Everyman 3,971 (numbering fixed)

51 comments on “Everyman 3,971 (numbering fixed)”

1. As usual, an enjoyable solve. VICTORIANS was a shoo-in for this Aussie. Thanks, Everyman and flashling.

2. Another good puzzle and got it all quite quickly except for 2 in the NE – but got there in the end

   My favourite was BEWHISKERED although PATRIOTISM came a close second.

   I also liked STICKLEBACKS, HASHTAG, MISSPELLED, TOASTER

   Thanks Everyman and flashling

3. Fave was bewhiskered, lovely old word, and I’ve always loved Derek, in everything from Claudius to Cadfael. Ta both.

4. Some lovely clueing this week – lots of witty surfaces (I particularly liked the picture of Lee wrapped around a church spire evoked in 20AC) – and some clever disguises and misdirections. In this context, 21D is rather a disappointment, with its clunky phrasing and its redundant opening words.

5. Re 21d, I parsed it as “I appreciate that” being TA (thank you) then LuCy oddly. Much better.

6. Thank you Dryll (5). That is a much better clue now you’ve explained it!

7. Thank you flashling for the revelation as to who is the ‘real’ and ‘one-and-only’ Everyman!
   I often go to Meet the Setter to look up a compiler’s particular penchants but I hadn’t seen yesterday’s.
   What a pedigree Alan Connor has in crossword land.
   Very funny, interviewing himself. That humour always shines through his crosswords.
   I imagine that many of our bloggers and posters have met him, and wonder if anyone, apart from those in the know, guessed who he is. I thought that Eileen was very quiet one day while we were speculating.
   We’ll be on the lookout for clues for ‘exegetical’ and ‘magniloquent’.

   However, I don’t agree with his premise that “The solver (he has) in (his) head has recourse to a friend or family member who will gently explain something arcane.” That excludes me, and possibly some of the supposed target audience.

8. Tassie Tim@1. VICTORIANS wasn’t a shoo-in for this Aussie. Thinking only geographically, with the letter count, but before crossers , I was going for Antarctics. A bit of a Shackleton nut. Antarctica is on my bucket list, but you’re a lot closer.

9. Thanks flashing for leading us to Everyman’s identity, and a big thank you to Alan O’Connor for your delightful “Meet the Setter” column as well as your excellent crosswords. On both counts you bring us great pleasure.

10. Thanks for the blog, very neat set of clues. For once I got the follow-on clue but I thought the key was just called HASH ??
    Two excellent long , complete anagrams with INTRODUCES and PATISSERIE for Jay’s list. I will join the praise for BEWHISKERED and I really liked WHISTLE-STOP.
    MISSPELLED was interesting, do not think I have seen that idea before, I only got it from the word-play.

11. Great to discover that Alan Connor is Everyman (what a well kept secret) and that today’s puzzle is his 200th. And I’ve just found the “quiet celebration” referred to in the article I think.
    When I made the comment on keyboard references last week I’d already seen HASHTAG, but I’m sure that Roz is correct that the key is a hash and a hashtag is its use in social media.
    Thanks to Alan C. and Flashing

12. Roz @10: We did MISSPELT at diycow a while ago, where similar treatments were the go-to wordplay, with patchy success. No one quite nailed the misspelling of a word so commonly misspelled, or so smoothly appropriate to its surface context. The winner, different idea, was a corker.

13. To add to the recurring themes, I also thought that Jay has TRIPOLI to add to his list of places, and how Jay’s recognition of the inclusion of places is echoed in the “Meet the Setter” article.

    It still feels like two setters, as the blogged crossword, last week’s crossword, I sailed through and solved in half the time of this week’s.

    Thank you to Everyman and flashling.

14. Yes I should have said it’s # is hash or pound or sharp. Actually it’s really an octothorpe 🙂

15. Good to see ginf @3 get a mention, very first word 1 across 🙂

    And continuing the Aussie tribute, my nomination for a follow-on clue would be the South Australians’ ‘neighbours’ (geddit?), after last week’s South Australian city.

    Re SWITCHED ON – I hadn’t thought of it as a double definition, but I guess it does work that way, with the first along the lines of switched on = triggered = set in motion/operation. My thought was that if you had a switch in the ON position, and you switched it, it would then be ‘set’ in the OFF position. Kinda works, no?

    A big thank you to Everyman, now out of the shadows of anonymity, and to flashling for the blog and for linking to the interview… or half-interview, half-soliloquy. I’ve enjoyed Alan’s first 200, and btw I also think House of Games is a great show. Not sure if it’s available to view for our overseas friends?

    Shanne @13, I agree that Everyman 3972 (to be blogged next week) is a lot trickier, but then it is a special one.

    pdm @7, same thought here about not everyone having recourse to a friend or family member – but hopefully many of those reading this blog will have come to look upon 15² as their ‘friend’.

16. “And I use the word “Everyman” to remind me to include as much of the world, old and new, as possible”

    Well, so far in 2022 we’ve had (to the best of my knowledge) …

    Albania (4), Western Samoa (2), Tahiti, Cape Town, Swed(en)ish, Accra, Budapest, Caspian Sea, Utrecht, Rhine, Guantanamo , Angola, Ontario, Himalaya(n), Lithuania(ns), Togo, Monte Carlo, Rwanda(n), Malawi, Pomerania(n), East Indies, Oslo, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Gobi , Tahiti, Mogadishu, Emirate (2), Lapland(ers) (2), Bratislava, Senegal(ese), Abyssinia(ns), Nairobi, Rome, Iran, Warsaw, Alsace, Quebec, (un)America(n), Ecuador, Corsica, Siam(ese), Antwerp, Nicosia, Doha, Vancouver, Namibia, South Korea, Croatia, Chad, Sapporo, Seattle, Palermo, The Riviera, Alexandria, Lima, Dominican (Rep), Bakewell, Puerto Rico, Santa Fe, Pacific Ocean, Estonia, Adelaide, Tripoli, Victoria(ns)

17. Thanks for the responses all, very much appreciated. That mask was getting uncomfortable.

    Noted paddymelon #7. I try to remember as well the 1960s direction that they should be solveable “in an armchair or a railway carriage, without the need for reference books”, which I suppose is a nudge in a different direction.

18. Great to be introduced to Everyman. I’m a little downcast to read it described as for “newer or lapsed solvers” as I’ve been doing it for twenty years and it suits me perfectly. Always manage to finish in the end but sometimes a few clues need returning to later.
    Still, I take comfort from my non-solving friends who think I must be some sort of genius!

19. Enjoyable puzzle.

    Liked BEWHISKERED, MISSPELLED, VICTORIANS (I was born in Melbourne, Victoria); TOASTER; SWITCHED ON.

    Thanks, both.

20. Another fan of BEWHISKERED STEEPLEJACKS. I was held up briefly by ignorance or Australian geography.

21. Enjoyable solve, and good to know who I’m batting against.

    We’ve had the (1,1,1,1) debate many times. Only Collins has a.s.a.p. but Chambers and the ODE just have ASAP, so I’m very happy with (4). A good anagram to give INTRODUCES. I also liked the use of topless as an anagrist, SWITCHED ON for the ‘with it’, and the Tolkein, very neat!

    Congrats Alan for your 200th and for the enjoyment, and to flashling for the comprehensive blog.

22. Gosh, Everyman is Alan Connor – I didn’t see that coming! I’ve really enjoyed your puzzles since you started, though I haven’t commented so much recently. I think my favourite of your clues has been:

    Famous last words of cruciverbalist (1-4), (3,807, 29 September 2019) – brilliant.

    Many thanks to flashling for the blog and congratulations Alan.

23. My printed copy says this is Everyman 3,971, not 3,937.

    I think 7d means that something (e.g. an alarm) can be set off by being switched on.

24. Thanks Gobbo @ 12 , I might brave the IT office tomorrow to get this printed .
    Mr Essexboy @15, the Large Hadron Collider was SWITCHED ON on July 5th for season 3.
    Great list Jay .
    I have spotted the follow-on clue for two weeks in a row , I deserve a medal.

25. Poc I have sent mine off but today is definitely 3972 in the paper.

26. Well thank you, eb@ 15 … modesty forbade, of course 😉 …

27. Oh the number is wrong sorry. The usual blogging software couldn’t get this puzzle and I had to do it all by hand and typed the wrong number. I’ll fix it when I’m on a computer tomorrow.

28. Roz @10, Jay @11 and flashling @14, yes, a hashtag is a tag identified as such by the “hash” # with which it starts. When people talk about “hashtag whatsit” they usually really mean “hash whatsit”, i.e. #whatsit. “whatsit” is the hashtag.

29. A most enjoyable puzzle with some delightful mental images conjured up – such as BEWHISKERED STEEPLEJACKS on a WHISTLESTOP tour. Just one comment about 9ac – PATRIOTISM is more than flag-waving; in fact flag-waving is often merely nationalism or even jingoism.
    Thanks, both to our unmasked setter and to our blogger.

30. Thanks Monkey@28, I thought it was something like that.

31. essexboy@15 . Agree, I meant to add that ”15² is my ‘friend’.

    Alan Connor@17. Thanks for dropping in. I really enjoy your puzzles. Something I look forward to every Sunday morning.

32. pdm @8: yes, next stop Antarctica for us here. In fact, my son works at the Antarctic Division.

33. As an actual Victorian, I loved that clue. It the first one I got for this puzzle.

34. Missing word: “was”

35. 3D: “Flit about” is a fit for WHISTLE-STOP. As it is clued, WHISTLE-STOPPING is MW apt.

36. Jay@11 Re the quiet celebration. Yes, I took your tip and read the article again, and then checked. Will have to wait ’til next week for the comments.

37. Help me, please, with the numbering. I’m seeing this wonderful cryptic at theguardian.com as Everyman Crossword No 3,971.

    As a new US DoD hire in 1968, I was assigned to an office in which several of my co-workers had spent time working in Cheltenham. Back in the states, and working together, they had a subscription to the Manchester Guardian, so that each week a crossword would appear in the office. They coached me during our lunchtime solving sessions, and I’ve enjoyed solving cryptics these 54 years — none with more appreciation than the Everymans. I’ve discovered an archive going back to 2020, and I look forward to each new one.

38. Pretty brave clueing 14d with a deliberate misspelling in the Grauniad. But perhaps Alan has an in with the paper …

39. Lewis@37. See our blogger flashling@27.

40. Fairly quick, although I had trouble with GRECIAN as I had hessian first – as a fusty material and a Germanic word.

    CoD for me was BEWHISKERED.

41. I’m annoyed with myself for not getting 14D – I noticed Tolkien was spelt wrongly, but I thought it was just the Guardian being the Guardian!

42. I sympathise with flashling re 6A. When exactly does an acronym become a word in its own right? When Susie Dent says so I suppose! I failed to parse 7D but it had to be SWITCHED ON – or perhaps I needed to be switched on?
    Alan, thanks indeed for your puzzles, but how I wish they were soluble “in an armchair or a railway carriage, without the need for reference books”. Many years of listening to Radio 4 have filled my head with cultural snippets which have come in very handy indeed, but I’d be stuffed without any form of reference!

43. On the easier side but no less enjoyable. Never heard of the actor so failed to parse that one but the answer jumped out as a bung in. Missed the two separate defs for 2D so that was a shrug.

    Never heard of a Sap being an idiot so another bung in without thinking of the enumeration but I think it’s become a word now.

    And finally we have some sun. Go Audrey. I might take up bowls one day.

    And Gobbo @12 I am a DIYCOW regular too.

44. Still don’t really grok 7 down, even after all the explanations. “Switched on” == “with it” is fine.
    But “sets off” doesn’t actually fit.

45. My favourites were Allowances, Victorians and Bewhiskered. Thanks Alan, I think you’ve got the level just right. Thanks too to flashling for the blog.

46. I don’t like misspelled. Is that the US version of misspelt?
    Finally realised that the misspelling of Tolkien was deliberate!

47. BTW Kiwis, todays Styx is excellent.

48. Rolf @44 it’s Set Off not Sets. Past tense, as in ‘triggered’.

49. Kia ora everyone – first time commenter, though long time lurker, (both for explanations and to find answers for clues which stump me!)
    Dropping a note today to say how much I enjoy the debate and additional knowledge from all of you in the comments.
    I’m now at a point where I solve every week (even if I can’t parse one or two of them and come here to find out why,) and was feeling proud – though it’s disappointing to find out in the unmasking interview that my weekly “hard crossword” is actually considered entry level!
    (As I have the NZ Herald I’ll have to start trying Styx as Barrie @47 suggests.)
    Sending thanks from T?maki Makaurau, to Everyman, the Fifteensquared team and all of you!

50. Well, this wasn’t easy.
    But we made it. We’re not quite switched on but dispelled any myths about our invincibility, but none the less? Did enjoy it.
    Finally some sun today, so let summer begin.

51. Some very easy clues.
    Am still struggling with the Economist’s Double Issue one!
    Rob.

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