Comments on: Guardian 25,812 / Gordius

By: Huw Powell

Huw Powell — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 02:04:32 +0000

Three quarters of this puzzle was surprisingly easy for a Thursday. The other quarter, mostly in the SW/W, was incomprehensible. The attempted @lits failed, in my opinion.

An odd puzzle, in that so many clues were patently obvious, and that the rest were obfuscatingly strange.

I agree with the LESSON/LESSEN quandary (see RCW et al). I got it “right” but the definition could be on either end of the homophone indicator. Sloppy cluing there.

Sylvia @23, I agree this was too easy for a Thursday (if I only knew all the very British references required to finish it!).

ACADIA would have been a better choice for 3, with a new clue, of course.

Oh well, grumble grumble, not every puzzle can be “perfect”. Thanks Gordius for the interesting effort, and Eileen (and everyone else) for the excellent blog!

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:51:09 +0000

Hi ClaireS

Thanks for that – nice to hear from you.

Nothing to worry about – I have thicker skin than that: not so much upset or offended as amused at the misconceptions!

I hope you’ll be brave enough again.

By: ClaireS

ClaireS — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:43:00 +0000

RCWhiting @44 – You make a good point, I agree with you.

Eilleen @43 – Thank you for being so welcoming and accommodating to us all yesterday. Whilst I have seen that view expressed over at GU I don’t think it is universally held. I certainly don’t think that and I’m sorry if you’ve been upset or offended by those remarks. For myself, all I can say is I find this site very useful. I look in most days to check my parsing and see if there’s anything I’ve missed in the crossword overall (usually there is). Occasionally I’m brave enough to dip my toe in the water.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 16:33:34 +0000

Was the latest unpleasantness in Belfast to do with equating union flag with Union Jack?

By: John Appleton

John Appleton — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:23:03 +0000

No idea if anyone is still following this thread now, but NI and Ulster are certainly interchangeable in common usage, outside of Eire/NI at least, where people probably don’t realise the difference. As Sil suggests, this is no different to equating Holland with the Netherlands. Or, perhaps, a director with a producer.

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:31:10 +0000

sorry to scandalise on the Northern Irish question but I’m in Dublin doing the puzzle in The Irish Times and their setter Crossheir just used NI as a synonym for ULSTER. Dear me.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:00:44 +0000

As I watched the TV news last night I said to my friend that I see those loonies in NI have discovered yet another pathetic, trivial reason to kill eachother (flags!!).
Certain overblown comments above just reinforces my view.

I thought Sil’s ‘not proud’ comment was unusual and so welcome, if only there were more like that.

By: RCWhiting

RCWhiting — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 12:49:30 +0000

dirkybee @41
So innocuous I think your apology is of more concern.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 11:01:44 +0000

Try not separating the two elements. A “Northern Ireland OBE” is necessarily an “Ulster order” because all of NI is in Ulster. (Conversely, though not strictly relevantly, all “Ulster OBEs” would presumably be “Northern Ireland” ones, as only the UK awards them.) I think that is an unanswerable defence of this particular clue. I’m also not sure that you speak for all the Irish people that you claim to @47. The borders of Ulster you referred to were themselves set by the English crown in the 17th century and are thus at least partly a legacy of conquest – the comparison with Iberia, which is defined purely geographically (bounded by the sea and the Pyrenees), is imperfect. It is true that loyalists (though not only paramilitaries – remember the “RUC”?) use “Ulster” to mean NI but self-evidently not true that nobody else does. It’s good to be sensitive about the possibility of giving offence but I don’t think this is a case where you can be unconditionally proscriptive.

By: rhotician

rhotician — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:33:00 +0000

a chara stiofain

@47: “flogging a dead horse”. More like pissing in the wind.

@54: Crucible’s flippancy is clearly a case of taking the piss.

My mother would not approve of my language here.
But she would not advocate that it be “banned”.