Comments on: Beelzebub 1152

By: Voulez-vous

Voulez-vous — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 19:30:33 +0000

Hi Jed!

You have inqilab in both down and across there and also picot loosest and many more! Is that right?

Also thought I could make a case for “glairy” somewhere in there, and I don’t see it? (but long since thrown the puzzle away, so can’t be sure!)
I also had “static lines” somewhere in that. I must have made a huge pigs ear of it, even without the “april fool” )
This blog does not solve the puzzle.

By: Voulez-vous

Voulez-vous — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:55:04 +0000

I was caught out by this. I knew the date and had completed other puzzles on the theme. I really didn’t expect Beelzebub to be one of “those” puzzles.
I ditched the grid, assuming an error in printing.
I realise it could hardly have been labelled “April Fool”, but, to me, it just doesn’t fit to do this with a “normal”, although hard crossword.
Sour grapes? Perhaps.
I look forward to returning to Beelzebub proper.

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:07:00 +0000

I’m not at home this weekend so I haven’t got the puzzlein front of me to check how the answers fitted with the grid, but my memory is that the answers were themselves a bit of a struggle even before I tried to fit them in the grid. I got just two answers by the end of Sunday and gave up then and I would normally expect to have nearly completed by then. When the wrong grid was printed, I found I solved the puzzle faster than normal.

By: Beelzebub

Beelzebub — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 05:32:13 +0000

The difficulty with April Fool ideas is that you can’t really announce them (what, I wonder, would people make of Ximenes’ trick of writing ‘Double Entendre’ clues for part of the puzzle, as he did when the day came round for him?). It seemed to me a reasonable jest simply to reverse the order of the clues, and to hope people spot the date and work that bit harder to spot what’s going on. But I’ve only just learned that there was a wrong grid published over Christmas, which made this particular approach less likely to be received well, as it would simply seem like another error of the same kind.

Ah well, some years before April 1st appears on a Sunday again…

By: flashling

flashling — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 01:11:10 +0000

Regretably I couldn’t get the IOS last week, so anyone care to explain the joke other that grid entries being wrong.

By: Conrad Cork

Conrad Cork — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:12:33 +0000

And I thought it was just me. Like Simon I had four entries and began to think I was getting too old for this game. And also like Simon I’m not any the wiser after seeing the answers.

Beelzebub is normally my high spot of the week, but I am going to need a long lie down now.

Was it Paul or Colin who set it I wonder.

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:45:32 +0000

From discussion in other places, it sounds like a number of solvers also made the assumption that an incorrect grid had been printed, and threw the puzzle away for the week. With no preamble or other hints to go on, I’m not sure I can blame them.

For my own part, I’ve four entries written in, and am not really any the wiser after seeing the answers. That’s from a relatively long-time, regular Beelzebub solver, so I fear this week won’t have done much to boost the puzzle’s fanbase.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:50:03 +0000

Our first thoughts were that they had printed the wrong grid …….. until we remembered what day it was! We solved the majority of the clues without having any checking letters – took us ages – until the penny finally dropped.
Much more enjoyable than the usual Beelzebub!
Thanks Jed!