Everyman 4,042

74 comments on “Everyman 4,042”

1. Thanks flashling. Everyman/Alan Connor said last week in various places that this was a one-off, a themed crossword allowable in every 100 Everyman crossies, or something like that. I had no idea of the theme, but learned that it’s BBC4. I saw some speculation that it might have been a guest setter, whose name I don’t remember now. I’ll leave it to the cogniscienti.

2. @pdm you may well be right from an insomniac flashling. Certainly dead ringers and IAIHAC certainly began as R4 but I’m not too up on such things.

3. Brian Aldridge is an Archers character and Claudia Hammond has presented a few things. The names rang a bell but the theme didn’t help me much! Sidnt get Ena, even with one letter missing!

4. On Guardian Blog Friday 5 April, posted later in the weekend, by Alan Connor, also introducing the Quick Cryptics and updating us on the move of the Quiptic to Sunday:

   Everyman today takes advantage of the long-standing precedent that allows for a theme every couple of hundred puzzles, the prize setter won’t make a habit of being the same as the QC’s but very much is this weekend, thee quiptic will stay on Sunday and … anything else I’ve forgotten. I’m off for a belated Easter egg hunt — good luck to anyone in a similar situation!

   PS what some are now calling ‘the glorious weekend of Carpathian’ also includes …

   https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001y22r
   … this.

5. I liked the surface for I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T A CLUE. We had a similar one recently with only the enumeration.

6. Not the easiest Everyman either. So it was Carpathian, with the grid, in the Guardian on the radio. It explains the lack of pairs etc. I’m sure she’s capable, but was she invited, or was it just suitable?
   Does it matter? I liked ISIHAC, even with the enumerated clue recently, it still took until I had the L and the E before it clicked.
   Thanks both.

7. Agree fashling, poor journos; can’t think of a nickname that’s nice, and short enough for a cw particle … cub? … bugle?

8. Saw a lot of names I was unfamiliar with and feared the worst, but found the parsing relatively straightforward, so had only a few problems. Thanks to Everyman and Flashling for the blog

9. Top faves: RELIEF MAPS (great surface as good as an extended def), DROP-OUT (not a conventional radio clue), CHARLESTON (the N clued ingeniously. The def: Dancing about? Not just ‘dance’. Didn’t get it fully. I am missing something) and ENA (liked the wordplay).

   HAIRLINE (my reading)
   Def: slim (that’s-link)

10. KVa@9.. CHARLESTON . Glad you asked the question. I haven’t a clue about that clue, even with the help of flashling and yourself.

11. Definitely more of a challenge than the prize. Maybe they got mixed up?

    Cheers F&E/C

12. Thanks for the blog, I listen to Radio4 all the time , nearly every clue or answer has a Radio4 reference, Totally unsuitable for an Everyman puzzle.

13. paddymelon@10
    CHARLESTON
    flashling helped you but I only added to the confusion. 🙂
    The WP is cool. I don’t get why it’s ‘dancing about’ instead of (a) ‘dance’.
    The surface reading is fine.

14. What KVa@9 and paddymelon@10 wrote

    Thanks Everyman and flashling

15. I listen to BBC Radio 4 too so didn’t find this too challenging once I’d realised there was a theme, and also reckoned it was to flag the programme on Cryptic crosswords going out on Sunday evening.

    I had the general knowledge to do this so it took me the same sort of time as the weekly cryptics. But I suspect others don’t and thought this would be contentious as I did it.

    Thank you to flashling and Everyman.

16. I do not think the setter is Carpathian unless someone has direct evidence ? I think the weekend of Carpathian was the Guardian Prize, the new QC and the radio show.
    I suspect this is our normal setter showing off to his media chums but I could be wrong.

17. Flashling at the start you say the paper is now the home of the Quiptic ? I can’t find it, or do you just mean online ?

18. Claudia Hammond presents All in the Mind, the regular slot on mental health, plus other specials. Things Fell Apart is a Jon Robson series on conspiracy theories, Dead Ringers and ISIHAC are still on R4, Martha Kearney used to present Woman’s Hour, is now a Today presenter as is Nick Robinson, Loose Ends is a Clive Anderson show on the artsy stuff, sometimes presented by Annika Rice nowadays. Soul Music is a show about much loved music. Just One Thing is a Michael Moseley programme about things to improve health. Ramblings is a walking show with Clare Balding. Roger Allam and Joanna Lumley are part of a drama about a long marriage, can’t remember the title without looking it up. In Our Time is a Melvin Bragg weekly show on people or things that influenced change. Ed Reardon’s Week is a 6:30pm evening comedy and Jake Yapp is a comedian in that slot.

    Not sure about Evans – I thought Evan Davis on PM.

19. 13d HAIRLINE – Who or what is “Herc”? 😕

20. FrankieG @19 Herc is a character in the (brilliant) Radio 4 sitcom Cabin Pressure, which is about a tiny airline company

21. The Shipping Forecast , MARIAN Keyes , Brian Aldridge to add to Shanne@18

22. There was quite a lot of this that eluded me and I normally finish Everymans. I thought it a lot harder than most and some of the answers somewhat convoluted and unsatisfying. By no means my favourite. The theme is only really apparent in the surfaces rather than the answers, so not very helpful for solving.

23. Simon EVANS goes to market.

24. STEPHEN Fry , Book Club and many other things.

25. Justin Webb – Today .

26. brian-with-an-eye@20 – Thanks 😉
    The Skewer

27. Shanne@18 – Conversations from a Long Marriage

28. Agree with Gliddofglood @ 22. Since the theme is more in the surfaces than the answers it didn’t help and was just distracting.

    I listen to R4 a lot, especially when driving but didn’t enjoy this and not what I expect an Everyman to be.

29. I thought this was a different setter very early on.
    The all-pervasive theme, the spread across 12a and 20d, the prevalence of references to particular letters, and the peculiar Marian – Martian giveaway.

    I’m at a loss to see how “covered” indicates removal in ENA, and has anybody understood exactly how TON is clued in 25? “Dancing about” can’t be the def, can it?

30. [I’ve been in the audience for Simon Evans, the fact I’ve obliterated that may or may not be significant. And I’ve missed The Skewer, although I know Jon Holmes from various things. I didn’t include The Shipping Forecast either, or a few others I thought were obvious. A few years back, before COVID, I’d be in the audience at least monthly as a way of meeting up with friends cheaply. Because of Benedict Cumberbatch, Cabin Pressure tickets were impossible to get, but I’ve seen John Finnemore a few times, equally brilliantly.]

31. I supposed “covered” means hidden. Fair enough.

32. The other clue that improves with more knowledge of Radio 4 is that Marian Keyes and Tara Flynn have a podcast called Now You’re Asking

33. This wasn’t much fun and rather ANAL, if you forgive my saying so… Had to look up every bloody reference, even if it wasn’t necessary after all, aside from IM SORRY ETC., and having heard of STEPHEN Fry helped as well. Didn’t get STEM and ENA, though should have in retrospect. Not sure to in CHARLESTON can be used alone for alongside. IOUs was new to me, so I thought it was I oath for promises on the waves, that is, as if spoken by someone (on BBC4?). Favourites were LEAD and DEAD RINGER.
    [It did seem as set by someone else; I am not an expert, by any means, but abundant clues for single letters across the field felt quite JARring and so unlike Everyman.]

    Thank you, Everyman (?) and flashling

34. I’d say that CHARLESTON is as blogged, CHARLES-TO-N. ER was and sometimes still is clued as ‘leading lady’ so ‘powerful man’ is related, literally and figuratively, if a tad unusual. TO has definitions including ‘beside’ and ‘along with’ in Chambers, so again rather unusual but just about accounted for. Having said that, I would have put in NN for the last bit, had it not been obviously impossible. Definition seems in the wrong part of speech, if I have the rest of it nailed.

    Odd puzzle this one, including one of the most egregious chestnuts out there.

35. Guess who wrote the Shipping Forecast Puzzle Book 😉

36. Tough puzzle. This was harder than the Prize this week, and much harder than the (new) Quick Cryptic.

    Also, I didn’t see the theme – that was totally over my head!

    Re 20d – didn’t we have a similar clue recently?

    New for me: 17ac DROP-OUT = a momentary loss of recorded audio signal. I never thought of bohemians as dropouts, as a dropout has negative connotations for me whereas a bohemian does not!

    Favourite: STEPHEN.

    Thanks, both.

37. A few weeks back I commented that it was regretfully time to give up on the Everyman crossword due to the upturn in difficulty it had taken. Commenters encouraged me to stay with it but I was done.

    However, I happened to listen to the aforementioned Radio 4 GEGS (9,4) podcast that interviewed Alan – it was good and he seems like a decent chap. He mentioned that this Everyman was a themed special. so I decided to give it a go. Sadly, I was not encouraged by it. It was laborious and I gave up unable to solve six clues which looking at the blog were beyond me and another five I couldn’t parse which is unusual for me. Perhaps not being a R4 listener didn’t help understand the clueing.

    I then went back and tried Everyman 3,800 having seen someone suggest that in the 11x11QC comments. What a difference. I raced through it but more importantly the clues were a joy to read. They made some kind of sense and I wondered why I had continued to struggle with recent Emans. Amazingly – it also had the “I HAVENT A CLUE” in it too!

    I cannot fathom what Everyman Alan hoped to achieve by making this harder over the last six months. If I want to do a harder crossword, I can just do the daily cryptic. The 11x11QC is fun and a great intro for beginners but it was a near write-in for me. Other than the Quiptic, it seems there is no confidence building stepping stone any more. I will continue with the old ones.

    Apologies if this is misplaced

38. Based on a comprehensive survey of myself, I can confirm that no knowledge of the theme was required to solve this puzzle 🙂

    I only listen to the Today program and even that gets turned off when Thought for the Day rears its head

39. I really feel for solvers outside Britain and, indeed, for those inside Britain who don’t have Radio 4 chuntering away in the background permanently. (BBC4, by the way, is a television station, and a different entity to Radio 4.)
    I know GK is an entirely subjective thing – but I actually used to work for R4 for many years, and a few references even sailed over my own head! I simply assumed unknown names were either presenters or Archers characters. (For those not glued to R4: The Archers is the station’s soap opera and, like marmite, is loved and loathed in equal measure.)
    This would have been suitable in the long-gone magazine The Listener, or even in the BBC’s own internal publication Aerial (if it still exists) but really doesn’t belong in a newspaper that claims to speak to all the world.
    Well done Flashling for the blog.

40. Totally inappropriate for an Everyman crossword. Someone, somewhere attempted this as their first Everyman crossword, perhaps due to the Grauniad’s new mini-quiptic, and has now run a mile.
    If you are on the setter’s wavelength then laugh along. I wasn’t. No more like this please.

41. Thanks flashling. I couldn’t figure where the T and O for CHARLESTON came from. Having worked in Bristol for 24 years, “where’s it to?” wouldn’t mean alongside to me, so I didn’t see it.
    Also have never listened to radio bore in my entire life, but it seems all those references have osmosed into my consciousness along the way.
    Thanks both.

42. Looks like it’s down to me to say that a lot of this was obscure to someone not living in Britain. Of course, nowadays we can listen to Radio 4 anywhere in the world but we don’t. Would have been nice if the theme had been explained.

    Thanks for the blog!

43. bobM@42
    If you read a few posts from 18 onwards, you can see that the theme has been explained by Shanne, brian-with-an-eye, Roz et al.

44. Just 😳…I think I got about 7 : (

45. Can anyone provide an easier to follow explanation of 15 Dn ?

46. CRACK A JOKE
    Caught=C (in cricket)
    by=position indicator
    Jake —>no change
    Yapp’s second character: Yapp’s second letter=A
    rock —->no change
    out —->anagram indicator
    C (followed) by an anagram of JAKE +A+ROCK
    and —–link word
    amuse —>The definition.

47. I agree with Bodycheetah @38 that no knowledge of the theme was required although I had heard of “I’m sorry …” from Humph’s autobiography.

48. Tx KVa !

49. Can I say that I am one of the gruntled. No knowledge of Radio 4 was necessary, it was simply frills. I used to listen to Radio 4 a lot, but living in Vietnam, it’s all at the wrong time and I just listen occasionally.

50. DEAD RINGER – I got a spoonerism clue at last!
    MARTIAN – I thought surely it is not as simple as “insert T into Marian”?!
    CHARLESTON – this is a type of dance. Does it mean dancing about? Is that why there is a question mark? Good misdirection, though.

    Once I twigged the theme I was desperately searching for a reference to Just A Minute.
    Missed the regulars (self-referential, pair, etc).

51. Really didn’t enjoy this, and didn’t get the theme. ISIHAC was a write-in, after the very similar answer recently, but overall it felt like a slog.

52. Cara @44 – if you want to boost your confidence and solving skills, try the new weekly Quick Cryptic – this is the second, both are blogged if you need any help.

53. The comments this week raise many thoughts in my mind.

    I see that some people not in the UK dislike the “Britishness” and “local” (BBC Radio 4) references of a puzzle in a British newspaper. But if I looked at a puzzle in, say, an Australian newspaper, I’d no doubt be mystified by some “local” cultural references. I know that most newspapers are available on internationally accessible websites these days, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t have a cultural focus/bias and assumptions. Also, as far as friends of mine who do things like the Everyman crossword are concerned, most of them do listen to Radio 4 … it’s “the same sort of people”. Hence I found a R4 theme “a natural” for a crossword like this.

    Actually, I’d be surprised if many educated Brits, regular listeners or not, failed to recognise most of the Radio 4 references in this puzzle (though, as has been pointed out, you anyway didn’t need to know many of them to be able to solve it – though it would no doubt be less fun if you didn’t).

    In any case, where does general knowledge end and specific knowledge start? It’s all so personal. Many references in clues to fields of art like paintings, and literary references to books I haven’t read, are lost on me, for example. But I personally find that most science references (of the type in a crossword like this), or classical music references, or political references, or even not-too-technical cricketing terms, are (for me) general knowledge.

    I’m also puzzled (sic) by people complaining that they can’t solve something quickly and easily. If I buy the Observer in the local newsagent of a Sunday, and sit in the park with it (as I do in good weather) and could simply solve the crossword in one sitting, I’d be bored. For me, the whole point of a puzzle is the enjoyment of the thought process, and needing to come back to it another time to see whether anything else suddenly makes sense.

    In this connection, I’m confused by what people on this blog mean by “finishing” or “solving” the puzzle. Often an answer is pretty obvious, but I don’t write it in until I know _why_ it’s right – the reason I look at this blog each week is to figure out the parsing of any clues I didn’t “get”. If I don’t understand the parsing, then to me the puzzle is unsolved, whether or not I know “the answer”. I don’t see the point of a cryptic crossword as being to just to fill in the grid more quickly than someone else, but to savour the references and the humour – the joy of a puzzle is in the _doing_ not the finishing. And I’d say the same about, eg, number puzzles in the Observer and other papers.

    Having said all that – sorry! – then re the difficulty of the specific puzzle being discussed here, I personally found more of the clues rather harder to figure out than I commonly do. (For what it’s worth!) But maybe I just had an off week parsing-wise… in other words it could be me, not the puzzle.

    And lastly – it’s the first time I remember one of these crosswords having 16 down clues.

    – Albert in London

54. What kind of a definition for AMPHIBIOUS is “on the waves — to become grounded”?

    The clue for STEPHEN left me baffled, not even realizing that I should take FRY as a last name.

    The clue for CHARLESTON seems to require two N’s, no?

    I gathered that there was a theme of broadcast shows (I thought TV), but assumed that I wouldn’t have to actually know anything about the shows or people to solve the clues, the wordplay would be enough. That did seem to be mostly true.

55. And thanks, Everyman and flashling. (Prematurely hit send by mistake).

56. AMPHIBIOUS
    I think it refers to the naval-ground force tandem attack. Start on (from) the waves and push forward with ground forces.
    The surface seems to refer to this Webb:
    On the morning of June 6, 1944, Lieutenant Garth Webb landed on Juno Beach in Normandy with the Canadian 14th Field, as part of the Allied forces.

    CHARLESTON
    Two N’s from the routine angle. One N if we see it obliquely.

57. KVa@56: I assumed it referred to Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel. Seemed to make sense of the surface.

58. As paddymelon@4 and others have pointed out, this was associated with a BBC Radio 4 programme about cryptic crosswords: that was the excuse for all the Radio 4 references. I don’t think you needed to recognise any of them (except maybe Stephen Fry), but collectively they must have been pretty offputting for anyone unfamiliar with R4. Don’t do it again!

    Re 25: N is both the beginning and the end of Nick RobinsoN.

59. I did note at the start of the comments I don’t listen to radio 4 and solved the puzzle without needing to. I don’t feel the comments have been fair to the setter who clearly had a brief for this. Thanks setter.

60. Albert@53: My dissatisfaction with this had nothing to do with Radio 4 – apologies for calling it BBC4 in my first post – as its theme. You actually mentioned it yourself, “the joy of a puzzle is in the _doing_”. Totally agree! As much as I want to “solve”, I enjoy fine surfaces, clever clues and unusual associations, and that’s what I treasure and look for in Everyman’s oeuvre. (That you cannot “check” your progress as you proceed is another thrill.)

    Now, what about this, theme or not? Was there “joy in the doing”? Out of 30 entries, at least 10 were about stripping particular letters out of their clues. Might it be a bit too repetitive? Altogether, the surface quality was under par, imho. Some could be easily improved (say, 28ac, ANDY WARHOL, you could remove “taking part” from the clue and get a cleaner one without losing anything), some would be better off rewritten (e.g., 25ac, CHARLESTON, wouldn’t it be better as Powerful man towards Nick Robinson at either side – use end if you have to, but Nick Robinson is surely a person? – of state capital?) And so on… Just compare it with today’s 🙂

61. It is an Everyman so there is a linked pair (they do not have to rhyme) and they are 20D and 19A.
    Living on the other side of the world, the theme meant nothing to me but I still finished the crossword. However it did take me longer than usual.

62. The first Everyman in a long time that I didn’t finish. I don’t listen to radio 4, so the theme totally passed me by.

    I didn’t enjoy this one as much as normal, but still always my favourite crossword of the week.

63. flashling@59
    I am in total agreement with you.
    Thanks for the lovely blog. Thanks to the setter for the great puzzle.

64. Mystogre@61, I took the linked pair to be 31a BRAIN TEASERS and 12a I HAVEN’T A CLUE.

    Alan did say that Everyman traditionally is permitted to create a themed puzzle once in every one or two hundred. (That’s one every two to four years.) Surely we can manage that level of indulgence without the litany of complaints exhibited above.

    The theme was beyond me, as a foreigner who doesn’t have Radio 4, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the puzzle.

    Thanks Everyman for the appropriately themed puzzle (given the Sunday puzzle radio program) and flashling for the excellent blog.

65. As a beginner, I found this one really hard (and the surfaces inelegant). Having solved the preceding two Everymans straight away, it was a bit of a shock! There was me thinking I’d improved 🫠.

66. I managed with some difficulty to get this puzzle out without of course not having the advantage of R4, being in KiwiLand!
    I always look for Spoonerisms
    Of course there are names of people I don’t know but I struggle on and get there in the end

    Rob.

67. Disappointed down under.
    Realised it really wasn’t an “Everyman” early in the piece and worked my way through it only with the help of the blog. Relieved to finally read the explanation as to why it was so different and difficult.
    Really did not ‘fit’ in the NZ Herald!

68. Having lived in the UK for a dozen or so years (a couple of them as next door neighbour of Jon Culshaw, the star of Dead Ringers – a pointless name-drop, I know), and being an avid British radio comedy fan, this was a real treat. Yes, several of the surfaces are clunky, there are a lot of clues asking for selected letters to be used or removed, and it’s a bit of a diversion from the usual Everyman. But what an achievement for the setter, it must have taken considerable time and effort to compile. Not mentioned above, but Roger Allam was also in Cabin Pressure.

69. Impossible.

70. Thank goodness this was a one in two hundred year event or whatever it was he said. I finished it, but with many bung-ins and shoulder shrugs. Let’s hope we have a normal crossword by the original setter (assuming this wasn’t him, or at least not all him) next week.

71. Agree this was so hard i nearly gave up with only about two in.
    No way we in nz could know what was going on!
    But I persevered and with some e-help got all but Ena and Stem
    Don’t like either of those last two and 15d was just wacky
    But I was happy once I got ISIHAC the best clue of the bunch
    liked Injurer too.

72. Had not realised it was themed but it all makes sense now – we lived in the UK for 20 years so had a good idea of a number of these. Loved DEAD RINGER; CRACK A JOKE; ISIHAC.
    Thanks Everyman & Flashling

73. We struggled to get started. Never having had access to BBC4 didn’t help. But with lots of electronic help we finally got it all out – except ena. ( As somewhat of an excuse we don’t have hyenas in New Zealand – laughing or otherwise.)

74. Contrived.

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