Comments on: Everyman N° 3,386 (21 August 2011)

By: PeterO

PeterO — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:28:42 +0000

Dave – thanks for pointing out the typo, which is now corrected.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:02:30 +0000

I think this should be number 3386 not 3385

By: PeterO

PeterO — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:21:46 +0000

Bryan – As I tried to say in the writeup, ‘behaves’ does not necessarily imply good behaviour; but certainly ‘misbehaves’ would do no damage to the clue, and would be more precise.

K’s D – Thank you for your concern. The eye of Irene at present is just to the south of Long Island. We have had bands of rain most of the night, with some wind, but only in the last half-hour have the gusts become fierce. So far there does not seem to be any real damage that I can see from my windows, although some have not been so lucky elsewhere on the island. The lights have flickered occasionally, and twice we have lost power for a second, enough to take my cable modem down. Here’s hoping that I can get this through.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 09:35:02 +0000

Thanks for blogging, Peter.

Usual good stuff; my favourites in this puzzle were IN ERROR for its story-telling cricketing surface, and SPANIEL.

Talking of cricket, I got ASIF IQBAL more or less straight away, because I’m a fan of the sport, but it does in retrospect look like the clue doesn’t quite work. I agree that ‘misbehaves’ would be a better definition of CARRIES ON.

(And Peter, if my recollection of where you live is correct, I hope all is okay with you at the moment – Irene looks like doing some serious damage over there.)

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:27:18 +0000

Three weeks ago Everyman had ‘nutcase’ as a solution (defined by ‘fruitcake’). The following week I commented on the blog here, pointing out the inappropriate use of this term. Then, to my surprise, in last week’s Everyman ‘nutcase’ appeared again as a solution – this time defined by ‘lunatic’. It is inconceivable that this could have been Everyman’s response to a critic, so I can only assume that its rapid reappearance was a lapse by a usually impeccable setter. It’s still offensive to people with mental health problems though.

Thank you PeterO for the blog.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:20:35 +0000

Agree with Brian .
“Stop carrying on!” means stop misbehaving.
11a Didn’t think much of this.
12aI didn’t know osier was a willow
Took much longer than most weeks

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 06:09:27 +0000

Many thanks PeterO & Everyman, this was very enjoyable.

I’d never heard of Gricer but, when the time came, the solution emerged from the available letters.

I struggled with 11a before ASIF IQBAL eventually occurred to me. I’d like to bet that he baffled many a puzzler.

My only query was 3d CARRIES ON which surely means ‘Misbehaves’ rather than ‘Behaves’?