Comments on: Guardian 24,607 – Paul

By: smutchin

smutchin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:28:23 +0000

Brisbanegirl – unless I win the lottery, I’ll be in full-time employment for a good few years yet. The chance to do the crossword is one of the things that makes my daily commute bearable. Don’t tell my boss, but I dip into fifteensquared during quiet moments at work.

Ian S, re #27 – thanks! Likewise, I enjoyed your no.2 – once I cracked the theme. Had to plumb the depths of my trivia banks for that one. Complex anagrams seem to be a speciality of yours – quite a distinctive style!

By: tuck

tuck — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:48:03 +0000

Whoops! Brisbanegirl has already point that out – Sorry!

By: tuck

tuck — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:45:35 +0000

The Groundhog Day puzzle last year was compiled by Puck not Paul

By: Ian Stark

Ian Stark — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:11:58 +0000

Dave Ellison: Just in case Brisbanegirl doesn’t look back at this blog, this might be of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurilpa_Bridge,_Brisbane. I know the source isn’t always to be trusted but it seems reasonable. This source, however, is probably accurate: http://www.publicworks.qld.gov.au/showcase/kurilpabridge.cfm

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:48:36 +0000

Brisbanegirl:

Does the Kurilpa Bridge exist? I was looking at tensegrity (inspired by a tower sculpture I saw in the Kroller-Muller museum in the Netherlands many years ago) when I came across a reference to the K. Bridge, but couldn’t find if it had been built.

By: Ian Stark

Ian Stark — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:46:37 +0000

Picking up on the ‘pretty/quite’ discussion, one of my earliest watershed moments, when I realised how much fun you could have with words, was when my English master asked us what we thought of the phrases ‘pretty ugly’ and ‘fairly unattractive’. Hadn’t thought about that for thirty odd years until tonight!

I see what you mean about degrees of enthusiasm, Derek. Still think it’s a fair clue though.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:40:18 +0000

Brisbanegirl:

I am usually late in looking at this site. I am not yet retired, and start the Xword on the bus on the way in to work, and hope to finish it on the way back. Except for Wednesdays, when I work at home, so my comments are sometimes earlier then. No idea if I come across as different from the morning crowd.

Paul was easy to start with today (9 completed on the first run through), but I ground to a halt and failed on 1a (despite thinking EMBRYO early on).

By: GF Johnston

GF Johnston — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:26:30 +0000

Wise up! Who cheated?

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:23:27 +0000

Thanks guys. I guess when I use pretty or quite with good I don’t mean the same thing. If I use quite it’s faint praise, if I use pretty I’m reasonably, but not totally, enthusiastic. I wouldn’t use them to mean the same thing, there is level of enthusiasm different between them.

Ummm, btw, this trying out of xword freebies, I can’t find anything which allows both manual grid design (including symetry) AND solving AND export in common file formats. I was thinking off a one off for my railway’s magazine, so I don’t want spend on this. I can create a puzzle. I can manually copy it into a file format that a “player” program can read. And I have done, yee hah!!! but those should be integrated. And I still have no way to send anything useful for import into a publisher program.

Don’t clag up this thread if you know anything, find passingidiot on the IM.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:48:10 +0000

I’m arriving even later to the party after a couple of days away. I agree with the consensus of “tough but fun” (or perhaps vice versa).

Derek:
1ac – the “by” indicates that TUS(k) is “beside” FOE, so which is true in FOETUS

10c – think of “pretty good” = “quite good”.