Everyman 4,043

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/4043.

For me, the salient feature of this crossword was a blind spot for 7D THROWBACK; it took me most of the week before the wordplay hit me (out of the blue; I had just woken up, and was still in bed). I was particularly taken by succinct 20D THREE (and its associated 12D PRIME NUMBER). Everyman’s usual trademarks are highlighted in the grid – the rhyming pair, the (as often, deprecating) self reference, the geographic answer, and the one-word to one-word anagram (almost this time, in 18A MEERKAT; in this context, 26A TEA SERVICE deserves Special Mention).

ACROSS
1 SKETCH PADS
Some artists use these small boat homes (6,4)
A charade of S (‘small’) plus KETCH (‘boat’) plus PADS (‘homes’).
6 A TAD
Somewhat eastwards, on and off (1,3)
Alternate letters (‘on and off’ – an unusual and ingenious indication) of ‘eAsTwArDs’.
9 MARSUPIALS
Far-off beasts found in a Paris slum, upsetting (10)
An anagram (‘upsetting’) of ‘a Paris slum’; ‘far-off’ at least to the UK.
10 IRIS
Flower from flipping digital assistant (4)
A reversl (‘flipping’) of SIRI (Apple’s ‘digital assistant’).
11 STAYING POWER
Force entertaining government to become re-elected (7,5)
An envelope (‘entertaining’) of G (‘government’) in STAY IN POWER (‘to become re-elected’).
15 DOMINGO
Spotted something that includes good tenor performer (7)
An envelope (‘that includes’) of G (‘good’) in DOMINO (‘something spotted’); for the opera singer Placido Domingo (‘who has more recently taken on baritone roles).
16 THIN AIR
Flimsy song, a metaphor for nothing (4,3)
A charade of THIN (‘flimsy’) plus AIR (‘song’).
17 LEARNER
One’s starting out as initially low wage recipient (7)
A charade of L (‘initially Low’) plus EARNER (‘wage recipient’).
18 MEERKAT
Endlessly marketed daft insurance mascot? (7)
An anagram (‘daft’) of ‘markete[d]’ minus its last letter (’emdlessly’).The wbesite comparethemarket.com offers price comparisons, originally for insurance, and uses a meerkat (geddit?) as its advertising mascot. Perhaps an extended definition?
19 ELEVENTH HOUR
Oh, even Luther converted in final moments (8,4)
An anagram (‘converted’) of ‘oh even Luther’.
23 ACID
Ill-natured help catching cold (4)
An envelope (‘catching’) of C (‘cold’) in AID (‘help’).
24 DRAW A BLANK
Fail to prepare to fire cartridge with no bullet (4,1,5)
Definition and literal interpretation.
25 EELS
Not quietly, removes skin from fish (4)
A subtraction: [p]EELS (‘removes skin’) minus the P (‘not quietly’ – P for piano, musically quiet).
26 TEA SERVICE
Wildly eviscerate group holding gunpowder? (3,7)
An anagram (‘ a wildly’) of ‘eviscerate’, with a cryptic definition, ‘gunpowder’ being a kind of green tea.
DOWN
1 SEMI
Home match (4)
Double definition, the first being a semi-detached house.
2 EARL
Nobleman seen in rear light (4)
A hidden answer (‘seen in’) rEAR Light’.
3 COUNTENANCE
Brook’s features (11)
Double definition: ‘brook as in “I brook no dissent”.
4 PRIVY TO
Informed of second loo, did you say? (5,2)
Sounding like (‘did you say?’) PRIVY TWO (‘second loo’).
5 DYLAN
Initially didactic young lyricist (aged, now)? (5)
The first letters (‘initially’) of ‘Didactic Young Lyricist Aged Now’, with an &lit definition for the singer Bob.
7 THROWBACKS
Those two torture devices – for Spooner – they belong to bygone times (10)
The answer was obvious, but still it took me a very long time to pin down the Spoonerism, which depends on the pronunciation (fairly normal, I think) rather than spelling. It is BOTH RACKS (‘those two torture devices”). The W sound is indistinct; for many people (maybe most?), BOTH and GROWTH are solid rhymes. Of course, the word break in BOTH RACKS must be elided away, but unless you make a point of being pedantically distinct, I think the Spoonerism works surprisingly well. Once I spotted it.
8 DESERT RATS
Soldiers run away: traitors! (6,4)
A charade of DESERT (‘run away’) plus RATS (‘traitors’), for the nickname of the 7th. Armoured Division of the British Army, which played a significant part in the Second World War.
12 PRIME NUMBER
20 isn’t one – but here it is! (5,6)
A cross-reference, unusual for Everyman; ’20’ = 4 x 5, but the answer to 20A, THREE, is a prime.
13 ADULTERATE
After period of maturity, fruit and cheese finally rot (10)
A charade of ADULT ERA (‘period of maturity’) plus TE (‘fruiT and cheesE finally’); I think the definition requires a little special pleading.
14 IMMATERIAL
Everyman’s jokes? Of no significance (10)
A charade of I’M (‘Everyman’s – the apostrophe s for IS) plus MATERIAL (‘jokes’ if you are a comedian).
18 MOHAWKS
Second aggressive fellow’s punky hairdos (7)
A charade of MO (moment, ‘second’) plus HAWK’S (‘aggressivr fellow’s’).
20 THREE
Ether, quaint number (5)
An anagram (‘quaint’) of ‘ether’. An amusing clue, in that cryptics have been known use ‘number’ in a clue to indicate an anaesthetic in the answer. ; here, it is the other way around. Ether is no longer much used as an anaesthetic, being replaced by less inflammable compounds; hence the anagrind ‘quaint’.
21 BALI
Globalism overwhelming island (4)
A hidden answer (‘overwhelming’) in ‘gloBALIsm’.
22 SKYE
Island where you once sat next to small king (4)
A charade of S (‘small’) plus K (‘king’ e.g. chess notation) plus YE (‘you once’), with ‘sat next to’ to indicate the order of the particles..

picture of the completed grid

43 comments on “Everyman 4,043”

  2. Two top faves: THROWBACKS and PRIME NUMBER.
    Liked DRAW A BLANK, TEA SERVICE and THREE (Excellent surface as well as an apt observation by PeterO in the blog).

    Lovely puzzle. Great blog!
    Thanks both!

    ADULTERATE
    Does it mean ‘rot’ in the sense of ‘to become morally corrupt’?

  3. Jackie @1
    Yes, that is more or less the “literal interpretation” that I had in mind (except that, as the clue says, it is ‘prepare to fire’). I should have been more explicit.

  4. Yep, adulterate for rot was a slight eyebrow. Throwback, otoh, went straight in (learnt the word as a child from a cousin who bred pigeons) then Spoonered it after. Nothing too quaint about ether; had surgery with it as a child and can still smell it 70 years later, shudder. Ok puzzle though, thx PnE.

  5. COTD for me was the superb ELEVENTH HOUR – the surface is priceless. Not sure the DESERT RATS would be all that impressed by their surface, though. Snap, ginf @4 regarding ETHER. MARSUPIALS are all too close here – just been collecting up their poo off our front lawn. All in all, a return to the usual service, I thought. Thanks, Everyman and PeterO.

  6. Jackie @1,PeterO@3: Prepare to fire DRAW (a gun from a holster or draw back a bow) and then your A BLANK. I’m generally agreeing.
    THREE and PRIME NUMBER excellent, but for beginners?
    Thanks both

  7. Thank you PeterO. I was also tickled by THREE for the same reasons. Yes, the Spoonerism THROWBACK was a bit torturous, when you look at it. I had to write out BOTH RACKS and then got it, without that pesky W.
    The surface for MARSUPIALS cracked me up. So far off a Paris slum. The possums in my house are upsetting when they eat the bananas in the fruit bowl and leave the skins on the floor.

  8. nicbach@6. Agree that THREE and PRIME NUMBER were good ones. I think Alan Connor/Everyman/Editor, with his broad knowledge of all types of clues, as evidenced in his Guardian Crossword blogs, and his increasingly challenging Everyman, might have felt hampered in compiling for a ‘beginners’ crossword, (which was supposedly only there as a counter to the more difficult AZED in the Observer) and has brought in the Quick Cryptic to the Guardian to fulfil the role of introducing beginners. I reckon we can let him have his head, although he might need to write a new remit for what Everyman is, or is not. It’s now just another crossword, but with a unique style, the Alan Connor Everyman. I don’t have the long history with Everyman that others here have. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as it’s fun.

  9. I knew that the Spoonerism involved racks but spent ages “racking” my brain to think of another torture device that would fit….. Got the answer but did not parse it.

    Liked: A TAD (one of my favourite words), TEA SERVICE, COUNTENANCE, PRIME NUMBER

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO

  10. Thanks for the blog , for the Spoonerism I thought of BOTH RACKS as BOW THRACKS , it is being spoken , and then mangled to THROWBACKS.
    THREE seems better now you have given the extra nuance.
    DOMINGO was one of the “Three Tenors” who became very famous in the 1990s after the BBC used Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma as the theme to its coverage of the World Diving Competition in Italy in 1990 .

  11. It did feel like back to new normal for the Everyman this week, which is more challenging than it used to be, but it is being partnered with the Quiptic. MEERKAT amused me, as did the surface for ELEVENTH HOUR and TEA SERVICE.

    I raised an eyebrow at DOMINGO as I knew of the accusations against him from an insider as well as the news coverage.

    Thank you to Everyman and PeterO.

  13. Agree with Paddymelon and Michelle. Seemed a very different Everyman to usual; I don’t think that’s a problem but timing was strange. Bali and other clues had perfect surfaces with deeper readings – this always impresses me.

    Thanks Everyman and Petero

  14. I had no trouble with THROWBACKS – I suppose it depends on whether you work out the Spoonerism visually or aurally. Liked THREE/PRIME NUMBER, SKETCH PADS, ELEVENTH HOUR and can’t quite make rot=adulterate, even as a verb.

  15. I am finding the Everyman more difficult these days. (been doing it since 1977) I still cannot hear the spoonerism in 7down.

  16. A solid one with much to like again. Favourites: SKETCH PADS, A TAD, ELEVENTH HOUR, TEA SERVICE, PRIME NUMBER, all for their surfaces. As much as I loved “spotted something” for DOMINO, felt the clue could be improved without much effort to Spotted something about/around good tenor. Thought ADULTERATE and “rot” would only replace each other by means of “spoil”, but it’s nothing new with Everymans.

    Thank you, Everyman and PeterO

  17. Hmmm… the Spoonerism for THROWBACKS only really works if you split the original phrase into “BO” + “THRACKS”. And who talks like that?! But ultimately, I think I’m won over by it.

    I feel a fool for missing A TAD

  19. Another pleasant Everyman puzzle.

    I liked the misdirection of somewhat for A TAD, the spotted something for DOMINGO, the initially clue for DYLAN, and Everyman’s jokes to make IMMATERIAL. The Spoonerism looks wrong visually but, as Roz @10 points out, it works when spoken. I thought the ‘Far-off’ in the MARSUPIALS clue could have been dropped (or was it there to mislead?)

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO.

  20. Blobbert @17
    “Who talks like that?”. I think the answer is a whole lot of people, in normal conversation. I do not think I am the only one who would have to make a point of speaking distinctly to differentiate BO THRACKS from BOTH RACKS.

  21. Alan Connor has been un-Ximenean with 16ac and 17ac, only three checkers out of seven — with those nasty double-unches sticking out. Not the sort of thing he has ever (?) done before,

  22. Agree Will@21 , not something you ever usually see in proper crosswords.
    This grid would normally have 7, 7 twice or 9,5 and 5.9 for the two middle columns.

  24. It just occurred to me that describing MARSUPIALS as “far-off beasts” is fine, since the clue references “a Paris slum”, and native marsupials are of course all far from Paris. So the clue works even in Australia. (Or here, where the Virginia opossum is the lone exception.)

    One of my favorite bits of Anglo-American terminology differences that I’ve picked up from these puzzles over the years is that a SEMI is a duplex, and an artic is a semi.

  25. Dear me Wil Ransome you’re absolutely right! Two cells missing in the centre row. I must have dropped India ink onto my foolscap graphing paper.

  28. For superb surfaces this was one of Everyman’s best – too many good ones to enumerate.

    Now that Alan has moved the Quiptic to Sunday, he has to make his Everyman harder in order to avoid the old Monday complaints about the Quiptic being harder than the Cryptic.

    Gladys@14, re 13d, if I commit adultery, will I adulterate in Hell?

    Thanks Everyman and PeterO for the superior Sunday service.

  29. A rhyming pair: STAYING POWER/ELEVENTH HOUR, which I don’t think anyone has mentioned. If so, may have missed it.

    Further to my criticism at 21, the grid is a bit unsatisfactory: the left and right are only held together by the N of ELEVENTH HOUR and the G of STAYING POWER, making it almost two separate crosswords. Normally there are more links between the sides.

  30. Wil Ransome @29
    Indeed you may have missed it, which I now see would not be difficult; I used a rather pale colour to highlight the rhyming pair.

  31. MOHAWKS I remember the hair style as “Mohicans”
    STAYING POWER – Didn’t parse this. Thought it was a homophone of “Stay in power” and entertaining was somehow a homophone indicator.
    THROWBACKS Last week’s Spoonerism breakthrough for me was just a blip. I struggle with these.
    SKETCH – new to me: Ketch sailing boat.
    MEERKAT – Couldn’t quite parse this either, I thought the whole clue was an extended definition, I didn’t spot the anagram.

  32. Angus #26, I genuinely am Observer Everyman — the apparent handle is no lie!

    Cellomaniac #28, for what it’s worth I think of Quiptic as between Everyman and weekday cryptic, as well as being of the Guardian and not of the Observer.

  33. I found this not on the easy side. I did not do the Quiptic this week, but this Everyman strikes me as more difficult than avg Quiptic. Of course, it is so subjective that there are no distinct dividing lines. What I feel is difficult could well be easy to another.

    What I find fascinating about the Everyman is the repeated pattern that PeterO mentioned. I feel I have a different sense of humour to the setter, though.

    Personally I need to cut back on weekend puzzles and it will be an interesting choice.

    Sorry for the personal thoughts. My favourites, questions and quibbles have been covered well already so I will not repeat them.

    All that is left to say is thank you for an interesting ans puzzle and thank you Peter O for a great explanation.

  34. New to this site, but I credit this with helping me to finally understand how to solve Cryptics. I went from starring blankly at the clues in utter confusion and getting nowhere for days to solving the Quiptics in less than 3 hours and the new Quick Cryptics in less than 30 minutes. Still getting truly stumped by these Everyman ones though. I thought quaint was the wordplay with Three and Twee. Is that just a happy coincidence? Anyway, I hope to become a regular poster and this has become my regular weekly stop for cryptic fun and frolics. Keep up the good work guys!

  35. Welcome Sakenotabibito@34. Keep coming back for some more happy coincidences, fun and frolics. 🙂

  36. Re 21 yes we do have here a rather strange grid choice. At least ‘Observer Everyman’ stopped short of the full swastika.

  38. This was a leetle more difficult than expected, but was fun to do. Liked “Privy to” and “Three”. Thank you to PeterO for the blog especially for explaining the Spoonerism and “Meerkat” and to Everyman for the puzzle.

  39. On the first day of Winter here, an interesting puzzle but didn’t like 18ac and 24ac -I drew a blank for quite a while

    i always like the Spoonerisms and enter them into a laptop

    Rob.

  40. A pleasant return to normality after last week.

    The spooner doesn’t really work for me. Never heard of the insurance mascot but the anagram was obvious enough.

    Think we had the green tea reference recently but I had forgotten it.

    Rot for adulterate is a bit marginal. Didn’t notice the dodgy grid.

    Thanks all and Happy Birthday Dear King (is his birthday weekend here).

  41. Hard but not impossible this time. Needed wildcard dictionary to get it all out. Loved 20 down (“three”) for the reason explained by PeterO.
    Lots of others that I loved; had no trouble with the Spoonerism in “throwbacks”.
    Struggled with 15 across (“Domingo”) and then kicked myself when I finally saw it.
    “Adulterate” is in no way a synonym for “rot”. Why not replace “rot” in the clue by, e.g., “polute”?

  42. I assumed that the meerkat was some reference that we colonials were not aware of. I loved ” privy to” and ” eleventh hour ”
    I agree with all those who say that adulterated is not a synonym, although the adult bit was tolerably obvious.

  43. Some veey good clues but 1d wasn’t one of them.
    Domingo, sketch pads, learner tools us ages but worth it.

Comments are closed.