Comments on: Guardian 24,556/Boatman

By: Neil

Neil — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:18:44 +0000

Eileen, it’s not just the Scots. Most of the west side of England properly pronounces ‘rs’; not only where I am in the deep southwest but further east and in Shropshire and Lancashire too. Yet even the Western Morning News unforgivably does this false homophone thing in its rather undemanding puzzle.

By: Phaedrus

Phaedrus — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:35:13 +0000

Back in th’old days, trams were driven onto railed turntables, which were manually wheeled round by the driver before heading off in the direction from whence they came. On a recent trip to San Francisco, I was delighted to see the system still is use there, for their famous trolley cars. A real stroll down amnesia lane.

By: muck

muck — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:05:37 +0000

Dave, I had CAR PORT too, even though I couldn’t find ORT as a boat.
Eileen, I was a little pedantic about 15dn: ‘reverse’ and ‘turn round’ are more or less synonyms.
Anyway, good to have another successful puzzle from our new setter.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:06:05 +0000

You’re right, Dave, of course, but, as has been said before, it’s not always the speed of getting the answer that’s the criterion. You can labour a long time over a clue and still be disappointed when you get the answer. This one was just such a great &lit., like 15dn, I thought, despite Muck’s [fair] comment!

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:32:57 +0000

I enjoyed this. Didn’t get 5ac, either, and I was convinced 1ac was car port, but couldn’t quite see why (for now obvious reasons).

Must disagree a little about 9d; the anagram didn’t need much tinkering to see the answer straight away.

By: muck

muck — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:06:48 +0000

As I have said before, it is great to see setters contributing to 15sqd. Thanks, Boatman. In general, I agree with many of the comments posted above. I failed to get 5ac ATISHOO, or 8dn OBSCENE, but both clues are good. I wasn’t sure about 15dn TERMINALS – the clue is clever, but trams generally reverse at their terminals rather than turning round.

By: Trench Adviser

Trench Adviser — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:56:22 +0000

This was my first Boatman crossword and I really enjoyed it. The only one I didn’t get was ATISHOO, because I had never seen that word written down. However, I was distracted and missed the homophone indicator which was silly considering it is one of the common ones. Good stuff.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:35:14 +0000

Thanks, Mhl: I didn’t bother looking it up – it was just that Andrew had blogged WHITE FISH as two words and that’s how I would have thought of it.

Smutchin: of course you didn’t comment out of turn!

By: Mort

Mort — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:06:21 +0000

I know it’s all been said before, but 9d and 15d were brilliant. Thanks a lot Boatman.

By: Tom Hutton

Tom Hutton — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:50:30 +0000

Most enjoyable