Everyman 4,089/2 March

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Another accessible and sound puzzle from Everyman this week. All the trademark clues are there if you know to go looking for them, and in fact the rhyming pair did prod me in the right direction to solve 6dn, so you can’t say they aren’t a help sometimes.

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

1 Meal from Germany, skipping starter of herring perhaps
DISH
A charade of D and [F]ISH.

3 Sweep your hand across mallard: Spooner’s lost for words
DUMBSTRUCK
A Spoonerism of STRUM DUCK.

9 Yobbo in defeat changing sides
LOUT
Everyman is inviting you to change the R in ROUT to an L.

10 See darn rowers successfully diet
LOSE WEIGHT
A charade of LO, SEW and EIGHT.

12 Ha! Giants fan lost in the country
AFGHANISTAN
(HA GIANTS FAN)* with ‘lost’ as the anagrind. The Giants could be the Philadelphia Giants, the New York Giants, the San Francisco Giants …

15 One in theatre’s rushin’ to be heard
SURGEON
Aural wordplay (‘to be heard’) of SURGIN’.

16 Son becoming cold, most pale and most painful
ACHIEST
Another letter exchange: this time of the S in ASHIEST for a C.

17 Swanky do took in virtuous knight
GALAHAD
A charade of GALA and HAD gives you the Arthurian knight.

19 As lunch, desultorily eaten, still keeping officebound, principally?
AL DESKO
The initial letters of the first seven words of the clue, and a cad. A play on AL FRESCO, it’s used for eating lunch at your desk and continuing to stare at your screen instead of going out for a walk or sitting in the staff canteen to eat communally.

20 Communicative, as expected
FORTHCOMING
A dd.

23 Of value to protect company, that’s obvious early on
PRECOCIOUS
An insertion of CO in PRECIOUS. The insertion indicator is ‘to protect’.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious
If you say it loud enough you’ll always sound precocious …

24 Abruptly: Run for it! A biting beastie!
FLEA
A charade of FLE[E] and A.

25 Got a merger in trouble? Borrow more
REMORTGAGE
(GOT A MERGER)* with ‘in trouble’ as the anagrind.

26 Pine feature of guitar
FRET
A dd.

Down

1 $500 girl loans foolishly
DOLLAR SIGN
A cleverly disguised clue, which I liked for the penny-drop moment. D is the Roman numeral for 500, so it’s (D GIRL LOANS)* with ‘foolishly’ as the anagrind.

2 Workshy mended rugs – gladly?
SLUGGARDLY
(RUGS GLADLY)* with ‘mended’ as the anagrind.

4 Somewhat froufrou top I antiqued, expecting impossibly good outcome?
UTOPIAN
Hidden in froufroU TOP I ANtiqued. Can you use ‘antique’ as a verb? Evidently you can.

5 Busy type churning feta for hearty beverage
BEEF TEA
A charade of BEE and (FETA)* with ‘churning’ as the anagrind.

6 Opportunity to hide ore, not refined
TOE IN THE DOOR
(TO HIDE ORE NOT)* with ‘refined’ as the anagrind.

7  15 suppressing this impulse
URGE
Hidden in the solution to 15ac, SURGEON.

8 Assemblages in humorous burlesque, cycling
KITS
SKIT with the S sent to the end (‘cycling’).

11 Book large hotel suite? Give us an address
TAKE THE FLOOR
A cd cum dd.

13 Hollywood funnyman seeing Scottish mountain, increasingly serene
BEN STILLER
A charade of BEN and STILLER gives you the American actor.

14 Finally ants all got slaughtered
AT LONG LAST
(ANTS ALL GOT)* with ‘slaughtered’ as the anagrind.

18 Dear Director, Rugby player Will will miss opening
DARLING
A charade of D and [Will] [C]ARLING, the ex-England captain and clandestine lover of Princess Diana. Allegedly.

19 Warning from German: sadly can’t hug
ACHTUNG
(CANT HUG)* with ‘sadly’ as the anagrind.

21 Pole performs hiphop about box
SPAR
A triple definition. The middle one is RAPS reversed.

22 Group working together rejected Everyman, tense, hiding hint of anger
TEAM
An insertion of A for the first letter of ‘anger’ in ME and T, all reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘hiding’.

Many thanks to Everyman for this week’s puzzle.

36 comments on “Everyman 4,089/2 March”

  1. Yes ‘antique’ (4d) is a verb, there’s a lot of money to be made scratching and beating pieces of furniture/string instruments to try and make them look centuries older. Kind of reverse Botox. Nice crossword, great blog, thanks E&P

  2. Very big fan of DOLLAR SIGN.
    Is there a reason I’d be familiar with the German word for danger ACHTUNG?

    Thanks

  3. Top faves: DUMBSTRUCK, PRECOCIOUS, DOLLAR SIGN, TAKE THE FLOOR and SPAR.
    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  4. Thanks Pierre.
    I enjoyed many of the entertaining surfaces. DUMBSTRUCK that I couldn’t get the Spoonerism this time. NHO of Will Carling so NoHOpe of parsing that. I go along with KVa’s picks.

    Eddie@2. Depends on how old you are and whether you watched so-called comedy post WWII when it seems that dialogue with ACHTUNG! was a very common way of stereotyping Germans. I lived in Germany for 3 years in the 70s and didn’t hear it said, although there may have been some signs around which I didn’t pay attention to. 🙂

  5. Lovely, fun puzzle. Favourites: DUMBSTRUCK, DOLLAR SIGN and TAKE THE FLOOR.
    Would the definition for GALAHAD be ‘virtuous knight’?
    Thanks Pierre and Everyman.

  10. I had never heard of the term AL DESKO, the nearest I’ve come to that is to sit on a bale to eat my lunch, but I’m glad it came up. It made me laugh. DOLLAR SIGN was another favourite.
    Thanks for a entertaining puzzle and blog.

  11. I too found the rhyming pair helpful. I was a bit stuck in the SW when I remembered to look for a rhyming pair, got TAKE THE FLOOR and then completed that area.

    My last two were DOLLAR SIGN (a favourite) and DISH and like you the former was a penny-drop moment.

    Other favourites: BEEF TEA, GALAHAD, LOSE WEIGHT, DUMBSTRUCK.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre

  12. Yes a very nice puzzle that had me scratching my head. Last one to write in was FORTHCOMING. I also really liked LOSE WEIGHT (I got it with the crossers but couldn’t work out why until I looked again), and of course DOLLAR SIGN like many others. That was an excellent week.

    Thank you Everyman and Pierre.

  14. A good challenge.

    Favourites: ACHTUNG, LOSE WEIGHT, DOLLAR SIGN.

    New for me: AL DESKO; rugby player Will Carling.

  15. 7d URGE the only one I didnt decode and its missing! SURGEON suppressing S…ON How does this parse with “suppressing this”?
    Nice puzzle. Thanks Pierre (this one apart 🙂

  16. Apologies for the missing 7dn, cosmic. A bit of cut and paste gone wrong, now corrected. To ‘suppress’ means to ‘hold in’, and URGE is held in SURGEON.

  18. Liked the $ as everyone did.
    Eddie@2, if you go to to Germany you’ll see ACHTUNG frequently on signage (where you’d get ‘Danger’ or ‘Warning’ in the UK). As paddymelon@4 says, even if you’ve not been, it’s common in films etc (whether or not about WW2) and even news items relating to that country.
    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  19. SURGEON for “surging”? That’s a bit feeble isn’t it? Well, it eluded me at any rate. I wish compilers would make up their minds about whether they are going to abbreviate German to G or D. I’d sooner it was D.
    I loved ALDESKO. Definitely going to start using that!
    Re ACHTUNG, it will be a fine day to a crossword clue is E PERICOLOSO SPORGERSI

  20. I was stuck with 22D. I had ITEM for working together, less I for Everyman and including A from anger, giving TEAM for group?

  21. Peter@20 Everyman=ME, tense=T (abbreviation), reverse that=TEM, include a hint (one letter) of anger (=A)….TEAM

  23. A good charade for LOSE WEIGHT, and I enjoyed the anagrams for REMORTGAGE and DOLLAR SIGN; the last having a sneaky definition.

    Thanks Everyman and Pierre.

  24. This might be odd, but I hadn’t thought of TOE IN THE DOOR and instead wrote TIE ON THE DOOR. I didn’t know what a tie on the door would mean, so googled it and found that it may entail a warning of some kind where a roommate doesn’t want to be disturbed while they’re up to a certain activity. I thought it was another of the Everyman’s sly definitions, this time for an “opportunity”

  26. Certainly overthought it waaaaaay too much😂😂😂 Can’t believe I missed the much more obvious answer

  27. I found this quite hard for an Everyman. It took me a few sessions to get there. I have the same favourites as KVa with DOLLAR SIGN as my number 1 – so very deceptive! Great blog Pierre. Thank you to you and Everyman.

  28. Found this difficult – more that I couldn’t parse once I’d deciphered. I also decided that the spoonerism was rubber duck (rub a duck?) with duck a rub as the very tenuous lost for words 😁 (‘rub’ as in Hamlet…’there’s the rub’ ) …yes VERY tenuous. Thanks all.

  30. Leo @26, Pay @29 – and me.

    (Wrong answer, obviously, but maybe not quite so ridiculous after all).

  31. We don’t have “Giants” in Philadelphia unless you count the grocery store chain. We have the Phillies for baseball, Eagles for American football, Flyers for ice hockey, 76ers for basketball, and Union for soccer. None of the old teams were Giants either: the Negro League baseball team was the Stars.

  32. No posts from NZ yet. I guess those of us in Auckland slept in because of the massive thunderstorm last night. A very good and even puzzle today. I liked the surface of Utopian As a guitar player I am always amazed that manufacturers go to extraordinary lengths to make brand new electric guitars look like relics of the 1950s and 60s by scraping paint and varnish off to “antique” them.

  33. Blowy on the Coromandel but no thunder. I enjoyed this although more familiar with foot in the door than toe. Al Desko is a new one on me too even though I do it frequently. Dollar was nice.

    In 24A why upper case after the colon? Just looks wrong.

  34. Got stuck on “dish” —- I kept thinking of “h” being the starter of herring, rather than of “f” being the starter of fish. Psigh!!!

    Lots of answers that I got but could not parse (e.g. “lose weight”).

    Like most others I thought “dollar sign” was brilliant.

    Braze@31: What has Philadelphis got to do with anything?

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