Everyman 001 / 12th August 1945

by

Everyman No 1 (New Series) – published 12th August 1945

The Guardian website has recently published this puzzle, possibly in relation to Everyman 4000 due to be published in The Observer very soon  The comments in the General Discussion section of this website suggested that a blog of Everyman 001 could be written – so here it is.

If you want to try this puzzle before reading the blog and seeing the answers, it can be found  by clicking on the link below.

https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/1

 

 

 

In a e-mail thread off-site I learnt that the puzzle was set by Ximenes (Derrick Macnutt) as Robert Zara commented that it may be of interest to note that Ximenes passed some comments on this puzzle in his book ‘Ximenes  on the Art of the Crossword’. In particular, he mentioned at least four clues which he should now call unsatisfactory, including 1 down. The query is hardly enough to hint at the pun, he says. There are ten clues which he calls "elusive definitions", for which he apologises.

Having solved the puzzle  I agree that some of the definitions were pretty elusive, though some could be just about be considered as cryptic definitions.

There is no modern day wordplay in a few clues, where there is simply an anagram indicator, a straight definition, or even in one case not even a clue! [possibly The Guardian / Observer showing early examples of typos]

On the other hand, there are quite a few examples of the type of wordplay we see today, albeit in a less sophisticated form.  There are examples of linked clues, anagrams, container and contents, hidden words, reversals, double definitions and cryptic definitions.

I have noticed before that early crosswords assume that the solver has significant literary knowledge.  I don’t,  but Google and Wikipedia are useful assistants.

After the detailed blog I have indicated what categories of clues I think the entries fall into.  Feel free to disagree.

Looking at The Observer history I note that there was an earlier series of Everyman crosswords before this latest series started in August 1945.  Initially the new series of Everyman puzzles was not published weekly and took it’s place every so often in a mix of Ximenes, Everyman and standard crosswords.  The Ximenes series (successor to Torquemada and predecessor of Azed) began about the same time as this Everyman was published.

This blog is longer than usual because of the need to try and explain some references that are now outdated, but I hope I have thrown some light on background to the entries.

I managed to fill the grid except for three entries before resorting to the reveal button. The three were ARAM [I thought of CRIMinal], CLEMENCEAU [I could see that this was a possible answer but didn’t understand why] and BEAU [[I had no idea even after the reveal and I have not much more idea now why it is the entry]  

There was a fair bit of research and use of tools for about one third of the puzzle.

Because there was a lack of obvious definitions in some clues, I have underlined the whole clue where it seems to be some sort of cryptic definition.  As mentioned above there is no obvious wordplay, so my standard template of Entry, Wordplay, Construction doesn’t always work.

Any solvers comments will be greatly appreciated as I am sure I won’t have got all the parsing right.

I enjoyed solving and blogging this puzzle.  My favourite clues were those for SQUARE PEG / ROUND HOLE, KIPPERS, RUNABOUT, PLATINUM BLONDE, PROPER FRACTION, FAIR-HAIRED [even though it fails modern day standards] and HORSERACE.

Given the length of the blog and despite proof reading and spell checking, I expect there will be some typos remaining for which I apologise in advance,

No Detail – Entry, Wordplay, Construction – but not every clue has all of these elements
Across  
1

The Belgian dog that swallowed a German admiral (10)

SCHIPPERKE (Google tells me that this is a small breed of dog that is believed to have originated in the 1600s in Belgium.  On the other hand, Chambers describes it as a small tailless breed of dogs, originally used as watchdogs on Dutch barges)

SCHIPPERKE (The wordplay defeats me.  Wikipedia lists a number of German Admirals with names beginning SCH….  A fairly likely one seems to be Reinhard SCHEER [1883-1928], but the letters are anagrammed within the entry and the remaining letters are IPPK which don’t make much sense in any order.  Alternatively we have SCHIPPER as the German for SKIPPER, but an Admiral is probably a bit more than a Skipper)

In today’s crosswords we often see ‘PER‘ used for ‘A‘  so we could have SCHIPKE containing (swallowed) PER but I can’t find an Admiral SCHIPKE.  I know that SCHIP is German for ship, but KE doesn’t seem to relate to a rank)

SCHIPPERKE
6

Lytton’s learned murderer (4) 

ARAM (reference Eugene ARAM, a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton [   1803-1873], English politician and author.  ARAM is described as a brilliant but reclusive scholar, living in obscurity, devoting his life to arcane research.  He is also depicted as a murderer, so he is a learned murderer)

ARAM – no wordplay.  We just have a definition

ARAM
10

Lay back at round conference (5) 

YALTA (reference the YALTA conference of 4-11 February where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin discussed plans for future world order as a result of Russia’s decision to enter the war against Japan)

LAY reversed (back) + AT reversed (round)

YAL< TA<
11

Should seek fresh employment if in a 26 (6,3) 

SQUARE PEG (reference the phrase ‘a SQUARE PEG in a ROUND HOLE‘ [a person who is unsuited to the particular position he or she occupies, so someone who might be best looking for another job]  The entry at 26 across is ROUND HOLE, but there is no specific clue for that entry.  When I solved this I had the three letter word in 11 across beginning with P and I had the letters U,D,O and E in ROUND HOLE and made an educated guess about the link)

SQUARE PEG (I suppose there is a bit of cryptic wordplay here with the link indicating a well known phrase)

SQUARE PEG
12

Surrey town, of ill omen to the monarchy? (6) 

WOKING (town in Surrey)

WO (sounds like WOE [grief; misery; ill-omen] but there is no homophone indicator. Perhaps the question mark is the indicator?] + KING (reference to the monarchy)

WO KING
13

Perhaps some good osteopath could effect an improvement in these smoker’s products! (7) 

KIPPERS (smoked herring; product of a smokery or ‘smoker’)

KIPPERS (A KIPPER has a lot of bones that can get stuck in one throat if not dealt with properly. and an osteopath works with bones, so cryptically a good osteopath could remove or improve the number of bones to make the fish more eatable)

KIPPERS
15

A meeting place—for explorers? (6)

AVENUE (I think this is based on the concept of ‘exploring every AVENUE‘ in the search for a possible solution)

A + VENUE (meeting place)

A VENUE
16

(8) 

SEARCHER

SEARCHER (Is this an early example of a typo in The Observer? or is it an extraordinary clue that implies that you have to SEARCH for an answer.   The actual newspaper shows the clue as just (8).  The wordsearch programme, that I resort to when desperate, shows SEARCHER to be the only word that fits the form _E_R_E_R)

SEARCHER
19

A mechanical baby is one, but a real baby can’t (8)

RUNABOUT (I think a Mechanical Baby RUNABOUT was an early form of pushchair.  I note that there is an American company currently marketing an all-terrain, jogging-friendly two-person stroller known as the RUNABOUT Twin)

RUN ABOUT (what a real baby can’t do)

RUNABOUT
20

Mount that was reversed to start a popular song (6) 

ARARAT (reference the mountain in modern day Turkey where legend has it that Noah built his ark)

ARARAT (TA RA RA reversed [that was reversed].  There is an old vaudeville and music-hall song that begins TA RA RA Boom de ay.  The song is said to have been first performed in 1892)

(AR AR AT)<
22

Saintly jazz expert (7) 

AMBROSE (probably a reference to AMBROSE of Milan, venerated as a Saint.  He died in 397)

AMBROSE (I’m clutching at straws here, but there was a band leader Bert AMBROSE [1896-1971] whose band may have played some jazz although AMBROSE himself isn’t listed as a jazz exponent anywhere I can find.  There is a modern day jazz player AMBROSE Akinmusire but he wasn’t born when Everyman 001 was published)  double definition

AMBROSE 
24

In which bullying is quite justifiable (6) 

HOCKEY (A game of HOCKEY in 1945 would have been started with a bully-off where two opposite players used their sticks to compete for the ball. That is no longer the case.  A bully-off is only used now to re-start a match when time or play has been stopped for an injury or for any other reason when no penalty has been awarded)

HOCKEY (bullying or competing in a bully-off was therefore justified at the time of the puzzle)

HOCKEY
26

See 11 (5,4) 

ROUND HOLE – see explanation for SQUARE PEG at 11 across
27

Likeness, as Father Time might say (5) 

IMAGE (likeness or representation of a person or thing)

I’M AGE (I AM AGE; something that Father Time might say)

I’M AGE
28

Said " Everybody has won, and all must have prizes " (4) 

DODO (The DODO is a character in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  The quotation was from Chapter 3, after the DODO had arranged a ‘caucus-race’ but no one knew who had won: ‘At last the DODO said, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes”)

DODO (the character who said …)

DODO
29

Most of this Tiger is a literary Dane (10) 

CLEMENCEAU (reference Georges CLEMENCEAU [1841-1929], Prime Minister of France and Minister for War at the end of the First World War.  He was nicknamed Le Tigre or Tiger)

CLEMENCEAU (The first 9 characters of the entry [most of] is CLEMENCE, a reference to CLEMENCE DANE [1888-1965], English novelist and playwright born Winifred Ashton.  The final two letters AU  are not considered in the wordplay)

CLEMENCE AU
Down  
1

Is this terrier ever the limit? (4) 

SKYE (A SKYE terrier is a breed of dog)

SKYE (reference the phrase ‘the sky’s the limit’, but there is no homophone indicator.  See the comment from Robert Zara which I have included the introduction)

SKYE
2

Lone whale (anag.) (9) 

HALLOWEEN (no definition)

Anagram (anag) of LONE WHALE

HALLOWEEN*
3

Puttin’ em in pigtails, 14 lady? It sounds like it (8,6) 

PLATINUM BLONDE (FAIR-HAIRED [entry at 14 down] lady)

PLAT IN UM (sounds like [sounds like it] PLAITIN‘[th]EM [puttin’ em in pigtails] + BLONDE (FAIR-HAIRED [14 down] lady)

PLATINUM BLONDE
4

"Beauty’s — yet is crimson in they lips " (Romeo) (6) 

ENSIGN (the word that completes the equation)

‘Beauty’s ENSIGN  yet is crimson in thy lips’ (note the typo – ‘they’ should be ‘thy’) – the quote is from Act 5, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

ENSIGN
5

Sometimes hardly dressed in dusters (8) 

KNUCKLES (thugs sometimes ‘dress’ their KNUCKLES in KNUCKLE DUSTERS [metal covering for the knuckles, worn on the hand as a weapons in fist-fighting].

KNUCKLES (derived from the ‘hard’ weapon KNUCKLEDUSTERS covering the KNUCKLES)

KNUCKLES       
7

Cheer up, eel-catchers: there’s money in it (5) 

RUPEE (currency [money] of a number of Asian countries)

RUPEE (hidden word in [in] CHEER UP EEL-CATCHERS)

RUPEE
8

This beak‘s point is not quite in the middle (10) 

MAGISTRATE (BEAK is an informal term for a MAGISTRATE, as in ‘He’s up before the BEAK‘)

MAGISTRATE (the word GIST [main point] is seen inside MAGISTRATE at positions 3-6 which don’t quite form the middle letters [4-7] of the entry.  The remaining letters MA RATE are not mentioned in the wordplay)

MAGISTRATE
9

The sort of part that could never cause a blush? (6,8) 

PROPER FRACTION (a FRACTION is a part of something. A PROPER FRACTION is one where the numerator is less than the denominator, 2/3 for example)

A PROPER FRACTION can be seen as prim [PROPER] so would be unlikely to cause embarrassment or a blush of red in the face.  On the contrary, an IMPROPER FRACTION where the numerator is greater than the denominator, such as 3/2, could be seen as rude [IMPROPER])

PROPER FRACTION
14

Olaf is more likely to be than Giuseppe (10) 

FAIR-HAIRED (blonde as opposed to dark-haired)

FAIR-HAIRED (Olaf is a Scandinavian name where boys are more likely to be FAIR-HAIRED compared to Guiseppe which is an Italian name where I guess boys are more likely to be dark-haired)

FAIR-HAIRED
17

Oaks or Houyhnhnms, for instance (9) 

HORSERACE (The OAKS is one of the Classic HORSE RACEs run annually at Epsom)

HORSE RACE (the Houyhnhnms are a fictional RACE of intelligent HORSEs described in the last part of Jonathan Swift’s.  The word is said to pronounced in a way that sounds like HORSEs neighing)  double definition

HORSERACE
18

Disturbed soul-life of spirits (8) 

FUSEL-OIL (a nauseous mixture of alcohols in spirits distilled from potatoes, grain, etc)

Anagram of (disturbed) SOUL-LIFE

FUSEL-OIL*.
21

Calmness (6) 

PHLEGM (calmness)

PHLEGM (no wordplay – this is a simple definition clue)

PHLEGM
23

You don’t say you will be unless you’re pretty certain (5) 

BOUND (reference the phrase ‘I’LL be BOUND‘ [I’ll bet; I’m certain])

BOUND (something you won’t say you’ll be unless you are pretty certain)

BOUND
25

His feminine counterpart from N.Y was " the subject of all the Town’s talk " (4) 

I’m struggling quite a bit with this clue

BEAU (male dandy; male lover)

The feminine counterpart of a BEAU maybe a BELLE with a link to the phrase ‘BELLE of the ball [the most beautiful and popular woman at a dance, party, etc., possibly the talk of the town?]  Is BELLE of the Ball an American (New York, NY) phrase?

BEAU

Possible categorisation of clues:

Standard wordplay, although a few of these wouldn’t get past a crossword editor today – YALTA, WOKING, AVENUE, ARARAT, AMBROSE, IMAGE, CLEMENCEAU, SKYE, HALLOWEEN, PLATINUM BLONDE, RUPEE, MAGISTRATE, HORSERACE, and FUSEL-OIL

Cryptic definitions – SQUARE PEG, KIPPERS, RUNABOUT, HOCKEY, ROUND HOLE, KNUCKLES, PROPER FRACTION, FAIR-HAIRED [this one could also be classified as ‘Uh?’] and BOUND 

Straight definitions – ARAM, DODO, PHLEGM [perhaps there should have been a clue competition for this one]

Fill in the blank – ENSIGN

Unsure – SCHIPPERKE, BEAU

Goodness knows – SEARCHER

34 comments on “Everyman 001 / 12th August 1945”

  1. Cor, glad I didn’t spend too much time trying to wrestle with this. I managed RUPEE before deciding not to venture any further. Bravo duncan!

  3. Thanks for the blog, I got 1 Ac from a search in Chambers . it does say Dutch , no chance with 6, 18 or 4 . BEAU a lucky guess, solved the rest.
    I think PROPER FRACTION as opposed to VULGAR which may cause embarrassment .
    For MAGISTRATE I just has S as the (compass) point.

  4. Bert Ambrose I agree , he did use a lot of American jazz musicians and arrangements.
    RUNABOUT I thought car?? I think people used to call their car a “baby” .

  6. Jay @ 2
    Thanks, that makes a lot of sense and takes care of the containment indicator ‘swallowed’ I don’t think I would have come across Admiral HIPPER as a warship in a month of Sundays.

    Roz @ 3. 4, 5

    Yes , Vulgar is better than Improper but we were both thinking along the same lines. I’m going to stay with GIST in MAGISTRATE and KIPPERS as fish, but your suggestions could well be right. Thanks for info on Bert Ambrose

  7. Duncan@6 my suggestions are very tentative , hard to be sure for clues like this. I am actually very surprised by how far away this is from a “normal” cryptic, especially as it is set by Ximenes. It is much closer to Torquemada than to Azed.

  8. I was intrigued by this yesterday and tried a few with mixed success (and Google). Pleased to get YALTA!

    Really appreciate the blog, thanks.

  9. 16A was – He may investigate the declarer’s bona fides (8)
    NB bona fides appeared in italics.

  10. Allan Scott @ 9

    Thanks – did you find the clue in Ximenes’ book, ‘the art of the crossword’?. I don’t have the book but I tracked down the newspaper of the day and the clue wasn’t printed there.

    I think I would probably still have had to use a wordsearch even if I had the clue.

  12. Delia @ 11

    Thank you very much for that link showing the words to the 1897 song

    Oh, She is the Belle of New York,
    The subject of all the town talk ….

    At least I was on the right lines with the relationship between BEAU and Belle

  14. The Ximenes book is available online here.

    People often criticise his “rules”, frequently without knowing what he actually wrote. This puzzle is a good (albeit relatively mild) example of the sort of thing he was objecting to.

  15. duncanshiell @ 10

    The Observer supplied me with a copy of the crossword for the 2007 book:
    Chambers
    EVERYMAN crosswords
    100 crosswords from ‘The Observer’

  16. Thanks to Rob T for the heads-up on the puzzle and to Duncan for explaining it. I revealed SCHIPPERKE, ARAM and CLEMENCEAU but didn’t have too much trouble with the rest of it. WOKING I thought might be ‘without king’, but agree it’s probably woe (wo is given as archaic alternative in Chambers). Hipper was, unsurprisingly given the name of the warship Jay @2 refers to, an actual German admiral who was probably fairly well known/notorious on his own account.
    Amazing how the variety of clue types has narrowed to essentially one type (def + comprehensive wordplay). There’s obviously a lot of mileage in that one type, but what a lot has been lost.

  18. A fascinating and detailed blog, well above my proverbial pay grade, for a puzzle I stumbled upon a few days ago and was bemused and bewildered by!

    The odd range of clue types (quite a few that are not even cryptic by modern standards) prevented me from getting many of the solutions, and even after revealing the majority of the clues I was none the wiser for at least half of them!

    The way is see this puzzle is as a kind of tentative prototype of the cryptic crossword that hadn’t quite been knocked into shape yet.

    Huge thanks to duncanshiell for the endeavour! Very much appreciated 🙂

  19. Wow! So back in the day even the crosswords were in black & white! Reminds me of the grainy All Blacks – Wales tests which ended 3-0. Funny that along with the vague allusions that comprise some clues there’s the not-at-all cryptic “(anag.)”. I have a new-found respect for the “rules” of today. Thanks and admiration to duncanshiell for pulling this apart. (I’m glad I didn’t try to solve it.)

  20. [ Many thanks to Rob@18 for the initial alert for this puzzle. I would have missed all the fun without it ]

  21. Thanks, Duncan, for your heroic work on this. I think the shortness of the clues may have been because of shortage of space in the paper in those wartime days with scarcity of paper and newsprint.

    Like many other things, crosswords have evolved a lot since 1945 which was 78 years ago, but only 32 years from the first crossword in 1913.

  22. Thanks for the excellent blog, Duncan, and thanks to the Guardian for giving us this treat. And thanks of course to Ximenes!

    Ximenes didn’t become Ximenean in the sense we understand it until much later, as he explains in his book (published 1966), which is well worth a read.

  23. Only guessing but maybe the German admiral in 1 across is (Graf) SPEE whose letters appear in order in the clue

  25. There’s an image of the original printed puzzle here

    You need to click the small preview image, the third of the three shown, which confirms the original clue.

  26. Decided to have a go at this. Pleased to get most of it but packed up with 9 clues unsolved. I parsed KIPPERS as Roz did. I reread the Alice books recently but didn’t recall the DODO reference. Guessed BEAU with no idea as to why, so thanks Delia.

  28. Wow, this was tough! I am obviously not in a 1945 frame of mind – not surprising as this puzzle was created before I was born. I won’t be doing any more early Everymans in a hurry.

    New for me: 1ac SCHIPPERKE – Belgian dog breed (thanks, google – but I can’t parse it); YALTA Conference, 1945; Houyhnhnms; FUSEL OIL; hockey bully (24ac).

    Favourite: PROPER FRACTION.

    I failed 6ac ARAM – never heard of Eugene Aram (novel) and also failed 28ac DODO.

    I could not parse:
    1ac
    11/26ac – I got it via guesswork – is it a CD?
    12ac – WO[e} + KING – I could not see how we know to lose the E
    15ac A VENUE = for explorers
    16ac The clue reads as ‘He may investigate the declarer’s bona fides (8)’ in the onlien version (guessed the answer from def = he may investigate)
    22ac – apart from ref to St Ambrose
    29ac thanks google – Tiger nickname of Georges Clemenceau. But the rest of it?
    5d I was thinking of knuckledusters but could not parse it
    8d
    25d – I thought of belle of the ball, but could not make the parsing work! Thanks, Delia @11.

    4d does not seem cryptic (Shakespeare quote), ditto 21d and 14d

    Thanks, duncanshiell.

    I agree with Roz re PROPER vs vulgar fraction; also runabout as a car/baby, also KIPPERs as sleepers who might have back aches so I saw 13ac as a double def.

  30. Thanks very much, Duncan, for tackling this historical relic. I note that today’s Observer has a full-page article (on page 3!) about the history of the Everyman crossword. It includes the assertion that the Everyman was first published in August 1945; this is true as far as the current series is concerned, but as you mention above, there were earlier ones, although they may not have been labelled as Everyman!

    I’ve been wondering about how to parse 16 across. The definition is, as Michelle @28 above points out, “He may investigate “; but I am struggling to make sense of the rest. “Declarer” could refer to bridge, which could therefore relate to S; but EARCHER is meaningless. Any ideas? Perhaps he was thinking of EARNEST?

  32. Like Petert@24, I was convinced that the solution to 16a was CLUELESS, and it was my favourite clue in the entire crossword. The real clue and solution are not nearly as good.

  33. Duncan, your blog is fantastic!
    Stumped by half a dozen, so thank you so much.
    As I was born in 1942, I particularly loved (Mount) ARARAT as TA-RA-RA (BUM -DEE- AY)
    was my Mum’s idea of a lullaby for me!
    She became a determined and expert Manchester Guardian Cryptic Crossword solver.
    When I was between 11and 21 years we set midnight as our time limit!

  34. Obviously this wasn’t published in the New Zealand Herald, but thanks to the comments in the Everyman 3,999 blog I tried this online. What a challenge – so much that would have been general knowledge in 1945 (when my mother was born) that has since faded out of sight. I wonder how solvers in another 78 years might get on with references to current ‘celebrities’ and 2020s popular culture?! Thanks for a wonderful blog Duncan.

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