Comments on: Guardian 24,409/Brendan – Anyone for tennis?

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:33:13 +0000

Great, original puzzle from Brendan again. I kept chugging away at it and it all eventually fell out. Nowhere as difficult as yesterday’s Pasqual, in my view. I got 1dn reasonably quickly, and, because I had put a putative L at the end of 24ac, I thought 8dn must be something and black, following a colour theme; so this held me up for a while.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:26:35 +0000

Oops, my explanation of 25dn got missed off the blog for “technical reasons” (aka cock-up on the spreadsheet front). Now added, but your reasoning agrees with mine.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:24:03 +0000

Having just typed in that request for help I see the answer: ‘an extreme of passion’ is P OR N!!

By: Geoff

Geoff — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:21:11 +0000

Very clever linkage without having just one theme, and some fantastic clues.

25dn is clearly PORN, but I can’t see how this clue works. ‘An extreme of passion’ could be P or N, and I suspect the whole thing is an &lit. Can anyone help?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:30:12 +0000

It’s not a homophone – to “blue” money is to squander it (Chambers gives this meaning, and says it’s probably derived from “blow”).

By: Ygor

Ygor — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:11:44 +0000

In 4-down, “Misspend” is meant to work as a homophonic synonym of “blue” or “blew”, but isn’t the tense of the verb wrong? One blows one’s wad, doesn’t one?

By: mhl

mhl — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:36:33 +0000

Great puzzle, and thanks for the very clear post on it. I wondered if 12 across can be read two different ways, either with "lake" or "pike" as the definition, since (apparently) a lucerne hammer is a type of pike in the weapon sense. But then "mostly lake" would have to be LUC, and I don't quite see how that would work...

By: Fletch

Fletch — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:32:16 +0000

Terrific puzzle chock full of pennydroppers. Brendan/Virgilius is right up there with my favourite compilers.

By: Mick h

Mick h — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:11:38 +0000

Sorry, I see what you mean – and that’ll be why it needs to be spelt that way.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:06:52 +0000

Mick – I was thinking of “Bridget, without husband” as being a vague surface reference to Bridget Jones. I know it’s not really relevant to the clue.