Comments on: Guardian Quiptic 628 / Arachne

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:20:44 +0000

Hi David

I think the inverted commas indicate that Arachne’s tongue is firmly in her cheek with her ‘potty’ definition of CERAMIC – you won’t find it in a dictionary!

By: David Travis

David Travis — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:48:24 +0000

The clue for 15a had the definition (‘potty’) in inverted commas. Was this just a diversion or does this mean something in cryptics?

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:38:47 +0000

I think the quiptics do a great job (this was an excellent example). I suspect the reason they’re online only is all to do with saving money/space on the page. The only problem I had with them, when I first came across them, was thinking it was “quip”-tic. I kept saying to myself that they weren’t really that funny… There is now a very clear explanation of what they are somewhere on the Guardian webpage I think.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:04:45 +0000

Hi joyce

It was great to meet you and ‘Bert’. I’m glad to see you’re already keeping your promise of ‘lurking’ less often!

By: Arachne

Arachne — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:58:34 +0000

joyce@12 – thanks for your kind comment. Really sorry to have missed you on Saturday – we must chat next time x

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:41:15 +0000

I (‘joyce’) completed this at lunchtime and really enjoyed the surface reading of all the clues. A real delight. It’ll have to be printed out again so that ‘Bert’ can have a go tomorrow!

Thanks Arachne – I’m sorry that I didn’t say hello on Saturday. Thanks also to Eileen.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:10:15 +0000

For those not familiar with the technology, anybody can get e-mails about new posts (but sadly not thread specific as Bloggers can) by subscribing to the RSS feed for posts. HOWEVER, that is a nighmare overhead. It is far better to inform a news aggregator of the RSS feed and leave it to that program to record the occurance of new posts instead of getting e-mails.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:41:02 +0000

Good point, Derek – thanks.

It is, in fact, *never* too late to post, as the blogger gets an email of every comment on their blog, so, if it’s just a query that needs clearing up, there’s no problem. I’ve had posts weeks later.

And I nearly did mention Pamela – and Angela Rippon, too!

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:03:53 +0000

People should be more patient. It’s only Monday, the crossword is up all week so there is no rush to do it or post here. I only started doing it on Monday’s specifically to help with providing traffic here. I used to do it on Saturday’s as I had nothing to do on Saturdays. Nowadays I can make some progress and occassionally finish the prize puzzle, so keeping this back is less of a requirement. None the less, I wouldn’t mind betting there are plenty out there who also do this puzzle after Monday and think perhaps it’s too late to post. Nope! Please post, however late. Some of us have this thing on our News Aggregators via the RSS subscription, so late posts will get read. No reply probably just means “agreed”!

Eileen, I have the remembering how many Rs in geurilla problem even more extremely than you do as I can never forget Pamela Stevenson’s pronunciation on “Not The Nine O’clock News” which sounded like 4 or 5 of the things!

By: Pierre

Pierre — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:38:38 +0000

Thank you, Eileen, for coming off the bench. This is a puzzle I wouldn’t at all have minded blogging. Just right for a Quiptic. REPUBLICAN and CERAMIC were ones I particularly enjoyed. USENET I put in just because nothing else would fit – is it not a trademark?

As you’ve discovered, this blog is a quiet place, but in the hope that there are some lurkers out there who are dropping in to find out how this curious world of cryptics works, we soldier on …

Thanks also to Arachne.