Comments on: Guardian 24,640 – Brendan

By: Owen Jones

Owen Jones — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:51:00 +0000

ton = 100 in cricket. To score a ton means to score 100 runs, though a century is a more comment term for the same thing.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:10:48 +0000

Ton = 100? In the country where I come from, a Ton = 1000 kg.
And then: weight = time??
I am sorry, but not everything is acceptable.
That is, not for me.
Having said that, I still think this crossword was a cracker.

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:07:50 +0000

Sil
Century is a pretty standard device for clueing TON meaning 100 ( 100 mph is commonly a ton )
As for music clues I try to send one each week to Pauls competition, where i see you are a regularly commended poster, but with little success apart from my
“Tiny Irish singer smells like monkeys” (7)
I remember an excellent big clue for the Tom Waits quote “Id rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”
but dont remember which setter.
Stiofain
btw I was 7 in 1972

By: Fletch

Fletch — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:56:11 +0000

Ton = 100 = century.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:35:09 +0000

One more question.
Responses 9,10,11,13 and 17 all more or less praised the ETON clue. I am sorry, but we can’t see why. TON = Century??
We thought of the middle of “fifteenth” + the middle of “century” + the word ON (as in: from now on).
Apparently, that’s not the way to look at it.
Which is the right way?

By: Paul B

Paul B — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:30:52 +0000

They’re not necessarily ‘signalled’ with anything. Yeah, some have a question mark if the surface ends up leading naturally to it, and some have an exclamation mark for the same reason. But there’s no hard and fast rule that dictates they *should* have either. My current fave ‘The jungly mass one cleaves’ didn’t have one, as far as I can remember, and quite right too.

‘Are philanderers’ and ‘womanise’ are directly synonymous: hate to sound rude, but try thinking about the cryptic grammar for five seconds or so before taking that headlong, and somewhat perilous leap.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:44:48 +0000

19D would make sense if only it were:

“We accept sultan’s people will philander” (8)

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:25:05 +0000

Very enjoyable puzzle I saw a connection with 1down ACID (though I didnt like the clue) as Aldous Huxley also wrote “The Doors of Perception” about his experiences with LSD.
This is where Jim Morrisons band “The Doors” got their name, I was hoping to find that they had did a version of The Eagles song “Desperado” for another subtle reference but alas it wasnt to be.
Stiofain

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:06:47 +0000

A really good crossword with some very clever clues.
We enjoyed this one a lot more than Brummie’s (slightly overrated) entry a day earlier.
8d was the last one we got. Well, we assumed that it had to be TEST. Never heard of the river Test, but we thought of test as in “test match”, but then it is a pity that “test match” has already been used in 14d. Moreover, we think that in this clue, “that’s” is superfluous.
Ciaran, thank you for the blog.
Although we think that 4d should be seen as: P(AN ACE)AN.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:28:00 +0000

I finally figured it. I already had NEW WORLD so I managed to let the split answer create the illusion I was only looking for one word. Even though I read the answer as three words when I’d put it in, so half of me was looking at it one way, the other half another. The two halves never spoke to each other.

Call the hospital.