Comments on: Guardian Genius 64/Locum – The A-Team

By: Geoff Adams

Geoff Adams — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:53:35 +0000

Yes, you’re right on two counts – 1) lar(k) in am (cf “rising with the lark”, and 2) it doesn’t quite work. I was aiming for a near-&Lit. I missed!

Locum

By: Tom Hutton

Tom Hutton — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:20:44 +0000

Thank you, Andrew

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:27:08 +0000

Tom, the Genius puzzle is online only – you can get to it (and all the other Guardian and Observer puzzles) from http://www.guardian.co.uk/crossword

By: Tom Hutton

Tom Hutton — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:53:17 +0000

Where can I find this crossword? Is it a regular feature somewhere?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:02:10 +0000

It seems my prediction was correct. From this month’s newsletter: ‘Either people found Locum’s October “all-the-A’s” Genius puzzle slightly easier than average or the fact that the crosswords are now freely available is reaching a wider audience. For the number of correct entries for October was an all time record at 398.’

And I still haven’t won the £100

By: Ali

Ali — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:23:51 +0000

I only spotted the fact that every answer began with an A after I’d completed the grid. Which, given that AUTOPILOT was one of the first clues I solved, makes me about as far removed from a genius as it’s possible to be without falling over!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:06:06 +0000

On checking, I'm slightly surprised to find that the Andy Capp strip is still running in the Daily Mirror - even more so given that its creator, Reginald Smythe, died in 1998. The modern version is somewhat sanitised, in that Andy is no longer either a chain-smoker or a wife-beater. As I said in the blog, I was lucky to see the A-theme by getting ARISTOCRACY early. This came about through my usual strategy of skimming quickly through all the clues trying spot any obvious answers. Knowing the first letter of each answer and having a good idea of the second is a huge help.

By: mhl

mhl — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:13:30 +0000

Thanks for the excellent post on this, Andrew.

I’m rather annoyed that the PDF version misspells UTC as UGC – I would wasted must less time on the clue but for that error.

A CAPPELLA: As you say, this was easy to spot from the definition and the enumeration (not to mention ELLA), but I’d never heard of “Andy Capp”…

ALARM: My interpretation was the same.

I liked the clue for AMPERSAND

Overall, I thought this was a lot of fun and not too easy – it needed a couple of sittings for me. I didn’t spot the “A” theme until far too late because of starting solving the clues sequentially, though, which probably slowed things down. It turns out this was good practice for yesterday’s Azed, as well, having never done this type of jigsaw before.