Comments on: Guardian Prize25,742 / Puck

By: Pedro Aka Oak

Pedro Aka Oak — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:37:12 +0000

Thanks Eileen
Got the tree huggers answer but had no idea why! Now I know!
Oak

By: NeilW

NeilW — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:39:59 +0000

RCW @22, iNNovative but uNNeceSSarily aGGreSSive coMMent about iNNocent aTTempt to flaTTer seTTer.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:52:34 +0000

Whoa, RCW, not even Paul would go that far …..

BTW, I want to echo all positive comments on Puck’s crossword which was one of his best so far (that is, as long as I’m around in Crosswordland).
Very nice, Eileen, to cite from Puck’s interview with Alan Connor, as when it was published, I thought: that’s how I feel about crosswords and (in my case, occasionally) setting them, too.
Anyway, back to RCW!

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:42:10 +0000

I guess most of you, like me, really enjoy a good anagram.
My favourite for years has been the classroom =schoolmaster.
However, yesterday on Radio 4 (The News Quiz) Sandy Toksvig came up with a beauty which is also topical.
I know some of you have very sensitive ears so I will just say that it is (Kate Middleton)*. It is so unlikely that I immediately had to write it down and check its validity.
Hint: bare bird T.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:33:59 +0000

Sorry, Neil, but all I can say is “buGGer oFF”.

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 10:35:07 +0000

Thanks Puck and Eileen
A seriously good puzzle that had me spending nearly more time parsing than doing – even so, I missed the ‘hugged’ trees, the GEE as G, my unresolved SPRIG and the parsing for 6.
In 6, I had interpreted it as:
An anagram of ( [S]OFT ENOUGH E T) with the logic that SLIP was doing double duty as the anagrind, the exiting trap was the S (as in plumbing).
Good fun nevertheless …

By: NeilW

NeilW — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 01:08:15 +0000

Thanks, Puck, for putting me out of my misery.

Actually, in the half hour or so that I spent playing with the double letter combinations, I’d got about half way to solving your riddle – certainly Google and “egg” were in in my plain text decipherment of the “code”, although “eel” was discounted as it formed part of one of the answers. There was a five minute dalliance with the GGs as well – thought we might be going racing but the absence of TT scotched that. I didn’t mention the couple of down clues @4, although they were certainly part of my code-breaking efforts, both interlaced in numerical order and tacked on at the end of the across doubles. Finally there was a brief burst of activity trying to tie numerical sequences together for the clue numbers related to the double letter combinations.

All of this was less fun than it sounds! Obviously, Eileen was right about an own goal but it was scored at my end of the pitch. You see what you started with that armadillo?

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 21:31:12 +0000

Dave E @15
Yes, I was very hesitant about ‘ice’. Then I remembered all the Peter Cheyney (sp?) novels I read in my youth. Did he use it?

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 20:43:15 +0000

Hi again, Puck

It’s so hard to get the tone right, isn’t it? I was joking too. of course. [I'm not doing very well today!]

And re the car: by US slang I meant ice = kill.

By: Puck

Puck — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 20:29:04 +0000

Hi Eileen,

As your wiki article explains, the Ford Scorpio was also a UK model from 1994-98 which got fairly bad reviews on looks alone and ended up being voted as the third worst N-registered car (1995-96) to own in the UK from a Top Gear survey of 120 cars.

And I was joking about the “well-known interchange between desperately befuddled cruciverbalists” but perhaps you realised that already (I couldn’t quite tell from your comment in response).