Comments on: Inquisitor 1134 – Octagonal by Eddie

By: Hi of Hihoba

Hi of Hihoba — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:44:05 +0000

Oh dear. Now I’ve got to send myself off!

By: twencelas

twencelas — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:37:19 +0000

I too really enjoyed this puzzle and probably a few words from the ref. is all it merits. The last thing it would deserve would be any form of suspension.

Only down side was the quality of the final itself.

To see how easily an error can occur, to quote your own words Hihoba “So HOLLAND appeared in the puzzle as AHDLLON instead of ADHLLNO.”

By: eimi

eimi — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:02:49 +0000

I’m glad Spain won too, leaving Holland/The Netherlands to concentrate on the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

By: Bannsider

Bannsider — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:54:04 +0000

Yes indeed! Odd as officially Dutch people are supposed to prefer “Netherlands” as a name

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:24:34 +0000

NETHERLANDS is the official title used by FIFA, but the fans always chant HOLLAND…

By: Bannsider

Bannsider — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:04:12 +0000

Has anyone noticed how they are always “Netherlands” on the BBC and “Holland” on ITV(!)

Sorry Mike but I was rooting for Spain. I am even sorrier tho that I missed your puzzle.

By: Mike Laws

Mike Laws — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:38:43 +0000

If anything could have been regarded as a tip, I suppose it could have been the pale orange background tint, but that was pure coincidence, although I would have preferred Holland to win.

So near and yet so far three times now!

By: Scarpia

Scarpia — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:04:59 +0000

Thanks Hihoba.
I’m always pleased to finish an Inquisitor.They are at the higher end of my solving ability.
I do love the fact that there is usually an extra twist to work out before completing the grid,even if you do get the theme.
As usual,for me,I only twigged the theme once the rest of the grid was complete,so the little error with “Holland” didn’t hinder me.Like Colin I wondered if this was a tip from Eddie,luckily I didn’t put any money on it!
This puzzle was so well clued there was no hint of ambiguity,even to a relative novice,like myself.
Excellent stuff!
Pleased to read “ That’s enough football for a while!”

By: Hi of Hihoba

Hi of Hihoba — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:17:11 +0000

Perhaps a yellow card would have sufficed! But, unlike HolyGhost, I got the theme before FROE and so searched through all the definitions of ?RNE for anything remotely connected with the clue, before realising there was a mistake!
Sorry about my mis-reading of the quarter finals. My reading of the halves of the draw was wrong – and I attributed more to the position of the teams in the grid than was actually there!

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:05:17 +0000

Even a yellow card is maybe a trifle harsh for transposing O and N – just glad I’d got FROE before entering the scrambled HOLLAND (which, with licence, is acceptable as an alternative to NETHERLANDS).

(For a while I thought the unclued answers were the first round group winners, so tried to shoe-horn “US of A” where “GHANA” went.)

And Hihoba hasn’t got all the quarter final pairings quite right – it wasn’t PARAGUAY v HOLLAND and BRAZIL v SPAIN, but PARAGUAY v SPAIN and BRAZIL v HOLLAND.

But a good blog, & a nice crossword.