Everyman 3627

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Another good one from Everyman this morning, with some trademark multi-part clues.

 

 

 

 

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

definitions are underlined

Across

1  I take a pew behind vicar and consider again
REVISIT
A charade of REV and I SIT.

5  Irritable snake consumed by desire
WASPISH
An insertion of ASP in WISH.

9  Lawyer thus left one with expression of surprise about appeal
SOLICITOR
A charade of SO, L, I and IT in COR!  IT for ‘sex appeal’, which is standard fare in crosswordland, but which nobody in real life uses any more, I fancy.

10  Disgust agent felt, deprived of tips
REPEL
A charade of REP and EL, which is [F]EL[T].

11  Taken in, all right, perplexed? Here’s unorthodox route to solution
LATERAL THINKING
(TAKEN IN ALL RIGHT)*  Brilliant anagram.

You’d need to use LATERAL THINKING to get the answer to this:

A businesswoman lives on the seventeenth floor of a block of flats.  Each morning when she goes to work, she takes the lift to the ground floor.  But when she comes home from work, she gets off on the tenth floor and walks up the stairs back to her apartment.  Why?

Answer at bottom.

12  Understanding English with my entertaining course
EMPATHY
A charade of E and PATH in MY.

14  Quickly name city
PRESTON
The city in the north-west is a charade of PRESTO for the musical direction for ‘quickly’ and N.

15  Unopened flower sadly obscured, not constant
ROSEBUD
(OBS[C]URED)* with ‘sadly’ as the anagrind.  I guess Everyman is referring to C as the speed of light, a ‘constant’.

17  Stupid, we adapted with time running out and became aware
WISED UP
Same trick as in the previous clue.  It’s (S[T]UPID WE)* with ‘adapted’ as the anagrind and ‘running out’ as the removal indicator.

19  Liberal club in process of suggesting ideas
FREE ASSOCIATION
A charade of FREE for ‘liberal’ and ASSOCIATION for ‘club’.  A technique in psychoanalysis originally devised by Freud where one word, or image, may spontaneously suggest another and give an insight into the patient’s mental state.

21  Staff put up with criticism
STICK
Not a dd, but a td – a triple definition.

22  Friend, mine, put away pound
PALPITATE
A charade of PAL, PIT and ATE.

23  Reduce bleach
LIGHTEN
This is a dd.

24  Strike from trade union, acceptable act on reflection
WALKOUT
A reversal (‘on reflection’) of TU, OK and LAW.

Down

1  Sun in rising always showing purpose
RESOLVE
SOL for ‘sun’ in EVER reversed.  ‘Rising’ works because it’s a down clue.

2  Servant against working late
VALET
A charade of V for versus or ‘against’ and (LATE)*

3  Alien supporting pledge, empty source of comfort
SECURITY BLANKET
Again, because it’s a down clue, it’s BLANK for ’empty’ surrounded by SECURITY for ‘pledge’ and ET for … well, you know who ET is.  Think Linus from the Snoopy cartoons.

4  To agree in all respects
TOTALLY
A charade of TO and TALLY.

5  Line up and send love
WORSHIP
More down clue shenanigans: a reversal (‘up’) of ROW for ‘line’ and SHIP.

6  Dog‘s price doubles on board outside front of inn
SPRINGER SPANIEL
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this setter likes his multi-part clues.  SP for ‘starting price’, RINGERS for ‘doubles’, followed by I for the first letter of ‘inn’ in PANEL for ‘board’.

7  Stamped proof of identity covering trip men arranged
IMPRINTED
An insertion of (TRIP MEN)* in ID.

8  Type of element in a journal kept by female
HALOGEN
An insertion of A LOG in HEN gives you the name of a set of elements in the periodic table which would roughly be equivalent to 7 down in a crossword.  Chlorine, Bromine, etc.

13  Annoying exercises with chain restricting energy
PESTERING
A charade of PE and E inserted in STRING.

15  No arbiter expected to lose heart
REFUSAL
A charade of REF and US[U]AL.

16  Stand up, ordered to get cleaning utensil
DUSTPAN
(STAND UP)*

17  County town in Scotland, small
WICKLOW
A charade of WICK and LOW for the Irish county.

18  Strong bet with inside information
PUNGENT
An insertion of GEN for ‘information’ in PUNT for ‘bet’.  Good surface.

20  Love possessed one turning up in a state
IDAHO
More down clue reversals: this is O plus HAD plus I with ‘turning up’ as the down clue reversal indicator.

Answer: because she has achondroplasia.

18 comments on “Everyman 3627”

  1. Thanks Everyman and Pierre

    The variation is that if it was raining, she took the lift all the way to the seventeenth floor.

  2. Thanks Everyman and Pierre

    I was unable to parse:

    6d SPRINGER SPANIEL
    17d WICKLOW – which I discovered is a county town in Ireland – but now I see that I should have googled WICK as a town in Scotland (never heard of it of course!)
    15A ROSEBUD

  3. Thank you Everyman and Pierre.

    I enjoyed this, LATERAL THINKING, FREE ASSOCIATION, SECURITY BLANKET and PUNGENT were fun.

    SPRINGER SPANIEL reminded me of Pete, the farm dog where I lived when a girl – he spent most of his time with me trying to help, especially when blacberrying by biting off blackberries and dropping them into my basket.

    My lateral thinking can’t be much good, my answer was “to get to the seventh heaven”, I still don’t understand yours, Pierre.

  4. Enjoyable as always. I could say that some of the clues seemed a bit complicated for an Everyman, but as Pierre said, that is the not-so-new setter’s style and the clues were fair.

    Thanks, Everyman and Pierre.

  5. A few problems with 17d, which I ended up guessing correctly, but flew through the rest. Pretty much what we expect from Everyman.

  6. Cookie @3
    The simpler version of Pierre’s answer is that she was too short to reach the button for the seventeenth floor (achondroplasia being a common cause of dwarfism).

    PeterO’s variation raises the question of why she doesn’t carry something suitable on other days. Perhaps she walks the rest of the way to get the exercise, but on rainy days she feels too gloomy to bother.

  8. Re the lateral thinking problem. There are at least seventeen floors in the block of flats as it’s not stated that she lives on the top floor. Therefore I would suggest that the lift itself is fairly large to accommodate all the people who need to get out on different floors. If the lady works a normal day, then there would probably be other people in the lift who are also returning from work. Why doesn’t she ask one of them to press the button for her ?.

    By the way, a good puzzle as usual. No particular problems. I think my last one in was WORSHIP which took me ages to solve and parse.

    Many thanks to Pierre and Everyman.

  9. I really enjoy this Everyman’s style. I liked the triple and the very nice anagram for LATERAL THINKING.
    Re 15: in maths, I think c is generally used for a constant, without the need to invoke the speed of light. For example, when I was at school, the equation for a straight line was presented as y = mx + c.
    I guessed the woman had a friend on the 10th floor that she visited every day after work. The rainy day addendum helps dispel that idea.
    Thanks, Pierre and Everyman.

  11. Got there in the end although I can confidently say that I would never choose British geography as my specialist subject.(Irish = British? not sure but anyway…..) Also, pleased that “achondroplasia” hasn’t found it’s way into these clues before – never heard of it! Thanks to all.

  12. After a slow start I managed to finish this one, though there were a few that I guessed as I couldn’t parse them e.g Springer Spaniel. I liked Preston, palpitate, resolve.
    Thanks Pierre and Everyman.

  13. I could complete only half of this. Too complex for me.
    17d why mention Scotland when the the answer was an Irish county?
    Are we supposed to think of the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands?
    14a Preston is clever, but I didn’t get it.
    As for multipart clues I do not like them. For me they are too complicated and no fun at all.

  14. I think the answer to the reason she can go to right to the top on rainy days is that she has her umbrella and uses the point of the umbrella to reach the higher buttons

    in 17d does’low’ really mean small?
    6d was a bit contrived for me, i have never heard ringer being used for double without the ‘dead’ –
    otherwise very enjoyable….

  15. Thought we weren’t going to get started. Went round twice before we got more than solicitor. After we got started though, it all came out in relatively short order.

  16. All good. And I enjoyed the rainy day addition to the little lady puzzler.

    Thanks Everyman, Pierre and PeterO.

  17. Glad the antipodean commenters enjoyed this puzzle. And Vanessa has of course explained the rainy day variation of the teaser that Peter O offered us. I’d never come across that one.

  18. I’ve been working through some back issues as I missed many due to having to work weekends. This was a most enjoyable puzzle though I did not like the parsing of SPRINGER SPANIEL despite guessing it correctly. Enjoyed PRESTON, ROSEBUD (which I had parsed incorrectly but chuckled when I got it), WORSHIP and PUNGENT. Didn’t particularly like WICKLOW or FREE ASSOCIATION. Too obscure and too specific respectively.

    Going to start on this week’s one now and get ajump on my Kiwi colleagues. 😉

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