Comments on: Guardian 25,357 / Pasquale

By: tupu

tupu — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:27:36 +0000

Best wishes to you all tomorrow in Birmingham -home of back to back housing where some of my great grandparents were living about 150 years ago. I’m sorry not to be able to be there with you. Have a great day!

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:15:05 +0000

We thought this was a Most(ly) Magnificent crossword.

I have no opinion on the homophone for AUBADE, but around the area that I come from it doesn’t sound like ‘oh bad’ at all. In the Netherlands AUBADE was a very familiar word. That is, once a year, and only until the mid-sixties. At Queen’s Day groups of school children would go the village hall to sing a few songs (sometimes exclusively written for the day) in honour of Our Queen. At 8 o’clock in the morning …. Those were the days!

As I said this was a very good puzzle, fair as ever and not even that many ‘obscure’ words on our way.
We failed to get WRAP, and didn’t understand why CONDOR was CONDOR [well, we did, but we were not sure] and why TANNER was TANNER.

Nice to see the use of ‘tongue-tied don’, even if at the time of solving we didn’t understand. Thanks for enlightening us, mhl!

Only 13d (ARROWHEAD) didn’t give us a warm feeling inside.
Some setters are better in cd’s than others (we think, I hasten to say).

Yes, and then L’OREAL (6d).
Many of you liked it, and to be honest, we thought it was very witty as a crossword clue. But, we just don’t like brand names to be the full solution in puzzles (other than the ones given a mention in dictionaries).
Moreover we had a discussion on the enumeration. More or less of course, we can’t do (1’5), but I/we do think (1,5) is better than (6). The L’ stands for La (or Le, I don’t know), which is a separate word. It didn’t make any difference in finding the answer, but still.

By miles the best clue of the day: SPEED CAMERA (5d) – how brilliant is that?

Enough about this puzzle now.
Because I do not want to miss a single minute of the one-off gig that Anax, Paul B and Puck tonight are doing at Glastonbury (with Pasquale on vocals!). Eat your heart out, Bono!

See ye all (or at least some of you) tomorrow.

By: muck

muck — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:47:33 +0000

It has been pointed out to me that Chambers [o-bad'] has a solid line over the o but two dots over the a, so the 2nd vowel is pronounced as in palm. Had to get stronger lenses to confirm this!

By: muck

muck — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:35:27 +0000

Chambers has AUBADE [o-bad'] where the a is pronounced as in name.

By: muck

muck — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:10:43 +0000

My Collins-Robert gives the pronunciation of AUBADE as [obad] - [o as in eau, a as in plat]

By: medici

medici — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:47:17 +0000

Here in Wales “bad” is pronounced “bard” so no problem for those not speaking French!

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:40:28 +0000

Oh, come on.
Everyone knows that Mr Pitkin is a National Hero in Albania, don’t they?

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:23:39 +0000

Thanks for that very topical comment, K’s D. [I've been fondly hearing that [Oh I say!' in my head quite a lot in the last few days!]

My French isn’t top-class, certainly as far as pronunciation is concerned, but I’d been thinking that ‘Oh bad’ was a pretty good representation, so I’m glad to get the confirmation from an expert.

By: Disco

Disco — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:19:09 +0000

Just to chip in my first ever penny’s worth (I can’t stretch to a tanner)…

In South Wales, particularly around the Rhondda and surrounding valleys, “bad” is pronounced similarly to “bard” (especially when it’s used to mean “ill”). I doubt that was the intention but it’s not often I can contribute a bit of uselesss knowledge in this particular circle.

Thanks for the blog mhl – and to everyone else who fills in the blanks I’m left with most days.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:06:32 +0000

I don’t want to start another homophone debate otherwise we’ll still be here on Sunday night, but AUBADE comes from the French word for ‘dawn’, l’aube. It’s a French word too, obviously, and if I say it in French it sounds like OH BAD to me – but then my OH is the North-East version as in ‘when the bOAt comes in’, rather than the late Dan Maskell’s ‘Oh, I say!’ which was wheeled out regularly at Wimbledon.