Comments on: Inquisitor 1187: Not Funny by Loda

By: hounddog

hounddog — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 16:54:29 +0000

I sort of knew the quote – I thought it was ‘political’ jokes which threw me for a brief moment until the penny dropped. It needed Google to remind me that it was Will Rogers, though.

By: kenmac

kenmac — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:35:40 +0000

Re: #1
Thanks HG for the explanation of 31a – on reflection, I didn’t have it.

Re: #2
Thanks NMS, I kinda did know the Magpies and Owls really, I just get grouchy about people making assumptions that everyone knows everything about football. Keeps me going, I suppose!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:27:32 +0000

Thanks, Kenmac, for the very comprehensive blog with grid and all. Enjoyable puzzle from Loda, with the theme clear reasonably early as it did look like Presidents filling those white boxes which it’s v useful to have set out in the puzzle in the Indy Weekend. I did get the idea of the repeated names all right leading to the 11. Solving then led to the amusing quote which was new to me and very interesting to find out. Google gave the details via Wikipedia if I recall. You’re right about the Owls and Magpies teams. I think the lack of capitals in the clue is covered by inclusion of “so to speak” in the clue.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 09:35:34 +0000

The wordplay for 31a was the last one I tumbled to – it’s “terms” (i.e. last letters) of thE largeR ladieS jusT.

Not a particularly stiff challenge. (No quibble from me about NUT, owls & magpies.) I did puzzle over the “8 from 11″ part of the rubric, and even noticed that some names belonged to more than one president, but I never put the two together. I was looking for some defining attribute, such as “led their country into war”, not just a set of presidential surnames that could be fitted symmetrically into a grid …