Comments on: Guardian Prize Puzzle 25,748 by Araucaria

By: brucew_aus

brucew_aus — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:07:41 +0000

Thanks Araucaria and Peedee
Because I was late to pick up on the special instructions with only 6 clues to solve, I did not find this one easy at all. Took quite a few days of grinding away at the cryptics to get one more, one more until there was enough to start putting them into the grid – and then NORD presented itself so that the instructions clicked and I could get the last two – LONGLEAT and YALU both of which I had not seen before. The other last few included FUTONS, BROADLY, ZEMSTVO and CORNETTO.

Felt a real sense of accomplishment when finished and was a very good prize puzzle. Needed help with a number of parsings too – LEAT (hadn’t heard of), BROADLY and the BEC part of XEBECS.

Thanks again A.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:58:18 +0000

Sorry,ignore 37. It happened without my agreement!

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:56:36 +0000

Thanks all
I thought the individual clues were much easier than usual for an alphabetical. However, having all the answers left me with a rather more difficult assembly task than usual. This was largely because the Fs and Ys both had equal enumerations.
Pace James @15 but although I did finish up with the correct (?peedee?) version I cannot see how the French directions could help until I had plumped for one solution.
Hentzau, bec and yalu were new to me.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:54:56 +0000

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 22:16:34 +0000

Hi BigglesA

I am glad we are in agreement and I’m sorry if I seem not to have paid sufficient attention to your comments.

By: Biggles A

Biggles A — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 21:55:18 +0000

tupu @28. ‘ideally it should have been clearer that the ‘wrong’ solution was wrong.’ Thank you, just what I was trying to say @ 7.

By: ClaireS

ClaireS — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:34:42 +0000

For what it’s worth the clue for D contains a grid direction “up” which implies it should be a down clue. In one of the two possible solutions (given here by PeeDee) it is but in the other it’s an across clue. So, perhaps, strictly speaking wouldn’t work. As I was away from home for this one (and still am) and couldn’t print out an extra grid I created a spreadsheet (yes, I am that sad) so that I could try both possible solutions & see which was correct according to the instructions.

Overall I found this slightly easier than normal for an alphabet jigsaw as we had to be able to solve a large proportion of the clues (due to the symmetrical grid) in advance. However, the fun from these is in working out how they fit into the grid and it was great fun as ever. Still my favourite crossword type – thanks Araucaria. Thanks to to PeeDee for the blog.

By: muck

muck — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 17:36:08 +0000

Hi tupu
I was surprised that my throwaway comment ‘Occam has the answer’ @27 got any response
I always thought Occam said choose a simpler explanation over a more complicated one
But the *infallible* Wiki (which I have now consulted too) says he never said it
And there is apparently extensive academic discussion on the meaning of simplicity
PeeDee’s comment @31 sums it up really

By: tupu

tupu — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:59:12 +0000

Hi muck

It is kind of you to respond.

It seems that PeeDee is wittily right with his remark in the broad ‘nostalgia isn’t what it used to be’ genre. It seems that William of Occam never used the phrase himself, though he applied the method, and it is not (I gather from Wikipedia) all that clear what constitutes simplicity.

For what it’s worth, the main idea seems to be that one should generally choose the simpler of two otherwise equally good explanations, though that of course does not mean that the simpler will always be correct.

I think PeeDee is also right when he implies that the ‘correct’ version here is preferable because it looks more clearly like what we are used to in maps, compasses etc.

By: PeeDee

PeeDee — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:09:06 +0000

Occam’s Razor always seemed uneccessarily complicated to me…