Comments on: Guardian 25,520 / Paul

By: Giovanna

Giovanna — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:37:09 +0000

Thanks Paul for a good brainteaser and mhl for his explanations.

My heart sank when I saw a Mexican theme!

However the one clue which held me up was 12a, as Mallard is a locomotive and not a train. Incidentally, as most of you will know, Mallard gained the world speed record for steam traction on Sunday 3rd July 1938 whilst taking part in a series of high speed braking trials for Westinghouse.126mph was achieved whilst descending Stoke bank at Essendine. This record remains unbroken.

Giovanna

By: Biggles A

Biggles A — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:13:39 +0000

Thanks mhl. I got there in the end with internet assistance but, like Dave Ellison, needed your help to understand 2, 5 and 17 – and 25. Funnily enough, 22d went in immediately.

By: mhl

mhl — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:56:56 +0000

Dave Ellison: Doch, as they are usefully able to say here – my “(!)” meant “this is an outrageous definition”, although it did make me smile when we got it :)

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:23:05 +0000

I got MEXICAN early on but it didn’t help much with some of the Mexicans. I, too, thought I had never heard of FRIDA (though my wife knew her name, I went on believing it couldn’t be correct as I couldn’t parse the clue); however, I think I may have seen some of her work when I was in a museum in Mexico City in 1969.

I didn’t find it too hard, with the help of some googling, but I thought it was a substandard Paul. The definitions to 23d TACO and 19a SURFBOARD were particularly weak. I take it, mhl, that your use of (!) is not as in chess?

Thanks Paul and mhl – I needed you for the explanations to 2, 5 and 17d; and 22d apparently.

By: ChrisChunders

ChrisChunders — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:00:41 +0000

A colourful puzzle to brighten up the post-festive gloom and divert to mind to perhaps a land we should understand better. Very enjoyable and rewarding to dredge out of one’s mind the likes of Frida Kahlo, Rivera. My partner’s the fine art enthusiast in this house, and it was nice to have the chance to recall these without the intermediary of the University Challenge picture round! A good puzzle like this, rewarding in itself but also providing a spur to further research or reading; that’s what we come to crosswords for, isn’t it?

By: rrc

rrc — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 11:32:37 +0000

Once climbdowns went in, mexican came very quickly, and then the need to look up various mexican references on the net – not sure I was familiar with any of them This was a crossword I really enjoyed.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:09:31 +0000

Foolishly ventured away from the FT crossword and found this anything but straightforward. Indeed I have to confess that I gave up with only 14a solved and looked forward to seeing the answers. Of course it doesn’t help if you can’t get the gateway clue.Can’t believe I didn’t spot the hidden word at 24a-I think I was just demoralised by the time I got there.

9a I didn’t realise that protean meant “go and anagram”.
11a I didn’t realise that this number was a reference to the clue number.
12a Never come across rall
13a I would never have guessed that orange perhaps meant the answer was river

3d, 6d & 14d I’m afraid I had never heard of them.
17d Not a word I’d ever come across .

Thank you for the blog -and well done to anyone who solved that unaided.

By: r_c_a_d

r_c_a_d — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 09:59:58 +0000

Thanks for the blog. I was wondering how RO-RO was constructed from “from port” too: never considered RIO … Duh.

Enjoyable puzzle. SURFBOARD and HABANERA were my favourites.

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:24:40 +0000

Thanks mhl and Paul

An enjoyable puzzle with some need for checking to complement limited Mexican knowledge esp. re Frida Kahlo, though the charade is clear enough.

re Habanera, I took trip for dance remembering the old cliche ‘trip the light fantastic’.

Ticked 14a, 19a!, 3d,15d.

By: mhl

mhl — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:58:28 +0000

Thanks to everyone for the corrections – I’ve updated the post. I assumed that “trip” must be something like a dance, but the closest definition in Chambers was: “a light, short step or skip” and I don’t have either of the other two canonical Guardian crossword dictionaries here.

Chambers lists a verb sense of “to trip” meaning “to dance trippingly; to trip or dance upon” (the latter strangely being recursive) but then it has no verb sense of Habanera.