Everyman 4,066 by Everyman

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Sunday, so time to take Jenny the dog for a walk in the woods and swim in the sea & then retire to the pub for gravy bones for her, beers plural and the Everyman for me.

Some unusual clues for an Everyman, lots of cryptic defs and I foresee a few moans, but the usual suspects all present and correct, thanks Everyman

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. When sent to Coventry, one that’s barely seen? (4,6)
LADY GODIVA

Cryptic cum straight definition

6. Train line almost flipped over vehicle (4)
CART

Most of TRAC(e) reversed. Tracer bullets guide the other guns. [Edit, as Matt @1 rightly points out a more likely version is TRAC(k) reversed]

9. I miss place in resort: it’s a field (10)
SPECIALISM

[I MISS PLACE]* is re-sorted

10. Growing border husband removed remains a border (4)
EDGE

HEDGE and EDGE are both borders

12. Liquid lunch with plenty of character? (8,4)
ALPHABET SOUP

Another cryptic def

15. Side in blue seeing confused voter taken in by English Nationalist … (7)
EVERTON

Everton FC play in blue shirts, A confused VOTER* in E(nglish) N(ationalist) maybe unfair for overseas solvers

16. … English Nationalist against adopting promise to be green … (7)
ENVIOUS

EN as per previous clue & IOU – “promise to pay” inside VS – versus, against

17. … ignoring some, scan ten Nationalists’ kit receiving signals (7)
ANTENNA

Hidden in scAN TEN NAtionalists

19. Deer eating mushroom recoiled, showing blotch (7)
SPECKLE

CEP – mushroom in ELKS – deer all reversed

20. Activated in potion, life that’s everlasting! (8,4)
INFINITE LOOP

[IN POTION LIFE]* activated

23. Flower girl that may be Hazel (4)
IRIS

Triple definition

24. Not the lead horn player getting renewed energy (6,4)
SECOND WIND

Referring to instrument players in orchestras

25. A day after Everyman’s age-old booze (4)
MEAD

ME – Everyman & A & D(ay)

26. University becoming independent, raises limits (10)
CONSTRICTS

U changed to I in CONSTRUCTS – raises

DOWN
1. Reason Titanic captain might think the unthinkable? (4)
LISP

Cryptic def, with a lisp that’s how he’d say “Sink The Unsinkable”

2. Thawed, 99 disappearing – a performance (4)
DEED

IC – 99 in Roman Numerals removed from DE-(ic)ED – thawed, except it isn’t. 99 should be XCIX, IC is a common mistake.

3. Such a reduction applied to (s)quires? (12)
GUILLOTINING

More cryptic defs guillotines can also be used on quires of paper as well as squires – people

4. Aquatic being, part of Little Mermaid toy that’s caught? (7)
DOLPHIN

The Mermaid toy could be a doll with fins, so it sounds like (caught, heard) DOLL FIN

5. Seen as very absurd, runs off (7)
VISIBLE

V(ery) & R(uns) removed from (r)ISIBLE – absurd

7. King overcome by slithering odious boa in stories that aren’t to be read (10)
AUDIOBOOKS

K(ing) inside a slithering [ODIOUS BOA]*

8. Entered private property: lock abruptly ‘died’ (10)
TRESPASSED

Most of TRES(s) – lock & PASSED – died

11. R&B musician’s somewhat unchaste view on derrières (6,6)
STEVIE WONDER

Hidden in unchaSTE VIEW ON DERrieres

13. Assuming the worst oddly time-saving (10)
NEGATIVISM

[TIME SAVING]* oddly

14. Primarily, what encompasses Senegal, Togo alongside fourteen republics (Ivory Coast, also)? (4,6)
WEST AFRICA

Primary letter clue

18. Sloppily traced over ‘20s design (3,4)
ART DECO

TRACED* sloppily & O(ver)

19. Cars that are often seen in Westerns (7)
SALOONS

Double def

21. Record changing dash for cash? (4)
DISC

If you start with DASH and then D IS C then you have CASH

22. Praiseful verse addressing Archbishop Tutu? (4)
ODES

Could be O DES(mond tutu)

 

48 comments on “Everyman 4,066 by Everyman”

  3. Thanks very much for the explanations – I failed to get/parse dolphin, disc, guillotining and constricts this week. Though I enjoyed the cheap lisp joke!

  4. Thanks flashling for your blog, and for clarifying DISC for me.
    I wondered what sort of mood Everyman was in when he set this. Was he just in a hurry, or obsessing about English Nationalists? Are they particularly vocal at the moment?
    Several clues induced groans from me, but not the football though. That’s to be expected.
    I liked AUDIOBOOKS and ALPHABET SOUP for their surfaces.

  5. Liked SECOND WIND (For the SECOND ‘horn’ player), LISP, DEED (IC is OK in crosswordostan), DOLPHIN, WEST AFRICA (precise definition…almost. There are a couple of countries under military rule but they were republics till recently and everyone (?) hopes they will be again soon) and DISC.

    SALOONS
    I think the s in Westerns is part of the def.

    Thanks both.

  6. I enjoyed this. Loved the absurd lisp clue – totally baffled until the penny drop moment. Struggled with constrict for far too long. As an Australian solver I had no trouble with EN for the English Nationalists, whoever exactly they are, but as usual had no idea about the football clue. It was obvious from the crossers though so all well. Thanks to Everyman and flashing – your Sunday morning sounds wonderful!

  7. Especially liked 11d “unchaSTE VIEW ON DERrières”. Forty years ago last Sunday he was in the middle of a six-week run at the top of the chart with
    I Just Called to Say I Love You (1984, a 40th (Ruby) anniversary). It’s his only UK Np, 1, and Motown’s biggest UK hit.
    [Fellow musician Sir Mix-a-Lot expressed his “unchaste view on derrières” in 1992.]
    Liked 1d LITHP, too. 😉 Thanks E&F

  8. Thanks flashling for the explanations. I was unable to solve DISC and CONSTRICTS, and couldn’t parse DOLPHIN. Otherwise, a nice challenge and a few laughs.
    I loved ALPHABET SOUP and LISP and was happy to find the hidden STEVIE WONDER.
    Thanks for the link, FrankieG@7.
    Thanks Everyman and flashling.

  9. STEVIE WONDER
    Fellow musician Sir Mix-a-Lot expressed his “unchaste view on derrières” in 1992.
    Only a bot can do this! Thanks Frankie Ji (Ji, of course) for the continued enlightenment.

  10. I found this chewier than recent Everyman crosswords – a few took ages – LISP, GUILLOTINING, CONSTRICTS – all in and parsed. LISP shouldn’t have taken so long, I’ve seen it before.

    Thank you to flashling and Everyman.

  11. Couldn’t figure out DEED. How is IC 99? LISP is dreadful. You needed a bit of fore-knowledge to do this, particularly 1A and 15A.

  12. Tough puzzle. I failed to solve 26ac, 1d, 21d.

    26ac I guessed CONSTRAINS = limits but could not parse it. That did not help me much with solving 21d.

    New for me: EVERTON = (football) side in blue – tbh I don’t know or care what colour any football side in any country wears!

    Thanks, flashling.

  13. Peter @11: surely you remember Lady Godiva from your duet with Gordon! 😉 No doubt FrankieG can give us year and anniversary for that one. I thought LISP was a delight – another example of how people’s tastes differ, I guess. I am perfectly happy with the likes of 99=IC, or (11,000=IM). This took me a little longer, than often I seem to remember, but everything seemed fair to me. Thanks, Everyman and flashling.

  14. This took the most part of my Sunday, with DISC and CONSTRICTS being LOI, both with the similar theme for clues. Also had CONSTRAINS first for the latter, and even with DISC in place “stevied” if it could be hOrSeRaCeS (“races” sounding like “raises”). Of course, didn’t parse DOLPHIN, but it was at least clear enough to write in.

    [Peter@11: IC is in the same way 99 as IV is 4 and IX is 9. TassieTim@13: IM should equal 999.]

    Thank you, Everyman and flashling

  17. jayuu @14. I think Tassie Tim @13 is alluding to Qaos’s Prize on 21st September, blogged yesterday, in which 11,000 had to be ‘lifted and separated’ into 1=I then 1000=M in the clue for ANIMATION.

  19. A propos of 25a: the Welsh for ‘drunk’ (inebriated) is ‘meddw’, which literally is ‘meaded’ (had too much mead). You may not want to imagine having had too much mead …

  21. poc@15 Brass and woodwind are sections of the orchestra, but all the instruments therein are wind instruments. Also, colloquially, horn can refer to a saxophone, which is a woodwind instrument, despite being made of brass. Hope that clears things up!

  22. Took me some time and couldn’t parse dolphin or disc but loved lisp!
    Thank you flashing. Enjoy your Sunday. Sounds great

  24. Mermaids don’t have fins, they have tails, and so would a mermaid doll if there was one.

    KVa@9 What’s with the bot?

    Nice puzzle. I don’t remember how long it took me. Thanks Everyman and flashling.

  25. This took me a few attempts but I got there in the end. I liked the rhyming pair and LISP made me smile and wince. I was chuffed to parse DISC but couldn’t parse DOLPHIN. I enjoyed the earworms and the ‘scenery’ on Lady Godiva is very amusing. Many thanks to Everyman and flashling.

  26. I completed the grid but couldn’t parse CONSTRICTS or DISC. Very clever clueing there, I thought. Nice puzzle nicely blogged.
    Six remaining in today’s Everyman – I’m stalled in the SE 🫠

  27. @TassieTim, I was stating generally. I know who Lady Godiva was and I know that Everton play in blue but, for example, a younger person may not know either of those things.

    Learning how to do cryptic crosswords is hard enough without things that are clearly incorrect. IC is not 99.

  29. Balfour@17: Thank you for explaining the “charade” parsing of IM, and sorry to @TassieTim for misunderstanding his reference without knowing its context 😳

  30. Peter@27
    IC is not 99. The blog too mentions that. However, in crosswordspeak this is generally acceptable (even if all setters won’t agree on this).

  32. Thanks Flashling and Everyman. Horns are indeed in the brass section of an orchestra; however, the quintets for piano and winds by Beethoven and Mozart include the French horn (which isn’t French!).

  33. 31 is a terrible comment. Now if he had explained why he thought 4d DOLPHIN was a terrible clue, his comment would have been of interest.

    Further to the brass/wind thing, it is true that orchestral sections distinguish between brass and woodwinds (and the latter are called just winds), but French horns have a schizophrenic existence in chamber music. They are included in woodwind quintets (with flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon), and also in brass quintets (with two trumpets, trombone and tuba).

    In jazz lingo, horn is synonymous with instrument in general.

    And don’t get me started about axes.

  34. @31 monk is already taken as pseudonym here, please choose a different one as the setter monk has many years seniority on that, I realise it’s your name and probably nickname but…

  36. Cellomaniac @ 35

    I recall reading some years ago that the English horn, or cor anglais, was a misrepresentation of ‘cor anglé’

    I may be wrong, as this is a field in which I have no great (or much) knowledge

  37. 33 I think the fact that comment after comment saying that they did not parse the clue should speak for itself. The leap from ‘doll’ as a possible toy, to one which might have a fin, because it belongs to the little mermaid, is a bit much for an Everyman, I would have thought. But Everyman has become very different from the crossword I used to do. Time to give up on it. And I don’t think I will, flashling, but I won’t be doing any more commenting. It’s hard to hold my disappointment back week after week.

  38. KVa @30: I agree that IC does not mean 99 in the Roman numeral system. But then, virtually none of the surfaces in any cryptic crossword mean what they apparently say. Nor do many of the bits of the clues. It is our job as solvers to decypher the clue, and the bits of the clue, in ways which are plausible and lead us to the answer (or confirm the answer we already suspect). I don’t see that 99=IC (or 11,000=IM) is any different. Peter @27: the whole question of what GK is general enough comes up again and again. Some people don’t know the strips of English soccer teams, some do. Some have heard of naked rides through Coventry in the 11th century, and some haven’t (and I doubt very much that age has much to do with either of those). No setter can know that the GK on which such decyphering rests is known to all potential solvers. It is reasonable to wonder about very niche knowledge, but what is niche to me may be “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of…” to you.

  39. Pretty tough one for me, although having read this write up I think I just wasn’t on the same wavelength!

    Re. SECOND WIND, I read the ‘not’ as doing double duty: it’s both not the first player and not a horn player?

  40. I’m sorry to say that I failed to get LISP. I don’t think I knew that the paper-cutting device was called a guillotine, so I was baffled by the parsing of that clue.

    I thought the clue for DOLPHIN was delightful, although I must admit that Valentine @24’s objection regarding mermaid anatomy has merit.

  41. At Ted@40 as an office junior back in the 80s trying to find who had borrowed the guillotine (again) was a daily grind until I got a basic email system working and launched my IT career… Perhaps as a joke I should have put (g)uillotine

  42. Cor that was harder than usual. There were some good clues in there, like the triple definition, the LISP, and the DOLPHIN. But I could not get DEED or CONSTRICTS. Both were beyond me.

  44. Could not get guillotining; needed to use a wildcard dictionary.
    Squires == people? Oh, come on.
    The parsing of 21 down, “disc”, was impossibly difficult.
    Loved 1 down, “lisp”, but.
    Ignorance can sometimes be an asset. I was unaware that “IC” is not a valid representation of 99, and so was not bothered by it. 🙂

  45. Thought I’d never solve this on first pass. But got there in the end, thanks to my digital devices!
    Thanks to all.

  46. We thoroughly enjoyed this crossword, some great clues & plenty to tax our minds. EVERTON; LISP; DEED all goodies. No complaints from us here in Whangaparaoa, just thanks.

  47. Didn’t know CEP so guessed Freckle and that was the end of the bottom centre.

    Shame the rest was good.

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