Everyman 4,038

52 comments on “Everyman 4,038”

1. I think this one was easier than the last few weeks.

   Favourites were: OVERWHELMS, CIRCULAR SAWS (lovely surface) MAKES A PILE, IN SIGHT (neat)

   Thanks Everyman and flashling

2. Everyman on a Saturday?
   WHAT HAVE YOU (my take)
   I beg your pardon=WHAT
   down=HAVE (drink/swallow)
   solver=YOU
   Def: etc

   21D
   I had ALSO
   A L S+O(round)
   def: And

   ITALICISED
   The word ‘stressed’ is in italics in the clue

3. KVa @2

   I had same for 21d

   and also for ITALICISED

4. flashling/admin
   Is this okay to have this blog today? Hope we are not violating any Guardian rules/conditions.

5. flashling, sorry to hear of the loss of your mother, and thank you for your Trojan effort in getting the blog in at all, let alone a day early.

6. My commiserations, flashling.

   But, since you posted, let me comment.

   Overall, I think I enjoyed this and thought it was a nice outing. My favourites were MAKES A PILE and ADDED UP. I have never heard NECK to mean audacity, and I cannot shed light on ITALISIZED or WHAT HAVE YOU. I could not get them either. Sorry KVa@2 – I still do not get it

   Thanks Everyman and flashling

7. Marty@6
   WHAT HAVE YOU means things like that; in other words ‘etc’.
   Which other part of my parsing is not clear?

8. Apologies Martyn for the Marty bit. Typo.
   You may recall: WHAT often is clued as eh (in the sense of ‘come again’ or ‘pardon’)

9. I was a bit thrown too, but I think the circumstances permit. My commiserations flashling.
   Kva@2: I parsed the three clues as you did. ETC took a little while, but I was thinking WHAT! for beg your pardon, YOU for solver, so it was only finding a link between down and HAVE and drinking came to mind.
   I had written ITALICISED in before the italisising of the clue struck home.
   ALSO was as near a write in as I will ever achieve.

   Thanks both.

10. Thanks for the blog and best wishes to you and your family. I agree with KVa@several for WHAT HAVE YOU, just for clarity the definition is ETC? .
    MARGINALLY is very good classic Everyman and will add to the list for Jay . ITALICISED maybe following a bit of a trend for clues referring to things like accents or puctuation within the clue.
    OHMS I did ponder, but in aural wordplay you can drop the H and sound like it with a different spelling.

11. Shouldn’t this blog have waited another day, and come out on a Sunday, when the “Check All” button has appeared?
    Is the Everyman even a competition puzzle anymore?

12. Frankie it is a competition , I always send mine off, probably too late for anyone to send off today.

13. So sorry to hear about your mother, flashling.

    ITALICISED – I reckoned the clue in the paper had a word in italics, because this has happened before, with words in bold too. It doesn’t translate to the electronic versions, and maybe the crossword editors need to make a ruling on whether it should be allowed.

    WHAT HAVE YOU I parsed as KVa has, with etc as the definition.

    Thank you to flashling and Everyman.

14. [Roz@12 The Guardian Prize – at least in the .PDF – still says ‘… first five correct entries drawn each week win a copy of The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book by Alex Bellos
    Entries to: The Guardian Crossword No 29,320,P.O. Box 17566, Birmingham, B33 3EZ, or Fax to 0121-742 1313 by Friday.’
    Which is why the “Check All” button {and the blog) doesn’t appear till Saturday.
    I assume something similar (deadline Saturday; blog Sunday) applies to the Everyman, but there’s nothing – not even in the .PDF – about how to enter anymore.
    What does the dead tree edition say?]
    Sorry for your loss, flashling.

15. Frankie I will tell you tomorrow. I send the puzzle off , I cut out the clues which I annotate and save them for this blog. I have not kept the little instructions bit, I suspect it is very similar to the Guardian , the prize is much better , £20 book tokens. The Guardian prize is rubbish so I never send it off.

16. FrankieG @14 from the Terms and Conditions online dated Aug 21, don’t know if there is anything more recent.

    To enter the Prize Draw for the ‘Everyman’ crossword series you must print out your completed crossword and send it to The Observer, PO Box 17566, Birmingham, B33 3EZ. Competition entries for the latest Everyman crossword must be postmarked not later than the Saturday night after the puzzle is published.

    Never needed to look this up as there is no way by snail mail I could enter.

17. Thanks flashling for the repost today, and still working on this, despite your tribulations this week.
    For anyone coming in today, posts 1-16 were entered yesterday before the error was realised and the Everyman blog was temporarily taken down, to reappear on the due date.
    I’d just like to add to my post at 16, that I realise I can’t enter the Everyman prize draw as I’m not a UK resident.

18. Parsed ITALICISED, as per KVa and Fiona. I don’t remember the italics not being there as per Shanne’s comment@13. I see they are in the online version now.
    I liked the neat double def EXPRESS for the surface alluding to the bird swift in air..
    Also TIDDLYWINKS for the surface. CHAPATI was a nice hidden, a bread unlikely to be found in a pâtisserie.

19. Sorry for your loss. Accept my heartfelt condolences, flashling!

    pdm@18
    CHAPATI
    You are right. Hiding a CHAPATI in a pâtisserie is masterful!

20. No need to apologize, flashling, and best wishes to you and your family.

    I had no difficulty getting 1d, but I couldn’t see the aural wordplay indicator to change ‘OMES to OHMS. I’m probably missing something obvious, which I do frequently.

    I also inexplicably couldn’t see down=HAVE at 3d WHAT HAVE YOU, so thanks everyone for pointing that out.

    Thanks Everyman for the fun, and flashling for the yeoman service under the circumstances.

21. Cellomaniac@20. OHMS I read this clue as a bit of whimsy, like a Christmas cracker joke, indicated by the question mark. And of course the “units” aren’t defined at all. The Cockney ”sounds like” indicator at the front of the clue, probably serves for the lot. Everyman seems to have this kind of quirky sense of humour. Not a very satisfactory explanation perhaps?

22. OHMS
    I think the question mark is a DBE indicator.
    Cockney (Cockneys) is a Cockney accent indicator (sounds like someone has already said that!!!). Therefore, I find the clue all right.

23. Sorry for your loss, Flashling, my commiserations.
    Couldn’t get 21d. Now realise it was staring me in the face. Oh well…
    Thanks both

24. KVa@7 @8. No worries about the typo. I read your explanations again and more carefully, and I get both clues now. Many thanks.

25. Enjoyable puzzle.

    New for me: CIRCULAR SAWS.

    Took me a while to work out how to parse 3d and I parsed it in the same way as KVa@2.
    I parsed 21d in the same way as KVa@2 – final letters of (finally) viennA rolL comeS + O = round. Def = And
    13d – parsed in the samw way as KVa, Shanne@13 – the word stressed was/is in italics in the online version that I access for laptop, but I don’t know about phone app.

    Condolences to flashling on the death of your mother.

    Thanks, both.

26. WHAT HAVE YOU
    Roz@10 says the def should be ‘etc?’ Read her comment properly just now.
    I thought the question mark was there for the surface. I also thought ‘(and) WHAT HAVE YOU’
    and ‘etc’ were interchangeable/synonymous.
    Going by Roz’s comment, there seem to be some finer aspects that I am missing.
    Awaiting enlightenment…

27. Michelle@25 I solve on my phone in the Guardian newspaper app as a subscriber, not the puzzle app, and no, I’ve checked, nothing in that clue is ITALICISED. And it has happened before.

28. I solve on the Guardian Editions app. I find it much nicer than the other apps that have the Guardian crosswords available. You have to be a subscriber though. And this version does have the formatting on the words, so you can see stressed in italics.

    Really sorry for your loss flashling.

29. PDM@ 16 and Frankie , the paper today also says postmarked no later than Saturday night.

    PDM you can also FAX your entry 0121 742 1313 , I did not know the FAX still existed. I am surprised they do not allow email if that is possible.

30. Very sorry about your loss, flashling.

    This week’s was a rather smooth ride, imo. Stressed – in italics online – seemed a clear double def for “emphasised”, and “etc” was a definition for WHAT HAVE YOU. ALSO came up late but parsed all right. Liked LIP-SYNC, ILL WILL, CIRCULAR SAWS and ALEXANDRIA.

    Thank you, Everyman and flashling

31. Sorry to learn about your mother, flashling. Producing the blog seems well beyond the call of duty, so thank you.
    Also, thank you to Everyman for an enjoyable puzzle, which took me all week to attempt on my phone but not long to polish off on my more usual format, the open access version on my iPad. Regarding 21d, stressed appeared in italics in both versions and as far as I know, I used the subscriber app on my phone. How many versions are there?

32. Our blogging tool unfortunately stripped out the italics in the clue and it never occurred to me to check the website, oh well.

33. I thought this was a good Everyman.

    I particularly liked the LIP-SYNC, CIRCULAR SAWS, OHMS/’omes, MAKES A PILE, and ALSO.

    My condolences for your loss, flashling.

    Thanks Everyman and flashling.

34. Dear Flashling, you have my deepest sympathies for your loss. There’s really no need to apologise: under the circumstances I’m amazed and impressed that you found the time and the concentration to do the blog at all. (I certainly couldn’t have completed a crossword – let alone blogged it – the week of my mother’s funeral.)
    Please pay no attention to those commenters quibbling about the blog being a day early. Thanks for posting it:
    you done great, old chap!
    And thanks to Everyman too

35. My thoughts for 3 down:

    I beg your pardon!? WHAT
    ‘Down with HAVE (as in down with the flu)
    the solver’, YOU

36. Wellbeck, I fully agree with your sentiments@34. I think you’ve misinterpreted the comments about the blog being a day early. There were no quibbles, only a question as to whether we were able to comment yesterday. I think we’ve all acknowledged flashling’s efforts in such a sad and difficult time for him, and expressed our appreciation for going above and beyond.

37. Flashling – thank-you for the blog on what must have been a difficult week for you.

    I had a strange solving experience – getting quite lot done and then crickets for 10mins with the NE and SW mostly empty. I took a break and immediately did the SW then stuck took another break and then immediately did the NE albeit putting PECK for NECK.

    Once again, my overall feeling was this was a bit too complicated for what I want from Everyman. Certainly the case for WHAT-HAVE-YOU, LIP-SYNC, PECK. My quick start really felt like it was helped by picking off the hidden words and chestnut but then bumping up against stuff that felt convoluted.

38. flashling, thank you for providing a blog — and a very fine blog — at such a time.

    I was puzzled by the same ones you were, thanks to commenters who straightened me out.

    And thanks to Everyman too.

39. Many thanks for the condolences all. Phil

40. So sorry for your loss flashing. And thank you always x

41. It seems to me that 26ac has a clear error: the definition, “Ruby, Beryl and 10 more”, leads unambiguously to BIRTHSTONES, not BIRTHSTONE.

    Other than that, I thought this was a satisfying Everyman.

42. Condolences flashling (and thanks to you and setter). I’ve only just gout round to reading this so any early posting didn’t worry me.
    Like HG @36, I had PECK – didn’t see NECK.
    I arrived at 21d via the wrong route: they speak German in Vienna; I knew that ALS is a German word (though not its precise translation) and appending the round O gave me ALSO.

43. Adrianw@41: German “als” is a conjunction used, depending on context, for than, as, as if, when, what have you 🙂

44. 23a could easily be slip or pils until you get the crossing letters.

    Couldn’t quite parse all of “What have you”. Couldn’t get the “have” bit.

    Liked marginally.

45. Commenting a month late here in NZ.

    Enjoyed mostly, and fully completed. But couldn’t parse 3d (what have you) – thanks for the explanation everyone; I don’t think I would ever have picked up ‘etc’ as the def.

    As far as 1d goes I think it is quite common for cockney in an Everyman clue to mean sounds like if the initial ‘h’ is removed.

46. I did like 17ac, 19d had me guessing, some others, what have you.
    Rob from, Epsom Auckland, post Anzac Day.

47. Meh. Not one of his best. I too had Peck but I don’t really like either answer for Audacity. Stressed had no italics in our copy (NZ Herald).

    Consumed as anagrind? Chewed would have been better.

    Properties wasn’t very cryptic, and … oh I’ll stop there, it was just not one of his best, felt rushed. Where were the checkers?

48. I too had peck but neck is better.
    I vaguely seem to remember ALSO at the end of a stanza when singing The Creation in German. Odd grammar in English to say Bruce, Jim and Bill also.

49. It occurs to me in keeping with the cockney theme of the first clue that 3D could easily be “a little bit of ‘I beg your pardon’, you know a bit of ‘what have you’ was going on” in a Pythonesque Eric Idle voice.

    Other than that thanks all and my hearty condolences Flashling from Auckland a month on.

50. Barrie@47 “Brass neck” = audacity, cheek, shamelessness, gall etc. I don’t know how common it is in Britain to shorten it to just neck, but assume it’s acceptable given the lack of comments. I liked Ill Will and Warm.

51. Heard of bold as brass and of course the monkeys, but not neck. And when I were a lad, on a good day necking involved rather more than kissing…

52. Loved properties – an obvious and therefore difficult clue.
    6a contrived – yes it makes sense but really?
    10a neck for audacity? Must be somewhat a local idiom.

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