Comments on: Guardian Prize Puzzle 25,676 by Shed

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:41:34 +0000

I’m for Spider-Man rather than Spiderman, I must confess.

By: drago

drago — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:28:54 +0000

Thanks PeeDee, and thanks Shed for standing up for anoraks. I convinced myself that US in 23d was ‘ubi supra’ or ‘ut supra’ which could conceivably be dictionary annotations. Overthinking.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 19:37:18 +0000

…….and drier…….

By: Shed

Shed — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 17:00:29 +0000

Oh, and I meant to say, Taco_Belly #11 is spot on re ‘anorak of sorts’ (except it’s 16d, not 16a). Not all anoraks are birdwatchers, but all birdwatchers are anoraks. This is not meant as any derogation to birdwatchers: if there were more anoraks, the world would be a much better place.

By: Shed

Shed — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 16:48:52 +0000

Thanks all, especially PeeDee, and apologies to Wonder Woman, who should indeed have been two words. I’m ashamed not to have checked that.

I’ve had quite a bit of stick from friends and family about 23dn BOGUS. As several people have suggested here, the idea was indeed that, just as ‘period’ might be defined in a British English dictionary as ‘full stop (US)’, ‘john’ might be defined as ‘bog (US)’. I’m not suggesting that it really would be, but in the parallel universe of crosswords it could be.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 16:00:35 +0000

Enjoyed this. INFERNO, STRATAGEM my favourites.

Thankyou shed, thanks Peedee.

By: Colin

Colin — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 15:19:39 +0000

I’m not entirely happy with 18A – in terms of the name of the comic character, as suggested by the clue, “Wonder Woman” has always been two words and should really have been clued as such. “Superman” or “Spiderman” as one word, fine, but not “Wonder Woman”.

Still, I guess that on the Venn diagram there isn’t that much of a crossover between crosswwrd afficionados and comic anoraks, so I bet I’ll be the only person complaining about it…

By: Taco_Belly

Taco_Belly — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 13:57:01 +0000

Thanks PeeDee and Shed,

Really enjoyed this last Saturday – one of those which requires two or three visits and then somehow all comes together – apart from 23d which I struggled to parse (per molonglo@2).

My only addition is that the term Anorak (16a) can appply to anyone obsessed with statistics or collections, hence the “of sorts” – that’s how I read it anyway.

Great blog – my favourite (out of many)was also 26a.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 13:07:23 +0000

Thanks all
Very little doodling around my print version so I presume it was pretty easy.
I did like the unsplit word in 4d (with-in).I enjoy these, there are a couple of good ones in today’s. More please.

By: rrc

rrc — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 10:15:54 +0000

my two favourities were 26a and 2d.