Comments on: Guardian 25708 – Orlando

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 14:00:34 +0000

Thanks Orlando and Uncle Yap and all the others who elicited the rest of the bands.

Only did this one today … and what a joy. Did not find it particularly easy and probably spent as much time again properly parsing all of the clues.

First in for me was ESSAYS and last in was GAOL which was very clever – think AOL was in a puzzle not all that long ago, but tend to forget about America Online after it was bought by Ted Turner. Like others, I thought that NOAH was quite brilliant after the penny finally dropped along with the A and H !

Now to take on Paul …

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:44:49 +0000

Paul B @ 40: I am well aware of that.
Let’s just call it ‘shameless plugging’, OK?

By: Dave Ellison

Dave Ellison — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 10:35:10 +0000

rhotician @ 38 Yes, I remember it. Explanation here and a version hear , but not the one I remember.

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:50:01 +0000

RCWhiting: For a Little Richard crossword, I would love to see the clue that results in “Awopbopalubop,awopbamboom”.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 06:56:12 +0000

Well, I think it’s pretty clear which bands here carry ‘authorial intent’ and which do not!

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 23:13:46 +0000

Yes, that man called NOAH defeated us.
And Rhotician and Paul B, yes, you were right to question the clue (and, I think, Orlando knows exactly what you’re talking about (but he took the risk)). Nonetheless, a nice idea.

Btw, NOAH isn’t very much out of place in this extremely enjoyable crossword as Noah and The Whale is quite a popular band too (though not from ‘that’ era): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_and_the_Whale

By: rhotician

rhotician — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:38:37 +0000

Orlando & UY: Thanks for the Mondegreen stuff. I first encountered Gladly in a television play. Might have been Dennis Potter.

I learned a nonsense song at my mother’s knee which she left unexplained, allowing us several years to work it out for ourselves. Anyone else remember “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey”?

Oh, by the way, thanks for the puzzle and the blog. Most enjoyable.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:30:38 +0000

Well, yum-yum.

Among the several reasons why I choose not to post in that other place is that you can’t actually talk about the clues. Presumably at some point during the proceedings such discussion is allowed, but I don’t know when that is. Here, no such limitation applies.

For the record, and despite Mr Dumpty being quite right, I think you made a good point about the slippery nature of NO-AH.

By: Rorschach

Rorschach — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:25:42 +0000

Porridge? Seriously?

By: rhotician

rhotician — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 22:12:44 +0000

Paul B @28: Over on the other place someone said of 2dn “Presumably a Grauniad typo…should be Patriarch in 1 across”. What made this specially delicious was that the post was made about 4am and no-one could explain fully for fear of posting a spoiler.