Guardian 27,934 / Puck

58 comments on “Guardian 27,934 / Puck”

1. Thanks to Puck & Eileen. I’m not a racing expert but PUNCHESTOWN LEOPARDSTOWN and FAIRYHOUSE are all Irish racecourses, I believe

2. Well, that’s got that over – many thanks, baerchen. I have heard of LEOPARDSTOWN but that’s all, so would never have seen that.

3. Thought that chap was a bit ambiguous for PAT, and failed to call PATRICK to mind as a saint so a rather lamentable dnf. But I always enjoy Puck especially when a bit easier than usual. I rather !liked EURO and DEADLY SIN. Thanks Eileen for your customary excellent blog.

4. Ballypatrick too.  And there I was reading Patrick Heron’s wiki page.

   Thanks to P & E

5. I was unable to parse FLORET (was thinking of FRET around LO, so of course it wasn’t working!)

   Thanks for explaining why TOWN = ‘football team, commonly’. I parsed that one but did not see the connection between town and football.

   New for me was BALLY = bloody.

   My favourites were EURO, SWINISH, ROYAL, BIN BAG, HUGO.

   Thanks Eileen and Puck.

6. Ballybrit, Downpatrick, Down Royal…

    

7. Many thanks to Puck and Eileen for the blog, plus the interesting football club link.

   I’ve discovered there’s also a Ballybrit racecourse in County Galway.

    

8. Thanks Puck and Eileen

   Fairly straightforward but fun – I missed the theme, of course (!) Favourites BULLDOG and HERON.

   I never realised that NUMSKULL didn’t have a B in it!

   PATRICK was a bit weak, as “Pat” is derived from “Patrick”. (I had a half-English, half-Breton friend . He was named Patrick – apparently all French boys had to be named after saints at that time, and Patrick was the only one spelled the same in Breton and English!)

9. Good also be back to the daily routine of the crossword after a great holiday, Eileen. Hope you enjoyed yours too. Needed your help to get HUGO. Didn’t really like NUMSKULL but enjoyed the rest, particularly ESSAYISTS, SWINISH and FAIRY. Did not get the theme I’m afraid but never would have got that one!
   Thanks, Puck and Eileen.

10. In the spell when I lived in East Anglia, Bobby Robson ran a nifty little outfit called Ipswich Town so as it happened the first match was against Liverpool. I was a bit late arriving but I heard a roar and asked what was happening and a thick local accent said “Town are one up” The vowel sound was in fact “OWN’ (as in I own this car)but it could almost have seemed like TOON which would be appropriate for Tyneside.I liked the OO for draw but couldnt parse it so TOW for draw had to do.

    Thanks Eileen for parsing FLORET

    But BALLPARK topped the bill for me. Too dazzled to find a theme so thanks to Puck and Eileen.

11. Irish racecourses, eh? Not needed for the solve, fortunately. I couldn’t parse Swinish, having immediately found Swedish and then being unable to understand Ed as an old man. Thanks, Eileen.

12. Ended up with a couple of something-U-something-O clues for 2down and 15across. Sumo wrestling this morning with the usual Puck mischief…

13. I too liked 8a BULLDOG, 15a EURO, 11d ESSAYISTS and 17d BALLPARK, as well as 12d HOUSE and 23d MACE. Sadly I was a DNF as I didn’t get TOWN at 9a – I don’t know enough about English football to have spotted the reference to different teams. I also missed the theme – again, one for the locals and sports-related! Not a complaint, just an observation.

    Great to have you back, Eileen; thanks for the explanatory parsings of several clues I didn’t quite understand, and thank you to Puck for the puzzle.

14. Great helpful blog, ta.

15. Another one back from hols and getting back into the swing of things…which took a while! Many fun clues here, great variety. “ballpark” got a giggle and there was plenty here to puzzle over with a look of despair which finally gave way to enlightenment, via confusion and bafflement. I love the little nudges, like E for O to turn “huge” into “hugo”. Thought we had a bit of a French novelist thing going with Hugo and then (Jean de) Floret(te) (a well known French broccoli dish, usually served with Manon des Sources…). Irish racecourses though – I was never going to spot that. Many thanks Eileen and welcome back, and ta muchly Puck.

16. May a venture a tweak to parsing of 15ac.  Rather than “A reversal [around] of O [round] + RUE [road in Belgium]” I’d suggest “A reversal [around] of O [ring] + RUE [road in Belgium]”

17. Had T (tie) 0-0 for ‘draw’ at 9a so arrived at Toon, common nickname for Newcastle United. Well it seemed plausible to me!

    Don’t you hate it when that happens?

    Good crossword though.

18. Yep that’s what I did with it Wiggers.

19. Didn’t know the ‘foolish’ flavour of stultify, but there it was alright in my old Collins. And I needed that o-ring in euro to get the 2d anagram, slow! Liked the misleading self-ref for fairy. Bit of an in-house homophone in Paulbark, hard for newbies. All fun though, thanks Eileen and Puck.

20. Following up on the tour de force of the Irish racecourses: I wondered briefly if there was a theme of Irish golf courses, but there was no COUNTY  to come between ROYAL and DOWN; no (Royal) PORT or RUSH (host of recent Open); no BUNION to team with BALLY. Hoping, as one who has played long ago on a few of those great courses, for a sequel on these lines one day. Many thanks meanwhile to Puck, to Eileen, and to baerchen @1 for first identification of the theme. I’m sure there are experts out there to say how often this kind of grid is used, with so many short words and none longer than 9 letters – it makes an interesting variant.

21. Alas Copmus “the towen” are nifty no more after a series of disastrous managers – although some green shoots are at last showing. Another fun puzzle with NUMSKULL winning by a nose. You can add Down Royal to the theme list.

22. [Love those movies, TheZed, many times watched, brilliant plot; think they were the first time we saw Depardieu and Auteuil, not to mention Beart, phwoar!]

23. BlueCanary @21 I caught their brief reappearance around 2001-2 when George Burley was at the helm.

    Short lived alas.

24. Whoopee, a fortuitous theme runs through the answers, MAELSTROM, PLAINT, BULLDOG, BRIT, SCENARIO, HOUSE, MACE …

25. Thanks to  Puck and Eileen.

    Not quite my cup of brew, as so often with themed offerings, but got some snurfles from PIMP, FAIRY and BALLPARK.  The conflation of Irish racecourses with “eejit” gives strong Irish overtones – is it too parochial a word for these purposes when many others would serve just as well?

    [Eileen I think you are making a cameo appearance in the parsing of NUMSKULL – you would be the brainbox but the definition is, if I may make so bold, nutcase.]

26. Thank you Puck and Eileen.

    Now that the Supreme Court ruling is out I am able to appreciate the puzzle, even though the real theme was beyond me – well spotted baerchen@1.  Like muffin @8, I never realised that NUMSKULL had no B in it.

27. Bally deadly scenario … maelstrom!

28. Thanks, Alphalpha @25 – I’ve no idea where ‘brainbox’ came from! [But I still think ‘eejit’ is the definition. 😉 ] – and Wiggers @16 – both careless errors, corrected now.

29. I did spot PUNCHES TOWN but didn’t see the others.

30. Completing the grid was not too hard, but there were several parsings that took a few minutes to tease out after guessing the answer, making for an enjoyable challenge. I also came here with a few unparsed, so thanks to Eileen for the explanations.

    Muffin @8 and Cookie @26, Collins tells me that numbskull/numskull can be spelled either way.

31. Quite an entertaining challenge – not Puck at his most difficult but some of the tiddlers took a bit of teasing out, with TOWN last in

    Thanks to Puck and Eileen

32. DaveinNCarolina, yes, I checked that, but it seems the spelling NUMSKULL takes priority in the disUnited Kingdom. Anyway, NUMSKULL will now have a B in his bonnet since the BULLDOG has told parliament to “resume” tomorrow.

33. Well I looked for a theme but would never have found this one. A relatively straightforward solve but with some ahas and quiet amusement. I particularly liked HUGO. Thanks to Puck and to Eileen for the informative blog.

34. This gave me a welcome break in a busy day. I especially liked the two ‘setter’ clues, BULLDOG and BALLPARK, and NUMSKULL. I didn’t quite finish, having left BIN BAG, HUGO and TOWN unsolved.
    Thanks to Puck for an entertaining puzzle and to Eileen for the clear blog and for the explanation of SWINISH.

35. [Eileen@28: You’re right of course – not expressing myself properly, I meant that “nutcase” was the wordplay(?) for “skull”.]

    Not sure, as I said, that “eejit” is entirely acceptable as it is a reported mispronunciation of “idiot” although no doubt prevalent enough to have made it into dictionaries. Any antipodean or transpontine views?

36. Alphalpha, I’ve heard “idjit” (spoken, not written, so the spelling is a guess), but never eejit. That’s just one American’s experience. Anyway, the meaning was guessable, so I’m not complaining.

37. Alphalpha @35 – I knew that, of course, hence the smiley. Having had both a Scottish and a Northern Irish husband, I just love the word ‘eejit’ and I think it is generally accepted in the rest of the UK [well, England, anyway 😉 ] Certainly, for what it’s worth, it is in Chambers. Thanks for your comment, DaveinNCarolina.

38. To Alphalpha@35 – I think I qualify having lived in the US most of my adult life. My first thought though was surely Transpontine means “across the bridge” but apparently it is also used to mean “across the sea”. Since in this context the Atlantic is called “the pond” wouldn’t that make me a Transponder? Anyway …
    To answer you question I have never heard Eejit used here. A quick search shows no hits in online US dictionaries. The last I heard it was by an old English college girlfriend who fancied herself as Irish (not talking about me, of course).

39. Terry Wogan (and Dave Allen, I think) used to say “eejit”.

40. My LOI was 17d, which I guessed and was fortunately correct. How is it ‘approximate’?

41. “In the ballpark” (or variants) is an expression (US, of course) for “near, but not necessarily exactly right”.

42. Ong’ara of Kenya @40 – if you  google ‘ballpark’, you will find numerous entries, some more helpful than others. Alternatively, Chambers gives ‘ballpark: adj [orig US] approximate, esp. in the phrase ballpark figures’.

43. With even more authority than Eileen & muffin (never thought to write that!) I can confirm that ‘eejit’ is a good word. Used often to me by my elder cousins in Co Roscommon circa 1953. With which background, deeply ashamed to have entirety missed the very clever theme.

    Agree that PATRICK not really well clued, but otherwise a very enjoyable solve – particularly given a difficult grid shape. Thank you Puck and Eileen.

44. I think “ballpark estimate” comes from the idea of throwing a baseball to another player and missing badly, so that the kindest thing you can say is that the ball is still “in the ballpark.”

45. At this late stage, I admit to having not been keen on PATRICK, since PAT is a diminutive of the name, but then I hadn’t seen the theme [I have been to DOWNPATRICK, though] but I took the use of ‘chap’ as being an indication that it was a diminutive and therefore thought it passed muster.

46. Thanks Eileen etc Al for ‘ballpark’

47. *et, predictive text bah!

48. Eileen @45

    There are several alternative ways of clueing “PAT” (though the surface may have to have been tweaked). As I said earlier, PAT as a diminutive of PATRICK is weak.

49. …or maybe split it as PA TRICK?

50. I’d just like to observe that the BALLY clue is also a bit of an &lit, seeing that ‘bally’ was deemed to be a harmless way of saying the absolutely unsayable word ‘bloody’ (pace GBS and Pygmalion).

51. pace as in italics, btw.

52. What’s the reason for “of” in 17d?

53. I read 5d as a cd. Cut off the essential (central/main) part of broccoli, and you’re just left with the floret(s). No, just me? Okay then. 🙂
    Cheers to P & E.

54. Rompiballe @52 – if you insert a comma after ‘Approximate’ [the definition] in the clue, a Spoonerism OF it [BALLPARK] gives you ‘Paul bark’.

    TheVoid @53 – well, yes, that’s certainly what the wordplay means but I think most of us would be disappointed if that’s all there were. 😉

55. Didn’t get BALLY. I had BARMY (B + *MARY) and assumed it was a misspelling of BALMY (no harm in it), until I got BALLPARK.

56. Apologies for the belatedness and for possibly missing the explanation, but shouldn’t there be an anagram indicator for FLORET?

57. hfowler @56 – the anagram indicator is ‘off’ [in brackets after ‘anagram’ in the  blog].

58. Funny how something so obvious can escape you. Many thanks, Eileen.

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