I'm never sure if my puzzles are a bit easy for you. It's great to know you enjoy them on the whole
You've obviously not watched much Regency Period Dramas
Am I correct in thinking a doona is a duvet?
Hi again Pen,
I remember addressing the degree of difficulty in a post to Carol.
“One of the problems with these challenges is that if you make it too hard, by being overly cryptic or not giving enough clues to save people going in unproductive directions and wasting their time, it defeats the purpose. Making it too easy also defeats the purpose. Finding the middle ground can be quite difficult but feedback always helps.”
When I first started the puzzles, I tried to make them difficult but now if anything I prefer to err on the side of easy. As the main objective is to have fun, gently exercise the brain and perhaps to learn something new or remember something that you have forgotten, my idea of the perfect puzzle is one that on average takes about 15 minutes to work out. As with cryptic crosswords, sometimes if you get on the setter’s wavelength, you can see the answer immediately, if not it can take you all day if you get it at all.
I do enjoy your puzzles, cartoons, and jokes very much but I only rarely comment because I don’t like to make my posts formulaic. If I had a wish, it would be that some of our friends would throw in the odd puzzle.
You have hit the nail on the head about
Regency Period Dramas. It is one of my many areas of ignorance which include film stars, films, pop stars, pop music, etc., etc. Fortunately, I can cover up a lot of this ignorance with the help of Google. One point on the Early Regency Period, when Englishmen were prancing around in foppish gear, in Australia prison stripes were the fashion.
This answers your question on DuvetsAlthough you awarded full marks, I found these excerpts from the Telegraph interesting and so I include them.
My favourite place on Earth has to be Lyme Regis. By the time I was 16 I'd read all but one of Hardy's novels – he wrote 17 in all: I'm leaving the last one for my dotage. I was fascinated by Hardy and Wessex, and Lyme Regis, of course, is in the heart of what they call "Hardy Country".
I fell in love with the Dorset seaside town the first time I visited it many years ago and decided to incorporate it in a novel someday. So, my wife and I duly spent a wonderful week in a local hotel – The Bay, which has now gone, to be replaced by a Thai restaurant – with a room overlooking Lyme Bay.
I eventually worked the town into a Morse novel, The Way Through the Woods. I remember telling my publisher at the time to turn to that section because I thought it was the best bit in the book, and the dear girl, who I admired enormously, said she agreed with me but then suggested I leave it out "and got on with the story". That rather saddened me – but I didn't take any notice.
When I visit Lyme, I don't do anything much. I just like sitting by the sea at a table, preferably one that has alcohol on it, watching people go by and looking out over the bay. The most athletic thing I'll probably do is dip a toe in the sea.
I was going to do a puzzle on golf and UK Royalty but it defeated me but I will let you into the bonus questions.
Who banned golf so the commoners would get back to Archery practice? James II of Scotland.
What was the relationship of James IV of Scotland to James I of England? Grandfather. It makes sense if you remember James I was also James VI of Scotland
What wife of Henry VIII should have been a golfer? Catherine
Parr
King James IV of Scotland (1473-1513) was a man of many talents. He inherited the Scottish throne at the age of fifteen and unified the outlying areas of his kingdom by force of arms. He practiced dentistry and founded the Royal College of Surgeons in Scotland, many years ahead of that in England. He introduced compulsory education, requiring large landowners to educate their sons by sending them to one of the universities at St Andrews, Glasgow or Aberdeen. Yet, his most lasting legacy is probably that, in 1502, he decided that the threat of war with England had receded sufficiently to lift the long-standing ban on golf, imposed to encourage archery practice. (He also realised cannon were going to replace bows and therefore archery practice was no longer as important as it once was).
Its Sauvignon Blanc, olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar time. One must keep up one’s customs even in these virus-ridden times. No promises, but I will try to post a puzzle before I go to bed.