Everyman 3,976

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Have you noticed that Everyman crosswords are always of 28 letters? So far as I can see, anyway. Why should the setter slave away for those extra few clues? Not that it matters. The standard is good, as it has been becoming for a while; good surfaces (apart from 15ac, 7dn and 19dn I think) and sound clueing, with the usual constraints of the first letters clue, the self-referential clue, and the alliterative clues. Actually I can’t see any of the last here — it looks as if Everyman has deviated from the norm and has included two long answers of two words, with the same first word.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (anagram, homophone, reversal, etc. in italics). Link-words in green.

 

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 COORDINATE
Oversee dismantling of decoration (10)
*(decoration)
6 SMOG
Unpleasant air bottled by cosmographer (4)
Hidden in coSMOGrapher
9 REDESIGNED
Socialist employee finally recruited and changed (10)
red e signed — red = Socialist, e = [employe]e, signed = recruited
10 STYE
Eye’s sore? Eyesore, by the sound of it? (4)
“sty” — a sty is an eyesore and it sounds like stye
11 NEW TESTAMENT
Amphibian (English), part of a flower and introduction to taxonomy in set of books (3,9)
newt E stamen t[axonomy] — newt = amphibian, E = English; stamen = part of a flower
15 SCOTTIE
Antarctic explorer: that is, a hairy beast (7)
Scott i.e. — (Robert Falcon) Scott is the Antarctic explorer, i.e. = that is — the scottie dog
16 SOMALIA
So, an African country, a country in Africa (7)
So Mali a — So = So, Mali is an African country, a = a
17 LUDDITE
Worker that’s absolutely smashing? (7)
CD — the Luddites were a group of people in the 1830s who disapproved of the Industrial Revolution and had lost their jobs because of the greater efficiency of mechanisation; they wanted to go back to some pastoral idyll, and to make their point smashed up machines (my English history from many years ago, so it may be a bit inaccurate, but it doesn’t really seem to be contradicted by the Wikipedia entry)
19 TRUNDLE
Runt led astray, getting to move clumsily (7)
(Runt led)*
20 NEW ZEALANDER
Antipodean with fresh passion ranted madly, | losing time (3,9)
New Zeal (ranted – t)* — New = fresh, Zeal = passion — I don’t think ‘with’ is a link-word: one has to read it as (fresh passion) is with, ie next to, (ranted madly)
23 DARN
Stitch? Heck! (4)
2 defs — to darn is to stitch in a piece of clothing, and Heck! and Darn! are both mild swearwords
24 BRAINCHILD
Chili brand getting revamp, an original idea (10)
(Chili brand)*
25 SOHO
Very hot, old London district (4)
Soho — So = very, h = hot, o = old
26 BERNERS-LEE
British engineer, rather noteworthy, envisaged revolutionary structure launching electronic ecosystem, primarily? (7-3)
Our first letters clue
DOWN
1 CARD
Wag sending up vampiric character (4)
(Drac)rev. — it’s sent up because it’s a down clue, but I’m not really convinced by this and am unaware of Drac as a vampiric character: it may be someone in a game I don’t know, and a drac is Australian slang for an unattractive woman (perhaps Dracula’s daughter) — it seems to be related to Dracula, who is a vampire, but someone will have to explain I’m afraid — anyway a card is a possibly slightly archaic word for a wag
2 ODDS
What might ironically be evens? (4)
CD — it’s ironic because the odds could be ‘evens’ and odd and even are opposites
3 DESSERT WINE
Horribly westernised drink that’s sweet (7,4)
*(westernised)
4 NIGHTIE
Coming with formal wear and very informal wear (7)
nigh tie — nigh = coming (‘the end is coming’/’the end is nigh’), tie = formal wear
5 TRESSES
Worries, scratching head and hair (7)
[s]tresses — stresses = worries, and if you scratch the head of that word you get tresses
7 MOTHER LODE
Rich supply Mike with alternative 50 words of praise (6,4)
M other L ode — M = Mike (NATO alphabet), other = alternative, L = 50 (Roman numerals), ode = words of praise — I’d never heard this term, but Google confirms it as a rich supply
8 GREAT DANES
Søren Kierkegaard, Scooby-Doo, etc? (5,5)
CD — Soren Kierkegaard came from Denmark so was a great Dane, and Scooby-Doo was a dog, a great dane
12 ARMOURED CAR
Our mad racer dashed in heavy vehicle (8,3)
(Our mad racer)*
13 ESPLANADES
Mounties plan a descent – that includes waterside walks (10)
Hidden in MountiES PLAN A DEScent — this is an excellent clue, for hiddens often stick out a mile (particularly when they use the word ‘some’) and this one reads like a normal statement
14 WORDSWORTH
Poet‘s writing having value (10)
words worth — words = writing, worth = having value
18 ENLARGE
Drunken general: that’s swell (7)
*(general)
19 TENSION
Round numbers and another number giving you pressure (7)
tens 10 n — tens and 10 are the round numbers, n is the other number
21 TILL
Seventh of connections Everyman is going to cultivate (4)
t I’ll — the seventh letter of ‘connections’ is t, I’ll = Everyman is going to — our self-referential clue
22 IDLE
Workshy person greatly admired, by the sound of it (4)
“idol” — an idol is a person greatly admired

46 comments on “Everyman 3,976”

  1. A big thanks Sir Tim at 26ac for the enjoyment of doing my favourite cryptics anywhere in the world where there’s mobile service. He no doubt deserves all of the seven sets of letters after his name. And thanks Everyman and John for the nice puzzle and blog.

  2. Thank you John for your clear blog and highlighted grid. Did you mean in your preamble that Everyman sets 28 clues per crossword? I hadn’t noticed, but now that you mention it, today’s is the same. He certainly seems to like setting to a few formulae, as you’ve highlighted. And the self-referential clue for TILL even seems to suggest that. Very funny.

    DRAC came up in another cryptic recently, only he was the right way up, from memory.
    GREAT DANES was amusing, also NIGHTIE, although I have known women/schoolgirls to wear nighties (discreetly lined inside) to formal balls.

    BRAINCHILD was quite clever, positioned on the grid above BERNERS-LEE. But we also had LUDDITE and IDLE. I imagine the original Luddites thought that theirs was an original idea too.

    Wasn’t going to mention the homophone (oops I just did) EYE’S SORE EYESORE. I wouldn’t pay it, but others say near enough is good enough.

  3. CARD:
    I took DRAC as short for Dracula, but after reading John’s blog, I am thinking: Am I missing something?

    Thanks, E and J!

  4. Don’t know how our Kiwi friends will take ANTIPODEAN as they’re often the target of ‘passionate’ jokes. Aussies just ‘rant madly’ and have no sense of time. I like John’s take on the parsing though.

  6. Oh dear. The homophone is in the answer, not the clue, for STYE. Got that last week. Time for a nap.

  7. Got most of this quite quickly but couldn’t get LUDDITES which is a bit obscure and not sure if I think it’s cryptic.

    Liked NEW TESTAMENT, NEW ZEALANDER, MOTHER LODE

    Thought ESPLANADES was well hidden.

    Thanks Everyman and John

  8. I always count the clues and generally Everyman has 28 clues (14 across and 14 down) except when he does the puzzles with the three long two (or three) word clues all starting with the same letter – two across the top and bottom of the puzzle and one down the middle. Then there are 13 down clues.

  9. Thanks for the blog, I thought this was really good, neat clues and lots of variety.
    I agree that ESPLANADE is a great example of a hidden clue.
    1Ac and 18D are long , complete anagrams for Jay’s list, a few countries as well.
    Anybody spotted a follow-on clue ?

    Tim Berners-Lee was working at LEP when he invented the WWW. It was basically a Zo factory producing masses of collision data , he wanted a simple way to share it with Particle Physics research groups at various universities. With a small upgrade, LEP would have found the Higgs boson, no need for the LHC which has largely been a disaster.

  11. Missed the challenge of Everyman at Christmas- having finally started to complete most weeks.
    So back this week. My most satisfying was “esplanades “ 13d, which appeared as if by magic after I kept returning to it try to solve it
    Thanks everyone.

  14. I found this an entertaining quick romp. CARD held me up, Drac feels very 70s, when two school peers had the nickname, but haven’t heard it since. Monster Mash was in UK charts in 1973, returning in 2007.

    The one before this was the Christmas special with all the food, that felt like an outlier, so I’m not sure about follow ons.

    Thank you to John and Everyman.

  15. There is apparently a Count Drac in the Japanese cartoon film Dragon Ball. I never realised that Scooby-Doo was a Great Dane.

  16. “Drac” also used in the 2012 animated film Hotel Transylvania (voiced by Adam Sandler).
    A couple of follow-ons I’ve noted for next week’s discussion.
    Thanks to John and Everyman

  18. Fun puzzle, on the easy side for once.

    I bunged in ODDS for 2d but could not parse it – and still do not understand it. Is it something to do with betting odds, eg the betting odds could be 4 to 2?

    New for me: SCOTTIE (dog).

    Thanks, both.

  19. Michelle @18 – yes, it’s about betting odds, as odds of 1-1 (ie a payout equal to your stake) is called ‘evens”

  20. Enjoyable Sunday solve.

    DRAC is in Wiktionary as an abbreviated nickname of Dracula. I enjoyed the clue for LUDDITE, which unlike FA @7 I thought was cryptic. Also, ESPLANADES was well-hidden. Thanks to Rob T@19 for explaining the betting meaning of odds and evens.

    Thanks Everyman and John

  21. Like Robi @20, I found ‘Drac’ in Wiktionary, together with a quotation to back it up:

    Still, the Count graciously agrees to […] do a brief roll call of his manifold Dracula tattoos. “That’s a Drac, that’s a Drac, that’s a Drac, that’s a demon, and that’s for me,” he says of the tattoo on his right arm that reads donna. The full-length Dracula on his back, alas, is but one third complete.

    And like pdm @2, I wondered if there was significance in the “connections Everyman is going to cultivate” in 21dn – does Jay have 6 ‘Everyman lists’ now, and is TILL the precursor to a seventh? (Prepositions of time? Agricultural processes? Supermarket vocab? Terminology related to glacial sediment deposition?)

    Like Jay and Shanne (so many likes this week 🙂 ), no follow-ons for me, but a cornucopia of connections next time around. Thanks Everyman and John.

  22. [pdm @4/5, thanks for the Draculian etymology. (How strange that tarragon is from the same root.)

    I was intrigued by your reference to passionate Kiwis, as I had never associated New Zealanders with hot-blooded ardour. Perhaps I just haven’t met the right Kiwis? Much against my better judgement, I ventured into the den of iniquity that is the Urban Dictionary, and found that a ‘passionate kiwi’ is a cocktail (a strawberry daiquiri with added kiwifruit). I was confused by the definition “a drink that is drunk by one or more kiwi slices”, until I realised that “kiwi slice” itself has another meaning. See also kiwi love potion.

    When this puzzle finally appears in the NZ Herald in a couple of years’ time, I’ll be interested to learn if the above paragraph is complete baloney.]

  27. eb@22 I googled “kiwi slice” and got nothing but pictures of sliced kiwis. What is the other meaning you’re telling us about?

    Pleasant puzzle, thanks Everyman and John.

  28. [Valentine @27, according to Urban Dictionary it can be used as a term of affection for a New Zealander, but I would take anything on that site with a few hundred grains of salt (unless confirmed by Paul in Tutukaka, or one of his compatriots).]

  30. Jay @ 23

    Looking at your lists I wonder if you have missed out 3894 Robert Redford 30th May 2021 from your list of puzzles with the pattern of alliteration.

    Maybe I missed it from your list

  32. Good spot Fiona Anne. I did miss it. Consider my wrist slapped. The last time we had an alliteration grid was ‘weeping willows’ in October which makes me think we are due another soon

  34. Definitely overdue an alliteration puzzle.
    Beware of making a list of all lists that do not contain themselves, remember what happened to Frege.

  35. I especially liked the pair of puns/homoiophones in 10a STYE, my cod (among many excellent clues).

    The Everyman blog doesn’t generate as many comments as the Guardian cryptics, but thanks to the participation of Roz, essexboy and other commenters, it is still an engaging blog to read. Thanks, SBCs for making Sunday mornings so much fun.

  36. Another excellent puzzle following the Christmas break.
    I parsed 19 TENSION slightly differently. Round numbers = TENS, and another = 10, number = n.
    I can’t relate to passionate as a descriptor for us Kiwis. Just maybe in Antipodean terms, but that’s a shallow pool. The only time I’ve felt part of a truly passionate crowd of Kiwis was at the Women’s Rugby World Cup final just a few months ago.
    Thanks John and Everyman

  37. Interesting that our blogger hadn’t heard of mother lode. Didn’t we recently have pay dirt, which was also unfamiliar to many from countries with no gold rush.

  38. Flew through this in 18 minutes, my best ever. A nice straightforward return to action after a month off.

    I’d hardly say LUDDITE is obscure, as it’s a standard derogatory term for anyone confused by or antipathetic to new technology. It’s like calling someone a Philistine: you’re not saying they’re a member of a biblical sect.

  40. For what it’s worth, I parsed 19dn the way Paul, Tutukaka @36 did.

    I also wondered about DRAC, and I agree that 13dn (ESPLANADES) is a very fine clue. It’s quite satisfying when the hidden clues, which seem like they should be obvious, are so well hidden.

  42. Yes, nice that Kiwis had a specific mention. I wonder if the passion reference is to the urban myth that we are a nation of sheep shaggers? Surely not.

    Never heard of a Mother Lode, enjoyed the Great Danes although had to look the first one up.

    We have blue skies and sunshine, hurrah.

  43. Flew through the bottom half then got stuck on the top half. Nice to see us mentioned this time.
    And like Barrie, it’s nice to see the sun again, but feel for all the flood victims.

  44. I’ve never heard of kiwi slice with an obscure meaning ?
    My fave clue was Scottie
    Too much history knowledge required to get Luddite I missed that one

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