A nice crossword from Everyman with all the usual features, which have been coloured. I imagine poor old Everyman every week thinking “what’s a long word or phrase which has the same number of letters as another one and rhymes or has some other connection with it?” and to manage to find a suitable pair is quite impressive. Many thanks to a friend of mine who explained two where I was lost.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Indicators (homophone, anagram, hidden, reversal, etc) in italics. Anagrams indicated (like this)* or *(like this). Link-words — and there aren’t many of them, a sign of good setting — in green.
In 26ac I had forgotten that the French for ‘work’ is ‘travail’ and was all at sea with the parsing until my friend reminded me.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | INSATIABLE |
At home, looked after child, one practised in being greedy (10)
|
| in sat I able — in = at home, sat = looked after child (as in babysat), I = 1 = one, able = practised in | ||
| 6 | USED |
Regularly outspends – what’s new? – the reverse (4)
|
| [o]u[t]s[p]e[n]d[s] — in retail, if something is used then it’s the reverse or opposite of new | ||
| 9 | PROJECTION |
Seeing yourself in others, as happens in cinema (10)
|
| 2 defs — the first one to do with psychology | ||
| 10 | BUGS |
Taps’ defects (4)
|
| 2 defs — devices which when attached to a telephone line enable the listener to hear the conversations, and faults as in ‘there are bugs in this computer program’ | ||
| 12 | OUIJA BOARDS |
Where rappers may make for happy mediums? (5,6)
|
| CD — one raps the ouija boards, pleasing the medium who is conducting the seance [Sorry Piers@14 that I didn’t give more detail. But with these CDs it’s all pretty vague anyway] | ||
| 15 | ANALYSE |
‘Don’t trust Ms Karenina’ said study (7)
|
| “Anna lies” — referring to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina | ||
| 16 | DIVERSE |
Sundry seabirds skinned eel (7)
|
| divers [e]e[l] — divers = seabirds | ||
| 17 | SATIRIC |
Touring, endlessly airsick: T Swift described as such (7)
|
| *(airsic[k] T) — referring to Jonathan Swift the satirist — but I can’t understand what T is doing (apart from being necessary for the wordplay): surely Everyman isn’t hoping that his solvers won’t notice that in the surface it should be J Swift, not T Swift? | ||
| 19 | PIGS OUT |
Spouting madly, | forgets name and scoffs freely (4,3)
|
| (spouti[n]g)* | ||
| 20 | GORDIAN KNOT |
Tornado king condemned as ‘unsolvable problem’ (7,4)
|
| (tornado king)* — referring to this from long ago | ||
| 23 | DRUM |
Instrument found at end of canal? (4)
|
| The eardrum is at the end of the ear canal | ||
| 24 | BANGLADESH |
Commercial plugging bracelet and pipe down in S Asian state (10)
|
| bangl(ad)e sh — bangle = bracelet, ad = commercial, sh! = pipe down! | ||
| 25 | GUYS |
Pretence detectable by auditor, chaps (4)
|
| “guise” — guise = pretence | ||
| 26 | TRANSLATOR |
One whose work might be a … travail? (10)
|
| CD I suppose: travail is the French for work, so a translator might translate work as travail — but isn’t the ‘a’ rather misleading? | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | I-SPY |
Idlers play vacuous game (1-3)
|
| I[dler]s p[la]y | ||
| 2 | SWOT |
Hauls up teacher’s pet (4)
|
| (tows)rev. — ‘up’ because it’s a down clue | ||
| 3 | THE HOLY GRAIL |
Royal High let out sought-after silverware (3,4,5)
|
| (Royal High let)* — referring to the search for the Holy Grail, see here. | ||
| 4 | ASTRIDE |
Naked, vast rider atop horse like so (7)
|
| [v]ast ride[r] — ‘naked’ tells us to remove the outer letters — if you’re astride a horse you’re atop it | ||
| 5 | LEOTARD |
Sign with frustrated announcement posted up that suits acrobat (7)
|
| Leo (drat)rev. — Leo is the star sign, drat = frustrated announcement — a leotard is a skin-tight item of clothing, so it suits (in the sense of being something that is worn by) the acrobat — ‘that’ a demonstrative pronoun, not an equivalent to ‘which’ | ||
| 7 | SQUARE ROOT |
Unfashionable origin of itself, for one? (6,4)
|
| square root — square = unfashionable, 1 is the square root of 1 so is the origin of itself — I suppose the definition is ‘one?’ in that it means 1 but I’m not sure: it seems that all of it apart from ‘Unfashionable’ is needed to define ‘root’, in which case ‘one’ is doing double duty — and it’s not an &lit. because 1 is hardly an unfashionable square root of 1 — discuss | ||
| 8 | DUST SHEETS |
DIYer uses these … these studs for reparation (4,6)
|
| (these studs)* | ||
| 11 | YOU’VE GOT MAIL |
Delivery notification from armourer in Meg Ryan film (5,3,4)
|
| It’s a delivery notification, and it’s a Meg Ryan film, and I suppose that a medieval armourer might say this, referring to someone’s chain mail | ||
| 13 | SAUSAGE DOG |
Gaga, soused, pickled: your ‘best friend’, perhaps! (7,3)
|
| (Gaga soused)* — referring to the saying “a man’s best friend is his dog” | ||
| 14 | CANTERBURY |
Cry about blokeish humour while cycling | to university city (10)
|
| c((anterb) U)ry — cry = cry, anterb = banter cycled, i.e. the b goes round to the back (banter = blokeish humour), U = university | ||
| 18 | CENTAUR |
Creature; equine netherwards, then Adamite upper region, primarily? (7)
|
| Everyman’s first letters clue: not in my opinion so good as they often are, a bit of a stretch this time | ||
| 19 | PINK GIN |
Some HP ink – gingerly, might you drink it? (4,3)
|
| Hidden in HP INK GINgerly | ||
| 21 | MEAT |
Everyman given tips in amateur theatre, being a ham? (4)
|
| me a[mateur] t[heatre] — the self-referential clue that is an Everyman feature — rather a nice clue, making use of two meanings of ham for a good surface | ||
| 22 | CHAR |
Burn most of leafy green vegetable (4)
|
| char[d] — chard = leafy green vegetable |
The T in 17a is a misdirection, making the youngsters think of Taylor Swift instead of Johnathan.
This was a rare DNF for me; I’d got PROJECTION which then made me think of LANYARD rather than LEOTARD and I couldn’t parse that! Couldn’t work out how the rapper Soulja Boy was wrangled into a ouija board, either…
John might be overthinking SQUARE ROOT: ‘square’ is unfashionable, ‘root’ is origin, and the square root of itself is one.
Sorry, I mean the square root of one is itself (facepalm moment)
Is SAUSAGE DOG meant to be a clue-as-def?
SQUARE ROOT
Agree with Mike@2
Def: itself for one?
TRANSLATOR
‘a’ seems to be there only for the surface. ‘…’ makes it somewhat better in the cryptic reading.
Liked YOU’VE GOT MAIL a lot.
Thanks Everyman and John.
I thought that this was tricky for an Everyman and thanks to John for pointing out the iffiness in several places that made this rough. I failed on SQUARE ROOT and BUGS despite looking at them for a week. Not the most satisfying crossword.
Thanks for the explanation for 12A. Never having used one, I didn’t know you rapped it.
A good puzzle that I only finished after asking for help on LEOTARD, for exactly the same reason as Karl T. I got the SQUARE ROOT in the same way as Mike. But the one that made me smile was the long Charade INSATIABLE. I got it from the Charade, not the straight clue.
Thanks to John for a good blog. I like the highlighting of the link words, I haven’t clocked that before, and agree, as few as possible is better setting.
And as always, thanks to Everyman.
Karl@1 I don’t know if I’m a youngster, but I did think of Taylor Swift first, because my daughters love her!
I laughed at YOU’VE GOT MAIL.
Thanks for helpful blog
17a is an anagram of “airsic” [endless airsick] plus t.
7a – 1 is the square root of 1, or of itself. So something that is “of itself for one” is a square root.
Came here for the parsing on Ouija Boards. Many thanks!
Anyone know where to find the answers to the everyman? apart from here of course.
Managed maybe half and then got very close once I had looked up Sundry in the Thesaurus (16A) which then unlocked a lot of the other answers. The one I didn’t get was 26A – wasn’t aware of the French meaning of that at all so I was very much stumped by that.
Think my favourite clue was 17A – took a long time to get that one but was rather pleased with myself once I managed to parse\solve it.
Came hoping for a better parsing on 12a.
Ouija boards are used to spell out answers. So the spirit would move the planchette to the “Yes” space when asked “Is anybody there?”
Rapping the table happens when there’s no ouija board and the medium contacts the spirit either directly or with “One knock for yes, two knocks for no.”
So I didn’t like that. Enjoyed the rest of the puzzle though.
Did anyone else find that the PRINT link is not working again today?
C. Henry @15 PRINT worked okay first time from my Android at 5:30am. Had loads of problems with it last week, from PC and phone, so may be an ongoing problem with the system.
I read the surface of 17a as “we could describe Taylor Swift as endlessly airsick because she’s on tour, flying from city to city”
I tried to get today’s, no spoiler but to get the pdf I had to select an old one and change the date in the bar. I know it’s early days but it’s not great it’s it
Hello! I’m probably misunderstanding the new site but how do I check my answers easily now? We used to able to wait a week and then the option would appear.. now I need to screenshot and manually check against here? I’m not sure what submitting does either. Should I hear back or receive some sort of confirmation?
Hoping either I’m being silly or these are early teething problems!
Jim @19 if you do it online?
Settings … Error Check mode … Marks incorrect letters in red …
Hope this helps.
ps. Oops! I’ve just noticed that this option is only available for puzzles that have passed the prize entry date.
That’s actually exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
Annoyingly when I load up 4108 or 4107 my answers are now gone, previous puzzles are there. Never mind! Thanks jepi
I thought ‘silverware’ for The Holy Grail very iffy.
This is the first Everyman I’ve managed to complete all by myself! So satisfying, and twinges of mental pleasure when I ‘get’ it! This is the fifth I’ve tried, with the others I had to come here to learn all the tricksy bits. Love this blog. Thank you all!
Today our publisher, the NZ Herald, left out the 1D clue, which kind of spoiled the fun for me. This week seems a bit more like the E-man puzzles I’m used to.
No 1D which I didn’t spot for ages and put swot in the wrong place. That and a number of extremely iffy clues made me chuck this in the bin unfinished.
We loved this one! Definitely not easy & took a while but some great clues. Not having 1dn in the paper was a tad annoying …!
Favourites today: GORDIAN KNOT; BANGLADESH, TRANSLATOR, OUIJA BOARDS. Thanks Everyman!
I’m clearly not a youngster. I took “T Swift” to refer to Tom Swift, the hero of a number of very bad “adventure” books and the wellspring of a large number of groaner jokes called “Tom Swifties”. E.g. “My feet hurt, said Tom archly”,
“We’ve struck oil, said Tom crudely”.
The clue for 1 down was missing in my printed version of the puzzle
(New Zealand Herald) but it was easy to find online.
A bit tough I thought. Luckily I start with 1A and then look at 1D so I realized there was no1D. I didn’t like swot – in my experience the teacher’s pet was always picked for looks. I didn’t like translator – only got it when I had all the down clues. I was fooled by T Swift but eventually got the anagram and gave a big sigh.
I liked Anna lies, Gordian Knot, bugs and the run-ons pinkk gin and astride.
I disagree with Rod up the road – I thought it was the evil twin again.
Imps for 1D. Had to guess without the clue. Otherwise fairly fun.