Comments on: Guardian 25,496 / Crucible

By: David W

David W — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:07:13 +0000

I'm with Biggles A at #1 in being disappointed with Crucible's use of some kind of private symbolism in 15, and the consequent obscurity of 1. I also did not care for the non-dictionary obelix. Perhaps I'm just a poor loser, but I think a better puzzle might have from having either the rainbow theme or the pangram - but not both.

By: Robi

Robi — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:10:53 +0000

Too busy yesterday to respond – I got YELLOW quite quickly, so the rainbow colours revealed themselves early on; entertaining puzzle.

Thanks mhl for the blog. As a useless piece of additional information, I found that a pre-Elvis country version of HOUND DOG by Charlie Gore & Louis Innis was recorded at King studios – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)

By: Giovanna

Giovanna — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 23:58:12 +0000

Thanks,Crucible for a fun puzzle – once I got in to it!Thanks, as always, to mhl for explaining the ones I guessed!

I didn’t spot the hidden green for a while and went for the highly dubious erba hidden in beer barrel ( Italian for grass, which is green) – far too devious for my own good sometimes!!

Giovanna

By: Gervase

Gervase — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:02:22 +0000

I forgot to mention that I did spot that the puzzle was a pangram, which helped with a few recalcitrant answers. Strangely, pangrams are something that I usually DO notice, unlike Ninas or hidden themes. My most egregious ‘failure to notice’ was in a Brummie puzzle a few years ago, which contained the words SNOW and WHITE, as well as the names of all seven dwarfs. But because he hadn’t flagged it up, I missed it entirely, despite finishing the crossword. D’oh!

By: stiofain

stiofain — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:07:09 +0000

I found the pangram useful too with the j and k answers. Very enjoyable and great to see one of Crucibles too rare outings. Loved the Elvis clue.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:00:41 +0000

Thanks mhl for the blog and to Crucible for an enjoyable puzzle.

Tupu @10 – I was struggling with my last in – 8ac – until I realised that in order for the puzzle to be a pangram there needed to be a J in the solution. Hey presto: Sarajevo! So, not boring – useful….

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:29:49 +0000

Thanks mhl and Crucible.

An excellent puzzle with some witty clues. I didn’t notice it was a pangram – I gave up looking after one a couple of weeks ago when I had been pleased to signal it and the response seemed to be ‘how boring’!

I agree with Gervase about Limousines. Given the word links directly to Limoges and Limo is a customary abbreviation for it, there didn’t seem much cryptic content left.

I particularly liked ‘lake’, Hound dog, and yellow.

By: mhl

mhl — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:08:38 +0000

Hi Gervase – you’re quite right in assuming that I just had Asterix in my mind when I wrote the preamble :) Thanks for the correction…

NeilW: thanks for pointing out that it’s a pangram – I’ll update the post, since I (as usual) completely missed that.

By: r_c_a_d

r_c_a_d — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 12:43:01 +0000

Thanks for the blog.

When I saw the instructions I thought “this could be tricky … Unless it is just 7 colours of the rainbow”. 4 and 19 quickly confirmed the latter and the colours weren’t hard to find.

But. I found some of the other clues quite hard and didn’t get 1 or 15.

By: dunsscotus

dunsscotus — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 09:30:12 +0000

Many thanks to Crucible and mhl: most enjoyable. To BgglesA@1. It may be a bit RC, but I’m very used to ‘PP’ for ‘Parish Priest’ and therefore have little trouble with ‘P’ for ‘Priest’. I’ve met it before in puzzles.

Particularly liked the Elvis clue.