Everyman No. 3498 (20th October)

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Lorraine:  Good morning to you all.

Nine anagrams this week, and as you should all know by now these are my favourite clue types.

Well, what can I say, I was stumped at the last hurdle by two clues, 17dn and 20dn and had to enlist Nick’s help. Well done Nick. Never heard of Brassie before and had I tried a little harder I probably would have got 20dn.

I hope you all enjoyed the solve as much as I did.

Big thank you to Everyman.

Reference 18ac -> Towed in a hole

Across
1. Leave name on pot in specialist language (6)
JARGON (GO+N) after JAR
4. Small telescope agent put in front of good girl (8)
SPYGLASS SPY+G+LASS
9. Fit to eat from deli? Be prepared! (6)
EDIBLE (DELI? BE)*
10. Rebel, warty, let out (3,5)
WAT TYLER (WARTY, LET)*
Wat Tyler was the leader of the peasants revolt of 1381
11. Merry individual in charge of rowers? (3,4,3,5)
ONE OVER THE EIGHT pun on the cox being in charge of the rowers
oxforddictionaries.com defines it
“have one over the eight
(British informal): have one drink too many.
[probably from the assumption that the average person can drink
eight pints of beer without getting drunk]”
Nick: Not true! 😉
13. Father to study certificate for show (3,7)
POP CONCERT POP+CON+CERT
15. Some without a home, in a state (4)
UTAH hidden: withoUT A Home
17. Little woman in punt with husband (4)
BETH BET+H ref. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
18. A tall nurse treated comic actor (4,6)
STAN LAUREL (A TALL NURSE)*
I suppose it could be “that’s another fine mess…”
21. Potentially great, one guy in a French film (5,3,4,3)
ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (GREAT, ONE GUY IN*)+UN
23. Crack marksman still (8)
SNAPSHOT SNAP+SHOT
think photograph here
24. Guide by hand (6)
MANUAL dd
25. Forever in entirety, possibly (8)
ETERNITY (ENTIRETY)*
26. Keep terriers in check (6)
RETAIN TA(the terriers) in REIN(check)
…
Down
1. One imposed on, pensioner supporting US soldiers (3,4)
JOE SOAP OAP after JOES
reference G.I.(joe) – the British equivalent was Tommy Atkins
2. Inflate article during climb (5)
RAISE A in RISE
3. Old boy playing violin in ignorance (8)
OBLIVION OB+(violin*)
5. Drink, especially pleasing thing, make unknown (5,6)
PEACH BRANDY PEACH+BRAND+Y
6. Channel in front of gondola, say (6)
GUTTER G(ondola)+UTTER
7. Reptile flying at gorilla (9)
ALLIGATOR (AT GORILLA)*
8. Withdraw cash (7)
SCRATCH dd
12. Make waves, as the sea may? (4,3,4)
ROCK THE BOAT cd
14. Ruler in old marquee entertained by head (9)
POTENTATE (O+TENT) in PATE
16. A Stuart warring close to watercourse in flood (8)
SATURATE (A STUART*)+(watercours)E
17. Reportedly noisy golf club (7)
BRASSIE homophone: BRASSY
a brassie originally was a no.2 wood with a brass faceplate
19. All in on processing a wool extract (7)
LANOLIN (ALL IN ON)*
20. Not as busy in class? (6)
LESSON pun on LESS ON(i.e. not busy)
22. Father eating last on menu, a Dutch cheese (5)
GOUDA ((men)U in GOD)+A
…

20 comments on “Everyman No. 3498 (20th October)”

  1. Good puzzle as ever.

    Thanks Lorraine (& Nick); I agree that the average person can’t drink eight pints without being drunk! I did like the clue to ONE OVER THE EIGHT.

    I also particularly liked SNAPSHOT and RETAIN. The usual problem with homophones in that down here in the South, we would pronounce ‘brassy’ as ‘brarsy,’ so not the same as BRASSIE.

    I had to think twice about RAISE=inflate, but it is in the sense of house prices, I think.

  3. Hi John,

    Whenever ‘study’ appears in a crossword clue, the replacement word is often ‘con’ and more usually ‘den’.
    I only know ‘con’ in this sense from crosswords and have never heard it used in speech.

    The definition is :-

    con [kon]
    verb (used with object), conned, con·ning.

    1. to learn; study; peruse or examine carefully.
    2. to commit to memory.

  4. One of the meanings of “con” is “study” but don’t get the connection in 8dn between “scratch” and “cash”. Also unhappy about the parsing of 16dn

  5. A typically pleasant Sunday morning solve with no queries.

    Jovis@4 – Lorraine’s parsing of 16dn looks fine to me. One of the meanings of “scratch” in my Chambers is “cash, ready money (sl)” and I suspect plenty of other dictionaries contain it.

  6. Thanks Andy. Very new to all this and would appreciate some help! I can see how SATURATE is formed and did enter it in the puzzle but without fully understanding the clue. Surely SATURATE is a verb and I couldn’t see any indication for a verb in the clue. Probably being very thick…

  9. Thanks Lorraine – the explanations are really helpful, especially when you give a bit more detail for those of us new-ish to solving.
    I didn’t understand the ‘con’ bit of 13a; the ‘bet’ part of 17 a or the ‘god’ part of 22d

  10. Found this tougher than usual and ended up with 5 unfinished which is rare for me with Everyman. Never heard of BRASSIE the golf club.

    And I would be destroyed after 8 pints!

  11. Brassie so called because it was a wooden headed(persimmon) golf club-about three wood loft with its sole plate made of brass. I suspect this term was of Scottish origin. One over the eight may have stemmed from the days when we would be toasting ourselves when we had drunk eight pints by eight o’ clock-in those days pubs opened at six!!

  12. Cannot get where the g in 1 across comes from. Also never heard of Joe Soap. But probably no one will enlighten me as here in NZ we get the crossword a month later than the UK.

  14. Very good Xword.

    Strange but true, at lunch we were discussing old names for golf clubs! That was before I sat down to do the crossword in the pm.
    Niblick, mashie et al!

  16. This kiwi is happy to wait a month for the herald to publish it. in fact I could never bear to do any x word on line. Nothing like having the herald copy to scribble all over. Don’t think I’d be any good at solving without the scribble,….

  19. I agree with Vanessa – I’d rather wait a month than do a crossword online. Crosswords are a tactile as well as cerebral no to mention emotional experience. If I did a crossword online I’d miss the workings out in the margin and the way the pen stops working when I’m lying on the sofa. The only annoying thing is having to wait a month for a new one when I return from a trip back to the UK.

    After a couple of weeks of success this one stumped me. I’m kicking myself for not getting 1D!

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