Comments on: Guardian 24,961 (Puck)

By: rfb

rfb — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:10:28 +0000

I did manage to get about 80% without help, and the clue for the theme was very clever when the penny dropped.

BUT I agree with Sil (#50) – I’d like to forget this. And like #56, I got this via the GW and I agree with him completely (even though I’m from the UK originally). This was much too parochial for an international audience.

I also wonder with #36/#38 why ‘quite short’ is AL(l). I thought it might be AL(most).

By: PeterS

PeterS — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:25:29 +0000

We know that football teams have 11 players, so “13″ and “15″ meant nothing to us. Gave up after a week at around 50% done.

Always great to read this blog, though.

By: maarvarq

maarvarq — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:29:43 +0000

Also from Australia, and also not a r*gger b*gger, I struggled with this one and the significance of the theme until I guessed Rochdale as the correct possibility from the crossing letters, Googled “Rochdale Hornets” and saw the light. I finished the puzzle but also wish not another one like this for a while.

By: Maureen Rogers

Maureen Rogers — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:11:09 +0000

… equally difficult from Australia – although league and union are national sports here. I thought of broncos but could not work out why the Brisbane Broncos would be in a UK crossword!
I got most out with some google crossword solver help but never worked out the significance of 13 and 15

By: Arthur Hay

Arthur Hay — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:24:14 +0000

No complaint with Puck at all, but I know a dark alley where I’d like to meet whoever chose this puzzle for the international “Guardian Weekly” crossword. Still got all but half a dozen, including “broncos” & “hornets”, thanks to the “wasp”, but who or what is a “rochdale”? Grrr.

By: Neil

Neil — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:06:19 +0000

Too late now!
But I liked this crossword puzzle because I had to think to be able to finish it. However, down here where I come from, there used to be serious football and then there was village soccer, with a round ball, played by bank clerks, shop assistants, skilled artisans (and me, as it happens). Football had fifteen players on each side and was played with an oblate spheroid, mostly by ‘horny-handed sons of toil’. Perhaps most significantly it was played to a set of “Laws”, not “rules” and, I believe, still is. I am vaguely aware of an aberrant thirteen-a-side, rather stilted, form of this game which is played, I’m told, north of the south midlands city of Bristol, possibly to a set of “rules”.

By: Hairy Scot

Hairy Scot — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:23:21 +0000

When I started the online version at 2pm NZ time I did not see any special instructions!!
Where they perhaps put in later??

Eventually twigged it after getting WASP and ROCHDALE HORNETS.

Thanks for the blog Diagacht

By: crikey

crikey — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:05:58 +0000

I don’t like Rugby, and had never heard of some of these teams, but that just made it all the more enjoyable. The clues were fair, and the answers were gettable from the wordplay, plus a bit of lateral thinking. Isn’t that what these crosswords are all about? I like to learn a thing or two every now and then… What I’m trying to say is that I think it’s irrelevant whether you like or have heard of any of these teams. It’s all part of the unravelling.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:40:44 +0000

Thanks Stiofain, for the explanation
(well, Diagacht himself did it earlier too, in #5, as I see it now).
But then saying “Different rules apply to 13 and 15″ referring to numbers of players??
No thanks (that is, for me).
As I said, some clever cluing, but I want to forget about it now.

By: stiofain

stiofain — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:30:48 +0000

Sil as I see it the special instructions have nothing at all to do with clues 13 and 15 merely that they are the numbers in rugby teams and this is a bit of misdirection.
I didnt enjoy this much not being a rugby fan and didnt like the use of obscure teams and even defunct ones.
I seem to remember this theme being done much better a few years ago in a prize xword where all 16(?) of the top league were clued.