Comments on: Guardian 25,552 – Brendan

By: Gordon

Gordon — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:17:02 +0000

Thanks Uncle Yap
I had parsed 5d differently and I see it makes better sense what you wrote.
I had STEP = Moving forward after part of flight = [F]LOCK. It worked for me anyhow!

Thanks again

By: drago

drago — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:19:10 +0000

Thanks UY. I had an alternate parsing for 5d – STEP being ‘moving forward’ and LOCK as in ‘flight of locks’ (on a canal).

By: Mr Beaver

Mr Beaver — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:42:54 +0000

RCW: Quite agree. I prefer the ‘traditional’ blog as exemplified here by the esteemed Uncle. Presumably people read this blog because they’ve attempted, and completed at least some of, the crossword in question – so it’s not necessary to spell out each and every clue from first principles.

In my case, I didn’t get 16d – but this because I’d spelled 1d as CONSATBLE, hadn’t noticed and entered AGAIN for 21a (AGA IN – I think it works…). Doh!

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:46:34 +0000

I think you are all misunderstanding the purpose and function of the blog(ger)s.

By: PeterJohnN

PeterJohnN — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:30:28 +0000

Uncle Yap, re me @ 24, please ignore my comment re 22a PUTIN. My apologies! Going back to 9a SILICON, it might have been more relevant to mention silicon chips rather than Silicon Valley.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:32:44 +0000

I certainly like it when the clue is included, and when the parsing is clearly laid out etc., but it may be deliberate policy here to let bloggers do it their own way. We have to accept that they sometimes get things wrong too, which is bound to make things less clear. The best ones correct mistakes when they’re pointed out, but of course we can’t assume they see all the comments straight away.

By: JoannaM

JoannaM — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:43:37 +0000

Aye!!

As a relative beginner, I find it really helpful to have every word of the clue parsed and the definition highlighted in some way.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:38:05 +0000

I said this a while ago – and was shot down for it, but can’t remember why – that it might be a good idea to adopt the Duncan Shiell format, which lays everything out very neatly including the clue (with underlined definition) and parsing, for all blogs.

It’s particularly good for people who haven’t bothered to solve the relevant puzzle, and for those who have, it eliminates the need to return to the paper or website to check how the clues were worded. Those in favour say ‘aye’.

By: PeterJohnN

PeterJohnN — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:24:16 +0000

A bit late in the day, but thanks to Brendan for an enjoyable puzzle and Uncle Yap for parsing a few solutions I got, but didn’t quite know why. As a general comment to UY, I seem to be in a minority, but I would like to see the definition part of the clue more clearly identified for the benefit of less experienced puzzlers. For example, 1a “as parties are organised”, 9a “a vital element etc”, 10a “compensates”, etc.

UY, I haven’t read thoroughly all the 23 comments above, so please forgive me if I repeat something already said, but
re 9a SILICON, your 2nd sentence makes no sense, and you don’t point out that Silicon is a chemical element.
re 13a MACS, you don’t mention the Apple Macintosh connection,and don’t explain the Nigerian scam, which not everyone might have heard about.
re 21a PUTIN, you don’t explain “repeatedly”.
re 22a SEES SENSE, the points could be SE, E, S, SE, N, SE.
re 5d LOCKSTEP, you don’t explain how this relates to “formation of troops”.
re 16a APPLET, you don’t explain how this relates to “simple program”.

As a general point, for the purposes of the crossword, we don’t really need to know the birth and death dates of of all the relevant personalities, and we are not going to memorise them! OK, Steve Jobs died recently, but “late lamented” would have sufficed!

By: Paul B

Paul B — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:58:52 +0000

Well, since ‘insulin deficiency results in diabetes mellitus’ (Collins), I suppose ‘hormone we all need’ is fair enough as a definition. But like Gervase I don’t think it strictly necessary. Headlessness leads to death, AFAIK, and so in our clue for ‘head’ we might consider ‘body part we all need’ as a good definition, using similar reasoning.

19ac I found unambiguous and clear throughout: I’m sorry, not to mention amazed, to see that anyone had trouble with it.