Everyman 3318

by

Some lovely surfaces and subtleties this week, and a clue type in 12/13 ac which I’m not sure I’ve seen in Everyman before (which is by no means to say that it hasn’t appeared in the crossword at some point, just that I’ve not personally come across it here as far as I remember). I’m particularly fond of 1dn and 14dn as well as 12/13ac. All in all a good week.

Across
1 CUTLASS – CUT + LASS
5 HOARDER – HARDER around O ref. magpies being hoarders
9 MALTA – MALT + A
10 AGREEMENT – MEN in [A + GREET]
11 LARGE – triple definition
12/13 KEEP AN EAR TO THE GROUND – KEEP + reverse anagram. i.e. if we read “an ear to the ground” in a crossword clue we would probably think, ‘ah, an anagram of AN EAR TO THE with “ground” as the anagrind’ which could be ONE A THREAT.
17 LAMENTATION – TOANIMATE* after L(awlessness)
20 ANCHORITE – ANCHOR + IT + (tabl)E
22 AWASH – A + W + ASH
23 PARTRIDGE – PART + RIDGE
24 ASTER – (m)ASTER
25 END USER – ENSURED*
26 TREACLE – REACT* + LE
Down
1 COMPLETE – L in COMPETE. Lovely that “to take part in a race” is a whole clue for COMPETE, but on first reading you think it will mean put L in a word meaning “race around” (or at least I did)
2 TOLERATE – [LATER + TOE]*
3 A FAREWELL TO ARMS – [WARTALE + REALMSOF]*
4 STALK – S + TALK
5 HARLEQUIN – dd
6 ALEXANDRA PALACE – ALEXANDRA + PLACE around A
7 DIESEL – DIES + EL
8 RETURN – RE + TURN. RETIRE – RE + TIRE. Sappers are engineers thus RE = Royal Engineers. Thanks Chris for spotting my rookie error!
14 REMAINDER – REMINDER around A. Beautiful surface using jogging/resting imagery which had nothing to do with the solution.
15 GIGANTIC – ANTIC after GIG
16 ONE-HORSE – dd
18 MAGPIE – PI in GAME*
19 SCARED – S + CARED
21 EVENT – EVEN + (arres)T

Common crossword abbreviations this week:

nothing = O
Welsh = W
lake = L [but often lake may clue the name of a famous lake too, so be wary]
second = S
good = PI [pious]
son = S

7 comments on “Everyman 3318”

  1. Tougher than previous weeks. I had to look up ANCHORITE and HARLEQUIN. 14d was a very nice clue

  2. The answer to 8d should be “RETIRE”

    Sappers become weary and withdraw (6) = Royal Engineers (RE) + TIRE (“weary”)

    Like Andrew K, I had to look up ANCHORITE and really struggled with HARLEQUIN.

    A nice puzzle overall for we newbies though

  3. Thanks Arthur,

    I totally agree with your assessment and I liked your enthusiam for the puzzle. I always enjoy Everyman
    and give it the credit it deserves.

    Incidentally, does Everyman have just one compiler or is there a pool of people ?.

  4. Davy,

    Everyman = Allan Scott, who is also Falcon in the FT.
    So one compiler [but I must admit, that at one point I also thought that there were more – but then Pasquale explained it all].
    Even so, the Everyman level varies, I think.
    Today’s crossword was a lot easier than this one.

    I enjoyed Arthur’s choice (particularly, 14d), but 21d (EVENT) had a great, misleading surface as well.
    And I liked the anagram of 3d, which included the very appropriate ‘war tale’.
    Another winner was, I thought, 25ac (END USER) – when you know the answer, an obvious (maybe even too obvious) anagram of ‘ensured’, but the smooth surface of the clue doesn’t immediately point in that direction.
    Mr Scott has the ability to make a relatively easy crossword still stylish.
    That’s why I like Everyman, even if it’s at a completely different level compared to the Guardian’s weekday puzzles [which is what it’s meant to be], it is quality.

  5. I actually finished this one, several days ago, with some researching to verify things of course.

    I don’t understand how “good” is PI though (18d).

    I really liked 3d as well.

    Thanks for the blog, Arthur!

  7. Just done this one in the NZ Herald 05th June 2010 UTC

    12/13 Across KEEP is also part of a Castle.

    R.

Comments are closed.