Comments on: Guardian Cryptic N° 25,607 by Orlando

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:34:44 +0000

Thanks Orlando and PeterO. Did struggle with this one … and like RCW I had Kristina in beautifully parsed as KRIS (can cut) with TIN (metal) A (one) … but not to be and BRASSICA is much better !

The puzzle went in bits and pieces and across a fairly long elapsed time finishing over lunch today with KEEPER and ROTGUT.

Did fail to parse the HANTS part of MERC as well – so points victory to the setter with this one ! Thoroughly enjoyed all the same.

By: Rorschach

Rorschach — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:46:20 +0000

Checked: “Name sewn into footballers’ underwear”… Close… Knickers!

By: Rorschach

Rorschach — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:44:53 +0000

Robi @9

If memory serves correctly Paul’s version was almost identical: along the lines of “Footballer’s with their name sewn into their underwear”

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:33:44 +0000

Ratkojar
I think it helps to think of food which does not go off easily.

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:50:08 +0000

I agree with Trebor about the mark of a great crossword, and like others, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. As always with Orlando, I completed this one in fits and starts, with the NE quadrant proving particularly tricky.

Like the blogger, I wondered about the use of “pose” as an anagram indicator in 7; nor was I sure about “keep” for “last” in 1.

By: morpheus

morpheus — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:10:37 +0000

kenj @25 I think the definition is “are tempting” rather than tempting, which works for me.

By: kenj

kenj — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:01:31 +0000

Is tempting acceptable as a definition in 26 ?
Surely entice is a verb ?

By: Martin P

Martin P — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:02:55 +0000

Lovely puzzle.

By: claire

claire — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:55:25 +0000

We convinced ourselves that 1ac was ‘temper’ as in ‘last’ (sort of) with the justification that a ‘temp’ ‘er’ was a queen between posts. Ah well.The rest was fun. Also fun, I should say.

By: PeterO

PeterO — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:29:46 +0000

It is curious how often an answer that seems ‘obvious’ to me when solving turns out to have some mileage in it at discussion time. Here we have two: SHUFFLEBOARD and WAKE.

SHUFFLEBOARD I always associate with cruise ships (not that I have ever been on one). Tupu, thanks for the Britannica link, which notes that the game is mentioned in Shakespeare. K’s D – Wikipedia mentions the Dutch variant sjolen.

As for WAKE, the word certainly suggests to me the presence of the corpse – but, just to muddy the waters even further, a funeral is not necessarily synonymous with an interment (or other disposal of the body). I feel that Orlando is within his rights with the clue as it stands, even if it does not conform with possibly common practice. Perhaps he might have sidestepped the problem by phrasing the clue ‘Come to party after death’.

At least we have not had a squabble over MERC.

Yet.