Everyman 4,008

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Generally an enjoyable crossword, with one or two very nice clues, but in more places than usual I was a bit doubtful of the parsing. However, this may well be my own failing and no doubt I shall be corrected. I can’t find any rhyming answers but possibly 4dn and 7dn are related since they both refer to parts of the body. One might argue that six double definitions is too many.

Definitions underlined, in crimson. Indicators (reversal, anagram, containment, etc.) in italics. Anagrams shown (like this)* or *(like this). Link-words in green.

 

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 REPAIR
Withdraw fix (6)
2 defs — the first one slightly archaic, the second one used in the sense of mending something
4 KINDLE
Light reading? (6)
2 defs — kindle in the sense of lighting a fire, and the Amazon Kindle (nice bit of product placement here)
8 VERTEBRAE
So endlessly berate furiously: show some backbone! (9)
ver[y] (berate)* — very = so, ‘endlessly’ applies to this and not to ‘berate’
9 MATCH
One’s destined to have hot head in sports event (5)
2 defs — the sort of match you use for lighting a fire, and it’s destined to have a hot head when you strike it, and a match is a sports event — but this may not be quite right and it may be a triple definition: One’s destined (as in one’s perfect match), to have hot head = match (very dodgy I think), sports event = match — neither of these parsings is quite right perhaps and you may be able to improve on my efforts
11 IN HIGH SPIRITS
Jolly‘s hiring ship: it’s renovated (2,4,7)
(hiring ship it’s)*
13 ART DECO
Red coat fashioned in ’20s style (3,4)
(Red coat)*
14 CHIANTI
Greek character averse to a fruity Red? (7)
chi anti — chi is the Greek letter (character), anti = averse to
16 AT ISSUE
Collection of lies in dispute (2,5)
a tissue — as in ‘a tissue of lies’
18 OPENING
Gap‘s first day of trading (7)
2 defs — nice surface, since Gap is a shop
20 OLD AS THE HILLS
Lots shall hide out like Methuselah (3,2,3,5)
(Lots shall hide)* — Methusaleh was a biblical character famed for his great age
23 NICHE
Calling, wanting portion of macaroni cheese (5)
Hidden in macaroNI CHEese
24 ELABORATE
Fancy flesh out (9)
2 defs — fancy = elaborate, to elaborate on something is to flesh it out — in the first one it rhymes with ‘hit’, in the second with ‘wait’
25 ASIDES
Whispered comments in LPs’ first tracks (6)
A-sides — but do LPs have A-sides and B-sides? I thought it was just singles — this looks to me like an oversight
26 METTLE
Temperament of eg iron, did you say? (6)
“metal” — iron is an example of a metal
DOWN
1 ROVE
Range demonstrated to have no beginning or end (4)
[p]rove[d] — to rove is to range, proved = demonstrated
2 PERSIST
Soldier on some uppers is tingling (7)
Hidden in upPERS IS Tingling
3 ICE SHEETS
Reworked cheesiest material way up North (3,6)
*(cheesiest) — way up North, in the Arctic, ice sheets are material (maybe not the first word one would use for the ice sheets, but Everyman wanted to have ‘cheesiest material’)
4 KEEPS A COOL HEAD
Chills hake, escalope and cod (with head removed) | for cooking (5,1,4,4)
(hake escalope [c]od)*
5 NIMBI
We hear one opposing building in clouds (5)
“nimby” — ‘not in my back yard’ — the cloud-type is nimbus, and this is the plural of that
6 LATVIAN
Lettish (although this version’s its alternative name), primarily! (7)
The first letters clue that we always have — Latvians and Letts are not exactly the same, though: see this article here
7 DRAGS ONE’S HEELS
Everyman’s stuck between bores and rotters in stalls (5,4,5)
drags (one’s) heels — drags = bores, heels = rotters, one’s = Everyman’s (the self-referential clue, which normally uses ‘I’ or ‘me’ but in this case ‘one’)
10 HASTINGS
Surprised expression before attacks from airborne in battle (8)
Ha! stings — Ha! is the surprised expression, stings are attacks from airborne (?) — this sense of ‘stings’ isn’t apparently supported by Collins, also it’s rather odd English: ‘attacks from airborne’, which seems a clumsy way of saying ‘attacks from the air’ — ref the Battle of Hastings (1066) when the French invaded — perhaps I have it all wrong
12 MACAROON
French president’s eaten | starter of andouilles; later duck and almondy cake (8)
Mac(a)ro(o)n, where a is the first letter of andouilles — Macron is the French president, and within that is a, then later on 0 (duck, as in cricket)
15 I FEEL LOVE
Disco classic, If Slippery Character Comes to Nothing (1,4,4)
If eel love — If = If, eel = slippery character, love = zero = nothing — this “disco classic”
17 INDUCTS
Ordains where water flows (7)
in ducts — water flows in ducts (only possibly: as Collins says, ‘A duct is a pipe, tube, or channel …’ so what about when water spills everywhere and flows all over the place? Perhaps it should have been ‘may flow’), ordains = inducts (close in meaning but not exactly the same; maybe just about good enough)
19 INSTANT
Mo‘s coffee (7)
2 defs — a mo is a moment, an instant, and instant coffee is a type of coffee
21 SPEED
Rate of knots in ocean – capsized! (5)
(deeps)rev. — deeps = ocean (can you say this? surely the singular is more usual)
22 HERE
Shoe tree regularly rejected as present (4)
[s]h[o]e [t]r[e]e — no reversal — we couldn’t have rejected meaning both ‘omitted’ and ‘reversed’

30 comments on “Everyman 4,008”

  1. I though of stinging insects for the airborne, but it still seemed a bit clunky.
    Thanks for all the explanations. I’m a relative beginner, and was happy to have completed this one, but wasn’t certain how some of the clues worked.

  2. Enjoyed this but got stuck for a while on the left side and yes too many double definitions – either you can think of a word that means both or you can’t.

    Favourites: I FEEL LOVE – brought back memories – REPAIR (lovely old use of the word), AT ISSUE, ASIDES, DRAGS ONES HEELS, NIMBI

    Thanks Everyman and John

  3. Thanks, Everyman and John!

    MATCH
    I thought there were 3 defs (just as indicated in the blog).

    Def 1: One’s destined. no difference.
    Def 2: Hot head. (‘to have’ could be link words).
    Def 3: Sports event. No difference.

    HASTINGS
    Thought of flying insects and tried to see if ‘airborne’ meant ‘an airborne something’ but
    couldn’t find any such entry in any of the online dictionaries I referred to.

  4. On the contrary, KVa, by the application of Occam’s razor I find the triple-definition version of MATCH entirely unnecessary. A match is ‘destined to have a hot head’ when someone gets round to striking it – indeed, such a destiny constitutes its sole purpose. Therefore, the double definition entirely accounts for the elements of the clue.

  5. Thank you John for your blog. I wondered if the pair might be 7 and 4 HEAD and HEELS.

    HASTINGS We Aussies are subject to lots of stings from everywhere, underfoot, or on the body, on land or in water. So airborne didn’t mean much to me, except when I looked up the Battle of Hastings and saw the story about Harold getting an arrow in his eye. Maybe Everyman was alluding to that.

    Quite liked the fodder in METHUSELAH , hiding out in the hills to avoid the flood?
    Interesting articles on Wiki and Brittanica about the possible mis/calculations and symbolism of his age.

  7. paddymelon@5
    Someone used the word ‘runcible’ in a particular context the other day elsewhere and I got reminded of ‘pongling’. 🙂

    HASTINGS
    HA+STINGS no doubt.
    What are those attacks? From some insects or arrows. That’s fine too.
    The ‘from airborne’ part is pongling us a bit. I even tried to split air and borne to see if it makes sense.
    ‘attacks from (the) air’ ‘borne in’. Can’t make it work.

    Reminded of ‘apophenia and pareidolia’ as well.
    😉

  9. KVa @7. lol. Who knows what bit of whimsy Everyman had in mind? For a moment there I chuckled about the seemingly anachronistic association of airborne attacks in the Battle of Hastings. Simpler clue may have been to use the word barb/s in a cutdown but possibly punchier clue.

  10. CHIANTI was an answer two weeks ago. I also recalled a very similar clue appearing in Everyman 3,889 …
    Greek character (averse to wine) (7)

    HEAD/HEALS is almost certainly intended. Everyman has used such antonym/opposite pairings before. Here are some of the previous ones…

    FIRE/WATER, HEAVY/LIGHT, START/STOP, COUNTRY/WESTERN, MAN/LADY, SHORT/SWEET, GOOD/BAD, MAKE/BREAK, RED/GREEN

    Thanks to E and J

  11. Entering I FEEL FREE held me up a while. It parses, but I did have doubts about Cream being a disco classic. Thanks, Everyman and John.

  14. I can’t make my mind up about MATCH. [What did Hamlet say about Harold? Hastings and arrows of outrageous fortune.]

  15. I’d noticed that it had been a long time since we’d had anything other than a rhyming pair in Everyman, so I was head over heels to see the return of a pair related by a phrase.

    Thanks to Everyman and John

  16. I would have preferred ‘airborne attacks in this battle?’ or something. It is rather fanciful in any case, and ‘wounds’ might have been a safer choice.

    All that’s occurred to me regarding the long down clues is that technically ‘head’ is OVER ‘heels’, and that hills can be high in the across. There is some loose relationship intended I think.

  17. TassieTim@11 – me too. I was thinking ‘surely not?’ before seeing the correct answer.
    Regarding HASTINGS, the grammar doesn’t work either in the surface or the wordplay for ‘stings’, and I suspect a typical Grauniad cock-up. Maybe there’s a missing word after ‘airborne’, or maybe it should just have been ‘air’
    Otherwise a typical Everyman.
    Thanks both.

  18. An enjoyable puzzle, thank you Everyman, and thank you John for the blog.

    I foolishly entered FETTLE at first instead of METTLE, but it will not fully parse. Could METTLE form a rhyming pair with KINDLE?

  21. Even if LPs did have A and B sides, the first track is not the ‘A side’. Didn’t stop me from getting the answer, but it’s wrong.

    Perhaps influenced by the charmingly old fashioned REPAIR, I assumed the word in 1d to be “proven”. Doesn’t matter as long as it has ROVE in the middle.

    I agree with Fiona@2: brief double defs are frustrating and there are an awful lot here.

  22. Thanks paddymelon@6. I think ‘deeps’ is just about OK, although the M-W def is for ‘the deeps’.

    My feeling about MATCH is that it’s better if it’s a double, but that Everyman couldn’t resist the match as in ‘one’s perfect match’ and so had the ‘One’s destined’ hint towards that.

  23. Re 25ac: I think that the sides on at least some LP albums were labeled A and B rather than 1 and 2, but I could be wrong, and I no longer have my LPs, so I can’t verify it that way.

    If it’s true that albums have A and B sides, then I’m not bothered by gladys @21’s objection that the first track wouldn’t be the A side. That’s undoubtedly true, but it’s still the case that the A sides of (multiple) albums would be the first tracks (plural) of those albums, which is all that’s required for the clue to be sound.

    Still, I agree that the A-B terminology is far more associated with singles than with albums, and that the clue would be far clearer if it referred to singles.

  24. I thought there were some lovely clues here including for HASTINGS. Based on the few war movies I’ve seen I assumed “attacks from airborne!” was a commonly used warning phrase. Thanks John and Everyman.

  25. I also though MATCH was a perfect double definition. I wasn’t clever enough to spot the possibility of a triple so the fact that it may not quite work didn’t bother me.

  28. Yeah nah.
    Stoucl on vertebrae and I guess one needs ro know ‘so endlessly’ is ver. I guess we will learn through lingo.

  30. Rob @ 27, my understanding is 6d reference is about language where Latvian has superseded Lettish.

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