Comments on: Guardian 24,802 / Puck

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:17:43 +0000

Hello Craig,
Don’t worry; it’s not you, it’s me…
Just happened to mention in passing (or so I thought) a personal bugbear, perhaps not the time or the place, as Rover wasn’t actually guilty this time.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:12:22 +0000

Craig

No, you asked a perfectly reasonable question about an example that had been put forward.

Welcome to the site – and please keep asking questions about things you’re not sure about: that’s what it’s here for – and, anyway, we enjoy these ‘debates’!

By: Craig Jones

Craig Jones — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:44:31 +0000

Eileen # 18: Sorry, I’m afraid I am the guilty party for starting off the “First Post” debate yesterday (it wasn’t meant to be a debate, honest!)

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:14:08 +0000

Good morning, Sil, if you’re still there.

Of course I agree with you about ‘by’ and ‘holding a gun’.

I know you weren’t really serious about the parsing of LITHO but, yes, students do always talk of studying English [sorry!] Lit., rather than Literature – but literature is not ‘a story’, whereas practically every week, in crosswords, LIE is.

What I really wanted to say is that you reminded me that I meant to say something about the LE HAVRE anagram – as you say, a particularly appropriate one and I would add that a French port is an appropriate place for veal to be cooked!

By: Paul (not Paul)

Paul (not Paul) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:23:15 +0000

Hmmm…I didn’t think it was that great and perversely, I didn’t think yesterday’s was that bad.

Maybe just too hard for me.

I especially thought the capitalisation of PA was unfair.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:40:46 +0000

Oh, and I forgot to say that I especially liked 17ac.
Because, as some people know by now, I don’t like pointless anagrams. And this one was – although simple – rather clever.
Veal can indeed be cooked in port.
And that port isn’t the port we’re looking for.
Just great.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:26:13 +0000

Re #19:
Eileen, of course, I see that ‘by’ (3dn) is needed to make it proper English, but I still think that this clue should have been un-by-ed (is this proper English?) in one way or another.
And, re 15dn, ‘holding a gun’ is absolutely not the same as ‘gun holding a’. I can understand that Puck wants to have the ‘holding a gun’ combination, then thinks this is not completely right and subsequently adds a question mark.
But is it right? I don’t think so.

Re 10ac:
LIT is often given as an abbreviation of ‘literature’, so I don’t think saying 3-out-of-10 is fair.
I know, HO for ‘however brief’ is silly, but it’s just as silly as LI for short ‘lie’.
En principe.

Why is PA in 27ac written in capitals?
I saw immediately that it could be ‘pa’ (when in lower case, not unimportant), but my partner in crime thought the uppercase was unfair.

Even so, a very good crossword!!!

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:26:23 +0000

Sorry, Ian, so you did. I didn’t look carefully enough – but everyone got so hung up on ‘first post’. I don’t understand how I PL escaped so easily!

Re 1dn: you’re right, ‘the odds’ would be better. In solving, I just took it as ‘the odd [letters]‘ and was happy to do that.

I do realise that I make more allowances for setters with whom I feel on the same wavelength and am more picky with others – but I don’t think I’m alone!

Enjoy your weekend

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:04:11 +0000

…I agree the rest was terrific, though.

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:59:27 +0000

Eileen,
Hello again.
I did actually mention the awful I PL in comment 26 yesterday.
(Please also see comment 50. Yes, 50! And there’s more..).
I’m still not 100% sure about 1d. It’s “the odd” (the odd what?) that’s niggling. Would “the odds” be better?
Oh, I don’t know….

I need to take a weekend break…