Comments on: Guardian 24,657 – Paul

By: Barnaby Page

Barnaby Page — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:40:33 +0000

21d – I thought this worked okay on a strict reading of “classical” to mean Greek/Roman art (which none of the Tates displays, as far as I know).

By: Mr Beaver

Mr Beaver — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:48:53 +0000

Tom – I made exactly the same ‘mistake’ as you with BELOW PAR (arguably better than UNDER PAR) but eventually twigged it must be DUFFEL COAT (2 words in printed version !).
Was also held up by making 7,15 LENNIE THE LION with no justification. Shows my age….

Lot of nice clues, but frustrated not to finish it.

By: Brian Harris

Brian Harris — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:07:47 +0000

Good, entertaining stuff today. Loved the included for “FLIPSIDE” – ingenious. 11ac and 7dn v enjoyable.

By: stiofain_x

stiofain_x — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:41:20 +0000

I thought this was brilliant.
Id no problem with sick as a parrot as geoff says the question mark indicates a bit of looseness which im always prepared to accept for a great surface reading.
Ive also no problem with measure up for height I took it as meaning measure from the ground up. 9ac and 11ac were both brilliant.
One thing I would say is where was the smut? This is the first Paul I remember without any typical Paul “ooh er missus” moments. Has he been told to clean up his act?
Stiofain

By: Tom Hutton

Tom Hutton — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:02:56 +0000

I was jiggered by this as I put in below par and couldn’t bring myself to change a clue that was obviously right. As I hadn’t much liked measure up as height and thought 6dn was a bit ropey, I just thought I was being more stupid than usual and gave up. I liked 24ac and 22ac a lot.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:25:19 +0000

Well, I didn’t like this one at all, finding it really hard, and only getting half way after a very long time. I finally got 11a, 3d, and it helped me but little. The other long ones would just not pop into my head. So had to look up answers here.

I didn’t get UNDER PAR, despite thinking golf; nor 5d despite thinking betting.

I had better go lie down; I have another one to do tomorrow!

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:12:13 +0000

Ciaran, Geoff M, Agentzero: I think you’re all trying to read too much into 20ac. ‘Birdie’ in golf is certainly UNDER PAR, but ‘sick’ is more usually ‘below par’, and ‘sick as a parrot’ means something rather different (‘extremely disappointed’ is a polite version), so the clue is an iffy double definition. If it weren’t dubious, the question mark at the end would be redundant.

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:49:02 +0000

Ciaran
I have just realised that I misread your comment re 20a. Chambers defines ‘sick as a parrot’ as ‘extremely disappointed’ (as does Collins).

By: Geoff Moss

Geoff Moss — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:32:29 +0000

Ciaran
Re your query regarding 20a. Chambers does not list ‘under par’, only ‘below par’. Here are the entries from the usual references:

Chambers: below par – out of sorts, not particularly good in health, spirits etc

Collins: below or under par – not feeling or performing as well as normal

COED: nothing relevant

Derek
The pdf version had the enumeration for 13d as (6,4).

By: agentzero

agentzero — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:32:24 +0000

Ciaran, I wondered about that too but I’m suggesting something different: that “birdie is”, “sick” and “as a parrot [is in the dictionary] are each separate defs of “under par”.