Comments on: Guardian Cryptic N° 25,655 by Brendan

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:31:13 +0000

Thanks Brendan and PeterO

Actually did this one in mid June and just picked it up to parse and check it against the answers – disappointed to see that my ANTIMONY was wrong (writing I’M ANTONY wasn’t the way – but it did sort of fit)!! This guy is my nemesis on bringing on errors.

Otherwise, an educational visit over past wars and battles from a lot of generations with clues clear enough to provide the likely answer which I needed to check up on and improve my history at the same time.

Good work … enjoyable solve.

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:52:02 +0000

I got to this late, and found it very slow going, hard – a real puzzle. Which is a good thing.

What is also a good thing in my opinion is a theme that doesn’t result in instant solving of 8 clues. Early on (the first hour or so), I had solved nothing but noticed the plethora of military references – and then the anagram at the excellent clue for 13 fell! What a wonderful place to start solving.

I hate this grid, but managed to solve, at one level or another, everything but 5, and I should have been able to at least come up with a “word” to type into the wikipedia search box to verify. Oh, and I got 11 wrong, that didn’t help. Went back and forth between JAVA and ELBA, and never quite came up with the right set of letters to research and confirm.

Congratulations Brendan on a wonderful piece of entertainment, and thanks PeterO & friends for the blog!

By: Giovanna

Giovanna — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 22:42:07 +0000

Thanks, Brendan for another super themed puzzle and PeterO for the equally super blog.

I’ve just got round to it and it flowed nicely, as I had noted the date.War and Peace is one of my favourite novels, which I re-read recently so the novel, Tolstoy and Austerlitz flew in.

Everything was gettable without the wonderful Wiki.

Great stuff and more please, Brendan!

Giovanna x

By: morpheus

morpheus — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 19:58:22 +0000

Nice puzzle which repaid my reading of War and Peace many years ago! (Though the pleasure of reading it was repayment in itself.) Second time Mark Antony has appeared to clue antonym recently.

By: Philshep

Philshep — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:40:35 +0000

10a no one has mentioned old general Antony writing MS making up the antonym

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:15:47 +0000

Thanks RobG. Numbering corrected.

By: RobG

RobG — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:56:23 +0000

IRENIC was a new word on me and with military history not being my forté I had to check some answers on Wikipedia or Chambers, specifically MCNAMARA, POM-POM, JENA and RUPERT.

Also for some reason the blog shows the crossword as 15.655 when it’s 25,655.

Thanks for the blog

By: Robi

Robi — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:32:09 +0000

Nice enough puzzle, although a bit of a general knowledge test.

Thanks PeterO; I didn’t know IRENIC.

postrophe@14; sea beach is in Chambers, so I don’t see there is anything wrong with it. Beach can also be used for lake shores.

By: grandpuzzler

grandpuzzler — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:05:05 +0000

Thanks to all who responded to my Pompey query.

Cheers…

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:27:58 +0000

Not my best subject this so I was pleased to get stuck on just 3 of them, one of which I woukd have remembered eventually, but life is too short for eventually.

Um, PeterO, re 19, didn’t know you are a Time Lord!