Comments on: Guardian 25,806 / Picaroon

By: rhotician

rhotician — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 08:43:30 +0000

You can call me Rho. Or Betty.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 02:24:30 +0000

Whose advice might be to open those eyes just a bit, before posting @ 37. Good Lord, you are a careless ‘contrarian’.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:42:38 +0000

Right you are. PAAPL. Need to see an optician.

By: Cosafina

Cosafina — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:17:57 +0000

rhotician @27: PAAPAL is not a possible answer as it’s 6 letters, not 5.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:34:54 +0000

Re my own post @34.
“Cares for the service” ??
Surface, of course!!

By: rhotician

rhotician — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:30:07 +0000

PB @30. Surely if you’re making a point about precision you ought to be punctilious. On the other hand I have heard it said that a job worth doing is worth doing badly. In this case though I can’t agree that your point was worth making at all.

By: Brendan (not that one)

Brendan (not that one) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:16:11 +0000

Great crossword. Nothing more to add except first in was 1ac which I failed to parse!!!!

Thanks to Eileen and Picaroon

By: JollySwagman

JollySwagman — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:15:36 +0000

Great puzzle. Nice devices. More Guardianistical than his earlier ones.

Great to see P as hopefully a regular now on the Guardian team. Many aspire – few are chosen.

Which reminds me, I liked Nile Green – wanted it to be Queen – that little corner took a while to fall but very pleasing indeed when it did.

Oh – er yes – I fell for erector as well – Thanks for the blog E – I agree re advancing – let it work either way and add more parsing possibilities – likewise the selected letter does not need to be uniquely defined.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:04:23 +0000

“I delight in solving Guardian crosswords with a weather eye out for the seemingly inevitable goofs in grammar, but here’s someone (…..) who knows how to do it properly” [Paul B @24].

Fully agree.
Picaroon is adventurous (I mean, his clueing is), cares for the service and above all for correct cryptic grammar.

Apart from thanks to Picaroon for another corker (although I still think his previous one was perhaps the Guardian Crossword of the Year), many thanks to Eileen too.

Needed your wise words for 1ac (even my PinC who teaches ESL (English as a Second Language) didn’t see the construction) and 19d.

Challenging puzzle with 1d (the Ryan Giggs anagram) and 10d as particular highlights. And 24d (HAITI) is quite good too – cricket surface with a construction quite different from that.

Perhaps, in 22d a false capitalisation (for ‘express’) could have enhanced the clue, but I’m fine with it.
I’m fine with this splendid crossword anyway.

Some setters are better than others, although they all want to entertain us.
This one surely has the X-Factor!

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:30:07 +0000

Yes. You done it more good than what I said.