Comments on: Guardian 25,482 by Chifonie

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:12:45 +0000

“The obvious thought for older solvers and those with a public school education may have been divinity as an RE lesson,”

or anyone who regularly solves cryptic crosswords?

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:33:51 +0000

chas@15 I immediately thought of Re as my daughter had an ancient Egypt school project recently and the name was spelled that way in her book, I had only heard of Ra before.

The obvious thought for older solvers and those with a public school education may have been divinity as an RE lesson, that did not occur to me at the time.

By: dunsscotus

dunsscotus — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:17:30 +0000

Thanks to setter and blogger. A nice puzzle.

Nusquam: I think you’re trying to make a sentence out of something that isn’t trying to be one. ‘ate’ is being mentioned, not used (the heart of cruciverbalism surely) so there are no difficulties with parts of speech.

By: chas

chas — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:46:05 +0000

Thanks to PeeDee for the blog.

On 24 I spent ages trying to remember the name of the calculator which slides spheres along wires – could not remember its name. I put the paper down and went for lunch. When I came back I looked at the clue again and saw ABACUS sitting there!

I always thought the Egyptian sun god was RA so I was surprised at the blog calling him RE. I have just checked the web and I see the two spellings are given as alternatives.

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:41:16 +0000

So am I Liz, I was feeling quite stupid as I wrote my comment@1

By: liz

liz — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:10:11 +0000

Thanks Peedee. Agree with previous comments that this was all very pleasant and straightforward. Glad I wasn’t the only one to spend ages trying to work out the homophone at 12ac.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:37:32 +0000

Thanks all
The SW corner was a sad (notice, no ‘pathetics’ from me)write-in.There were a few little challenges,my last two were ‘assist’ and ‘suite’ but overall rather disappointing.
Robi @9
There is a blogger on the Azed MB (cannot remember the name) who already has a hardness out of 10 scale but I guess it is purely subjective, as is mine, which is why you will never see it.

By: nusquam

nusquam — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:58:42 +0000

Thanks, PeeDee @8. That sort of works, except that I feel that a reduction proper to auxiliary ‘has’is being extended to the full verb in a situation where it is not idiomatic. Or do we take ‘ate’ as an acceptable alternative to ‘eaten’?

By: crypticsue

crypticsue — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:35:15 +0000

I too enjoy a nice straightforward puzzle and this was a good one, thank you Chifonie. Thanks to Peedee too.

By: Robi

Robi — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:52:42 +0000

Straightforward and pleasant puzzle, which I don’t think will rate very highly on the RCWhiting scale.

Thanks PeeDee for your good blog. I should have got it earlier, but my last in was FIDDLESTICKS – fairly obvious in retrospect. I particularly liked the clue for TENTATIVE.