Comments on: Azed 2006 — ‘Spoonerisms’

By: AJK

AJK — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 20:47:22 +0000

I got about half of this before giving up. Did ‘Mephisto’ instead!

By: MuchPuzzled

MuchPuzzled — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 19:22:41 +0000

I found this puzzle realy hard – especially the top left corner. Marred I think by a couple of dubious ones.

1d Splatterpunk – I got “platter” ( concealed dish) in “spunk” ( to fire up ) but couldn’t work out the Spoonerism or see the relevance of “cooked apple tart” – which I now understand was an anagram.

8d Emma – I got the Spoonerised definition “letter name” but the rest is painfully obscure.

13d Worn – I think “Cers” is pronounced as Serre – so the Spoonerism works fine. “Choice of quarters” presumably refers to W(est) or N(orth) – very clever!

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:31:56 +0000

John
Sorry I addressed you as Andrew in my comment @3. I think it must have happened because you both use an old B&W photo as an avatar.

bridgesong
A maremma is an Italian sheepdog so when you remove (abandoned at first) mar (Mary almost) you are left with EMMA.

By: bridgesong

bridgesong — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:15:43 +0000

Thanks for the blog, Wil. Is it a weakness of this sort of puzzle that with the type A clues it is often possible to come up with a solution from the wordplay without ever working out the spoonerism? I know of course that in a conventional puzzle it is possible to get the answer sometimes without fully understanding the wordplay, but this seems to go a little further.

Can anyone explain what the sheepdog is doing in 8 down, apart from giving the clue a surface reading?

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:03:47 +0000

Hi Andrew
On checking the pronunciation of ALEPINE in Chambers, I thought the homophone in 6dn was ‘eely pan’ (fishy dish).

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 13:19:12 +0000

Thanks for the blog, John. I eventually was able to work all the Spoonerisms out as you have them, except ALEPINE, tho the answer has to be right from the wordplay, I thought it might be Apolline, but not sure you could get from ‘fishy dish’ to that.

These puzzles must be a brute to set.

By: Handel

Handel — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 10:18:39 +0000

We really enjoyed battling through this one, which felt quite a bit tougher than the previous spoonerisms puzzle. ‘Splatterpunk’ ‘sledgehammer’ and ‘kneetrembler’ were evocative of a particularly esoteric branch of cinema. Agree that the ‘type A’ clues are more satisfactory, but it’s enjoyable figuring out the B ones too.