Comments on: Guardian 24,555 – Paul

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:49:03 +0000

Very enjoyable crossword, though a couple of clues had me stumped for a while, especially working out that comfortable was a clue for armchair.

Laughed out loud on solving a couple of these solutions

Solving time 2 hrs! But I am a beginner still

By: KG

KG — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:11:49 +0000

Although I’m in Manchester, England, I’m a day later than everyone else – don’t ask.

1d & 2d more or less gave me GCSE which opened up a difficult one. Loved 20d and the 16d-19d and 25ac use of resort was very suspicious, quite rightly so.

Nice to see ‘cheese made backwards (4)’again, the example I’ve always given to people who want to know what goes on in these puzzles.

By: Uncle Yap

Uncle Yap — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:08:19 +0000

Stiofain Old Boy, I am in Malaysia, 8 hours ahead of GMT. Your 6am is my 2 pm

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:32:41 +0000

I agree with Geoff that although the anagram has a nice surface reading it suffers from the fact it is unrelated to the answer.
Otherwise I thought this was an excellent puzzle with a few laugh out loud clues (hearse, edam).
Single malt at 6.19 am Uncle Yap? tut tut.
Stiofain

By: Geoff

Geoff — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:49:09 +0000

Took me a little while to get started with this one, but FICHU led me to GUFFAW and I surmised the GCSE solutions and the rest fell out surprisingly easily. Skillful though it is to fit such a long anagram into a puzzle, this isn’t a particularly good example – the best ones have a strong &lit flavour, which this doesn’t. And like most solvers, I suspect, I didn’t even bother to check the anagram.

Nevertheless, Paul had become my favourite setter. I didn’t think anyone would ever supplant Araucaria in my affections, but he has – by a very short head, admittedly.

Long anagram apart, there are some splendid clues here, with typical Paul ribaldry (UNDERPANTS, HEARSE) and wonderful charades (I liked 22ac and 23dn especially).

As for ease of solving, it’s largely a matter of practice. Encyclopedic general knowledge is useful, of course – but doing cryptic crosswords does help this itself. Those of us who have been doing cryptic crosswords for four decades or more find them easier than when we first started! And practice at the offerings of particular setters gradually lets the solver become accustomed to their individual mindset. But I still find Brummie, and especially Taupi, trickier than most of the other Guardian compilers!

By: muck

muck — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:33:30 +0000

I had kissed & TOLD as well, even though it had to be EDAM.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:01:43 +0000

Smutchin: the cheese that is made backwards was a clue in a Guardian Xword in the 60s; my memory isn’t too good, but I think it was either Altair or Janus. I was very impressed with it at the time.

Incidentally, one of these setters furnished me with my best time for a Xword, about 8-9 minutes. Actually I did do a Paul, I think it was, about 3/4 years ago in 7 minutes something; but this was a bit unusual in that after a few seconds of deja vu I recognised it as one that had been published about two weeks before, and I remembered most of the answers. Strangely, I did not see any comment on this duplication in the letter pages or elsewhere.

So you don’t get the wrong idea, Paul is my 6th hardest setter, and I usually take 30 – 40 minutes to not quite complete it!

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:36:01 +0000

JMo: you’re doing great – stick at it! Paul is classified as ‘hard’ on this site, so even an easier one from him is a challenge – but so rewarding.

2dn isn’t really a double definition. Admittedly, a charade clue is usually a word made up of different parts, rather than a phrase made up of two or more words, but, in this case, ’round robin’, as a phrase, only really exists as the defined petition.

Smutchin: we Araucaria fans are, for the most part, Paul fans, too, according to the comments I’ve seen on this site. And Araucaria is Paul’s own favourite, as you’ll see from his website – and, as Mhl says, there’s a lot more on there now.

[I think I had that crossword hanging in my bathroom, too!]

By: Tom Hutton

Tom Hutton — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:34:21 +0000

In answer to Mhl, I thought the whole clue was somewhat tenuous. It was another one you had to work backwards from the answer with both sad and ain’t being at a remove without qualification.

By: smutchin

smutchin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:34:09 +0000

Jmo – there’s “easy” and there’s “easy for Paul”…