Guardian 26,255 by Puck

36 comments on “Guardian 26,255 by Puck”

1. Not a difficult crossword, but enjoyable, so thanks to Puck and Manehi. In 25A: Scafell is the second highest mountain in England, after neighboring Scafell Pike.

2. Thanks, manehi. Typical Puck ingenuity, although I think we’ve seen this theme before. I’m with you rather than PeterO with regard to the difficulty level – NIGHTCLUB was a write-in for starters but, thereafter, for ten minutes or so, I was pretty DISCONSOLATE!

   REDO was the way in, followed by the pointer of the linked clue to PAIRED, and then I was off but it was still far from plain sailing.

   Being a musical ignoramus (which is probably why I found this puzzle less than easy) I needed Chambers to figure out DOMINANTS. Favourite by far was CHOICEST.

3. Not as difficult as it first appeared. Only two or three on first read through but then steady progress although music is not my forte. Thought 9ac was probably the best clue. My pet hate is when words are split up as in 16,17,14,11, which the Guardian setters seem to do much more regularly than others.

4. Thanks Puck and Manehi. Not too hard and reminiscent of my childhood piano lessons. Please don’t tell my grandson that a choc-ice is food. He thinks they are only available as a treat.

5. Many thanks for a fine blog, manehi. [I don’t know how you do it so quickly.]

   I thought this was a very clever puzzle, which I thoroughly enjoyed unravelling. I liked the constructions of and links between FAME, REDO and PAIRED and I have to disagree with Linda @3 re 16,17,14,15, which I thought was particularly ingenious, with each of the four constituents being a valid word and then being broken down still further into the three consecutive notes. [I have seen this word clued at least four times [I’ve just counted] – twice by the same setter, in different guises – as DISC ON SO LATE, which I admired greatly, the first time! This was a refreshing change, especially with its clever link to the theme.]

   I didn’t see NIGHTCLUB as readily as some – in fact, the top left corner took me as long as the rest of the puzzle put together, until I got the brilliant 9ac. And 2dn [sorry Redlands] was another favourite, when I finally saw it.

   It’s been a very good week in Guardian Crosswordland. Many thanks to Puck for rounding it off so [characteristically] well.

6. Cohere: I was momentarily distracted by ‘leading’ as the leading note of the scale is TE, not RE.

7. Fun puzzle and thanks for the early blog.

   Got off to a bad start by writing (my first in) 10a as ‘A Wing’. Doh!

8. Don’t normally gush but I absolutely loved this puzzle. Loved unpicking it’s knotted threads and didn’t want it to end. Being a musical creature helped but it was also clever & witty.

   Eileen, I remember DISC ON SO LATE too, but I can’t find it. Was it in another paper perhaps.

   EIGHTH works two ways I think – Manehi’s parse is obviously correct but I read it as 12½% of an octet, which is, of course, an eighth. I suppose that makes “That’s hard” redundant now I come to think of it…I’ll get my coat.

   Many thanks to Puckmeister and have a nice weekend everyone.

9. Thanks to manehi for the blog and to Puck for a super puzzle. I thought this was pretty tricky, guessing the answers was a lot easier than trying to explain them.

10. Hi William @8

    If you type DISCONSOLATE into the Site Search box, you’ll find clues from Dac, Chifonie / Armonie and Gordius puzzles, blogged here.

11. Eileen, of course, many thanks.

12. …Eileen…it was Gordius in the FT I was remembering.

    Nice weekend.

13. Thank you to Puck for keeping up the good work, and to manehi for the blog.

    I was beaten by PAIRED firstly because I’d written in SCALE for 29 without too much thought, secondly because the notes in FA/ME/RE/DO are in descending order, which turns out to have no significance whatsoever, thirdly because like Ponticello @6 I took “leading” to refer to “note”, rather than an indicator of sequence – a nice misdirection!

    A minor comment on 9 and 27 – the references to the scale of C are presumably for illustrative purposes only, as DO is the tonic and SO is the dominant in whichever scale one is playing or singing.

14. Completed

15. Thanks manehi and Puck

    Enjoyable and not too difficult. I ticked 27a, 28a, and 24d. I also think I’ve seen the theme before – I have a vague memory of getting some of the notes in the wrong order but not quite as badly as Eric Morecambe in his Andre Preview sketch.

16. Thanks Puck for a musical tour and to manehi for a good blog.

    I started at the bottom and sailed on until, like Eileen, I got a bit stuck on the NW corner. GIGOLO in particular needed a lot of thought and, without that, the ???E?E of COHERE was difficult to find.

    I did like the CHOC ICES, although I didn’t see it at first. Not being very musical, I knew SOL-FA from looking up the two letter words, like ‘si’ in the dictionary while playing Scrabble!

    I do quite like the DIS-CON-SOL-ATE where each syllable can be used independently for further clues.

17. I think “ice” in “choicest” is “reserve” (verb)meaning “put on ice.”

18. Having guessed LOW-FI at 8, I was OK with the numeric references. but took a while to latch on to the 27 8 theme, which, as Mac@13 mentions, obviates key signatures.

19. The theme has certainly appeared several times, most recently somewhat concealed in yesterday’s Indy puzzle from Monk. The one that [not surprisingly, since I blogged it] sprang to my mind was this one, from Boatman, last Autumn:

    http://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/10/19/guardian-prize-26077-boatman/

    [Thanks for the reminder of the sketch, tupu. 😉 ]

20. Thanks Puck and manehi
    I found this the most difficult for ages. It took three sessions (hence the late post!); I “cheated” on DOCTORS to get me going (I haven’t heard of the TV soap, so I would have needed to guess it from the crossers anyway), and failed on DOMINANTS (though I recognise it is being very clever).

    I’m sure that tomorrow’s Prize will be easier.

21. P.S. is C = cocaine standard?

22. Enjoyed the puzzle, but would just like to record again my dislike of the unclued use of random initial letters, as in (O)nly (C)hild, as well as the (presumably coincidental) use of OC again clued as “overcharge” which I’ve never seen anywhere.

23. My failure to parse 13a and 2d did not spoil my general pleasure in this one. But I do agree with both of the criticisms jeceris makes @22.

24. @22 (and 23)
    There is no “unclued use of random initial letters” in either of the examples you give. Puck, like all good setters, only uses letters to stand for words when they are standard abbreviations; i.e. they can stand for the word in question in ordinary English usage. “oc” is defined in Chambers as “only child”; “O/C” is defined in Chambers as “overcharge”. I have never seen Puck simply clue a letter with a word it happens to begin with, which is what you seem to be accusing him of (without consulting a dictionary first? or even doing a 2-second online search??). And I don’t think it’s a coincidence he put the two different OCs in the same puzzle.

    @21 …and C is defined in Chambers as “cocaine” (it’s a common nickname in spoken English too).

25. Herb @ 24
    Thanks – is it to my credit that I have never heard C used as a nickname for cocaine?

26. This seemed a little impenetrable at first but gave way steadily, helped by the number of themed answers, and in the end it seemed fairly straightforward, especially by Puck’s standards. All very pleasant. Last in were COHERE and CHOICEST.

    Thanks to Puck and manehi.

27. I parsed 1d slightly differently: IG (in garage, started) inside GO (at the first attempt = in one go) + LO. With this parse, STARTS instead of STARTED works slightly better, to my mind. All of which is a very minor nitpick of a very enjoyable puzzle. I particularly liked 20 and 25a.

    Many thanks, Puck and manehi.

28. ‘Charlie’ (= C) is also used for cocaine……. apparently! 😉

29. I needed to check DOMINANTS post-solve to see why it was the right answer (it was the only word that seemed to fit the wordplay). I’m not as impressed with the clue as a lot of you seem to be because the hyphenation of “so-and-so” points to a completely different definition, and I don’t think the inclusion of a question mark at the end of the clue makes it acceptable.

    Having said that, I was in a bad mood post-solve because I had entered a careless unparsed “screw” at 29ac from a definition of “overcharge”. When the “check all” button showed me my error I reread the clue and saw the correct answer right away. Note to self: if I can’t parse an answer there is a good chance it is wrong.

    Finally, if this had been a Rufus puzzle I’m sure there would have been some negative comments about the grid.

30. A very enjoyable puzzle.

    Thanks to Eileen @5 whose post almost exactly reflects my comments on and experiences with this puzzle so I wont repeat them. 🙂

    Thanks to manehi and Puck

31. Ditto Eileen@5 and B(NTO) @30 🙂
    Many thanks to always reliable Puck, and to Manehi

32. George @14, thanks so much for letting us all know

33. Thanks all. Late to the party, since I’m just getting to this at the end of a full Western Hemisphere Friday afternoon.

    I was under the impression that the notes were spelled “do re mi fa sol la ti,” but since no other commenter has objected to “so,” “me,” and “te,” I’m guessing that I’m being either American or pedantic. Or else your dictionaries, unlike mine, give those as alternative spellings.

    Of course, they’re just sung/chanted syllables that are being spelled out, so it hardly matters.

34. mrpenney @ 33
    The syllables were originally derived from a Latin poem; see
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge
    Thus the “correct” spellings are as you gave them. However, as you say, they may have changed through verbal transmission.

35. Very late.
    Eileen – Hear Hear!!
    Axomoxoa – interesting…
    Fantastic puzzle!
    Thanks to S & B

36. thanks for the explanations.

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