Comments on: Financial Times no.13,781 by GAFF

By: DeclanOR

DeclanOR — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:53:33 +0000

I did this puzzle in the US on August 30, where I have lived for over 40 years. Like the non-UK resident above I was flummoxed for a time by 1 ac – I had the anagram letters and the possibility of the word ‘results’, until, prompted by the “Today …” beginning to the clue, I Googled “August 25 UK” and Lo and Behold, the first reference was to “News for August 25 UK, GCSE Results”. Not having ever spent much time in the UK, nor having ever heard of the GCSE, (I’m Irish) this was a godsend; it was there for the taking.

Nevertheless, ‘lackaday’ and ‘aerobics’ got me.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:58:58 +0000

Further to 4, I should of course have thanked Gaff for a puzzle which I enjoyed and Ringo for the blog.

I should also apologise for “getting there results”: of course I meant “their”.

By: Ringo

Ringo — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:54:31 +0000

Thanks, all, for your comments – and thanks to Gaff, too, of course.

Like you, Pelham, I think some commenters have been a bit harsh; I wouldn’t say that the theme is particularly parochial, although I have to agree to some extent with Uncle Yap’s observation that a category that can be stretched to include ‘Somali’ and ‘Applied Business’ is really barely a category at all…

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:49:42 +0000

I was not going to comment on this puzzle, but I cannot leave the balance of comments against it. It is a puzzle in a UK newspaper with a theme marking a day of importance to a large part of the UK population (even some people in Scotland may have relatives in other parts of the UK who were getting there results on the day of the puzzle).

The puzzle is well structured, with the separation of 1ac from 4ac allowing a reference to 1ac in the thematic clues, all of which could be deduced readily enough from the subsidiary indications.

While GCSE may be UK specific, the set of subjects including three languages from widely separated parts of the world can hardly be said to be parochial.

By: Uncle Yap

Uncle Yap — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:59:17 +0000

Gaff made a gaffe with his parochial theme with such disparate subjects; somali, chinese, home economics? Why not theme WORDS and then every word in the dictionary would be fair game.

Nope, I did not enjoy the puzzle at all.

By: Conrad Cork

Conrad Cork — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:43:59 +0000

Maybe a bit harsh Brian? All the answers, except 1, were far from unknown to anyone. And even 1 could scarcely be anything else, given the anagram fodder.

Whoever and wherever you are Gaff, I salute your achievement.

By: Brian H

Brian H — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:30:43 +0000

As a solver who doesn’t live in the UK, and moreover as a solver for whom such an examination is well over sixty years in the past (when it used to be called something else) this Xword was nothing more than a load of unknowns.
And, moreover, un-cared abouts.