I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy this very much. It was incredibly difficult; I used electronic aids quite freely once I became stuck, and some of the clues seemed rather clunky and impenetrable, but that’s probably just my incompetence. No doubt in due course all will be explained. (On the other hand one or two I thought were very good.)
There didn’t seem to be a rhyming pair, but the long answers at the top and bottom, and the long answer joining them, were all related to the number three.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (anagram, homophone, hidden, inclusion etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated (like this)* or *(like this). Link-words in green.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DIVINE TRILOGY |
Verse collection: Dante’s Inferno at beginning, trying to grapple with evil and ending in Paradiso? (6,7)
|
| D[ante’s] I[nferno] (trying evil [Paradis]o)* — a reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy — what a complicated clue | ||
| 8 | LAMP |
Slug, source of illumination? (4)
|
| 2 defs — to slug someone is to lamp them | ||
| 9 | IDIOT BOARD |
Dictator books senior businesspeople for help with what to say (5,5)
|
| Idi OT board — Idi [Amin] = dictator, O[ld] T[estament] = books, board = senior businesspeople | ||
| 10 | MUESLI |
Oats and nuts, never ending: I’ll see … um, on reflection … (6)
|
| (I’l[l] se[e] um)rev. | ||
| 11 | LUNAR DAY |
A laundry refitted in approx. 709 hours (5,3)
|
| (A laundry)* — I’ll take it on trust that a lunar day is approximately 709 hours | ||
| 12 | HASH BROWN |
… diner order – #coffee? (4,5)
|
| hash = #, coffee = brown (as in the colour) | ||
| 14 | PERM |
Purportedly ‘everlasting’ ringlets, manmade primarily! (4)
|
| The usual first letters clue | ||
| 15 | SNAP |
On the spur of the moment, a simple card game (4)
|
| 2 defs — as in ‘a snap decision’ and the children’s card game | ||
| 16 | PRECISELY |
Abstract, see? Yes (9)
|
| precis Ely — precis = abstract, Ely = see (a see is an official seat of a bishop, and Ely is a cathedral) | ||
| 20 | VILLAINS |
Baddies at home, inhabiting country houses (8)
|
| villa(in)s — in = at home, villas = country houses | ||
| 21 | ASPECT |
Donkey attacked by bird, noisily, in side (6)
|
| “ass pecked” — ass = donkey, pecked = attacked by bird | ||
| 23 | PIANO STOOL |
Regressively spoils lad getting AI initially providing support for musician (5,5)
|
| (loot son AI p[roviding])rev. — loot = spoils, son = lad | ||
| 24 | UVEA |
Somewhat nouveau, where Iris is found (4)
|
| Hidden in noUVEAu | ||
| 25 | THREEPENNY BIT |
The old ready for 3d info stored digitally? (10,3)
|
| three penny bit — three = 3, penny = d, bit = info stored digitally — coin around before 1971 | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DRACULA |
Blood count? (7)
|
| CD | ||
| 2 | VAPES |
Victor, denied entrance, opens wide and inhales a cloud of nicotine (5)
|
| V [g]apes — V = Victor (NATO alphabet), gapes = opens wide — ‘denied entrance’ refers to ‘gapes’ | ||
| 3 | NOISIER |
More likely to inquire about one that’s less quiet (7)
|
| no(1)sier — nosier = more likely to inquire, 1 = one | ||
| 4 | TRIPLE-WORD SCORE |
You get at least 66 points playing a quiz here (6-4,5)
|
| CD: in Scrabble, if you play ‘a quiz’ at a triple-word score you’ll score at least 66 points (A = U = I = 1, Q = Z = 10) [As several point out, you only get 66 points if you play QUIZ there. But Everyman does say ‘at least’, so perhaps he’s off the hook.] | ||
| 5 | INTEND |
Yorkshireman’s ultimately mean (6)
|
| “in t’end” is how a Yorkshireman might pronounce ‘in the end’ | ||
| 6 | ODOURLESS |
Reconsidered when decapitated, would roses suggest this description? (9)
|
| I’m a bit vague here: when roses are decapitated then they are odourless, so might suggest this description. Perhaps there is more to this and I’m missing it — CD I think [([w]ould roses)*, as several point out and I should have seen] | ||
| 7 | YARDARM |
Flipping Everyman’s installing malfunctioning radar as onboard support (7)
|
| *(radar) in my, all reversed — my = Everyman’s — the self-referential clue | ||
| 13 | HEADLINER |
Cape with cruise ship following star (9)
|
| head liner — head = star, liner = cruise ship — and a cape is an article of clothing that could be seen as a head-liner | ||
| 15 | SKI LIFT |
Way up in the Alps? (3,4)
|
| CD | ||
| 17 | CHAPLIN |
Some sketch a plinth displaying cinematic icon (7)
|
| Hidden in sketCH A PLINth | ||
| 18 | LACIEST |
Extremely frilly elastic pants (7)
|
| (elastic)* — extremely in the sense ‘the most’ | ||
| 19 | TISSUE |
Time to put into circulation paper for those suffering (6)
|
| t issue — t = time, issue = put into circulation | ||
| 22 | PLUMB |
Lead 16 (5)
|
| 2 defs: ‘lead’ (“ledd”) is one of the senses of ‘plumb’, and 16 is ‘precisely’ which = ‘plumb’ |
The TRILOGY/TRIPLE/THREE references mark that this is the 300th puzzle for the current Everyman. The 200th (3,972) and 100th (3,872) puzzles were also subtly indicated in the grid (on those occasions by the use of -CENT word endings).
Thanks to John and congrats to Everyman on another milestone.
Thanks John. I also found this a bit chewy. And thanks Jay for the significance of Everyman’s tricentenary. Not being much of a Scrabble player I didn’t solve TRIPLE-WORD SCORE. It now strikes me as an allusion to composing crosswords, word score?. I’m also wondering if there is an allusion to Scrabble in IDIOT BOARD (it is for me, anyway.)
ODOURLESS
reconsidered -anagram indicator
(w)OULDROSES*
If you delete the first letter from WOULD ROSES (“when decapitated”) and then anagram (“reconsider”) it, you get ODOURLESS. But I feel like that pushes &lit/clue-as-definition to the breaking point. You get an anagram plus a vaguely allusive surface. Sorry, Alan, but that one got the Paddington stare.
I just couldn’t get on with this, got about a third in and gave up – it just seemed impenetrable. Might be just me but I see John also found it hard, which is a bit of a relief. I usually get them out, even if it takes all week.
I found this puzzle took me longer than any other puzzle in the last fortnight, and that includes the chewy Vlad, an Enigmatist and all three Prize puzzles.
I did solve it all, but a gentle Sunday solve it was not. I wanted to write in the Divine Comedy, not DIVINE TRILOGY, although the anagram fodder and letter numbering told me I was wrong. I didn’t parse ODOURLESS although it had to be that from the crossers.
Thank you to John for the solve, and Everyman.
I too found this on the difficult side. HEADLINER: Cape=head, cruise ship=liner (following head), star=headliner (at a concert). For 1a, I thought DIVINE COMEDY straight off – a GK question – but comedy is too short. Took me ages to get to the TRILOGY, partly because I was thinking the DC was misdirection. Thanks, Everyman and John.
I’ve been looking at the last 4 all week without success. Don’t think I’d have found them. Much harder than your common or garden Everyman.
For 13d I think it’s quite simple: Cape = HEAD as in a bit of land jutting into the sea, followed by LINER for cruise ship = HEADLINER = star. One of the easier clues.
Never heard of the Divine Trilogy. I knew about the Divine Comedy, discovered the Divine Tragedy, which I assumed to be the answer (unparsed). Which made getting a couple of the Downs impossible. Oh well. Whatever.
mrpenney@4
(also me@3)
It could be just
‘OULDROSES* suggest (‘suggests’ needed to make the cryptic grammar work?) this description’
and this clue may not be an &lit or a CD.
I was so disappointed.
As soon as I saw the grid I thought great – my favourite – and started to try and work out which letter was the starting letter of the words of the three intersecting long answers
So that held me up for ages. Because although it was the grid it didn’t have the usual pattern of answers. And having a reference to “three” in each of the long answers is quite different.
Obviously up to the setter as to how the puzzle is styled but with that grid expectations are raised (well mine are anyway) and I looked forward to one of those alliterative puzzles – so as I said a disappointment
and also it wasn’t an Everyman puzzle – way more difficult
4d TRIPLE-WORD SCORE: “In Scrabble, if you play a ‘quiz’ at a triple-word score…” (QUIZ scores 10+1+1+10=22, x3=66).
me@9
Reconsidered 😊
Looks like a CD. If it’s intended to be a CAD, then the surface is vague (as mrpenney says). Maybe you have to answer ‘no’ to the question the surface poses (to arrive at ODOURLESS).
I’m relieved to hear this was difficult, because I struggled greatly with this, and I’m quite new to Everyman so am still gauging the level.
I (eventually) had THRUPPENNY BIT, so failed to get anything sensible in for 19d (_I_S_P isn’t anything at all, so I put in PISSUP and gave up).
I liked INTENT, ASPECT and DRACULA.
A lunar day is not approx. 709 hours. That’s a lunar month. A lunar day is slightly longer than an Earth day, at 24 hours and 50 minutes. It determines tides. Another reason to find this particular Everyman annoying. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/tides05_lunarday.html#
wiki
A lunar day is the time it takes for Earth’s Moon to complete on its axis one synodic rotation, meaning with respect to the Sun. Informally, a lunar day and a lunar night is each approx. 14 Earth days.
The setter is in the clear.
That said, I see In some dictionaries the other definition Strato@14 has cited.
I found this difficult as well, only finishing through stubbornness. Some of the clues were too complicated for my poor head eg DIVINE TRILOGY took ages to untangle.
But there were some very enjoyable ones, with TRIPLE WORD SCORE my clear favourite. (I love Scrabble.) Thanks to Jay@1, I see its additional significance.
I also liked the pair of PRECISELY and PLUMB, as well as ASPECT and PIANO STOOL.
Congrats to Everyman on this milestone and thanks to John for the explanations.
As many have said, that was indeed tough, not helped by writing DIVINE TRINITY instead of TRILOGY. Question for you all. I don’t get why 16 = Precisely = Plumb. I feel like there’s something I don’t know here.
Anyway, I found it tough but enjoyed it. So thank you to John and congratulations to Everyman on the milestone.
I found this very rough-going and unapproachable, not helped by putting in ASTERN for 21a which still feels like a fair answer…
I’m relieved that others found this hard too, I only got 11 clues and I’ve been able to finish other Everyman puzzles. I enjoyed tissue, and should have got yardarm but I was trying to make a word from backwards me + anagram of radar and got nowhere. Thanks Everyman and John, a good learning experience!
Karl ASTERN works with the first half of the clue but not the second half.
Ass pecked noisily was clever and fair I think. I didn’t get it either!
Not the easiest Everyman, but helped by a number of write-ins scattered around the grid giving useful crossers.
Having had a childhood interest in astronomy meant LUNAR DAY was one of those write-ins, and a favourite, though I agree it is ambiguous. (The 24-hour Earth day is the average time between successive appearances of the Sun at its zenith. Arguably a lunar day could be said to be infinite, since the Moon’s centre of orbit, i.e. the Earth, is more or less stationary in the lunar ‘sky’.) Also liked PIANO STOOL, TRIPLE WORD SCORE, ASPECT and a few others.
I didn’t even notice the triple allusion to 3, nor the lack of rhyming pair. There doesn’t seem to be a place-name answer either.
Tipsy@17 – ‘her shot hit PLUMB/PRECISELY in the centre of the target’.
Thanks both.
Ha, beulieu, I was blind. Thanks so much. I see now.
I agree with most of John’s first paragraph comments in his introduction above.
New for me: LUNAR DAY / the Moon completes one rotation every 709 hours (thanks, wikipedia); PLUMB = exactly
Favourite: HASH BROWN.
I parsed ODOURLESS in the same way as KVa@3.
Thanks, both.
I didn’t like this one at all, far too contrived. Divine Trilogy is nonsense. When I looked it up to see if there is such an alternative name, I discovered a series of erotic books! Hardly Dante’s masterpiece.
Threepenny bit, you’d have to be at least 60 to know what that was. Never heard of uvea – which I see the spelling checker has highlighted! – and would question whether laciest is even a word. (The spelling checker disagrees.)
Oh for the earlier Everymen (?) with classic clues of a cryptic half and a definition.
Well, this was hard. I guess Everyman wanted to remind us that they aren’t necessarily easy puzzles, even though some weeks they’re fairly quiptic.
I enjoyed MUESLI, HASH BROWN, ASPECT and THREEPENY BIT.
I don’t know what DIVINE TRILOGY means, and neither does Google; it just returns results for Divine Comedy. I guess it’s something related to holy trinity, but whatever.
KVa@15 : 709 hours is approx 29.5 days, which according to the same wiki article is the lunar day and lunar night together, analogous to an earth day being taken as approx 24 hours. But given that there are about 3 definitions in that article and then another one about tidal lunar days (as noted by Strato@14) it’s another imprecise clue for me.
Why is LACIEST a synonym of extremely frilly? They’re different grammatical beasts.
Thanks both
I also struggled with wanting 1a to be DIVINE COMEDY – have never heard it called TRILOGY before, though I see some translations call it that. Other less than familiar terms were IDIOT BOARD, UVEA and HEADLINER = cape: just not on Everyman’s wavelength, as I often am not. I smiled at DRACULA, though.
Also struggled. There are three books in the DC and some consider it a divine piece of literature so fair enough I say.
Oh, and QUIZ on a triple word score (why the hyphen?) would have to score more than 66; you’ve got to get down with it somehow.
I see various people have found a more sensible parsing of HEADLINER.
I’m glad I’m not the only one to find this difficult. This week I completed a Times cryptic for the very first time, and it was easier than this. NHO UVEA or DIVINE TRILOGY. Couldn’t get the synonyms for “side” or “abstract” without help. Didn’t see the anagram for LACIEST because the clue wasn’t “most frilly”, as I think it should have been. THREEPENNY BIT was LOI as I thought the definition would be “info stored digitally” – “the old ready”, although fair, was hard, I think Like others, couldn’t parse ODOURLESS at all. Oh well, on to the next one!
I was unsure about Divine Trilogy being a thing but then I saw that Alasdair Gray’s version/translation is titled thus. I thought it was quite clever in its description with Inferno & Paradiso being the 1st & 3rd parts.
Me@28, actually, scratch that – there is a possible way, thanks to crosswordland’s favourite cross, the zho, and the existence of blanks for the h and o to the right of the middle-left TWS 😉
AP@25
LUNAR DAY
Thanks for correcting me (I didn’t quote the definition fully. Sorry).
LACIEST
You mean frilliest and extremely frilly are not the same?
KVa@33, I can’t think of a phrase in which you could use them interchangeably without altering the phrase in some additional way.
I don’t think frilliest and extremely frilly are the same. Many pairs of curtains, for example, can be extremely frilly, but only one can be frilliest.
Tipsy @17. I have no idea whether this was Everyman’s intention, but I solved 22d from the cricket expression “plumb LBW”.
LACIEST
Thanks AP and Louella.
On LACIEST, I also got stuck for a long time looking for words beginning FY, being the extreme letters of frilly. All in all, a frustrating clue.
I’m so glad that even the experts found it tricky! I managed about a third last week (I can usually finish) but finished it with reasonable ease today once the check button was live. Got rid of a few minor errors, and had to reveal 1a for the “trilogy” part – not heard it called that. I couldn’t parse “precisely” but I see it now … hmmm …
I largely agree with today’s blogger, but that reflects my usual opinion of Everyman. I do them as a matter of course but rarely enjoy the experience. That said, I didn’t have a problem with ODOURLESS. I thought 4d was poor as it can’t be solved without knowing the rules of Scrabble, which isn’t even alluded to in the clue. I’ve also never heard Dante’s Commedia called the Divine Trilogy and struggle to think of a context where anyone would say that. No doubt Google will prove me wrong.
Reassured to find I wasn’t the only one finding this north difficult and not much fun. Loved Deebster’s response to 19d. About to start on this week’s offering and hoping it’s an improvement. Thanks to John and all the others who acknowledged their head scratching.
North = most. Note to self, check for typos
I also found this chewy, but didn’t think it was as bad as others seem to be saying.
DIVINE TRILOGY was actually one of my favourite clues. I’ve only ever heard of it called the divine comedy, as others have said, but I thought the clue was pretty clear about the anagram fodder, and the inclusion of Dante, Inferno and Pardiso was guiding us towards DC. Once I tried DIVINE as the first word, it was clear that TRILOGY was the second, and then it was a quick search to confirm that some translations call it that. In fact, the search led me to Alasdair Gray’s recent translation with exactly that title, which I bought on the spot.
I parsed HEADLINER as Gliddofglood @8 and others.
ODOURLESS I parsed as (ouldroses)* with ‘reconsidered’ as the anagram indicator. As for the definition, I was thinking that the remaining rose stems would be ODOURLESS after decapitation.
I had a gripe with TRIPLE-WORD SCORE. Playing “a quiz” would score 69 ((1+10+1+1+10)*3), so the 66 left me a bit unsure about this. Changing the clue to “playing quiz” would have been preferable.
And I agree with Louella and others about LACIEST and “extremely frilly”. LACIEST sure has to be “most frilly”? This seems to have been a thing that has developed recently where “-est” words (I’m sure there’s a grammatical term for them) are clued imprecisely.
DRACULA and INTEND both raised a smile for me.
Thanks Everyman and John.
I got a good deal of satisfaction from (eventually) solving this, but had most of the quibbles mentioned already. In addition, I didn’t like “3d” in the clue for THREEPENNY BIT but not as its definition, just part of the wordplay. Some clues and solutions were nice, for example LUNAR DAY and TRIPLE WORD SCORE, though the latter is either excessively tricky (AP @28 and @32) or a bit simplistic. I do think knowledge of Scrabble is reasonable given that Scrabble and crossword puzzles must interest similar demographics.
Many thanks John. An unenviable task. I think mrpenney@4 and others are right about ODOURLESS. This was too tricky for me by miles but I’ve enjoyed reading the contributions above. I have my fingers crossed for this week’s…
Great! I’m not so much as an idiot as I thought if the blogger found it difficult. Everyman, Quiptic and Monday’s cryptic usually are enough for my solving abilities. I generally can’t do the others.
@46: this.
Made things even more difficult by recklessly entering answers which proved to be wrong. Must.Be.More.Careful.
@BobM24. The THREEPENNY BIT lived on long after its withdrawal. I would be surprised if it has not appeared in a Paul work.
We did this over lunch, having done #4073 at breakfast. 4072 was harder, but we managed the puzzle OK.
Didn’t twig the 3s reference, so thank you @Jay (first commenter).
Qu for blogger John, with apologies if I missed the key. Why are YARDARM and PER(M) highlighted in your post?
Shed53@49: YARDARM is the self-referential clue and PERM is the first letters one.
Ished53@49. If I may respond to your question re the highlighted YARDARM and PERM. It’s a convention to indicate Everyman’s trademark clues which we can usually expect.
As per John’s blog, YARDARM is the self-referential clue where Everyman clues himself in the wordplay. PERM is the primarily/first letters clue. As John mentioned in his preamble, there wasn’t the rhyming pair today which is also highlighted when it appears. Different bloggers may not highlight them and leave us to figure it out for ourselves and comment in the posts. So it will vary.
Sorry John. Should have refreshed.
I agree with TT@43 re FRILLIEST. You need to look at extremely frilly as either having the most or least frills.
I thought OUDERLESS was a criticism of modern roses which seem to have lost their smell.
I,too, found it hard. I think it took a few goes.
Thanks both
nicbach@53, I don’t think that’s what TTP@43 was arguing; but I guess I can just about buy the argument that “at an extreme end of the ordered list of frilly things lies the frilliest, hence cryptically ‘extremely frilly’ “. It’s pretty loose, but just about the right side of imprecise I suppose. I’m preparing a Paddington stare for things like “very frilly” though!
Relieved to find that others – including a super-skilled blogger – found this difficult. I did too. Thought I was losing it!
Enjoyed the CDs!
Everyman clues the superlative est frequently as extremely.
Does ‘extremely crappy’ equal ‘crappiest’?
Dunno why I chose that for an example, but of course the two are ‘different beasts’, as described above.
Perhaps E is adding solecisms to his list of ‘signature tricks’.
But as I now say in the blog I think it’s a slightly different sense of extremely: not so much ‘very’ as ‘at the furthest extent’.
My first attempt at an Everyman and it seems I chose a hard one. That being so I’m pleased I got as far as i did (five unsolved including 4); especially pleased to have deciphered 1. Now to start on this week’s!
“If you can’t say something nice, say nothing ,” my Grandma told me.
I’m saying nothing other than I used to like the Everyman.
This was much too difficult for me – and I think much more difficult than Everyman used to be. I got all the answers, eventually, but without fully parsing all of them – except uvea which I had never heard of. It’s my first reveal in an Everyman but I don’t mind since I could never have got it.
Agree, too hard. I actually did this a few weeks back online as I had Covid and time on my hands. Couldn’t complete it then and still couldn’t this morning with the same clues unsolved as others have complained of.
Everyman either has a thick skin or doesn’t read this blog any more as the crosswords are not consistent and not consistent with an entry level puzzle.
Much too hard. I was relieved that so many others (including the blogger John) found it hard. Eventually got it out, making *extensive* use of wildcard dictionaries, but there were many answers I could not parse (e.g. 5 down).
Yes, too hard for me as well. Unenjoyable.
I had not heard of it being called the “Divie Trilogy”, although like others, Divine Comedy came easily to mind. Relying on one recent translation as the basis of the clue is highly questionable. That said it had to be TRIsomething from the crossers and the other ‘3’ clues, so it could be found as an anagram with a little persistence. I didn’t have an issue with anything else, and did enjoy the challenge, although overall it took me double the time of a ‘normal’ Everyman.
Definitely far too hard for us this weekend, had to go online for answers for about a third of them – fun factor gone.
I did like DRACULA.
Meri Kirimehete from Aotearoa
Absolutely agree with Duane – I’ve NEVER heard it called the Divine Trilogy. I put DIVINA COMEDIA. When I finally got 7D, ignoring that, I realized it has three parts (like Gaul) everything started to fall into place. I liked LUNAR DAY and THREEPENNY BIT once I realized that 3d didn’t refer to 3down!
Greatly relieved that others found this difficult. It was well above my skill level.
Maybe we are last in, and thankfully the comments above give some support to our comment that this was rather hard.
Some really nice causes, three penny bit and tripe.word score, but some diabolical clues.