Comments on: Independent No 6712 by Radian

By: NealH

NealH — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:10:25 +0000

And thankfully no-one noticed or pointed out my gaffe over the “Rumble in the Jungle”. It was of course George Foreman who was Ali’s opponent on that occasion.

By: Testy

Testy — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:51:06 +0000

XI is intended to indicate 11A for which the answer was STONECROP and I think that this is another name for SEDUM.

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:36:19 +0000

Why is SEDUM XI (6 dn)?

I liked this, although much of it was hard as I hadn’t heard of some of the answers. Much taken on trust, for example I never knew that euphrasia and eyebright were the same thing.

By: Testy

Testy — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:06:47 +0000

Very good and extremely impressive number of thematic answers.

Only gripes are the 14A/D thing mentioned by Paul B, the MINOR/MINER thing mentioned by NealH (really such ambiguous clues should only be allowed where the checking letters dispel any doubts and this would surely not do if it had been a prize crossword) and finally, I’m not keen on the “here and there” and “occasionally” to indicate alternate letters as they could indicate any selection of letters (”alternately” or “regularly” work better for me).

I didn’t have an issue with the “a bit” though.

By: eimi

eimi — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:48:09 +0000

If Nmsindy hasn’t seen him before, he hasn’t been in the Indy before. The first debutant in the daily puzzle since Morph in February 2007. The clues were limited by both the number of thematic words and the number of clues produced by the grid, but I thought it a very promising debut.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:40:46 +0000

I found this tough, as I’m weak on plants, it was quite imaginatively put together. Have not seen RADIAN in the Indy before, but it did remind me of the Listener setter DIPPER whose puzzles are based on plants. Bertie Ahern is still Irish PM - he will leave on 6 May so that clue is quite correct.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:35:00 +0000

Count me in for the Gridwork Admiration Club, Dubya - not all that many non-leaved entries. And, speaking of Dubyas, the ‘Bush senior’ clue I thought bloody fantastic.

Downside: too many anagrams, too much single-letter indcation and subtraction, same indicator (over) used twice to indicate reversal in the ac clues, 14ac & 14dn possibly unfair since the answer to each is all one gets to define the other, plus 6dn’s ‘a bit’ seems a bit on backwards.

But that’s honesty. Or envy. If this is a first puzzle, I wish mine had been as good.

By: neildubya

neildubya — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:16:38 +0000

I’m hopeless with flowers/plants so this was a bit of a struggle. Half of the answers I filled were guesses, including the two 14s, but somehow managed to finish it all. Kudos to the setter for getting so much thematic material in the grid.

I don’t recognise the setter either so I’m guessing it’s a debut but eimi or nmsindy will be able to tell us for sure.