Comments on: Guardian 25318 – Brummie

By: Davy

Davy — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:28:23 +0000

Just one point that nobody seems to have mentioned. PEEP SHOW is a reference to the old arcade feature “What the butler saw” where you peer through a lens and see naughty goings-on silent movie style. Ah, the good old days.

By: Davy

Davy — Wed, 11 May 2011 09:36:18 +0000

Thanks Uncle Yap,

Thought I’d post a belated comment after sleeping on this one. I enjoyed the puzzle as a whole and there were loads of good clues but … I still think ENDLESS was too clever by half. If the wordplay has to be explained to make it clever then I would suggest that it’s not a good clue. I also didn’t like MOURN.
Thanks Brummie. I always enjoy your puzzles.

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Wed, 11 May 2011 08:19:44 +0000

Struggled at first with 16a. Howdahs – no, purdahs – no, word shy (unable to name) – aha! Only later suddenly saw doodahs!

By: walruss

walruss — Wed, 11 May 2011 08:16:26 +0000

Menelaus and Helen married around 1200 BC did they? How anyone can deduce that is beyond me!! There’s no literature as far as I know from the Mycenaean period, (which would be in Linear B!!)then you have the Sea Pweoples or Dorians rushing in to turn all the lights off for a couple of hundred years, then the Phoenecians sail in with their vowel-less alphabet, and hey presto! Iliad! Which can hardlyt be describesd as a historical document. That’s an oral mish-mash that could represent just about anything.

By: Tramp

Tramp — Wed, 11 May 2011 07:21:27 +0000

I loved it as I do all Brummie/Cyclops puzzles!

By: Hornet

Hornet — Tue, 10 May 2011 21:53:51 +0000

I really enjoyed this one. I had a bit of “poorliness” 2 years ago and found I had lost my cryptic logic but thankfully I seem to be getting back on track with the help of these blogs. Not only the explanations but the sometimes off the wall humour !!!

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 10 May 2011 21:24:15 +0000

I am a bit surprised by the generally luke-warm reception of this Brummie, which we thought was an excellent puzzle.
Yes, ‘Trojan’ doesn’t equal ‘of Troy’ [but we didn't notice that while solving] and, yes, SHE-WAS (7d), HAW (17d) and PEEP SHOW (26d,10) are rather weak, but overall it felt just right for us.

Unlike Walruss @32, we found the breaking up (which according to today’s Punk and/or The Carpenters is hard to do ) of Stephen Hawking a very clever move in this crossword.

Indeed, it wasn’t a hard puzzle, but so what?
For us there was just the right balance between accessibility, non-obscurity, level of difficulty, elegance and imagination.
And therefore we liked it very much.

18ac’s ENDLESS has been mentioned as a highlight, but clues like 8ac (KOHLRABI), 9ac (TOOTH) or 1d (LOTHARIO) are also splendidly written. As was in fact HELLENIC (28ac)[despite ...] .
Some might understand that in 14ac I had a déjà vu, so REHEARSE being my first entry.
Normally I don’t like ambiguous clues like 5d (STEP), but this time it was justified by 23,4,22.

It may be clear that for us this crossword hit the right note.

Thanks Brummie (and Uncle Yap for a fine blog).

By: tupu

tupu — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:56:23 +0000

Hi Pete
Just a blind spot I’m sure.
The definition is ‘everlasting’. The answer is ‘endless’. ‘Event so’ (i.e. with no end) is ‘even’.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:39:14 +0000

Sorry feel like a plonker but 18a ENDLESS is still not understood – help!

By: Martin P

Martin P — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:30:15 +0000

GF and I did this in the pub as a one-drink wonder!

Two heads are always better than one, though.

All the same, (perhaps it’s me that changes), but we seem to be on a run of easier puzzles just now: for a couple of weeks a while back there were some real head-scratchers, in fact I thought I might be losing it. I wonder if I’m alone in this?