Everyman 3,789

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Everyman’s recent form continues: a little rough in places, but a witty and enjoyable solve.

There are some cleverly appropriate surfaces (for example 18a, 26a, 9d) – and 12a, which looks bizarre but works very well.  There’s also (as in previous weeks) a neat set of related answers around the edge, this time relating to forms of transport, although 28a isn’t actually a vehicle.

As in recent puzzles, some of the surfaces are a bit untidy.  And I’m not sure why we have clues like 5d, which seem to give too much away; I know Everyman’s stated intent is to provide one or two easy ones to get beginners started, but this seems to be taking it too far.  Apart from that, a great puzzle.  Thanks Everyman.

Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

 

completed grid
Across
1 BULLET TRAINS HS2’s plans: official reports describe detailed electric transportation (6,6)
BULLETINS (official reports) around (describing) TRA[m] (electric transportation) de-tailed (removing last letter). For those outside the UK, HS2 is High-Speed 2, a planned fast rail route between London and northern England.
10 LET IT GO Disney tune the French singer’s getting to at last (3,2,2)
LE (“the” in French) + TIT (singer = bird) + last letters of gettinG tO.  Song from the Disney film Frozen.  By an odd coincidence, the same phrase was in the previous day’s Guardian Prize puzzle, though with a different definition and clue.
11 GEORGE I Hanover king, egregious lunatic after losing America (6,1)
Anagram (lunatic) of EGREGIO[us] without the US (America).  The surface is trying to mislead us by suggesting George III.
12 AGREE Get on… get on… about… about… (5)
AGE (as a verb = get on) about RE (about).  Agree = get on as in “they don’t really get on”.
13 VERY MUCH Final half of bowling, champ’s losing heart a lot (4,4)
[deli]VERY (a ball bowled in cricket) + MU[n]CH (champ = bite) without the middle letter (heart).
15 UNDUE HASTE Rashly, he sued aunt for carelessness (5,5)
Anagram (rashly) of HE SUED AUNT.  Haste mainly means doing something too quickly, but it does also have an implication of carelessness.
16 IDLE Vain and regularly indulged (4)
Alternate letters (regularly) of InDuLgEd.  Vain = idle = useless, as in “idle chatter”.
18 EDAM Dutch specialty that’s made round? (4)
MADE reversed (round), for the Dutch cheese that is indeed round.  But this is a UK crossword so I think it should be “speciality”, not the US variant.
20 GET THE CHOP To be summarily dismissed, you might do this at the butcher’s counter (3,3,4)
Double definition: to be dismissed from employment, or “chop” as a cut of meat.
22 ON A PLATE A polenta stew requiring next to no effort (2,1,5)
Anagram (stew) of A POLENTA.  Give someone something on a plate = slang for letting them have it easily.
24 RASTA Sun god’s receiving thanks from worshipper (5)
RA’S (belonging to the ancient Egyptian sun god) + TA (thanks).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari.
26 TIME’S UP Original impetus for feminist campaign (5,2)
Anagram (original) of IMPETUS.
27 INFLATE Actually, half-missing dearly departed balloon (7)
IN F[act] (actually, half missing) + LATE (dearly departed).  Balloon, as a verb = grow = inflate, roughly, though I think “inflate” works better with an object: “the costs have been inflated by . . .” rather than “the costs have inflated”.
28 CARBON CYCLES Atmospheric processes produced by automobiles overtaking bishop on bike (6,6)
CARS (automobiles) around (overtaking) B (bishop) ON CYCLE.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle.
Down
2 UTTERED Spoke, and mumbled, without mumbling at first (7)
MUTTERED (mumbled) without the M[umbling].
3 LET ME SEE Um… I’d like to have a look at that (3,2,3)
Double definition – the first being “filler” speech to buy time while one thinks.
4 TOOK Also, knight removed from chessboard (4)
TOO (also) + K (knight, as in honours and titles, not as in chess notation).  Take = capture (a chess piece).
5 ROGUE STATE Taking last two slices, bistro guest ate in country, not respecting others (5,5)
Last two slices (letters) of [bist]RO, then GUEST ATE.  Not a very satisfactory clue: I understand that Everyman wants to include some easy ones for beginners, but putting almost all of the wordplay in plain sight seems to be giving away too much.  “Visitor dined” might have given just a bit more challenge.
6 IRONY Make horizontal axis the reverse of what you’d expect (5)
IRON (make smooth) + Y (vertical axis).  Irony originally meant a surface meaning or appearance opposite to what is actually the case, though the definition seems to have grown to include “amusing incongruity” in general.
7 SIGMUND ‘Good to enter into unrestrained nudism’: big name in psychoanalysis (7)
G (good) in an anagram (unrestrained) of NUDISM.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud.
8 PLEASURE BOATS Somehow, seaport usable for vessels used only for fun (8-5)
Anagram (somehow) of SEAPORT USABLE.
9 FIGHTER PLANES Pershing felt a worry, creating machines of war (7,6)
Anagram (worry) of PERSHING FELT A.  Bonus points for getting the name of a military general into the clue.
14 MAKE IT UP TO Become a success, capable of recompense (4,2,2,2)
MAKE IT (become a success) + UP TO (capable of).
17 TERRIFIC Enormous jerk about to commit sin with one female (8)
TIC (jerk = twitch) around ERR (commit sin) + I F (female).
19 ANAEMIC American cinema, oddly uninspiring (7)
A (American) + anagram (oddly) of CINEMA.
21 HOSTAGE One caught in childhood game wearing quaint socks (7)
TAG (childhood game) inserted into (wearing) HOSE (an old / quaint word for socks).
23 LOSER Behold! First half of pulpit address delivers one that’s been left behind (5)
LO (behold) + SER[mon] (first half of pulpit address).
25 ZINC Element derived from quartz in compounds (4)
Hidden answer in [quart]Z IN C[ompounds].

 

20 comments on “Everyman 3,789”

  1. New for me was HS2.
    My favourites were SIGMUND, VERY MUCH (DELI[VERY] MU[N]CH), 12A AGREE, and HOSTAGE (loi)

    Thanks Everyman and Quirister.

  2. Thanks both. In 6d, IRON seems to be for “make horizontal” rather than smooth, which I don’t think works

  3. Not happy with K = knight in 4dn as in my view it would only work as part of a longer abbreviation or acronym (e.g. KBE) and I was under the impression that sort of thing was off-limits in reputable cryptics, or where would it end? People do say things such as ‘Has he got his K yet?’ but in that context K stands for Knighthood, not Knight. The setter has support in Chambers however who in their printed editions have K = knight without specifying a context, but their on-line version has ‘K (chess): knight’ which is blatently incorrect so I’m not sure I trust them on this one.

  4. Not happy with K = knight in 4dn as in my view it would only work as part of a longer abbreviation or acronym (e.g. KBE) and I was under the impression that sort of thing was off-limits in reputable cryptics, or where would it end? People do say things such as ‘Has he got his K yet?’ but in that context K stands for Knighthood, not Knight. The setter has support in Chambers however who in their printed editions have K = knight without specifying a context, but their on-line version has ‘K (chess): knight’ which is blatantly incorrect so I’m not sure I trust them on this one.

  5. I might be giving up on this week’s Everyman, with 6 unsolved. *ugh*

    I enjoyed the Prize puzzle yesterday – for me, it was easier than the current Everyman!

  6. I can’t see any faclity to edit a contribution after posting. Is this not possible? Even a short window for correcting obvious mistakes such as typos?

  7. jackkt1 – it currently is not possible to edit comments.  I know Gaufrid had looked at this in the past and tried out many different comment editors.  Whilst each one individually has features that would be desirable we have not found one that can do everything we want.

    If a comment has gone seriously wrong, eg a typo might inadvertently cause serious offence to someone then an email to the site administrator is the best way to get the comment repaired.

  8. Shirl, jackkt1: yes, I had similar misgivings about IRON and K. But I thought the “horizontal” reference was justified by the clever surface, and K = knight seems to be common usage in crosswords.

  11. K = knight seems to be common usage in crosswords.

     

    Thanks. Maybe, but not in the ones that I do.

     

    Thanks to others for replies to my enquiry about editing comments.

  13. Regarding INFLATE, think of the flight attendant who says “the plastic bag will not inflate” when explaining the working of the oxygen mask.

    My favorite clue was decidedly 11a, because of the misdirecting surface. Least favorite was 5d for the reasons mentioned. On the whole, I thought this was quite a good puzzle.

    Thanks to the setter and Quirister.

     

  14. This bloke’s getting better. Bullet trains and carbon cycles were fine, but I particularly liked the Pershing anagram in 9 down.

  15. I’m ok with K, less so with Make horizontal. 5D looks just a straight HW so the two slices reference looks weird, a straight HW indicator would have worked better.

    Failed to parse 13A – but look, these are niggles, overall I thoroughly enjoyed this crossword, I just think Everyman and his checkers need to take a leaf out of Arachne’s book (say) and polish the few rough edges that seem to be left behind each week.

  16. I found this very hard to get started, as last week, so I was surprised when I finished it. There were lots I couldn’t parse though. 13 ac for one.
    I liked Edam and George 1 and Get the Chop.

  17. Pretty straight forward pen in. I’m kinda doing these for the sake of it these days. Picaroon’s where all the action is.

  18. I chuckled at Quirister’s intro and later comments as 5d was my LOI. A clever hidden word I thought. Overall didn’t enjoy this as much as recent crosswords but still a huge improvement. Thanks Everyman & Quirister.

  19. I agree with Paul @18; I struggled with 5 down before seeing the hidden words.  Not quite my LOI, but close.

    I couldn’t really parse 1 across nor 13 across — never thought of “delivery” for “bowling” (not having grown up with cricket).  I buggered up 6 down; put in “ivory” even though it makes no sense, since I could not parse the clue at all and “ivory” was all that I could think of to fit the cross letters.  IMHO “iron” for “make horizontal” is just plain wrong.  “Make flat” perhaps, but that’s *not* the same thing.

    Never heard of the song “Let It Go” (since I am fortunately *not* a Disney fan).

    Overall I enjoyed this puzzle, but, and got it all out (without computerised assistance) except for the bugger-up of 6 down.

  20. I really am starting to enjoy these. Managed to complete this one reasonably well although like some other respondants I found several clues “imparsable”. Particularly liked “agree” – simple but clever. The only annoying thing was the song ‘let it go’. Have spent the last couple of years trying to get this tune out of my mind and now after this puzzle it’s there again almost full time! Thanks to all.

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