Everyman 4,062

35 comments on “Everyman 4,062”

1. The phrase DROP A CLANGER occurred to me as soon as I read 11a, from the definition, omit=drop and the numeration, but what the rest of the clue meant, I had no idea. I would have thought the jazz genre was be-bop, too. NOVA was neat, and it was great to see one of my favorite read aloud authors from childhood (both mine and my kids’) get a mention. Thanks, Everyman and flashling.

2. Echo all of TassieTim’s comment@1.

3. Thankyou flashling for giving up some of your Bank Holiday time to bring us another excellent blog.

   GK familiar to me (except for the Soup Dragon), but I don’t like the assumptions made of solvers that they can speak other European languages, or have access to online translation while sitting in the sun, paper and pencil in hand, on their Bank Holiday weekend. MILLES in MARSEILLES. DOPPELGANGER (with or without the umlaut/alt sp) ….. I don’t think the cryptic def works. The definition for AMUSE-BOUCHE was off the mark, and wordplay tedious. Sorry, but I got the feeling that Everyman was amusing himself.

   And perhaps I am lacking some GK here, but how does HIGH COURTS = EMINENT LAWYERS?

   (Maybe I’m the one in need of a holiday.)

4. pdm@3: the people appointed to the High Courts are eminent lawyers. I don’t suppose they stop being so on appointment.

5. Any tedious Lego clues I usually just bung in, keeps me from getting grumpy. This puzzle wasn’t too bad; thanks both. The French thousands round the English arse were fun, whereas amuse bouche I just wrote in not bothering with the bits. The price is you can sometimes miss hidden subtleties and Easter eggs. C’est la vie.

6. I needed to look up Soup Dragon to get DROP A CLANGER. That show didn’t make it to Australia. (I first discounted any reference Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi.)
   My favourites were A A MILNE and ICE CUBE. I thought both were very clever.
   I also liked the AFTERGLOW of the puddings and I HAVE NO IDEA about the novel Ivanhoe – nice surfaces.
   I enjoy the odd foreign language inclusion. But I agree the surface of AMUSE-BOUCHE seems clunky. Apparently, while amuse-bouche and amuse-gueule both mean snack or appetiser (mouth-pleaser), only amuse-gueule is commonly used in France. Amuse-bouche is used in restaurants (English speaking?), with bouche= human mouth thought to be more refined than gueule. Some French expert may disabuse me of this impression.
   Thanks to Everyman and flashling

7. 2d “Camera-loving”? – It’s the Camera that loves the PHOTOGENIC person, not the other way round.

8. Had no idea what “Soup Dragon” referred to, the phrase came to mind and I rhymed “clanger” with “banger”
   I thought “tidiest” was amusing and that led to “Amuse Bouche”
   Everything else went in quickly…
   Thank you to Everyman and Flashling

9. Tassie Tim @4. I understand the high/eminent synonyms But Courts don’t equate with lawyers. Lawyers only make up part of the Courts.

10. As a Brit who grew up with the Clangers, as did my sisters, we all spoke clanger in the playground (it was recorded using a swanee whistle), so I knew all about the Soup Dragon and DROP A CLANGER went straight in.

    It took me ages to be convinced that LOW was bad for AFTERGLOWS so that was my last one in.

    Thank you to flashling and Everyman.

11. pdm@9: I took HIGH COURTS to be referring to the bench – the judges – not the whole apparatus, but I can see that other way of looking at it. You may guess I am no lawyer.

12. 7d I agree with you Frankie

13. Enjoyable puzzle. I think this would be a good one for beginners to try?

    New for me: the Soup Dragons/Clangers brand or 1960s TV show – tbh I find this type of clue with reference to a 50+ year old TV show a bit irritating. Surely there are other/better ways to create a clue for this answer?

    15ac – I wondered about the ‘with tongs’ bit.

    SueM48@6 – I have seen amuse-bouche being used/served in English-speaking restaurants.
    Many French-related food words have made their way into English, including aperitif, menu, entrée, dessert. Amuse-bouche is another one albeit mainly used in fancier or high-end restaurants.

    re the foreign language aspect, I think this puzzle was fair.
    for 3ac, I think it was an English play on the word mille = thousand(s). In French, the word mille is both singular and plural, eg un mille, deux mille, trois mille. So the clue was a sort of English version of speaking French, to make mille+s = thousands.

    Thanks, both.

14. Thanks, Everyman and flashling. Although perfectly legit, It’s a long time since I’ve seen MARSEILLE(S) spelt that way!

15. Brian@14 – good point! I only just realised that Marseilles is the English spelling of what the French write as Marseille.

16. I wondered whether the ‘s’ was added to Marseille in order to make another rhyme, with YESTERDAYS at the bottom of the puzzle. Symmetrical.

17. The Clangers are airing on CBeebies at 6:10 every evening and is available on BBC iPlayer, Netflix and YouTube, so I don’t think it’s that obscure. I caught the show occasionally as a young adult and loved it. Up there with The Magic Roundabout.

18. Didn’t find it very amusing for some rather awkward clues. The Soup Dragon was lost on me, so guessed it from def-crossers-rhyme. TIDIEST featured in the same place of the same grid pattern in #4,034.

    Thank you, Everyman and flashling

19. I enjoyed this. Thanks to Everyman and flashling. I do agree that the CLANGER clue is harder if you didn’t see the programme. Shouldn’t the DOPPELGANGER clue say ‘ghostly’ not ‘ghastly’? I do accept in fiction they tend to be the latter… FrankieG @7- I agree; Shanne @10, me too, although we also did Soup Dragon noises 😎.
    [For those interested here’s a clip…
    https://youtu.be/Q9q61UnxP10?feature=shared ]

20. TassieTim@1 and flashing, I think the jazz form was originally called bebop, but later it was shortened to BOP. (And later there was post-bop.) Dizzy Gillespie wrote a memoir that he titled “To Be Or Not To Bop”.

    Like PinB@19, I thought it should be “ghostly” in 20a DOPPELGÄNGER. Was this just a typo?

    I liked the image at 23a of a bunch of tipsy lawyers holding trials at the top of a mountain.

    Thanks Everyman and flashling for the eminently reliable fun.

21. What michelle@13 @15 wrote

    SW corner took longer than it should, given I bunged in the wrong answer for 25 and it took a while for me to realize.

    The run of 20, 23 and 24 across clues were my favorites

    Thanks Everyman and flashling

22. I presume it was ghastly not ghostly for DOPPELGANGER for the surface meaning (having a double period of one subject at school, if you weren’t into the subject, was ghastly…; though I don’t remember double periods being common for language subjects).

23. For me, 20ac (DOPPELGANGER) had a common cryptic-definition problem: I didn’t understand what the misleading surface reading was supposed to be. Albert @22 cleared it up for me. “Double X” meaning a double period of subject X at school wasn’t a usual locution when I was at school (in the US many years ago), but I do know about “double potions” at Hogwarts.

    I can’t make use of “bits of” in the cryptic reading for 10ac. I assumed that “bits of seaweed” was meant to clue ALGA, but there’s a singular-plural problem there, isn’t there? (ALGAE is the plural.)

    I didn’t know about the Soup Dragon, and I first thought of CLUNKER rather than CLANGER, which is again perhaps due to my being an American. In any case, I don’t blame Everyman for my ignorance.

    Although I’ve listed a bunch of quibbles in this post, I found this to be a very good, satisfying Everyman. I thought IVANHOE (6dn) was particularly nicely constructed.

24. Liked: EVIL EYE, SPLINTS, NOVA (perhaps the simplest ones – does that tell you something about my level, lol?)

    MARSEILLES: thought for a while it began with “DANS” (French for in). Guessed the def, couldn’t parse. Other examples I couldn’t parse: HIGH COURTS, AMUSE BOUCHE.

    Agree with Paddymelon @3.

25. Improving beginner – started via the Saturday Quick Cryptic and had moved on to the Sunday Quiptics and thought I’d try this Everyman having been given the hint on the last Quiptic blog that this Everyman might be in my reach. Well … that was challenging 😄. Made it though, without having to refer here and could parse quite a few eventually. Bit some of it was guesswork and some of the wordplay was a bit beyond me until just checked on here for understanding. Like some others I felt HIGH COURTS doesn’t mean ‘eminent lawyers’ but would contain said eminences. Also shouldn’t ghastly be ghostly?
    Thanks flashling for the explanations and Everyman for the challenge.
    BTW what’s with the colourisation of some of the solutions in the grid at the top?

26. Hi the Cronester and welcome. The colouring I do here is generally two the same that rhyme, to identify where Everyman uses a self reference and where it’s a initial letter clue. These appear most weeks and usually a place name but not as far as I can see this week. It’s just something I highlight if I spot them

27. flashling@26: Thanks for the explanation; being new to the Everyman didn’t realise they used some recurring easter eggs 😄

28. Didn’t like ice cube much. Cluing too vague.

    Everything else fine, thank you.

    Think I may have seen the Ivanhoe clue before.

29. I quite liked ice cube – you had to think outside the box to get it.

30. Who the hell has heard of Soup Dragons?
    Liked Doppelganger , Broadside and Tolstoy. Got High Courts but I’m not sure that courts= lawyers.

31. Good puzzle. Got it all out, without recourse to any electronic assistance.
    A lot of pickiness in the comments on this puzzle. I disagree about “ghostly” being more appropriate than “ghastly” in the doppelganger clue. Doppelgangers are not ghosts but, rather,
    ominous apparitions that carry a portent of impending evil (if one sees one’s doppelganger).
    Didn’t get the “With tongs” in the clue for 15 across (ice-cubes). One may use tongs to pick up ice-cubes, but not to kill them!
    Got 11 across (drop a clanger) very easily, even though I’d never heard of “Soup Dragon” or the show in question.
    Thanks to Everyman and to Flashling.

32. Am I the only one never to have heard of amuse bouche?
    Enjoyable puzzle, thanks both.

33. Rod@32 no, me neither.

34. Good puzzle. Took some time to finish but finally got the ice cubes.

35. hi
    Rolf @ 13 if it is not Ghostly, how can ghastly have any relevance to Doppelganger? I love the foreign languages as this is one area where I usually do ok, but agree, it is a bit unfair to assume all are as familiar…. and Pakuranga Singleton @30 I have never heard of them either
    Quite like Ice Cube tho it took a while, thought this was hard on the whole

Comments are closed.