Comments on: Guardian 25,191 (Sat 11 Dec)/Paul – Lizstless

By: Carrots

Carrots — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 23:17:29 +0000

Tupu: Perelman, along with Tom Lehrer , Thurber and Lenny Bruce were all born of a USA that could confidently poke fun at itself. If our Americano friends could only do so today, then their foreign wars might just prompt reflection on their absurdity…and obscenity. All the bleatings about Paul`s occasional “smuttiness” make me see red….words never hurt anyone, but bombs do!

Sil stuck for words?!? Now that`s a first!!

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:04:49 +0000

Completely agree with the Speaker @ 15.
Could have been my words this week.
Nothing to add.

By: Martin H

Martin H — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:15:22 +0000

My only slight niggle with this one is with 6d: If you’re going to use Christmas cracker humour your surface has to be completely coherent and deadpan, and ‘at a push’ somehow doesn’t go with trousers. That’s easily forgiven though, because this is as good a crossword as I’ve ever seen – anywhere: plain, no gimmicks, Paul’s unique style shines through every clue. The agility of thought behind the wordplay and some of the imagery – surface and solution taken together – puts this in a league of its own: 1d, 13d, 16d, to pick three among many. Obligatory smut I’d find simply tiresome, rb – to make that surface from ‘Georg Solti’ is really something else; and plural baps can have plural heads can’t they?

Superb Paul, thank you.

By: Robi

Robi — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 12:44:02 +0000

Thanks Paul and Rightback, who provided the explanations for my answers in some cases (e.g. 22a, 3/18). I assume Stella @ 10 is not a scientist – I knew ‘picosecond,’ but missed the pond! ‘Brazilian dynasty’ was a nice way of misleading me – I got the answer long before I could understand why it was there. The annotated solution seems to go with the explanation of Biggles @2; otherwise, there seems to be a ‘T’ missing (?)

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 11:24:14 +0000

Hi Carrots
Nice to share a liking for James Thurber whose work I first encountered in the 1950s. I also encountered and liked the very different humour of Samuel Perelman at that time.

Apparently the ‘elephant in the room’ phrase goes back to New York Times, 1959.

I’m still slightly puzzled by ‘it’s unavoidable’ Perhaps ‘ultimately unavoidable’ might be better – or am I just missing something?

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 10:40:31 +0000

That thing in brackets was supposed to be a

By: Carrots

Carrots — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 10:40:30 +0000

I thoroughly enjoyed this delightful puzzle from Paul. I had heard of “nanosecond” but not PICOSECOND or GASOHOL, both of which I had to look up.

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM had me going round in circles until I remembered seeing an art installation by “Banksy”, the graffiti artist. A demure suburban lady reclines on a couch in a room decorated with flock wallpaper, completely oblivious of an elephant covered in the same pattern. I took it to “mean” the indiffernce of affluent society to huge political, social and economic problems, but I may well be wrong.

There is also a resonance with James Thurber (to whom I have previously referred), and especially to his iconic cartoon, “I thought I heard a seal bark”.

There were too many excellent clues to single any out and I have found myself musing about a few during the past week. Thanks Paul (and Lightning)!!

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 10:39:40 +0000

I read this through on the Saturday afternoon, but my brain was a little addled from a morning ‘binge’ ( .)), so I left it till the next day, when I managed all but 2 and 6d., which I put in this morning – without cheating.

Like you, RB, I immediately thought of Brams and Liszt, but fortunately hesitated to put it in, and eventually crossing letters proved it wrong. I didn’t see the parsing of the correct solution, though – it’s difficult for me to see ‘manana’ as later. As I remarked yesterday, ‘ñ’ is a useful little letter

Thanks for the blog, and to Paul for a tough but entertaining puzzle. I didn’t know 23ac. – and can’t even imagine it now I do – but it was gettable from the wordplay

By: plutocrat

plutocrat — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 08:50:41 +0000

Stared at this one for half an hour. Got exactly nothing. Gave up. Funny how Paul does that to me. Sometimes I can get his thinking and complete the puzzle in an hour or two. Other times he seems to be on a completely different wavelength.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 08:29:15 +0000

Thanks, rightback.

I agree with your reservations about SELECT and I don’t really equate FISHWIFE with ‘battleaxe’.

I read 8,9,24 as Biggles A did and made the same assumption as Dad’sLad and tupu re ‘heads’ in 22ac.