Comments on: Guardian 25,277 by Bonxie

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:48:33 +0000

One more vote for a bit too tough for the few sweet moments yielded. Some truly obscure SOUPs making it even less fun.

Somehow I banged out MINESTRONE, giving me the way into 9A, at which point 80% of the non-themed clues were done, and I thought it would be smooth sailing from there. Turned out not to be.

ORT, amusingly, is a very common non-cryptic puzzle word.

MEAN for dirty left and still leaves me cold.

I liked the twisted clue for ADDERS, and RISQUE did nice work with the theme. It’s always nice to see a theme get twisted in a couple of places, although I would have liked at least one to play on “nine” rather than “soup”.

Thanks for the blog, PeterO, and the rather difficult puzzle, Bonxie!

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 09:32:26 +0000

A bit late in the day – it being the next day now – but I’d just like to add a note on the ‘license/licence’ debate:

The analogy with ‘advise/advice; devise/device’ in incorrect, since here, as often happens, an unvoiced sound in the noun becomes voiced in the verb.

As for ‘practice/practise’, I think the only axplanation is analogy with the above, just because of the similar spelling, nothing to do with etymology. The case of ‘licence’ is different, because of the preceding ‘n’. One could argue for ‘licent’ as easily as for ‘license’

By: tupu

tupu — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 08:12:03 +0000

Hi Martin
Thanks.

By: Radchenko

Radchenko — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:35:00 +0000

I flunked out on this well before I even flunked the Rufus on Monday. I made heavy work of yesterday’s puzzle too. Bad week at the office.

Still, thanks mightily for the blog and the explanations, congrats to those who solved it, and to everyone else who didn’t, thanks, I don’t feel (quite) so bad now.

By: Martin H

Martin H — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:55:16 +0000

tupu – see Monday’s Rufus @ 55

By: tupu

tupu — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:47:41 +0000

Hi carrots @31

Thanks. I too enjoyed your pun. I’m glad that you at least seem to have read my attempt at a discussion (Rufus @51 and 52). One feels a bit let down when someone ‘asks for help’ and then ignores it when it’s offered. But at least it has clarified my own mind a bit.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:05:18 +0000

Perhaps it was supposed to be ‘gruelling’ in that literal sense. Great joke if so, but … bit of a risk.

By: PeterO

PeterO — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:47:02 +0000

Chas @28 – Yup, I get a squiggly red line under licence, and it likewise objects, for example, to haemorrhoids and hæmorrhoids, but not hemorrhoids. I always feel that simplifying the -ae- and retaining the -rrh- is straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Which is particularly ill-advised with haemorrhoids.

By: Dad'sLad

Dad'sLad — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:22:06 +0000

Thanks PeterO,

Phew! Not just me then. This was the first time in at least 6 months that I have started and not finished a weekday puzzle before leaving for work. I note ‘slog’ has been mentioned a few times and that’s what it felt like for me. More positively I really liked 7d.

And Carrots@31, I liked your pun. Thankfully Lionel Bart was not au fait with 22d otherwise it would have been ” Ort, Glorious Ort” which somehow seems less poetic…….

By: Angstony

Angstony — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:56:30 +0000

Thank you PeterO and Bonxie. Whew, that was tough! I got 8d fairly quickly, which I thought was a very nice anagram — questions about spelling notwithstanding — but it all went downhill after that... not the puzzle, but my ability to solve it. I would definitely have failed miserably without Chambers, Wikipedia and OneLook (for wildcard searching). That said, having found the more difficult solutions that way, I rather enjoyed working out the clever wordplay elements. The only one I failed to parse was 19d — it never occurred to me that the word 'marmite' could have a meaning other than that [disgusting] proprietary spread.