Comments on: Guardian25,625 / Paul

By: AndrewC

AndrewC — Thu, 03 May 2012 01:27:22 +0000

Thanks for the excellent blog (as usual). I have to jump (hesitantly in such company) to Paul’s defence on the grammar of 5ac. Yes, ‘you and I’ is incorrect as it stands, but ‘you and me’ would have give the accusative first person plural pronoun, ‘us’ instead of the required nominative ‘we’ – so, having headed down that road, he had no choice. I think it’s forgivable. Thanks, Paul.

By: Rorschach

Rorschach — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:19:19 +0000

Sometimes Paul is a parody of himself. I saw “well oiled” and inserted “lubricated” without even looking at the cryptic element.

“Sea Slug” is in quotes for the surface.

Found some of the surfaces a bit weak.

I really enjoyed it mind.

By: Uncle Yap

Uncle Yap — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:46:24 +0000

Life is not fair. This Paul puzzle is just my cup of tea and while solving it, was heard alternately tittering and guffawing … truly a fun experience even though I should have been feeling miserable (lightning killed my modem-router the night because, probably as divine retribution for being grumpy about Boatman’s puzzle)

Thank you, Paul for lifting my spirits … I will lift a single malt with you when we meet. Thanks Eileen for the excellent blog – I truly envy you.

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:00:09 +0000

Sorry – experiencing some submission problems: I kept getting “duplicate comments” message, so I thought I could clear it with a new “Please Ignore” message, by which time the original was posted!

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:58:19 +0000

Please ignore

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:55:35 +0000

(i) Why should (would) Paul retaliate?

(ii) I understood Xwords were often published weeks or months after submission – was there time for Paul to retaliate?

I also saw Alto and Tenor (and therefore SINGERS) straight away, but it took an age to get BACKING.

What is Billy No Mates? (OK, I’ll look it up).

I found it quite tough today.

By: FranTom Menace

FranTom Menace — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:42:15 +0000

What a really enjoyable solve this was! Can you believe we failed only on 16a with all other solutions in. Suspected ‘wedge’ but having ‘wed’ as join and looking for ‘GE’ to be a woman’s club in order to get the definition ‘bound’ got us thoroughly stuck.

Fran sussed it was ‘tenor’ and ‘alto’ backwards very quickly, and the solution came even faster once we sussed that.

Thanks Paul!

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:34:42 +0000

An entertaining crossword that did raise some smiles (‘Whale meet again’, indeed!), though no paroxysms of laughter.

I didn’t like the grammar of the surface of the clue for 5ac – ‘inspiring you and I’ made me wince.

Thank you Eileen, as always

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:44:01 +0000

Great Paul as always, God awful grid design though. I dislike the first letters not being active.

By: Trebor

Trebor — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:09:53 +0000

Good puzzle for the half hour commute. Paul can produce either very tricky or quite easy puzzles – his puzzles are of course good fun in any guise.
Which makes me think of the various difficulty standards we see in the Guardian. I seem to remember a suggestion that, as a matter of policy, certain days were consistently harder than others. Could anyone expand on this?