Comments on: Guardian 25,369 – Paul

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 21:15:42 +0000

Thanks, Andrew, for the explanations to a few. Like several others, ONEOPHILE went straight in – I really must remember how to spell it. That held me up in the bottom left for some time.

Haven’t we seen G8 for PUTIN before?

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:24:28 +0000

And if I were to be very picky, 1 has two square roots.

By: NealH

NealH — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:38:03 +0000

If I were to be very picky, shouldn’t 17 be “Sound of the sound of a snake” since hiss is the sound of the snake and hys is a homophone of it. I suppose I’m just a bit annoyed because I interpreted it quite logically and spent a while looking for something that started adda.. or vipa.. before I got the y from key signature. Other than that, I found this quite a nice, challenging puzzle, although I did forget about Mallorca and was trying to work out why a shopping centre should be either a Maj or a Min.

By: FranTom Menace

FranTom Menace — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:39:28 +0000

What a great puzzle! This was the first from Paul I’ve managed to complete myself at work, leaving none for poor old Fran to help with when I got home. I couldn’t parse ‘biceps’ although I got the answer, but did know that it’s the singular from my old Ladybird book of the body!

3d was one of my favourites. My eye was drawn straight to 2d which I got right away, a very amusing clue! I feel very clever today.

By: Robi

Robi — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:21:04 +0000

Very entertaining crossword, made more difficult by reading 5,1 as 1,5 - I thought it was a Grauniad typo when I found that 1 had to be octopus (doh!) Thanks Andrew for a good blog and explaining the parsing of BICEPS. I thought CEP was an acronym; I should know better. I also failed to connect TUT with Tutankhamun/Tutenkhamen/-amon! I'm glad to see MALLORCA spelt/spelled correctly rather than the News-of-the-World version. I didn't know Luigi NONO, although the clue was sufficiently clear to get the answer. PHOTOSTAT is going back a bit, and I hadn't realised it was originally a trademark. I particularly liked PAT ON THE BACK and HYSTERIA.

By: gm4hqf

gm4hqf — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:35:02 +0000

Thanks Andrew & Paul

I am another ‘pat on the head’ entrant which made 7d and 8d make no sense. Gave up, went back to it later and it all fell into place.

Quite an enjoyable puzzle.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:20:18 +0000

Thanks all
Quite enjoyable although not a product of a ‘master’.
I did get slowed at the NE corner because I also used ‘pat on the head’ but on correcting the rest unravelled easily.
Square root was the most enjoyable.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:11:02 +0000

Paul is one of a decreasing number whom I regularly get beaten by, but not always, and not this time, ye hah.

Matt @ 4, commit cep to memory. It comes up in crosswords regularly. I’d never seen it used elsewhere either when I was just starting.

By: liz

liz — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:59:50 +0000

Thanks for the blog, Andrew. I thought this was a little tougher than Paul’s puzzles have been lately — and a lot funnier! Quite a few made me smile…

By: Geoff

Geoff — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:31:01 +0000

nusquam @19: Gosh, you’re right – I’ve just checked it in the dictionary. I was thinking of princeps/principes.

That means we must also have the delightful ‘quadricipites’.