Comments on: Guardian Cryptic N° 25,621 by Crucible

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:35:27 +0000

Only finished this crossword today [after making a start last Friday following a pub do (hence not being capable of finishing anything except a glass of wine)].
I am not around that often nowadays, but when I am there must be a good reason.
We would like to say that this was a delightful puzzle.
OK, it’s not a pangram this time ( ), and yes PeterO, I agree with you about the enumeration of 22,17 feeling uncomfortable, but.

The Debussy references were quickly found – 22,17 is French, indeed, but obscure? (don’t think so) – and the puzzle as a whole was very accessible.
Also nice to see, apart from the Debussy clues, so many other clues referring to music. They gave the crossword just that bit extra (to us, that is).

Not the hardest of Crucibles, but certainly one of his most elegant(ly clued).
While we liked the “definition” in 3d (SPORTS CARS) – probably right up RCW’s street who constantly asks for definitions that are a bit less obvious – , the COD award goes to 16d (ISOLATED): simple construction, beautiful surface.

Excellent!

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:39:19 +0000

PS. Correction: my last sentence should be: “(The latest Chambers allows “Mosel” for the wine but calls the river the Moselle.)”

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:36:53 +0000

JoannaM-
Moselle is the English spelling too, and the clue does not specify the German spelling, which would be unusual in an English crossword. There was a discussion about this under the crossword on the Guardian site. (The latest Chambers allows “Mosel” for the wine calls the river the Moselle.)

By: JoannaM

JoannaM — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 22:44:29 +0000

Thanks for blog which explained many clues that flummoxed me. I was surprised by “German river” in 13d though. The German river is Mosel not Moselle which is the French spelling.

By: PeterO

PeterO — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:25:38 +0000

Ape #38 Good question. Certainly in chess and cards the standard abbreviation is plain Q. Perhaps a u is added because it generally hangs out with q. A google of “qu elizabeth” produces plenty of hits (including, it seems, the French qu’Elizabeth).
We have had discussion on 15² before now on R, and I think the consensus was that it was most likely to be found as a little flag on a steak.

By: Ape

Ape — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:36:43 +0000

Can someone explain to me why

Queen = QU in 18 across,
Rare = R in 9 across?

Where do these abbreviations come from?

By: james

james — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:41:31 +0000

Debussy wrote a cantata called “La Demoiselle Élue”

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:35:21 +0000

And wasn’t it ‘The Buff’?

By: darkstarcrashes

darkstarcrashes — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:14:45 +0000

RCW if I recall from my early days walking home from games at Filbert Street the sports edition of the Leicester Mercury only had half time scores, not full time. Still no mean feat though.

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:01:38 +0000

Seriously hard work, needed to come here to understand half the clues despite “getting them”.

Re diddly dee. Ignore all the wishy washy comments about what certain types of music are called, insultingly or not, the term originates from the Celtic tradition of passing on instumental parts of tunes oraly via the mechanism of singing the instrumental parts using diddly dee type words. The process was refered to as diddling. Other uses of diddly dee are therefore later and derivative.