Everyman 3,987

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The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3987.

There are a few definitions here which gave me pause, but nothing that seems too far out to me. Everyman’s trademarks are highlighted in the grid (perhaps I might also have highlighted 1D KINGSTON, as a frequent geographical reference). Again, Everyman comes up with a goodly number of double definitions, including some prime examples.

ACROSS
1 KEEPER
Footballer, one with marriage potential (6)
Double definition, the second being a reference to a date who shows the potential for a long-term relationship.
4 WHISTLER
One who painted his mother, a referee? (8)
Double definition, the first referring to James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose paintings include one with the official title of Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, better known as Whistler’s Mother.
9 NEEDED
Desired being massaged in the auditorium (6)
Sounding like (‘in the auditorium’) KNEADED (‘massaged’).
10 ARSENALS
SEALs ran amok in military stores (8)
An anagram (‘amok’) of ‘SEALs ran’.
12 SPAS
Fools around in baths (4)
A reversal (‘around’) of SAPS (‘fools’).
13 REELECTED
Back in control, staggered to welcome cast etc. (9)
An envelope (‘to welcome’) of ECT, an anagram (‘cast’) of ‘etc’ in REELED (‘staggered’).
15 OLD CHESTNUT
Antique storage item, one that’s cracked: it’s a familiar story (3,8)
A charade of OLD (‘antique’) plus CHEST (‘storage item’) plus NUT (‘one that’s cracked’).
18 COMIC OPERAS
Largely racy, I compose silly, amusing entertainments (5,6)
An anagram (‘silly’) of ‘rac[y] minus the last letter (‘largely’) plus ‘I compose’. Of course, there is not the slightest hint of an extended definition.
21 REFRESHER
Nap, Sweetie? (9)
Double definition; a ‘refresher’ is more often a cold drink, but could refer to a piece of confectionery, particularly one which claims to be a breath freshener.
22 EMIT
Send out some remittances (4)
A hidden answer (‘some’) in ‘rEMITtances’
24 UPSTREAM
Confused: tempura’s getting further from mouth (8)
An anagram (‘confused’) of ‘tempura’s’. Everyman likes one-word anagrams.
25 CASTLE
Shed next to empty lighthouse, a grand edifice (6)
A charade of CAST (‘shed’ “ne’er cast a clout till May be out”) plus LE (’empty LighthousE‘).
26 DETONATE
In Athens, letter written – returned – blast! (8)
A reversal (‘returned’) of ETA (‘in Athens letter’) NOTED (‘written’).
27 ONESIE
Everyman affectedly starts to speechify in extremely shapeless garment (6)
A charade of ONE (“Everyman affectedly’ – high falutin’ use of the impersonal personal pronoun) plus SIE (‘starts to Speechify In Extremely’). Note that here ‘extremely’ does not indicate first and last letters of something; a little insider joke.
DOWN
1 KINGSTON
Monarchs getting to finally sojourn in Caribbean destination (8)
A charade of KINGS (‘monarchs’) plus ‘to’ plus N (‘finally sojourN‘).
2 EMERALDS
Dodgy dealers pocketing money and gemstones (8)
An envelope (‘pocketing’) of M (‘money’) in EERALDS, an anagram (‘dodgy’) of ‘dealers’.
3 EPEE
Tent’s roof removed for Olympic event (4)
[t]EPEE (‘tent’ of a particular kind) minus its first letter (‘roof removed’).
5 HORSE AND CART
Spooner’s made callous deer a means of transporting goods (5,3,4)
An approximate Spoonerism of COARSEN (‘made callous’) HART (‘deer’).
6 STEREOTYPE
Cliché in way of playing music genre (10)
A charade of STEREO (‘way of playing music’) plus TYPE (‘genre’).
7 LEAN-TO
Part of humble Antony’s humble abode (4-2)
A hidden answer (‘part of’) in ‘humbLE ANTOny’.
8 RESIDE
Make one’s home and manage without parking (6)
[p]RESIDE (‘manage’) minus the P (‘without parking’).
11 CROSS MY HEART
I promise bravery after angry and shocked exclamation (5,2,5)
A charade of CROSS (‘angry’) plus MY (‘shocked exclamation’) plus HEART (‘bravery’).
14 CHICKEN RUN
Afraid to manage space with multiple layers? (7,3)
A charade of CHICKEN (‘afraid’) plus RUN (‘manage’), with a cryptic definition depending on identifying hens as ‘layers’. Everyman has shown an interest in films, and here is another, even if it is not identified as such.
16 PRIMATES
Archbishops in particular ate seconds (8)
A charade of PRIM (‘particular’) plus ‘ate’ plus S (‘seconds’).
17 AS IT WERE
In a way, weariest – put another way … (2,2,4)
An anagram (‘put another way’) of ‘weariest’. I think ‘in a way’ wins over ‘put another way’ as definition, but only by a short neck.
19 GROUND
Where you can see football team crumbled (6)
Double definition.
20 OFFSET
Compensate for TV with no power? (6)
OFF SET (‘TV with no power’).
23 PAWN
Piece – albeit weak – numerous at the outset? (4)
The ‘primarily’ clue in disguise: first letters (‘at the outset’) of ‘Piece Albeit Weak Numerous’, with an &lit definition describing a chess game.

picture of the completed grid

36 comments on “Everyman 3,987”

  1. I have dim memories of “Refresher” being a brand of chewy, sherbet, confectionery back in the UK. Was my last one in any case.

    14d was my favourite

  2. Thank you PeterO. Liked your tongue-in-cheek hint about the extended definition in COMIC OPERAS.

    I had to re-read the clue for ONESIE several times, distracted by ‘speechify’ (was that a homophone indicator?) and ‘extremely’ (s-hapeles-s?) Don’t know about the def, especially if it’s a garment for adults, although I suppose the garment could be described as shapeless, even when the intention is for the wearer to look shapely.

    Also enjoyed the non-clichéd wordplay for OLD CHESTNUT.

  3. My Pommy solving partner has the same memory, Ray @1. This was another very pleasant Everyman, with GROUND as our “how could you miss that?” LOI. Thanks, Everyman and PeterO.

  4. Thanks, Everyman and PeterO!
    Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.

    HORSE AND CART
    A minor typo
    COARSENED -made callous

  5. Was this a little easier than usual? Mini football theme with KEEPER, GROUND, WHISTLER and EPL leaders.
    Thanks PeterO & Everyman.

  6. Once again I found the double definitions tricky except for WHISTLER which was my FOI and I did like REFRESHER although I needed all the crosses before I got it. (And I too remember the sweets.)

    Favourites included: OLD CHESTNUT, CROSS MY HEART, CHICKEN RUN

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO

  7. Refreshers: solid, round slightly concave, fruit flavoured sherbet sweets, sold in tubes like Polos. Don’t they still make them? I found this a little harder than usual, but Everyman seems to have been toughening up the puzzle a little recently.
    Isn’t the clue for ONESIE extremely shapeless garment? Favourites were UPSTREAM, REFRESHER and HORSE AND CART bui there’s no accounting for taste.
    Thanks both

  8. Thanks for the blog , another good puzzle, CHICKEN RUN my favourite, EPEE held me up for a while, I always thought the tent was TEEPEE from comics but Chambers gives TEPEE first . UPSTREAM will get onto Jay’s list. Shed and LEAN-TO form a follow on in the same puzzle.
    PDM@2 ONESIE originally a sleepsuit for young children , now very popular with students .
    REFRESHERS two totally different types of sweets. Originally like a hard fizzy tablet in tubes , made by Trebor I think, very similar to Love-Hearts but no writing. Also little chewy bars , made by Swizzels.

  9. I have gotten about a week behind in my crosswords. So I have only yesterday finished the previous week’s everyman (3986) and if I post something on the blog for it I imagine no one will see it. I think the rhyming pair are SLEVELESS and IN EXTREMIS which are in symmetric positions at 7d and 14d. Yes, I know they are not a perfect rhyme, but good enough for poetry and crosswords. I’m surprised no one else pointed them out.

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO, and flashling for last week

  10. nicbach@7. I originally thought the def for ONESIE might have been as as you say, but the parsing is as PeterO has given.
    Roz@8. Unfortunately I googled and landed on some pics of (adult) ONESIES, not the kind you would sleep in or go to lectures in.

  13. Aha yes. Just seen KVa @ 4
    We’re supposed to think of ‘coarsened’ not ‘coarsen’.
    I’m all happy.

  14. [kevin @9: It was Roz last week who wondered (with a double question mark) if the SHE’s in FLOURISHES was an intended rhyme for the -GUESE in PORTUGUESE. The problem with both that and your SLEEVELESS/IN EXTREMIS idea is that when Everyman does rhyming pairs, they’re always pretty much exact rhymes. Plus we already had the RED/GREEN pairing (see Jay @15), and there isn’t always a rhyming pair… ]

    … but there is this week! (CROSS MY HEART and HORSE AND CART ,as highlighted in PeterO’s grid) On that subject, I agree with KVa @4 (and Anna too) that it’s ‘coarsenED hart’, which has the virtue of turning it from an approximate Spoonerism into an exact one (at least, for those of us whose accents feature the horse-hoarse merger, which is most English speakers).

    Not sure about the surface meaning of that one though. “Spooner’s made callous deer a means of transporting goods.” Are we to take ‘callous’ in the sense of ‘hard-hearted’ (or hard-harted??) Are some deer more compassionate by nature, while others are lacking in the milk of cervine kindness? Or does ‘callous’ mean ‘calloused’? In which case, if the callousing is excessive and likely to be exacerbated by being used as a beast of burden, it is the Rev himself who emerges as the villain of the piece.

    Paul in Tutukaka @5 – I wondered about the football mini-theme too. There’s also a CROSS, and possibly the OFF / SIDE rule. And coming after LEICESTER (City) last week…

    Thanks E & P.

  15. PDM@10 they are student leisure-wear if they just pop to the shop, breakfast etc. Also fancy dress for parties, I have seen brilliant dinosaur onesies.

  17. Branwen @16, nicely spotted. PAWN, KING, MATE, CASTLE, HORSE. Monarchs and bishops in the clues. Almost a complete CHES(s) SET.

  18. As it’s been six months since we first noted and commented on the prevalence of single word anagrams, and as PeterO makes mention of it in the blog, here is the list of such anagrams of 8 letters or more (up to 11) in that period. I may have missed some and I’ve included some where the grid entry is a two word phrase (because I liked them and it’s my list).

    Fodder word / Grid entry

    ENDURINGLY/UNDERLYING
    SEGREGATION/SAINT GEORGE
    IDEALISERS/SERIALISED
    PERSISTENT/PRETTINESS
    IDEALISTIC/ITALICISED
    PROPOSERS/OPPRESSOR
    DISCRETION/DIRECTIONS
    REDUCTIONS/INTRODUCES
    ASPERITIES/PATISSERIE
    INTERPOLATED/LATENT PERIOD
    INDISCREET/IRIDESCENT
    SUPERSONIC/PERCUSSION
    DECORATION/COORDINATE
    WESTERNISED/DESERT WINE
    STIPULATED/PLATITUDES
    REORGANISE/ORANGERIES
    SECTARIANS/ASCERTAINS
    PREDECESSOR/REPROCESSED
    BORDELLO/DOORBELL
    INTERMIXES/IN EXTREMIS
    MOUNTAINEER/ENUMERATION
    TEMPURA/UPSTREAM

    Thanks to Everyman for the entertainment!

  19. Pleasant Sunday solve from Everyman.

    I liked RESELECTED with welcoming cast etc and CHICKEN RUN for the multiple layers. Good to see ‘primarily’ junked for once.

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO.

  20. Great list Jay@18 , I note seven or more letters , like Scrabble, both complete words. For geography I think you have adopted the Pierre approach to birds and applied it to countries, more next week.
    Good spot Branwen@16 and MrEssexboy @ 17 .

  21. Refresher very much still exist, made not half a mile from where I sit, at the Swizzles factory in New Mills, Derbyshire. Sickly-sweet chewy abominations.

    see here.

  22. eb@14 How do some people pronounce “hoarse” and “horse:” differently?

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO.

  23. Valentine @ 22

    I pronounce them differently. Hoarse is pronounced like course while horse is pronounced like morse.

    Didn’t stop me solving the clue which I liked.

  25. No I pronounce them differently as I said – I’m not very good at explaining phonetics.

    How about horse and gorse pronounced the same (with an aw sound in the middle) whereas the other two have an oh sound in the middle.

    I think morse (as in code) was a bad eg as I know that other people pronounce it differently from me.

  26. I pronounce horse and hoarse quite differently as well. The vowel sounds being approximately like “awe” and “oh”, similar to Fiona Anne.

  27. [Valentine @22, further to Fiona Anne’s and DuncT’s explanations, there’s an article here. The picture is complicated by the fact that unmerged horse/hoarse occurs in both rhotic and non-rhotic varieties!

    On this side of the pond, it’s mainly Scottish accents that maintain the distinction. In the US, I understand, most people pronounce the vowels in the two sets of words the same, but you can still hear the distinction in the southern States, and in traditional Maine accents.]

  28. Took me 24 minutes this time, but fairly straightforward, although I didn’t parse DETONATE. GROUND was my LOI.

  30. Steffen you never know for sure until you have solved the clue. Here is how I solved it – NEXT TO tells me two things adjacent , a charade perhaps. EMPTY LIGHTHOUSE probably LE , so I need four letters from SHED= ____ to start . Shed is often CAST in crosswords so CAST LE , all done.
    The only way to get better is practice and being very stubborn. If you have a print version of Everyman 3988 keep trying to do it until Sunday.

  32. The clues varied from utterly trivial (4 across) to impossible (21 across) . Never heard of “refresher” sweets and would never use “refresher” as a synonym for “nap”.

  33. Whistler’s Mother is such a well known painting that 2 across is hardly cryptic.

  35. Didn’t get onesie.
    Sounds like a siren suit – I guess that shows my age! Wasn’t there something similar in the seventies?

  36. Didn’t get onesie.
    Sounds like a siren suit – I guess that shows my age! Wasn’t there something similar in the seventies?

    It came to me – a jumpsuit.

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