Comments on: Guardian 25128 / Pasquale

By: Pasquale

Pasquale — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 07:36:34 +0000

Belated thanks for the feedback. I agree that I’m not always playing to the gallery for laughs, but hope that amidst the more seriously challenging stuff I put out there is sometimes an element of humour. I don’t want my puzzles to be a boring grind, honest! On the Guardian’s own website I was likened to John Arlott rather than Brian Johnston. As a JA impersonator and southern country boy, I liked that (no suave Etonian me!).

By: walruss

walruss — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:14:29 +0000

Inconsistency seems to be a bit of a probbie for the Guardian, Daniel. The Times and The Independent tend to be a bit more together on that front! The DT used to be awful, with some dreadful clues if I recall, and is now a bit better. Big Dave has a good site for that one.

By: Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:22:44 +0000

It is crosswords like today’s that lend themselves to ask the question of what is the purpose of a Crossword? Certainly to entertain and educate, to amuse and to challenge and ultimately, we all hope, to complete and feel a sense of achievement – whether on a regular or occasional basis. For my money the completion of any crossword is satisfying but the understanding of each clue (and verification of this) is essential. To crack the code and then be amused by an excellent piece of wordplay is all part of the ‘game’. Sometimes we will be defeated – or partly defeated in our understanding of the answer (whether found or checked on sites such as this). In the case of today’s crossword there certainly were some excellent – and also it should be said tough – clues. I particularly admit Lulu (LUL(l) plus U (‘nobby’), Porpoise (the use of half-hearted Sorry to indicate Po(o)r) and the Lo-cal Derby (ha ha)! Sadly I slightly missed the superb derivation of P for Soft (centre) – which is a tremendous clue – in that I cracked the answer but missed the Gypsy element (centre letter). Aske and Mantel were beyond me. I could go on waxing lyrical but I’ll just say what a great challenge The Guardian offer us every day – I wonder how people compare it to the other papers. I often find an occasional tilt at The DT to be a little easier and the Times on a par – or, with irregularity, a little tough.

By: Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:09:53 +0000

A couple short of completing a pretty tough set – hard but fair – and some tremendous clues (at least once the answer was found).

By: FumbleFingers

FumbleFingers — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:13:23 +0000

Thanks for blog mhl – definitely a toughie, this one.

In the end I just couldn’t come up with ASKE to finish. Having been exhausted by the strain of having to invent MANTEL, ARRACK, BAY-RUM, and ORRA (all of which gratifyingly turned up trumps when looked up).

Another day, another failure to complete.

By: Davy

Davy — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:47:05 +0000

Thanks mhl,

I enjoyed this puzzle and wore it down bit by bit, but in the end, I failed on STRICKEN, ARRACK and ASKE.
The answers are there right before your eyes but sometimes you just can’t see them.
Lots of good, precise clues from Pasquale, my favourites being 9a (FLETCHER) and 12d (LOCAL DERBY).
Thanks Pasquale.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:12:41 +0000

A typical Pasquale puzzle [99-100% fair, bit serious, some new words], which we ultimately couldn’t finish – missing out on two couples (STRICKEN & ARRACK and PORPOISE & ASKE).
Some nice touches, but not as sparkling as this week’s Paul or Brendan.

Stand-out clues perhaps LOCAL DERBY and SOFT CENTRE.
Although, in the latter as others said ‘inside’ is probably superfluous. Moreover, I do not completely understand why Pasquale chose the word ‘gypsy’ for his device – I have a feeling that there must be words with a P in the centre that make a much better surface.

In 4d we tried every single capital starting with a T [which is 3 ...], initially opting for TALLIN (T+ALL-IN) which didn’t make sense for the second part of the clue [but an idea for a clue anyway].
I presume ‘must’ is there for the surface, just like ‘one’ in 23′s ARRACK?
Pasquale was a little bit wordier than usual anyway, the clue of 6d (PARAGONS) being another example as we eventually can do without ‘suitable for’, but it reads well of course.

In the clue of 21d I had to think of my students (under 20′s): EMAIL ‘one of our modern messages’? Well, perhaps for me, not for them!

In 26ac (MANTEL) Pasquale showed us that the (in)famous ‘on’-rule (as applied by The Times) is a flexible one in the eyes of the Guardian editor – btw, no problems with that.

When we found FLETCHER (9ac) my PinC asked herself whether this was fairly clued. Not everyone will know this character [eg outside the UK] and there’s not really an indication that the solution will be a proper noun. The definition is rather general (one doing porridge). There is the allusion to the tv series Porrdige, but then ‘porridge’ should have been capitalised. Maybe Pasquale used the ‘ie’ to make clear that we had to look for a certain character. Of course the clue is cleverly worded, but as I said we were not sure whether it was 100% fair.

Finally, 5d.
I think, mhl [many many thanks], your parsing (I CAREERING)* in VIPER is not completely right.
Even though it doesn’t that much difference, I think it has to be:
((CAREERING)* around I) inside VIPER
“One that’s careering madly around” = “One that has careering madly around”, so I (one) has (CAREERING)* [anagrind: madly] around – and then of course inside VIPER.

I didn’t want to write a long comment, but unfortunately I did.
For us an OK crossword, but, as Dave Ellison said in #9, not very exciting.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:48:35 +0000

Like others, failed to solve clues for ASKE and MANTEL.

Did not realise Birmingham= “second city”. Other Nickname(s): “Brummagem”, “City of a thousand trades”, “Workshop of the World”

Jim

By: AJK

AJK — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:36:58 +0000

Too tough for me. Many thanks to Pasquale for organising the fabulous AZED lunch last Saturday. Work comittments have meant that this slow solver hasn’t a chance of finishing AZED 2000 before Saturday.

To find out more about Robert Aske, I recommend CJ Sansome’s excellent ‘Sovereign’ thriller (and indeed the whole Shardlake series.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:37:56 +0000

No, Geoff, [Leicester] but the 5dn here is at its peak, I would say – a glorious combination of all the colours it can be.

I had the same thoughts as you about’inside’.