Everyman 3,988

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A nice crossword from Everyman. The surfaces are better than they used to be. There seemed to be quite a lot of link-words, something that for some reason doesn’t happen much with the very best setters. The grid below shows the answers where there were initial letters or self-reference. I wasn’t sure whether to highlight 12ac and 20ac, since they are a bit similar.

Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (anagram, juxtaposition, homophone, reversal, etc.) in italics. Link-words in green. Anagrams indicated like this *(anagram) or this (anagram)*.

 

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1 OUT OF REACH
Not easy to get to café? Oh! Tour abandoned (3,2,5)
(cafe oh tour)*
6 SCAB
Second alternative to Uber‘s non-unionised worker? (4)
s cab — s = second, cab = alternative to Uber — scabs are in my understanding members of unions who disobey their union’s instructions, but no doubt non-unionised workers are also deemed by the unionised to be scabs, something the question mark suggests
9 BUTTRESSED
Strengthened, nonetheless hairy? (10)
but tressed — but = nonetheless, tressed = hairy
10 IRAN
Everyman fled the country (4)
I ran — I = Everyman, ran = fled
12 SPIRIT LEVEL
What’s found in toolbox? Grit, to be honest (6,5)
spirit level — spirit = grit, to be honest = level (sort of; it’s really ‘to be level’; perhaps ‘to be’ should be in green)
15 EMANATE
Send out letter from Athens with name from the East (7)
(eta name)rev. — eta is the Greek letter, name = name, ‘from the East’ tells us to read it right-to-left
16 ENCAGED
Dodgy green card. Runs off. Imprisoned (7)
*(g[r]een ca[r]d) — if ‘r’ = run then ‘r, r’ = runs but so far as I know r doesn’t = run: it is an abbreviation for runs (as in a bowling analysis in cricket) — is there any support for r = run?
17 SETTLED
Quietened down and made payment (7)
2 defs
19 RABBITS
Teacher with | vacuous thoughts speaks at length (7)
rabbi t[hought]s — rabbi = teacher
20 SILENT VOWEL
Character seen at opening of aisle? (6,5)
CD — you don’t pronounce the vowel ‘a’ in ‘aisle’ — a letter is a character
23 IRAQ
Its ruler? Al-za’im Qasim, early on! (4)
The first letters &lit. — no doubt Everyman’s research on this person is deeper than my cursory look at Wikipedia, which doesn’t seem to mention him
24 FAIR-MINDED
Just blonde getting resented (4-6)
fair minded — fair = blonde, minded = resented
25 GUST
Blast of wind blowing away gold in summer period (4)
[Au]gust — August is the holiday period, Au is the Periodic Table symbol for gold.
26 NEWSAGENTS
Fresh edible leaves and Moroccan haricot beans finally seen in shop (10)
new sage [Morocca]n [harico]t [bean]s — new = fresh, sage = edible leaves
DOWN
1 ORBS
Starsailor B-sides describing celestial bodies (4)
Hidden in StarsailOR B-Sides — ‘Starsailor’ are a young band, m’lud, so it makes good sense to talk about their B-sides — I’d never heard of them so was a bit bewildered by the surface of the clue — describing in the sense surrounding
2 TOTS
Infants given little sips (4)
2 defs — infants = tots, little sips = tots
3 FORESTALLING
Acting to prevent shop collapsing, Spooner tells us (12)
Spooner, or at any rate the crossword version of Spooner, would say “store falling”
4 EN SUITE
Convenient type of bathroom with redesigned unit, see? (2,5)
*(unit, see) — ‘with’ a link-word (not my favourite)
5 CHEMISE
A bit of gear? Drug dealer shortly getting ecstasy (7)
chemis[t] E — nice misdirection: a chemise is just an article of clothing, so a bit of gear (but not in drugs slang), and the drug dealer is a dealer in legal pharmaceuticals, a chemist/pharmacy — E = ecstasy, the drug of choice for crossword solvers
7 CARAVAGGIO
A vicar, agog, reeling, seeing one who painted Christ (10)
(A vicar agog)* — this artist
8 BANGLADESH
Bill’s wearing bracelets, riding horse somewhere in S Asia (10)
bangl(ad)es h — bangles = bracelets, bill = ad, ‘wearing’ indicates that it’s inside — what’s ‘riding’ doing? So far as I can see it doesn’t mean ‘next to’ or ‘followed by’ or some such — Everyman could have perfectly well used the word he used in 4dn to my displeasure and had ‘Bill’s wearing bracelets — with horse somewhere in S Asia’
11 BLACKBALLING
Voting against #8 in government? (12)
black ball in G — is this a snooker reference? The black ball in snooker is worth 7 points, but with the initially potted red the player gets 8 points — in = in, G = government — this article explains about the process of blackballing
13 PERSISTING
Remaining springiest, leaping around (10)
(springiest)*
14 CASTILIANS
Its canal is rebuilt for certain Spaniards (10)
(its canal is)* — the certain Spaniards are those from the region of Castile
18 DEVIATE
Take different route that’s taken in countryside via Teheran (7)
Hidden in countrysiDE VIA TEheran
19 REWARDS
Medals perhaps found in drawers, surprisingly (7)
(drawers)*
21 EDEN
PM wanting perfect garden (4)
Sir Anthony Eden was the Prime Minister in the 1950s, The Garden of Eden is the perfect garden
22 ODES
Nakedly humble verses (4)
[m]odes[t] — nakedly tells us to remove the outside, modest = humble

37 comments on “Everyman 3,988”

  1. Good puzzle

    Favourites: BUTRESSED, FORESTALLING, CHEMISE, EDEN

    and SILENT VOWEL – another character which I would not have solved if not for past recent puzzles

    Thanks Everyman and John

  2. 11d: no it’s a pool reference, where the black ball is #8. Your youth must have been less ill-spent than mine.

  3. Rhyming pair: FORESTALLING + BLACKBALLING. Excellent puzzle, iMHO. Nice to see ‘early on’ rather than ‘primarily’ – a bit of variety. August is late winter, here, of course. ‘Riding’ = ‘on top of’, I think. In pool, the black ball is 8. Thanks, Everyman and John.

  4. Thanks John. Yes, I couldn’t find Al-za’im Qasim either. I’m assuming “early on’ was doing double duty and that he was a ruler some time ago, as it was &lit, marked by the ! and noted in your blog.

    Liked CHEMISE for the drug misdirections, and SCAB, SPIRIT LEVEL and AISLE for the chuckles.

    Similar to the circumflex character clue a couple of weeks ago, A is a character in AISLE but the def again is one of Everyman’s linguistic jokes, with the question mark at the end,

  6. Really enjoyed this. Managed to parse them all which is rare for me – but still took me a couple of days to do. As pointed out – riding = on top of – and seems fine for down clues.

  7. IRAQ

    found this online

    Za’im is an Arabic word meaning “leader” or “boss”. It is occasionally used in English with two meanings:

    to refer to Abd al-Karim Qasim, President of Iraq from 1958 to 1963, popularly known as al-za’im

    (The second meaning not relevant here:) to refer to the leaders of Lebanese sectarian groups, militias, or other important traditional political leaders corresponding to some degree to what are often termed notables in writing on the Middle East.

  8. If. as has been my misfortune sometimes, you only score 1 run, then the R column in your batting figures would be read as RUN.
    I will be perfectly honest with you if will level with me.

  9. Re BLACKBALLING, I. Believe the 8-ball in the game of pool is black, though I’m not sure that helps much

  10. Thanks for the blog, another good puzzle, I liked BUTTRESSED and CHEMISE . Getting used to the “character” idea for SILENT VOWEL . Starsailor also in the Guardian yesterday.

    A few mentions of the black ball in pool, traditionally also two sets of spots and stripes in different colours numbered 1 to 7. My very unscientific survey seems to show that this is dying out, most tables now seem to have 7 yellow and 7 red all solid colours and no numbers, even the black just one solid colour, a shame.

    Busy puzzle for Jay , three countries for the list , plus PERSISTING and REWARDS for the anagrams.

  11. Mystified by blackballing which I failed to solve. Never really played pool. And I was unaware of the process of blackballing in its voting sense, nor could I see where the government came in. Fail!

  12. Roz @10. Apparently there are different variations of pool. The traditional American version uses spots and stripes, with numbers, whereas the one commonly seen in pubs in the UK uses the red and yellow, unnumbered balls.

  13. In my Aussie misspent youth, pool balls were always numbered, and called spots (below 8) and stripes (above 8) – or littlies and biggies (more commonly) – with the black 8 being the ball you had to pot last to win. If your opponent managed to get you in a position where all your remaining balls weren’t directly hittable because of the position of the 8, you were “behind the 8 ball” – a phrase that thus came to mean ‘in a difficult position’ in general. I have seen these red/yellow unnumbered balls and consider them not quite cricket.

  14. Crispy @12 I agree with Tim @13, when I was younger and in pubs a lot more I seem to remember it was all spots and stripes in the UK , the red and yellow more recent and sadly seem to be taking over. Even the black does not have a number 8.

  15. I play American pool with stripes, spots (solids) and a black #8 youthworking. The earlier games in pubs I just about remember were billiards, bar billiards, bagatelle and other local variations, which included the original black ball pool (with red and yellow balls) which originated in the 1880s, was known in India, went to the USA and came back as the American pool we now play more often (I’ve just doubled checked this in my Traditional Pub Games book).

    This was back to the quickly solved Everyman for me after the week before.

    Thank you John and Everyman.

  16. As Roz has pointed out Starsailor seem to have made an unlikely comeback this week. Not so sure about the description “young band” – their biggest hit was twenty years ago (and rather surprisingly produced by Phil Spector).

    Thanks Everyman and John

  17. Enjoyable puzzle.

    Favourites: CHEMISE, NEWSAGENTS (loi).

    New for me: black ball = number 8 ball in billiards.

    Thanks, both.

  18. Thank you, John, for the blog. I too am occasionally upset by some link words. Though “with” bothers me much less than “wanting”, which clues wordplay to me.

  19. Michelle @8, American pool is the table-top cue game you’re looking for. No numbers on balls in billiards or snooker, or even black ball pool. The reason it’s so common in the UK is the heavy marketing in the 1960s and 1970s following the release of Paul Newman’s The Hustler (1961). I’ve only played bar billiards once, when we found it in an old-fashioned pub in the 1970s.

  21. I agree with nicbach@8 about “level” as a verb. The double appearance of Starsailor and my failure to protect myself from corporate surveillance has led to me being offered tickets for their latest tour.

  22. Starsailor appear to be the new ‘in’ band amongst the setters – they were in the Prize yesterday.

  23. Bar billiards used to be very common in pubs in Brighton mainly because so many of them seemed to be so small. I do not know Brighton well, this was just visits when I was a student.

  25. Decent crossword, with plus points for using “early on ” instead of “initially” for the obligatory first-letters clue. Personally I don’t much mind link-words, but agree that the best setters tend to avoid them.
    I did know the #8 reference to pool, which I have played a very few times in my life, in pubs.
    [I never understood why pool balls were numbered – is there a variant, maybe US-specific, where the numbers actually mean something?
    When I moved to Berkshire in the ’70s there were many pubs with bar-billiards tables, but they have gradually disappeared. My favourite local(-ish) pub had one until quite recently – a group of men of a certrain age used to play it Sunday evenings but it was otherwise unused. Sad in a way to see traditional games disappear, but if no-one plays them …]
    Thanks Everyman and John, and Shanne for the information about pool.

  26. Good Sunday solve without something primarily.

    I liked the BUT TRESSED, the drug dealer and surface in CHEMISE, a vicar agog for a good anagram, and the nicely hidden DEVIATE.

    Thanks Everyman and John.

  28. Thanks E & J. An embarrassment of riches today for those of us who like hunting cross-puzzle connections:

    3987/3988
    EMIT/EMANATE – both defined as ‘send out’
    DETONATE/EMANATE – both ATEs reversals of ‘letter from Athens’
    WHISTLER/CARAVAGGIO (?)

    3986/3988
    EDEN/EDEN
    IDES/ODES in same grid position

    As Fiona Anne and pdm point out @1/4, SILENT VOWEL is the latest in a string of ‘characters’.

    I agree with TT and Ray about ‘riding’ – the bracelet-wearing Bill on his horse reminded me of the Banbury Cross lady with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes.

    And I wonder if the answer “Grit, to be honest” to the question in 12a was a conscious allusion to this? 😉

  29. Not much to say except that ‘wanting’ is a bit odd in 21d. ‘PM in perfect garden’ would make more sense.

  30. Roz@10, yes indeed. Also Caravaggio who follows Proust, Bede, Tyson in what feels like a “what comes next in the sequence” round from Only Connect. I hope we have Pierre as our blogger next week 😉 and Azed 6d today seems like it might be up your street!

  31. Jay@30 Pierre is due next week, double joy for him .
    We do seem to be getting random famous names although EB@28 spotted Whistler in the clues from last week. I used to like Only Connect on BBC4 , when it switched to 2 I started to find the presenter unbearable and stopped watching.
    Yes actually two Azed clues for me today and a bit of an Everyman follow-on.
    We had EGRET(S) and then Lancashire cheese a few weeks ago .

  32. Enjoyable as ever from Everyman. Thought the primarily clue was very clever.

    Like everyone else, I also noticed the double appearance of Starsailor this week – odd coincidence. I remember them but don’t think I’d recognise any of their songs. They’re named after a Tim Buckley album, of course. The red/yellow ball version of pool was the one I was familiar with as a young person, but I know enough about the American version to have got the eight ball reference. Bar billiards is a far superior game anyway – also takes up less space in the pub.

    Thanks, Everyman and John.

    poc @29 – that use of “wanting” seems to be an Everyman stylistic quirk – he does it often enough that I’m used to it now.

  33. An enjoyable Sunday solve, as ever. We agree with Tassie Tim about the rhyming pair. Interesting that the self-reference anf the fist letters devices should name neighbouting countries.
    Thanks to Everyman and John.

  34. Shot through this in 14 minutes, not quite a PB but still pretty good. I enjoyed SILENT VOWEL, FORESTALLING and ODES.

  35. Liked the Spooner clue, failed on Iraq. Thought maybe Imam as there was an am in there for the early bit.

    Not sure we really need solvers’ solve times. Just an easy/mid/hard rating will do (if you want, that is) so others can compare. FWIW I found this middling.

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