Comments on: Guardian 24383: Paul — Rainbow Nation

By: smutchin

smutchin — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:57:35 +0000

I enjoyed the EQUATOR clue (guess it’s a matter of taste) and I’m sure it’s &lit. Like Geoff, I got SPUTUM first and SOUTH AFRICAN from that, then the rest fell into place. A nice puzzle and easy enough for me to complete about 3/4 of it.

(Btw, I’ve only recently discovered fifteensquared and this is my first comment on a blog post here, but I’m sure won’t be my last… love the site)

By: muck

muck — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:02:25 +0000

23ac EQUATOR: the original explanation by Jetdoc was put very clearly, as was her further explanation of &lit. I still don’t like the clue, but did say I enjoyed the puzzle.

By: Fletch

Fletch — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:08:11 +0000

Muck: I would suggest you haven’t been reading the responses when you’ve queried this type of ‘lacking definition’ clue before, others have explained.

By: muck

muck — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:34:26 +0000

Thanks Jetdoc. I was never sure exactly what was meant by &lit.

I enjoyed the puzzle: the theme wasn’t to hard to find. Only 4dn and 23ac didn’t work for me. 3dn IOWA was great.

By: jetdoc

jetdoc — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:26:15 +0000

Sorry, meant ‘reasonably confident’.

By: jetdoc

jetdoc — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:25:48 +0000

23ac: EQUATOR. I couldn’t see a defn.

It’s an &lit clue, with the definition and wordplay all in one. I always feel wary of declaring a clue to be &lit, in case I have got it wrong, but I’m reasonable confident about this one.

By: muck

muck — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:17:07 +0000

23ac: EQUATOR. I couldn’t see a defn.

4dn: CAPE TOWN. Vixen could have been ‘cat’ or ‘cow’ at least for misogynists. Chambers has ‘personal’ as “one’s own: of private concern” etc, which I suppose you could interpret as PET in the sense of ‘pet name’. Not a nice clue.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:01:42 +0000

4dn: I agree with Andrew – PET used adjectivally = ‘personal’, and the rest as jetdoc suggests.

After staring blankly at this crossword for a few minutes, I suddenly spotted SPUTUM (good old Paul), from which I saw SOUTH for 25ac, and then the linked clues fell out pretty easily. Nice one.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:52:18 +0000

In 4dn, maybe PET (adj) = “personal”, as in expressions such as “pet name” or “pet project”.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:10:34 +0000

It’s commonplace to use ‘one’ for ‘a’ or ‘i’, and so I don’t think that it’s unfair to use the numeral.