Comments on: Guardian 25,178 – Puck

By: enigma

enigma — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 12:49:47 +0000

Delightful Crossword. No French refences. Quite a huitre.

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 09:02:50 +0000

Hi Dave
Thanks. I have a regular go at them and am mostly though not always successful. Of course numbers do matter in them.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 00:35:16 +0000

Stella @30, you should really tell them numbers are largely irrelevant in sudoku – any set of 9 symbols would do.

tupu @ 29. Your “useless skill” could be enjoyable tested in killer sudoku – try the one in Saturday’s Guardian for starters. They are a combination of Soduko and Kakuro and do require considerable aritmetic skills.

By: Stella

Stella — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 22:49:54 +0000

Hi, tupu and K’s D,

I know it’s late, but I’d just like to say that, if I hadn’t found my forte in linguistics, I might have become a genetisist. Structure and how to use/manipulate it has always fascinated me, hence, probably, my facility to decipher anagrams.

And thanks for the explanation about prickly things.

I tell number-shy people that a sudoku is a two-dimensional Rubik cube

By: tupu

tupu — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 17:39:15 +0000

Hi K’sD
Thanks.
You are right re Sudoku. I can solve one and if I meet it again shortly after, I can easily walk straight past it without realising we’ve ever met. I am actually quite good at them and have learned a lot about how to do them, but I have yet to find any wider application of this useless skill. At least with crosswords I can bore my non-solving friends (and some solving ones too) by talking about them.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 17:24:37 +0000

I was only teasing, tupu, as you know. But one thing’s for certain – we’ll learn more from crosswords than we will from Sudoku. Have a good weekend.

By: tupu

tupu — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 17:15:46 +0000

Hi K’s Dad
Thanks and sorry, I meant to check the spelling. I feel bad about this because some of my best friends, while not actually fruit flies themselves – I think – do spend a lot of time among them.
I expect you are right re old Sonic here. As noted @18, the morphogen (I imagine this is a ‘form controller’) is named after the character (but his little friends are named after proper hhs). I seem to remember this question of form development processes was a major interest of Alan Turing.
Ah well. One lives and learns and, hopefully, forgets. What would life be like if all we learn from x-words actually stuck?!

By: cholecyst

cholecyst — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:46:18 +0000

Clever stuff and good fun – apart from 27d – SHED. Very easy to spot for regular solvers but very unfair for the occasional visitor.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:30:02 +0000

Tupu’s link @ no 13 may well not be a spoof, but I think the clue is just referring to our little cartoon friend.

And if I may put in a late effort for this week’s pedant prize, the fruit fly is actually Drosophila, or more precisely Drosophila melanogaster, which has served biologists for several decades in genetic research. Its name comes from the Greek, meaning dark-bellied dew-lover; Eileen and tupu knew that already, but it’s probably news to the rest of us (unless of course I’m dumbing down Guardian crossword solvers, in which case apologies and have a good weekend …)

By: Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:08:28 +0000

Excellent – and witty too! Liked quite a few clues: Fight, Amber, Roebuck, Selfridges, John – lovely surfaces to many of these.