Comments on: Guardian 25,712 / Bonxie

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 07:56:55 +0000

Thanks Bonxie and mhl

This one had been in the ‘too hard pile’ for a long time now … with 27D not finished. Finally realised that the 26 was RHUMB and not ROUND and it still took an overnight pondering to see the hidden BERM which was a new word to me.

I consistently find Bonxie quite a difficult setter and this was no different who easily draws errors which cause a lot of re-work to get back on track.

Still a very good challenge !

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 17:34:08 +0000

Got about half of this a while back, returned today and almost finished it, with some aids. I didn’t get GAME, but I like it and prefer the definition of course as a hunt, since that’s one more usage. I didn’t bother to check is every usage of “set” and “course” were different definitions, but I suspect they are.

Stumped at RHUMB and BERM. I was working too hard to figure out a dance I could remove some form of “adult” from to get “route” to even think of looking for the HA, and didn’t know RHUMB at all, or this definition of BERM.

As pointed out, the puzzle wasn’t as difficult as it seems in many places, once one finally found the answer. I kind of like that.

Thanks for the great weekend puzzle, Bonxie, and the blog, mhl!

By: r_c_a_d

r_c_a_d — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 08:16:18 +0000

I went for cake too.

By: g larsen

g larsen — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 21:56:54 +0000

Yes, glm (@23) I went for cake, having painstakingly gone through every possible alternative. Still seems a reasonable answer, though I now see that game is better.

Last in in one of the hardest prize crosswords for a long time.

By: glm

glm — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:17:27 +0000

Did anyone else have “cake” as the answer to 8 down? One definition of “to set” is “to cause to become fixed or hard” while a definition of “to cake” is “to form into a crust or compact mass”. And cake can be a constituent of dessert.

By: Bertandjoyce

Bertandjoyce — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 09:19:15 +0000

Thanks mhl. We didn’t finish this one which is quite unusual for us! Kept on thinking of Radioscope for 15d for some reason and didn’t look any further. Missed BERM completely – a new word for us! Had also never seen RUMBA spelt with an ‘H”.

Thanks Bonxie for the puzzle though – it kept us guessing!

By: Audrey

Audrey — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 07:25:59 +0000

We parsed 1d as ‘not’ at first and got Ain’t from Aintree a national course.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 22:41:38 +0000

Thanks ToniL. Funny thing is when I solved the clue myself I didn’t think twice about it. When I read the excellent detailed blog I thought – how did I know that? So I looked up U in Chambers but failed to look up Uniform. You have restored two of my marbles.

By: ToniL

ToniL — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 21:11:11 +0000

rhotician@17 Phonetic alphabet

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 20:56:27 +0000

rho
I think URL uses it.