of a puffin billy on weekends that I can hear on clear days, maintained by steam buffs.

    The story I remember from childhood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Engine_That_Could
    “Larger locomotives, treated anthropomorphically, are asked to pull the train; for various reasons they refuse. The request is sent to a small engine, who agrees to try. The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating the motto: “I-think-I-can”.]

    I couldn’t work out how the runaway train went over the hill. Surely it was already over the hill before it ran away.

  32. As usual, I find myself chiming with John here, as his blog always picks up on the things I myself dislike or doubt. All I’d add is the feeling of clumsiness about some of the clues, which I should imagine is an unintended addition to the array of idiosyncratic devices with which this compiler is wont to decorate his puzzles.

  33. I didn’t know the runaway train song, and I didn’t understand the “now” in 19ac. Thanks for the explanations!

    Lots of professions that once went by gendered names are now ungendered. We got used to “firefighter” and “police officer”; we’ll get used to “batter”. A small step, but a good one.

  34. It’s late and I doubt that anyone will read this.
    I think that Valentine @ 27 sums up the reason why I hate BATTERS.
    It’s English.
    That’s not allowed these days.
    And trust the hateful American-loving Guardian (I think that the Everyman is in the Sunday Guardian?) to push it on us.
    When I’m prime minister there’ll be some changes ….

  35. I’m still thrown when the ABC Radio says “let’s cross now to the SCG for a score update in the men’s cricket”.

  37. [Anna @34
    That’s a provocative post, but one that raises a couple of questions. If you hate the Guardian, why do you post on a blog about its crossword?

    I don’t want to pry, but since you plan to be PM, are you a UK resident? I assumed you meant PM of the UK, as none of the other PMs around the world will have any power over The Guardian. Are you aware that there isn’t a Sunday Guardian? Everyman has appeared in The Observer for many years, generally on a Sunday. It’s on The Guardian website because the two papers are related. I believe they use the term “sister newspapers”; naturally I would prefer “sibling…”.

    I wouldn’t describe the Graun as particularly American-loving, nor of sufficient influence to push a term like BATTERS on the rest of us successfully. I first heard it used by commentators on TV, and was initially thrown as I thought it was a baseball term, but on reflection, given the number of women playing the game, I feel it is more appropriate even if a little less “quaint” as Valentine @27 puts it.

  38. Well, I just realized that I never looked up this Everyman blog, so will post my notes, anyway.
    – My favorites were 11a and 5d (also my last ones in)
    – It seemed to me, as I think was mentioned earlier, that a runaway train would be going DOWN the hill not over it. Sounded more like (as already pointed out) like The Little Engine Who Could)

  39. I’ve never associated ‘beery’ with rarebit.
    And the ‘Runaway train’ was new to me a Kiwi at school in the 1940s.
    1a kept me thinking!
    But liked 14d,
    BTW has Everyman produced a crossword for our late Queen ??
    Rob.

  40. Very good and relatively simple crossword. 21d is mildly annoying as a speaker (Everyman) only uses a single microphone so the answer should not be a plural.

  41. Well Robert @ 39, .I was at school in the 1940’s too, but I did remember the Runaway Train song though it was much later than the 40’s. It was on the radio lots.

  42. I agree with Duane and it’s not just because I’m in Auckland too. I did not like mics.
    I agree with the reservations about batters sounding like baseball.
    Greginsyd is lucky : here in NZ they don’t mention gender and you think “I didn’t know they were playing” until you realize what they are talking about.

  43. OK. Mics was a poor clue. Does make sense. dias was just as good s aid backwards, even though the Everyman part was unused.
    Liked screwball.

  45. Not sure why the fuss about Mic, works for me.

    My one gripe was 6 whose surface makes no sense.

    I remember the train song. Must have been on the radio lots in England in the early 60s which was my main pre-Beatles listening era.

  46. I’m doing this on holiday in Queensland and the warmer weather must have helped the brain as I did quite well and had to do an e-version at that. The only train ref from my childhood was Sparky and the train which I adored as a kid which has no relevance to the Runaway train but a brief enjoyable run down memory lane anyway. Lots to love here……for a while I had Tiff for Tier until I realised it was wrong, both of them being rows. Observe, Abstaining and In hot Water were my favourites. Globetrotter and Trainspotting were wonderful clues but I almost wish they had been a little trickier to get. Won’t complain

Comments are closed.