Comments on: Guardian 24923 – Pasquale

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:53:39 +0000

Been away for a week so only just doing last week’s crosswords. Surprised no-one else commented about 8d (ministry). This made me laugh out loud and in the Paul class!

By: cholecyst

cholecyst — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:32:14 +0000

Koran. Re pedantry. I had to wait a long time, but I knew someone would rise to the bait!

By: koran

koran — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:12:27 +0000

cholecyst – you wrote

“Don’t worry,Lopakhin . Pedantry is the 15squareders raison d’etre (sorry about the missing accent.)”

You’re also sorry for the missing apostrophe I assume – it should be 15squareders’???

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:44:00 +0000

Rob, re #44, only I forgot the definition.
It should have been:
Highly valued Czech painter very softly made a statement about the origin of art (4,11) [bit long, I know, but even so - much appreciated!]

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:23:47 +0000

Had to get “her” to finish the last 3, and had to use Chambers gadget for some.

I trust the arty side of this group who didn’t know DIRAC finally understand where us scientists are coming from when we complain about arty names.

Umm, maybe I’m getting old, but weren’t RUSH and CHARGE also more or less interchangeable in a military sense?

By: Median

Median — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:20:06 +0000

Excellent puzzle, Pasquale! Some really clever (but fair) clues and challenging (but not ridiculously obscure) words. Also, like cholecyst @29, I think many of the Guardian’s cryptics are too heavily weighted towards the arts, so I was happy to see Dirac, Attenborough, lead-free and ataxia here.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:49:21 +0000

Sil Re: #39

As I sort of said – your posts here are also “Much Appreciated” – brilliant clue!!

By: sandra

sandra — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:36:36 +0000

thank you pasquale and thank you uncle yap.

i enjoyed this one very much and was frustrated by it in some measure. my knowledge of science and maths doesn’t stretch to 12a or 2d, but i got absurd, and checked the dictionary for surd. pons asinorum also defeated me. but there was a lot of fun too. flying saucer, almshouse and catheter made me laugh. so i failed on 3. but it’s bound to happen sometimes, and at least i have learned something. i wouldn’t want this sort of xwd every day, but we don’t get that.just hope we get one more to my level tomorrow!

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:28:33 +0000

Cheers Sil

After many years working in IT industry I am now ‘semi’ retired & work from home; part of my daily ‘routine’ is to go out in morning, get Guardian and sit for a coffee at a very nice coffee shop in Windsor and ‘have a bash’ at the crossword. I get as far as I can, usually do pretty well and I prefer to resort to dictionary/thesaurus etc only for confirmation of a possibility.
With Pons Asinorum – realised it was an anagram, didn’t ‘get it’ straight from definition but I did have the ‘P’and other crossing letters – P?N? A?I?O?U? – and remembered the Euclid connection!
Haven’t seen your clue before – will give it some thought now; first thought ‘is definition a Czech painter?’ or maybe just ‘Czech’; painter often RA; maybe very softly is ‘PP’; origin of art – ‘A’; made statement – mmm – spoke, orated etc !! Am thinking ‘out loud’ as I type – will have a ‘proper’ go in a few minutes.
Cheers Rob

PS Did you get that FOOT/BALL (1,4,2,3,6) on here recently (Jerb if I remember correctly giving you a ‘Paul’ clue.)

By: DorothyS

DorothyS — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:14:12 +0000

I don’t recall ever coming across ‘pons asinorum’ before, but what a great phrase! I can’t wait to drop it casually into some suitable conversation.

Many thanks for a challenging, science-laced puzzle!