Posted by nmsindy on 31st December 2007
Another very interesting year at the Indy as the new editor, Eimi, who took over early in 2006, puts his mark on the paper. The main features are a continued move towards themed puzzles and attracting many of the top UK setters to set for the paper.
Posted in Independent | 3 Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on 31st December 2007
Very tough puzzle to finish the year. There is a theme, which I’ll give after the clue explanations in case anyone wants to have another look at the grid. I found it after 14 mins, but solving took 50 mins in all. I’m confident of the answers, but there are quite a few I do not fully understand. These are listed below.
Posted in Independent | 7 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 31st December 2007
Monday is usually the day the crossword editor sends down a “loosener”, such as the recent series of pleasing, humane Rufus puzzles.
Posted in Guardian | 22 Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on 30th December 2007
There are comments on this following the blog of Dac 6614 (Fri 28 12 2007)
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Posted by rightback on 29th December 2007
Posted in Guardian | 7 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 28th December 2007
linxit has reported in sick, so I’ve thrown the following last minute blog together.
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Posted by linxit on 28th December 2007
This was an enjoyable thematic puzzle based on Samuel Beckett (1,4 ac). I’ll put some more up when I can, but I’ve been in bed with flu for the last 3 days, and this is the first puzzle I’ve solved in that time. Starting to feel dizzy again…crawling back to my pit…
Posted in Guardian | 3 Comments »
Posted by Colin Blackburn on 28th December 2007
Considering some of the tough and thematic puzzles this week this was a nice easy end to the week with no themes or hidden messages (famous last words!)
Posted in Independent | 6 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 28th December 2007
The easiest puzzle I’ve solved by this usually difficult setter. A few people here have mentioned that they’ve often found many of Scorpion’s clues to be a bit contrived but I don’t think that’s something he could be accused of in this puzzle. There are some really good clues here and my favourite was 20d. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 5 Comments »
Posted by Pete Maclean on 28th December 2007
A fairly standard Cincinnus puzzle this week with at least one great clue (3D) and one that I do not understand the workings of (26D).
Posted in FT | 2 Comments »
Posted by petebiddlecombe on 28th December 2007
Solving time: a couple of hours, maybe a bit less.
Experienced Inquisitor solvers will know already that Eddie (from Eddie the Eagle, referring to the Indie masthead as well as the ski-jumper) is one of Mike Laws’s pseudonyms. As a quick bit of maths based on the preamble suggested, the phrase to be found in the extra letters in wordplay is: THOUSANDTH CROSSWORD IN OUR WEEKLY SERIES. I can remember tackling the first, and although I haven’t by any means solved the lot in between, this puzzle has provided lots of pleaure over the years.
Posted in Inquisitor | 2 Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on 27th December 2007
A very difficult puzzle, which I was not able to finish – clues I struggled with listed in full below – any help provided would be much appreciated. The theme is “The Scottish play” (Macbeth by Shakespeare) which also allows a reference to Hampden Park.
Posted in Independent | 6 Comments »
Posted by nmsindy on 27th December 2007
A special Christmas offering from Quixote, the main theme being the use of a well-known Christmas item in its role as an anagram indicator. Once seen, solving was very fast. Solving time: 14 mins.
Posted in Independent | 1 Comment »
Posted by ilancaron on 27th December 2007
Christmas songs not being a strong suit, I would never have worked out the song so thanks to Shirley for putting me out of my misery. It’s “Green Grow the Rushes, O” – a “well-known” counting song. I managed to cut and slash my way through the wordplay and definitions with guesses and some dictionary lookups and now that I know what the song is, hopefully everything else will fall into place. Comments below have resolved some of the open questions…
Posted in Guardian | 11 Comments »
Posted by John on 26th December 2007
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | I POD [with the I "put back"] UM |
| 8 | CHESTNUT. 8 Down is “Christmas tree”, but unless I don’t know about Christmas trees in various parts of the world, the connection with Christmas looks a bit tenuous and we end up getting a whole lot of trees. Which I suppose is fair enough: it’s Christmas, and here we are, doing a crossword in which there are lots of trees. |
| 9 | PINASTER. Although in Chambers 2003, this was only in one of my several lists of trees. |
| 11 | B(A)OB AB I think |
| 15 | USER – hidden. I think of a user as someone who uses illicit drugs, but this definition is perfectly OK. |
| 16 | M in NOEL rev. |
| 17 | ALO(N)E |
| 18 | SERVICES. Church services are particularly associated with Christmas. |
| 20 | C(RE)ASE. Cricket. |
| 21 | K GO, linked to (in this case succeeding) GIN |
| 23 | RAM BUT AN. I worked this out from the fairly easy wordplay long before I had heard of it. Not in any of my lists, but eventually confirmed by Chambers. |
| 25 | (NO rev. PIN) in HUE. What a struggle. No list suggested the answer; nor did my electronic solver; eventually I worked it out and it was again confirmed by Chambers. |
| 26 | ROTHKO – (hot ro(c)k)*. Not an artist at the forefront of my mind, but perhaps that’s just me. |
| Down | |
| 2 | MICAWBER – mica (brew)*. A Dickens reference. |
| 3 | AMETABOLIC – (amicable to)* |
| 5 | ST REAM. Leaves = sheets of paper = ream. |
| 6 | GUARDROOMS – gu(ar(my) (door)*)ms. Instead of “sticks” we could have been given “8 Downs, say”, and that would have made it even more difficult. |
| 8 | CHRISTMAS TREE – (chimes restart)*. This was so easy that I thought the whole thing was also going to be easy, but I was wrong. |
| 12 | ABSTEMIOUS – a (I must be so)*. Nice sort of anti &lit. Not sure what the word is for this type of clue. |
| 14 | CINE CAMERA – n CE rev., all in (America)*. A semi &lit I think, also very nice. |
| 19 | V I KING |
| 22 | OVID – (v I) in do rev. Ovid may well be a famous exile – he is I suppose famous and he was exiled, but although I was aware that he wrote Latin poetry I had to look him up to find out the rest. I sense that I’m missing something. |
| 24 | ANKH – an (HK rev.) |
Posted in Independent | 3 Comments »
Posted by michod on 24th December 2007
Just a quick blog between wrapping, baking, drinking etc. Almost all the clues have a festive reference, and most are pretty simple – this was a very quick solve bar 13 down, which maddeningly held me up even though, once the penny dropped, I had a nagginG feeling I’ve come across it before. Down blog all in italic – why? Why not?!
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Posted by linxit on 24th December 2007
I found this one fairly straightforward, as Azeds go. A fairly low percentage of obscure words meant I wasn’t flicking through Chambers as much as I usually do (or maybe my vocabulary’s finally improving!). There were a couple of glitches – unless I’m mistaken there’s a comp. anagram that doesn’t work, and in the online grid the number 24 appears in mid-word before 23 (although the numbering isn’t messed up as a result). Trying to copy Jane and others with a new layout today.
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Posted by neildubya on 24th December 2007
I found this pretty difficult, although the preamble was a big help in that it suggested that other Indy compilers would be mentioned in whole or in part in the answers and, more obviously, in some clues. Some were easy to spot (Mordred and Nestor were the first two I got), others not so easy (it took me ages to see Virgilius). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 16 Comments »
Posted by rightback on 23rd December 2007
Solving time: 18 mins, one mistake (20dn)
This Mona Lisa-themed puzzle might have been straightforward for any art scholars who knew the ten-word phrase at 24ac (anyone?), but I had to work it out painstakingly from the anagram. The rest of the clues were probably a bit easier than usual for Araucaria.
Posted in Guardian | 5 Comments »
Posted by Pete Maclean on 22nd December 2007
This puzzle proved easier for me on the whole than others by Bradman. I still struggled to complete the last couple of clues (3D, 11A) though. And there is one answer I trust I have right but where I do not understand the wordplay (2D).
Posted in FT | 3 Comments »
Posted by John on 21st December 2007
As usual with Phi, everything very enjoyable. There doesn’t seem to be a Nina, but there probably is. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Independent | 4 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 21st December 2007
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | (SINFUL EFFECTS I)* – SELF-SUFFCIENT. SELF was obvious but the rest took a little time to make itself apparent. |
| 9 | RUSE,D,SKI |
| 10 | YUP,PIE – if I had to pick a word to sum up the 1980s it would probably be this. |
| 11 | DE CAMP – I liked this: “Go and butch up”. |
| 12 | NEG OR TIN< – quite a difficult one to parse. |
| 16 | C in (BRAVE ONES)* – OBSERVANCE. Not a tough word by any means and a fairly easy anagram to spot but this still took me a while to get. At any rate, it felt like it should have been obvious, but wasn’t. |
| 18 | C in PEER<, C in TALE – cleverly constructed clue which takes one abbreviation – C – and gets us to use it twice. |
| 20 | [-qu]EASY – one of the last couple I filled in and only because I could see what else could fit. Have just seen that “green” = queasy. |
| 27 | IPM in CHUNK – “thirteen hundred” really held me up here and even when I filled the answer in I still couldn’t explain it. Finally, the penny dropped: 1300 = 1PM = IPM. |
| 28 | PE,LET<,HONE,BOOT,H |
| Down | |
| 2 | UM in [-g]ENERATE – the fact that UM and ER both appear made think that these were both indicated by “I’m hesitant” but that meant the rest of the clue didn’t work. |
| 3 | hidden reversed in “prAYERFul” – FREYA is the Norse goddess of love and beauty. |
| 5 | FRI[-day],ENDS |
| 7 | ESP,ION,AGE – “special intuition” for E[xtra] S[ensory] P[erception] and the definition was enough to get this. |
| 8 | T,WINE – “tent” is a deep red wine. |
| 13 | TURNER PRIZE – filled this in without understanding the clue but looking at it now, “lather” looks to be doing the deception work here as it means “some who operates a lathe”, which could also be a TURNER. |
| 17 | AS,HEWN in CUT – at first I couldn’t understand the wordplay here as I thought that “when chopped” was (WHEN)*, which left AS unaccounted for. Later spotted that “when chopped” is AS HEWN. |
| 22 | A,DEPT[-h] |
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Posted by neildubya on 21st December 2007
Condoleeza Rice (15d.) once made the quote in the title. Not her finest hour. Struck me that Pasquale’s puzzle is uniting quite a few people this morning – hope you’re all finding it as challenging as I am.
Posted in Guardian | 25 Comments »
Posted by duncanshiell on 20th December 2007
There were three important parts to the preamble:
1. Every across clue lacked a definition and the wordplay generated a word which could be associated with the entry at that number – i.e the actual entries had to be deduced.
Posted in Inquisitor | 5 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 20th December 2007
…to all of our readers. Thanks for all your help, support and encouragement in 2007 – we couldn’t have done it without you.
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