Alphabet associations - I

[Anna]

Oh dear!
Stag but not doe?
You get a better bang for your buck there, I s'pose

Actually Ams, It led me to put "Stag Amsterdam" into google. I feel I know more than I ever needed to know in the first place and now wish I had never known what was previously unknown!! I did, however, used to spend quite a bit of time in Rotterdam

Edit: I am sure any of our members, finding themselves in Amsterdam on a Stag Do would confine themselves to a bike ride and then relax in a coffee house with a cappuchino!

[Anna]

I am wondering if vinteuil's V could be a song in which the chorus is ******* I'm so in love with you?

Edited out totally wrong guess, don't know what I was thinking of anyone have a clue to the answer to it?

[rubbernecker]

I am sure any of our members, finding themselves in Amsterdam on a Stag Do would confine themselves to a bike ride and then relax in a coffee house with a cappuchino!

...with morning communion at the Oude Kerk and an afternoon visit to Anne Frank's house. (I think I still have her card )

[Angle]

Stumped, and with the board silenced, I'm off to hear the Dresden Staatskapelle in Birmingham (Friday evening). See you all at the weekend, perhaps.

[Anna]

Enjoy the concert Angle! (for a moment, seeing someone had posted, my heart leapt in anticipation of an answer to this most baffling puzzle!)

[amateur51]

I think we need some clues from Ossifer Vinteuil after this lengthy silence & lack of progress

I've managed to produce Violin which certainly fits all the clues but I'm sure it's not the answer OV is looking for

EDIT: My Gardman Premium Feeding Station Kit has just arrived - for feeding the wild birds in my patio garden, y'see - so I may be some time

[vinteuil]

I think we need some clues

it was very selfish of me to set this one - but I couldn't resist...

(I'm afraid you probably either know this one or you don't.)

[the first sentence here is a clue; the second isn't.]

[Tapiola]

I think we need some clues from Ossifer Vinteuil after this lengthy silence & lack of progress

Seconded, amateur. I wonder if the answer is of a musical/technical nature. This is very puzzling indeed, almost embarrassingly so for me, a great fan of Parsifal and especially the Good Friday Spell.

[Tapiola]

it was very selfish of me to set this one - but I couldn't resist...

(I'm afraid you probably either know this one or you don't.)

[the first sentence here is a clue; the second isn't.]

Gadzooks! Is the answer Vinteuil, vinteuil?

[Tapiola]

All of the pieces mentioned as clues have been identified as possible models for the Vinteuil Sonata in Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu... Franck's violin sonata, S-S's, Wagner's Good Friday music...

[vinteuil]

Gadzooks! Is the answer Vinteuil, vinteuil?

Tapiola - I blush to say it - but yes, you've got it.
Naughty of me, but finding myself with a V, I couldn't resist...

Yes, Vinteuil, he of the 'little phrase' in Proust. There has been much debate over the years who Vinteuil was; Proust evolved his thinking about the little phrase over many years - he didn’t want people to pin it down to any one particular work. In his dedication copy of ‘Swann’ to Jacques de Lacretelle in April 1918 he wrote:

“to the limited extent to which I have made use of real examples, the ‘little phrase’ of the sonata (and I have told no-one this) is … the charming but ultimately banal phrase from a sonata for violin and piano by Saint-Saëns, a composer I don’t care for. Later on, when speaking of this little phrase, I shouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t also thinking of the Good Friday Music. Later, when the piano and violin sob like two birds, I was thinking of the sonata by Franck (above all as played by Enesco), whose quartet will appear in a subsequent volume. The tremolos covering the little phrase at the Verdurins’ were suggested to me by the prelude to Lohengrin, but the phrase itself by something from Schubert. And the phrase is also at the same Verdurin soirée from a ravishing piano piece by Fauré.”


So with all apologies for such unabashed self-reference, I hand the bâton to Tapiola for a W ...

[Tapiola]

Well, vinteuil, as far as I am concerned absolutely no apology is necessary. I must congratulate you on a most baffling and intelligent conundrum! It all makes perfect sense now (as I continue to kick myself...).

[Anna]

And when Tapiola handed over the baton he actually said "a V for vinteuil" So, it was staring us in the face!!! Well done for excellent cryptic puzzle and congratulations to Tapiola for eventually solving it.

[Nick Armstrong]

Oooooo Mister Vintooill 'ow very post-modern and self-reflexive of you!

My week from Hell continues and I have popped up Rubbers-style to say I am missing the liberty to devote some braincells to the AA conundra. But still enjoying the wit and wisdom on rapid reading visits. I am hoping the weekend will allow a more concentrated return!

Here's one for Ammy with his new "bird feeder" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY



(Hope we haven't had that on here before. Forgive oversight if so...)

[rubbernecker]

And when Tapiola handed over the baton he actually said "V for vinteuil"

As did I in the post previous to that one...

Brilliant, Vinteuil, just brilliant. And well done Taps, too