Comments on: Guardian 25624 – Boatman

By: Sophie

Sophie — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 03:46:34 +0000

Hi my loved one! I want to say that this article is awesome, great written and include almost all vital infos. I’d like to look more posts like this .

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:53:40 +0000

I thought this was a well-constructed and amusing puzzle. (And only one self-reference!)

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:21:27 +0000

Well, well, there are some ‘camps’ here today, at least two.
At first, it looked like this would be a slog as it was quite hard to get into the puzzle. But as it opened up itself, well, it opened up itself.

I do understand when some say “it’s more clever than fun”.
But we thought it was clever and fun.

A typical Boatman as far as the theme is concerned.
Different boards, different game – all treated differently.
2d (WILD BOAR) was misdirectingly easy – yes, misdirectingly, which is in fact the clever thing.

Good crossword.
Initially, we thought we would never gonna make it.
But eventually we did.

On his website, Boatman still thinks that he’s the B in my ABC of Crosswords, but there are Brendan, Brummie and Bradman too.
However, when continuously producing so many thoughtful puzzles, I will not complain.

Thank you, Uncle Yap, for the blog.

By: Mitz

Mitz — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:24:44 +0000

Thanks Uncle for the blog; thanks very much Boatman for the puzzle and for bothering to drop by. I have no problem with themed puzzles generally (though I quite understand why some people don’t like them) but this one, I felt, had so much variety and misdirection that it kept one guessing right to the end. Very tough, and so very satisfying to finish.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:24:01 +0000

How sweet, Wolfie.
Sadly, as some posters like to point out, I don’t have a soul.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:16:18 +0000

I enjoyed it too, though it took me a while.

RCWhiting @48 – I agree with your views about themes in crosswords. Today’s Boatman demonstrated a creative and complex use of board games as a theme – much preferable to puzzles in which the theme constitutes a straightforward list that the solver either knows, or can easily look up (such as titles of songs by Elton John! Eurgh…)

This is the second time recently that I have agreed with you RCW. Are we becoming twin souls?

Thank you UY for your blog, which helped me with the parsing of NAVAJO.

By: Mr & Mrs Jones

Mr & Mrs Jones — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:31:11 +0000

We enjoyed this, with some struggle. 22a’s dd was easy for us in Nottingham – ayup me duck!

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:24:17 +0000

Mr Nick @ 44 Welcome back.
“Am only just realising that when there’s a theme, it’ll invariably have all the different ways that the key word(s) could be used (durr!) Well, I could get to like this…”

Sadly this is not so.Too often a theme is just a list of objects belonging to some googlable category, probably devised largely for the compiler’s personal pleasure.
When we get a theme which is used imaginatively (like today) we celebrate. Well,some of us do.

By: tupu

tupu — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:48:29 +0000

HI Eileen

Apologies. I tried to search through when Median had said he couldn’t parse it and UY had said ‘Scottish slang’, but I obviously missed the one and only place it was.

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:47:31 +0000

Hi, Gervase@37; I once knew a boy from Warrington who not only played /lju:do/, but read /bjuks/ and played /pju:l/

(phonetic transcriptions only approximate )