Comments on: Guardian 24,748 / Chifonie

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:52:16 +0000

Thanks, Derek, for still being awake (off-topically).

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:25:51 +0000

One of us, surprise, is also still up and was also off-topically disappointed.

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:00:30 +0000

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! (Remember that?).

Speckled Jim – ‘Esoteric’ = ‘secret’ is OKish, as a meaning somewhere on the list, but ‘ardour’ = ‘glow’; hardly! They might be associated (in a subdued light), but do they equate?

You’ve all gone to bed, or got caught up in a pub lock-in haven’t you? Or just got bored.

(Just to test the ‘off-topic’ limits; rather a disappointingly weak, anticlimactic finale to what had been a rather splendid ‘Torchwood’, up until this rather dragged out concluding episode)?

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:47:02 +0000

Don’t want to be too critical, but 18dn in the blog should be:
I (first person) in (CASINO)*.
(And that’s what Andrew probably meant, so again, don’t want to be too critical)

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:28:15 +0000

Thanks Andrew. I expect you meant to put COTERIE’S* at 12ac?

A pretty unsatisfactory affair I thought, although I completed it without too much strain. I certainly agree about far too many single letter abbreviations, some of dubious legitimacy surely if so many of us had to seek them out from their obscurity.
Added to that were several dodgy equivalences. ‘Pi’ of course, and Derek’s right about not needing to revisit that one. Woodwind = reed? Flight = arrow? Incurable = chronic? Tripper = junkie? And surely weight qualifies authority rather than equates with it (the full weight of her authority)?

As for cap = international, two of my uncles were capped for their school! (In our time there we only earned ‘colours’). It was a very long time ago, but one of those caps is in our local museum, complete with tassel.

By: petero

petero — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:27:12 +0000

Andrew,
Thanks for the blog. I also tried Bird for 15A, but not as a mis-spelling of William Byrd but for Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker.

By: Speckled Jim

Speckled Jim — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:16:25 +0000

Could someone explain to me in what context you would find ‘noon’ abbreviated to ‘n’? That one really came as a surprise – I was working with the idea that ‘midday’ would give me an ‘a’…!

Happy with ‘pi’ for ‘relationship’.

Glow=ardour is a new one for me, as is esoteric=secret (had to ‘check’ (read: cheat) to see that there weren’t any other anagrams that I was missing!). I’m sure there’s another potential clue there somewhere given ‘esoteric’ contains the letters of ‘secret’…

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:13:54 +0000

But people do say things like, “you would expect better of an international player” and so on. These players are capped players. So the two would seem to be one and the same. I don’t think the association is restricted to just crosswords.

By: Chunter

Chunter — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:50:42 +0000

I think we can assume that caps were not awarded to the England players in the match you mention!

By: The trafites

The trafites — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:39:40 +0000

Yes, but what I mean is it states that a ‘cap’ is someone chosen to represent his ‘nation’. And if the national team play against another national team, then they play an international match and the players could be called ‘internationals’.

But that doesn’t make ‘cap’ = ‘international’. I once saw England play Aylesbury Utd. in 1988, and all of England’s players got a run out (and capped, I guess) – but these ‘caps’ surely are not ‘internationals’?