Comments on: Guardian 24,415/Brendan: element-ary?

By: bridgesong

bridgesong — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:45:18 +0000

Possibly (I assume you mean Xanadu) but it might also just refer to Tennyson’s poem ” A dream of fair women”

By: Andy Thompson

Andy Thompson — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:12:43 +0000

1 dn Fair vision – ref to Coleridge quotation?

By: John Dean

John Dean — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:33:55 +0000

15D Zyrian is NOT the last word in the OED. In the CD version of OED the last word is zyxt. In the online version, the last word is zythum. But Brendan DID say ‘more or less’

By: Shirley

Shirley — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:54:30 +0000

15D Zyrian IS the last word in the OED!

By: AMB

AMB — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:15:54 +0000

Agreed, a lovely piece by Brendan.

By: bridgesong

bridgesong — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:06:50 +0000

I’ve now had an opportunity to check on the Guardian website, and the answer to 1 down is vision, simply explained as a double definition. I think Duggie has got it right.

In my haste to publish the blog, I left out 19 down, which I have now inserted.

By: Mick H

Mick H — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:37:58 +0000

Yet another brilliant themed puzzle from Brendan. Had I known my periodic table better, I suppose it might have got easy once I realised what was going on, but the way he incorporated the eight abbreviations as words (I, As, Am, In etc) was beautiful – the clues didn’t stick out at all even though he had to make the element the first word to permit correct capitalisation. Outstanding.

By: Duggie

Duggie — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:50:21 +0000

I think it’s simply ‘a person or scene of great beauty’ (Chambers)

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:30:23 +0000

Re: 1 dn. Vision
The word ‘person’ in the clue led me to think that the answer was Lilian, a common first name.
I thought it might be a fanciful way of saying lily-white, which is extremely fair (skinned).