Everyman 4,100

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A pleasant crossword this week from Everyman. No great problems and any (only very occasional and slight) grumble is mentioned in the blog. Nearly 30% of the answers are four-letter words, which are often (but not in this case) tricky; not perhaps the best of grids.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (homophones, of which there were more than usual, reversals, anagrams, first letters, juxtapositions, etc.) in italics. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*. Link-words in green.

All the usual things are there and coloured in the grid. But I couldn’t find any rhyming pairs: perhaps Everyman has changed, since 11ac and 20ac are related (ha!).

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 MILL STREAM
Small-timer mucked about in flowing water (4,6)
(Small-timer)*
6 LO-FI
Pronouncedly idle, Everyman’s of inferior quality (2-2)
“loaf” I — loaf = idle, I = Everyman — the self-referential clue
9 SIGNATURES
Sister inhaling midgie at riverside to gain approval more than once (10)
si(gnat at Ure)s — sis = sister, midgie = gnat, Ure is the river: I think ‘at riverside’ means ‘next to the river’, which happens to be the river Ure — a signature on a document is a sign of approval, so signatures = signature more than once — am I missing something here, with a reference to Midge Ure, or is it just a coincidence?
10 KEEP
Look back to see part of castle (4)
(peek)rev. — peek = look
11 MOTHER NATURE
Maternal protector healed mature hornet (6,6)
*(mature hornet)
15 UNFUSSY
Not bothered when fun’s spoiled | in American ‘yard’ (7)
(fun’s)* in (US y) — US = American, y = yard
16 DRESDEN
Doctor taking tablets (and joint) somewhere in eastern Germany (7)
Dr, E’s den — Dr. = doctor, E’s = tablets (the drug Ecstasy), den = joint in a sense (someone’s den, where they hide out, can be called a joint … or is it den of iniquity/strip joint?)
17 FLEXORS
Amazes with love falling for old flame showing some muscle? (7)
floors with the first o replaced by ex — floors = amazes, love = 0 = o. and that ‘falls for’ (ie is replaced by) ex (= old flame) — I’m not totally convinced by this and maybe my parsing is wrong: falls for = is replaced by looks a bit doubtful to me — and how do we know that it’s just one of the o’s?
19 PROJECT
Throw out scheme (7)
2 defs, the first pronounced projEct. the second pronounced prOject
20 FATHER FIGURE
Paternal personage’s rotund shape entertaining that woman (6,6)
fat (her) figure — fat = rotund, her = that woman, figure = shape
23 MUSE
Ponder cat’s noises when heard (4)
“mews” — mews = cat’s noises
24 DROOLS OVER
Licking his lips madly, Rod loves, or ___? (6,4)
*(Rod loves or) — there seem to be two definitions — the first three words and also the blank, which looks a bit odd to me
25 NOEL
Christmas in Spanish province, kicking back (4)
(Leon)rev. — Leon is the Spanish province
26 ANGEL SHARK
Financial backer, swindler, fishy type (5,5)
angel = financial backer, shark = swindler
DOWN
1 MISO
Culinary paste that’s semi-soft? In part (4)
Hidden in seMI-SOft
2 LEGO
Section of allegory that amuses youngsters (4)
Hidden in alLEGOry — people often read clues like this as ‘which amuses youngsters’, which to my mind isn’t a satisfactory definition of Lego; it’s merely a description of Lego. But it’s fine: ‘that’ is a demonstrative pronoun
3 SHARON STONE
Basic Instinct star succeeded with character of ferryman (not the lead) (6,5)
s [C]haron’s tone — s = succeeded, Charon is the ferryman who in Greek mythology transports the dead across the river Acheron to the underworld, tone = character
4 ROUGHLY
Something like toughly? (7)
I’m not quite sure how to classify this: roughly is something like toughly in two senses — the two words differ only in their first letter, and the whole clue is a definition of ‘roughly’ in the sense rough-ly; so it’s a sort of &lit.
5 AVERRED
Declared Cockney’s claim to be aware? (7)
” ‘ave ‘eard ” — to have heard something is to be aware of it, and in Crosswordland all Cockneys drop their aitches
7 ONE HUNDRED
Around the bend, never starting | to move for a century (3,7)
([A]round [t]he [b]end)*
8 IMPREGNATE
Create moment of conception with permeating forms (10)
(permeating)* — a trademark of Everyman, the complete word anagram
12 A BED OF ROSES
Comfortable locale in which Titanic’s Jack wished to be? (1,3,2,5)
Jack Dawson is a fictional character from the 1997 film Titanic, who falls in love with Rose DeWitt Bukater, so perhaps he wished to be in her bed, or a bed of Rose’s
13 GULF OF OMAN
Recovered from man-flu, go off scratching bottom somewhere in the Arabian Sea (4,2,4)
*(man flu go of[f])
14 AFTERTASTE
You shouldn’t have tucked into pudding: not nice, ultimately lingering tang (10)
after(ta)s [no]t [nic]e — afters = pudding, ta = you shouldn’t have (they both, with a bit of squinting, mean ‘thank-you’)
18 SAFFRON
Spice Girl (7)
2 defs — saffron is a spice and a (slightly rare?) girl’s name (the only Saffron I know is Saffy in Ab Fab, and anyway perhaps she’s not Saffron)
19 PUG-NOSE
Model‘s not-half ugly and | a little nasty on the inside: one’s stuck-up (3-4)
p(ug[ly] n[asty])ose — pose = model
21 UVEA
Usually vivid eyeball’s attribute, primarily? (4)
The first letters &lit. which is another regular feature in Everyman
22 TREK
Dinosaur leaving cross with kilometre to arduously walk (4)
T. Re[x] k — T. Rex is the dinosaur, x = cross, k = kilometre

22 comments on “Everyman 4,100”

  1. Never heard of Jack or Rose in relation to the Titanic, but I guessed it was film related. T Rex/TREK was nice, as were many of the anagrams (especially IMPREGNATE). The matching pair is usually, but not always, rhyming, so the relationship (good one, John!) is not completely new. Thanks, Everyman and John.

  2. Thanks John. Everyman can’t win a trick. He gets criticised for 13 letter anagrams, or multi word solutions, leaving solvers feeling short-changed by the number of clues, and now 4 letter-word answers. Personally, I like the shorter ones. I did have a few that I hadn’t re-solved as I realised I hadn’t done this shortly before the blog was due to go up, so it was a bit of a rush.

    Thanks for the parsing of ONE HUNDRED, and ABOR. I abhor the idea of even watching the film. And also for SHARON STONE which was a write-in if you knew it or googled it from definition. I think this was one of those occasions when Everyman was putting in a lot of effort that didn’t translate to solver entertainment.

    I thought there were quite a few tricky ones today, and am interested in what others have to say.

    DROOLS OVER, the blank is the answer. It’s an anagram of Rod loves or.

    I liked ANGEL SHARK, although I had previously learned the Angel from cryptics. They’re cute.

  3. Sorry John. You’ve indicated the anagram in your blog for (madly Rod loves or) DROOLS OVER. Yes, the grammar doesn’t seem to be right with Licking his lips. . Unless it’s a whole clue thingummy?

  4. Thanks John.

    ROUGHLY
    1. Something like (approximately/ROUGHLY)
    2. roughly

    DROOLS OVER
    It could be a CAD (a different variety of…so…ok…I’ll settle for thingummy too). Agree with pdm@3’s analysis.

  5. ROUGHLY *
    correction
    Def 2 toughly (in a tough/rough way)

    FLEXORS
    Parsed it the same way as the blogger did.
    Which O to replace? I think the setter didn’t say anything there.
    However, O falls for EX seems to work.

  6. Everyman occasionally uses an antonym pairing such as MOTHER/FATHER instead of a rhyming pair. The last few have been…
    Black/White, Hot/Cold, Grand/Little, Ball/Chain, Rock/Roll, Bread/Potatoes, Back/Front

    I sensed that 7d marked a milestone based on the puzzle number 4100. There are also four solutions beginning with M. So we have MMMM ONE HUNDRED. Just a hunch.

  9. Thanks for the blog , FLEXORS I had the same way as you , it does work just about .
    ROUGHLY , I agree with KVa@5 , just two definitions .
    Well done Jay@6 for both points .

  10. Convinced myself that 26a was some term I hadn’t heard of, meaning ‘financial backer’ similar to ‘loan shark’ – so needed some help in reminding me that ANGEL fitted the bill for that. I enjoyed the cockney declaration after I finally twigged the answer. Seemed hard at first but slowly fell into place.

  11. I liked the old flame showing some muscles for FLEXORS, the fishy financier for ANGEL SHARK, Jack’s A BED OF ROSES, and the stuck-up model for PUG-NOSE. Well done Jay @6 for noticing the 4100.

    Thanks Everyman and John.

  12. I thought this one was easier than the last few: I only failed on 2 1/2 clues (6ac, 22d and I got Angel but not the shark for 26ac).

  13. pdm @2 I also found this quite tricky in places. In fact I only entered LO-FI and PUG NOSE last night, having nho the latter.

    As ever, looking back over the answers I can’t see why I found it difficult, it’s all fairly clued.

    I had ticks for FLEXORS and ROUGHLY – but now that I see the parsing of ONE HUNDRED (thanks John) that could well be my favourite.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  14. FLEXORS – how do we know that it’s just one of the Os? Because the clue says “love”, singular. And while the clue doesn’t say which O, it has to be the first one, as FLOEXRS clearly doesn’t work. I think “falling for” just about works, in the sense of “dropping out for” or “giving way to”.
    SAFFRON – there’s an actor called Saffron Burrows; also, Chambers gives it as a girl’s name in its list of forenames.

  15. I wasn’t very clear about roughly at 4dn: of course, as has been said, it’s a double definition, but I had the impresion that Everyman was giving the clue a further &lit. dimension: roughly is indeed something like toughly.

  16. I really miss the Grauniad’s anagram helper. Anyone know if there is a website that does the same thing?

  17. thewordfinder.com
    word.tips/anagram-solver

    There are many more.

    John@15
    Agree. Yours could be the intended parsing.

  18. I enjoyed this. Thanks for the parsing of a few clues where the solution was inevitable but puzzling e.g. 7dn.
    5dn could just as easily have been our local Nottinghamshire accent!
    18dn reminded me of Donovan’s ‘Mellow Yellow’ – ‘I’m just wild about Saffron’.
    19dn I had to look up PUG-NOSE to be sure it’s a thing.

  19. Enjoyed this, especially Bed of Rose’s and Averred.

    A few others were iffy as already commented on, but not as iffy as some of late.

  20. One of the easiest for ages – took me less than an hour. I liked the combo of MOTHER NATURE, FATHER FIGURE.
    SHARON STONE was too obvious and I didn’t believe it until I had several cross confirmations.

  21. Got it out with heavy use of wild card dictionaries. Lots of anwers the parsings of which were far too obscure for ordinary mortals.

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