Rookie Corner – 119

56 comments on “Rookie Corner – 119”

1. BD, I can see a few blemishes on the PDF version of the puzzle. Is it a problem with the source file or is it just something I am seeing on my laptop for some reason?

   1. I have the same blemishes so it’s not you. It’s not really a problem.

   2. The software that produces the pdf doesn’t like some types of quotation marks / apostrophes – I’ll see if I can fix it.

      1. Should be OK now.

         1. Perfect. Many thanks.

2. Thanks Deuce. Well done on getting so many themed answers (I counted 14 rather than 13) into the grid. Unfortunately for me it didn’t disprove the aphorism because I thought a few of them were pretty obscure and I’d never heard of five of them – although the wordplay is very fair in leading to the answers. There are rather a lot of anagrams (I counted 13).
   Co-favourites for me were 31a and 14d.

3. Many thanks Deuce – and certainly topical in parts. I wonder how many mysterious-sounding comments you’ll get here from people aiming not to give the theme away! I suspect you knew already that it might test your ‘disprove’ statement to the limits, for me anyway! I loved your inclusion of 13 such clues to be solved in the preamble, along with 22d and 23d, to avoid/evade one of the usual debates. As Gazza says, your spread of clue types is different from what is perhaps more usual – but for a themed crossword, esp. where the definitions might escape some of us, that really helped. Enjoyable, thank you.

4. Full marks to the setter for the concept, but the aphorism wasn’t disproved for me either. The inclusion of 26a within the puzzle really scraped the bottom of the barrel I felt. Too much time spent looking up or checking Google to verify or understand answers made this a fairly tedious slog at times.

   A surfeit certainly of full or partial anagrams, but I realise the theme contributed somewhat to that. It was a pity though that the same verbal indicator was used in three successive clues (3d, 4d and 6d) and other indicators such as “initially” and “around” were used more than once. I’ll refrain from commenting on the surfaces except to say that I dislike contrivance and unfortunately it was present in spades. The setter could have used “Yemen” in 2d to avoid a country that no longer exists and I thought 27d was a noun, although it’s clued as a verb.

   Not really my cup of tea, I’m afraid, but I admire anyone who has managed to assemble such as puzzle, so congratulations and thanks, Deuce.

5. Thanks Deuce – that was a lot of fun – well mainly it was – some lovely twists and turns in there – very original.

   I started out finding it to be well on the easy side and twigged the meaning of B from 21a, which was about my 4th B – from that, being somewhat familiar with B-related matters, I twigged what the preamble was about. that said, although I found those clues easy they were still packed with good entertainment value.

   Towards the end I found it much tougher – particular themesters I’d not heard of (2d and 26a (without whom I could cheerfully have lived)).

   That’s always the risk with themed puzzles – what is or isn’t known to the particular solver.

   I could think of other more obvious candidates who were omitted but I hate to quibble on that account aince I’ve been there myself – filling a grid for a themed puzzle can be a nightmare when you can’t squeeze in the answer you were hoping to.

   I enjoyed the style of cluing – particularly those B clues where there was a hint or allusion to the answer in addition to a straight wordplay. Of those my favourite was 1d.

   Aside from the chosen theme my guess is that you are, or have at some time been, a bridge player.

   Although it’s not (as I understand it) a site requirement I hope (as inticated by Encota (@)#3) nothing I’ve written there gives the theme away – but anyone needing a hint will find one here:

   A musical hint

   in fact one of the answers gets a mention.

   Only quibble on wordplay etc would be 15a – I’m happy with the answer meaning what the last word indicates – not sure how the clue tells me it’s hidden in what goes before.

   1. You are right – it’snot a site reqirement. Caveat emptor applies to those reading the comments on a puzzle. Having said that, not revealing too much on day 1 is probably good practice.

   2. I’d buy 15a with the whole clue as the definition and the answer as a verb.

      1. @Cyborg

         Actually, on reflection, I think it’s OK – but I’d go the other way. To tare (sometimes “tare off”) something means to subtract the weight of the container (or truck or whatever) – then have the whole clue as wordplay, with “by subtraction” indicating that some of the letters need to be got rid of.

         Either way it turns out in the end to be rather good – often the case when you’ve got the answer but wonder quite how you got it.

         Quibble withdrawn.

6. I rather think that Deuce has proved rather than disproved the aphorism.

   I am once again in total accord with my alter ego, Silvanus: “Not really my cup of tea, I’m afraid, but I admire anyone who has managed to assemble such as puzzle, so congratulations and thanks, Deuce”.

7. Thanks Deuce – an enjoyable solve. As Gazza says, probably a few too many anagrams, and I think there’s an overreliance on ‘first letter’ devices – nine by my count, including two ‘initially’s, which is a little repetitive. It does seem to be 14 Bs rather than 13 – but then perhaps this is because one of them is infamous rather than famous…

   The bulk of them went in fairly quickly, helped along by the theme, but I more or less ground to a halt towards the end. Had to cheat on a couple – 15a I’ve never heard of, though if my subsequent Googling steers me right, it seems to be quite a clever &lit clue. Nice to see my favourite painter making an appearance.

   Couple of quibbles: 20a doesn’t seem to work (if ‘starters of’ refers to yogurt then surely it must also refer to and). Never seen 29a spelt like that, and the ‘beginnings of’ indicator is too vague for my liking. And I think 29d is defined as a verb when it’s actually a noun, which is a shame because I like the idea!

   My faves 11a, 21a, 6d, 9d (couldn’t decide at first whether the def passed muster, but I went with it in the end on the ‘it made me smile’ tiebreaker), 23d and the superb 14d.

   Thanks again for the fun, hope to see your work again soon!

   1. I’ll counter-quibble on 20a as well – if you answer “what are the starters of veal and yoghurt?” aloud, that’s exactly what goes in the grid.

      1. Quite right – quibble withdrawn!

8. Just over half way through and haven’t got a clue what this is all about.
   Maybe I’ll take a break and come back later……….

   1. Umm – sorry, not for me. Finished up simply trawling through a long list of ‘Bs’ to find anything that would fit.
      Nevertheless, very clever to get so many themed answers into the grid, Deuce.

9. I’m having a struggle with this one so just popped in to see who’s said what so far.
   If the themed answers are indicated by the B in the clue then, like Gazza, I’ve counted fourteen.
   Will have another go a bit later.

   1. Still stuck.

10. Thanks to Deuce for the puzzle.

    Unfortunately, about half of the famous 13 were completely unknown to me!

    (Who first decided to serve chips with mayonnaise? He (or she) should be the most famous B.)

11. Hi Deuce.

    I found this pretty tough – eventually sussed the significance of B when my little grey cells solved 22d for me, but several of the other Bs were totally unknown and inaccessible. I’m not familiar with any aphorism relating to the B so I’ve no idea if it’s proved or disproved.

    Like others though I’m impressed by the number of theme words included, many of which have pretty unfriendly crossers to create the rest of the grid from. It’s certainly a brave and ambitious attempt at a first puzzle (assuming it is a first one).

    There are four clues in the middle with less than half the letters crossing, which I don’t much like, but I appreciate it is accepted in some published puzzles; but if the puzzle is already quite tough, as this is, I think that potentially makes it even tougher.

    I cannot see what the definition in 15a is meant to be. And that in 27d is a noun not a verb. Neither are particularly common words and as they are not themed I think it would have been better to slot in much more familiar terms given the difficulty of the puzzle – in both cases the crossers offer plenty of options.

    I particularly liked 9d,14d, 24d (nice definition) and 25a.

    Well done on getting this up, look forward to seeing another one.

12. Well, I manged to complete the grid without revealing any letters (which I consider an achievement) but far too much time was spent on the internet to see if some of the answers I conjured up actually existed. I sussed what the B stood for early on from 16A and 22D, and then went looking for where 1D would fit since he’s the only other B I knew well. I can’t parse that one fully though. I’d heard of 11A but spelled differently. I don’t get 15A at all. And I have no idea about the aphorism. I did tick 14D, though.

    Very clever to get all the Bs in the grid, but I’m afraid this kind of puzzle is not my cup of tea either. I think being a few thousand miles away was probably a disadvantage to some extent, but those are the breaks. Thanks Deuce.

13. Sorry Deuce but not for me either. 5 clues solved on the high speed train this mirning, two more over lunch in Covent Garden, and 3 on the way home. So I did give it my 3 goes but that’s it. I think having to check so many b’s is probably asking too much of the solver, especially one without access to reference books or the net

14. When set this challenge in years gone by, we always found Stella Artois helped the process greatly! Hazarding a guess, my son would always call on his knowledge of international football teams
    [pun mode off]

15. Hi Deuce

    well any attempt to disprove the aphorism was always going to be a tough call, but what a sterling effort! – well done!

    I count 13, since (predictably) I think one of them comes from elsewhere

    A challenging puzzle – respect to anyone who did this unaided.

    I’m not sure I have all the parsing nailed so I look forward to the review.

    Many thanks Deuce

    1. There are 14 Bs in the clues, Dutch – which one do you think comes from elsewhere?

       1. A painter – though perhaps in those days boundaries weren’t the same.

          1. If it’s 11a then I think it depends on whether you pick The Elder or The Younger. According to Wikipedia dad was born near Breda but son was born in Brussels.

             1. I’ve always seen both as Dutch, but you are probably right – wasn’t it dad who did Icarus?

                not a big deal, great puzzle – just trying to throw in a personal take on the preamble 13

                1. I’d forgotten that the clue mentioned Icarus. That means you’re probably right about the nationality.

16. I’ve got 6 of the Bs so far – and have heard of 5 of them, so I suspect there are more difficult ones to follow, but I have to go out. The exception is 17d, and I really liked the wordplay here, perhaps a tweak to the surface overall (suits is promising, but I can’t think of anything) and it would be a wonderful clue.

17. Thanks, Deuce. I enjoyed this, but needed access to Google. One clue which irked me was 10a, because I can’t find any satisfactory definition in it. I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to assume that all solvers are male, or accept a stereotype of people who enjoy musicals. My favourite clue was the simplest – 5d is wonderful.

    1. yes, i also liked 5d

    2. I took the def in 10a to be simply ‘What you [ie anybody] might have – that leaves the rest as a straightforward alternative indication: happy = gay; gene = musical Mr Kelly.

       On that basis the possibilities extended by considering the whole surface are amusing (possibly a different Mr Kelly would make it work) but just a bonus layer – but I missed that at the time.

18. Many thanks for your review, Prolixic.

    For 1d, your wordplay is one letter short. I think the construction should be: insert a T (Tobacco-holder initially) into an anagram of ART IMAGES after removing AS. However that begs the question why did Deuce choose “tobacco-holder” as the word beginning with T? It seems to be a strange choice unless it Is connected in some way with the B in the answer.

    1. Was it him who did the “Ceci n’est pas un pipe” picture of a tobacco-pipe painting, or something similar?

       1. A bit of Googling confirms you are spot on, Encota!

          “The Treachery of Images is a painting by the B surrealist painter René M*******. The picture shows a pipe. Below it, he painted, Ceci n’est pas une pipe. His statement is taken to mean that the painting itself is not a pipe; it is merely an image of a pipe.”

19. Could someone put me out of my misery and tell me what the aphorism is?

    1. Name ten famous Belgians

       1. The owner and head brewer of what became the Stella Artois brewery (presumably Messrs Stella and Artois) were always good value. Also Eden Hazard, Fellaini and co. if you follow footie. I don’t think I ever got more than eight, even including the two fictitious ones of Tintin and Poirot.

       2. Oh. Thank you. Needless to say, I’ve never heard of it.

          1. Pity! Do you have a more-geographically-local equivalent?

             1. Not that I’m aware of. It would be fun to make some up, though.

    2. …or the ‘misere’ version of “I bet you can’t name ten famous Belgians”

20. I think this was a tremendous effort for a debut puzzle – really impressive. I found it a toughie and threw in the towel with about half a dozen remaining. Favourite clues included 1a (I read the “quickly” as meaning “a quick way of writing” Kings Cross, so I thought that clue was OK) and 1d, because of the clever reference in the surface to the answer. Also 5d – beautiful in its simplicity. “King Charles’ home” was also very clever.

    Please come and take a bow Deuce

21. In 24D, I thought the euphemism for “go” was spelled with an EA.

    1. I parsed “Go head over heels” as KEEL, i.e. capsize.

22. Many thanks for the review, Prolixic. Although I tend towards the ‘loath’ faction when it comes to such a huge amount of GK being included in a puzzle, it was actually two of the unrelated clues that took the longest time to unravel – 15a&27d.

    Some of the clues – 5&14d for instance – were very good. I’d like to see an un-themed puzzle from Deuce.

23. Enjoyed the theme as I knew everyone except 2d (top diplomat).
    1a won the Tour so often and 17d came to the Jardin in 2010 and so did 31a.
    26a was an unfortunate coincidence after what happened again a few days ago and although I respected the National Mourning over the weekend, this person is now part of our history unfortunately.
    I liked 15a for the simple reason that I saw it as an all in one.
    Thought that both painters were Dutch.
    Wasn’t keen on 10a.
    Thanks to Deuce and to Prolixic for the review.

24. Hi all,

    Thanks for your great comments on my puzzle. It’s very welcoming to have such helpful and positive feedback and hope you have enjoyed.

    – As Prolixic says you either love or loathe such general knowledge topics but I hope it provided some entertainment. (I originally prepared it for a slightly particular audience but yes, some are obscure)
    – I realise both 15a and 27d are incorrectly defined as verbs when they should be nouns – thanks for spotting. (15a is sometimes a verb, but more rarely than I thought).
    – Point taken on overuse of anagrams and inclusion.
    – On 24d, I intended the reading given by Cyborg (not that by Prolixic)

    1. Welcome Deuce.

       Hope we see you back in the Corner soon, possibly with something requiring a little less GK.

       1. With pleasure!

    2. I’d like to add my own Welcome to crypticsue’s.

       Re. overuse of anagrams etc, you may find Prolixic’s “A brief guide to the construction of crossword clues” useful, especially the table near the back that helps you double check how balanced a set of clues you have. I use such a table every time now (thanks Prolixic!)

    3. No – don’t take the point on overuse of anything. Do what you did here; start with an idea and see where it takes you – that (from observation) is what Araucaria did – that’s what made him head and sholders above all the others – and always fresh – even when he was (in his heyday) doing somewhere between a quarter and a third of all Guardian puzzles – and lots of other stuff besides.

       The painting-by-numbers “rules” about what proportion of what clue-types should be used and silly quibbles about what does or does not “grammatically” indicate a first letter or an anagram or whatever only serve to detracct from originality and entertainment value. Even The Times seems to be slowly drifting away from that sort of nonsense – bearing in mind that before the Greerian Terror the puzzles in TheTImes had the wildest cluing of all the broadsheets.

       Obviously a vast amount of embeds (hidden words) becomes a bit obvious – but I’ve seen plenty of puzzles which intentionally have eg a huge amount of charades – and overloading with well-signalled anagrams makes a good balance to thematic answers which some solvers may not know – also helps if you want to make a puzzle an easy solve.

       Stick to your guns.

       Actually I was going to add more plaudits to my original comment but as I was editing it I ran out of time.

       One I thought would have been amusing to include would have been Herman Van Rompuy – ie on account of NIgel Farage’s famous “who are you” rant.

       I really enjoyed this immensely – mind you I have to admit that I was in a sense on home turf, having spent a fair amount of time working in nearby Luxembourg (l’El Dorado des informaticiens) with many Bs.

       Once again – thanks for the fun.

    4. Welcome Deuce – I look forward to your next puzzle.

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