You're not serious? The loop macro is the most Pythonic aspect of CL (c.f. list comprehensions). Your trouble handling that loop has nothing to do with lambdas.

right, but i'm guessing his (and mine) trouble handling that loop has more to do with loop that it does with us - at least that's what i tell myself so please be gentle

You can write bad Python code too. Lisp is no longer one language, there are many Lisp variants that don't have CL's looping construct.

Lisp hasn't been "one language" for decades, and, by number, most lisp variants do not include the loop macro. It's just a popular dialect that does.