Comments on: Guardian 25049 – Paul

By: Frances

Frances — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:35:00 +0000

Thanks, Gaufrid. I just couldn’t see that one – as with so many other clues till coming to this site!

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:26:55 +0000

Hi Frances
‘Ether’ is an anaesthetic therefore it numbs or is a ‘number’.

By: Frances

Frances — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:22:45 +0000

11ac Please would somebody explain how one gets “Ether” from “number”.
Thanks

By: Carrots

Carrots — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:33:02 +0000

A perfect day in the garden: hours wiled away with an excellent Paul (thank you Paul!)and a couple of glasses of chilled Rose….watching seven species of birds perform an action replay of the Battle of Britain over the bird feeders. Bliss…as was PARDON MY FRENCH and CONSUMER DEMAND. Lovely!

By: Mr Beaver

Mr Beaver — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:26:12 +0000

Sil (@20) – if you were a gardener, slug pellets would be very familiar items

By: Mr Beaver

Mr Beaver — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:24:27 +0000

Good fun, even though we didn’t quite finish it (only started at 9pm, and it’s getting late…) – but Uncle Yap, why the reference to Don Q’s horse ?
Have I missed Rosinante putting in an appearance recently ?

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:22:01 +0000

As one who criticised Paul’s recent crosswords as being too Middle of the Road [what an awful band that was] I am with everyone who said that Paul was back on form today.

Intelligent clueing/cluing [I still don't what's right] with TRICORNE as a particular highlight because of its misdirections [as tupu #17 rightly pointed out].
Best clues, though, WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT and LITTLE SLAM [even if it is a very easy anagram].
We thought 16,22 (the infamous PARDON MY FRENCH) was fine too, but at the same time a bit contrived [at least, we thought - for example, there's no cryptic role for *** within the construction - don't worry, I do see 'the fun of it'].
And unlike others we were not fully convinced by (16 22) for MERDE (as PMF is not really referring to FRENCH swearwords), but OK – maybe we would have liked a “?” behind 16 22.
But this is only a minor quibble about this very fine crossword in which only SLUG beat us [in the absence of any form of resources].

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:18:04 +0000

FumFin @ 18

Please don’t worry about Araucaria.

He’ll probably live longer than Methuselah who lived to the age of 969.

By: FumbleFingers

FumbleFingers — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:49:14 +0000

@NeilW – sticking firmly off-topic, I’ll just say I did actually agonise over my choice of words in the first place…

It seems like Araucaria’s been around long as the Queen, and I can’t really imagine either of them handing over the reins until the bitter end. Maybe as you say, 25017 4d implies he plans to die in HARNESS.

Admittedly it was only in jest, but a couple of hours ago I couldn’t quite bring myself to ponder publicly whether Paul & Brendan knew something about Araucaria’s health, which was why I eupemistically substituted “retirement plans” (apologies for lowering the tone).

By: tupu

tupu — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:24:54 +0000

Thanks UY and Paul.
An excellent but a hard one to get back to, full of teasing but well-crafeted clues. It took me far too long, but it felt good to solve it all and see why, and not to feel ‘cheated’ or disappointed by an answer even once in the process. I found it specially hard to get into the clues and P’s ‘Delphic oracle’ mind, being often misdirected by the cluing – e.g. thinking 20a must be an anagram of rector with some reference to Chelsea included and the answer being possibly a pensioner, before it clicked! Sometimes, like others, I guessed the answer and then saw why, but even this was not easy for me much of the time. A quick solution would have demanded much more flexibility of response than I could muster, I’m afraid.