Comments on: Independent 6354/Virgilius

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Wil Ransome — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:27:44 +0000

Yes Peter you’re quite right. I should never have dared to take Virgilius to task. Very silly of me. It would have been far more sensible to say that I seemed to be missing something (which I was).

OK “like the back of your hand” …, but I’m still less than comfortable with “behindhand” for the back of your hand.

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petebiddlecombe — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 08:58:33 +0000

Wil,

It’s a brave man who takes Virgilius to task. The “extremely familiar” bit comes from the colloquialism about knowing something like the back of one’s hand.

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Wil Ransome — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:17:45 +0000

As usual a lovely puzzle from Virgilius, but it seemed to me that Homer was nodding in 14 (BEHINDHAND). To say that the back of one’s hand is behind hand seems tenuous, to say the least, and then to go on and say that it’s extremely familiar seems even more tenuous: is the fact that it’s familiar going to lead one to the back of the hand, rather than the fingertip, or the knee, or the foot?

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petebiddlecombe — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:12:15 +0000

Also thoroughly enjoyed this. We’ve certainly had a grid with H’s made by blocks and 1st and 15th columns that were all H unches, but I don’t think we’ve previously had “every across answer starts with H”. My guess is that the previous H puzzle was in the Independent, but from a different setter. Tiny correction: LSD = “librae, solidi, denarii”, plurals of libra, solidus, denarius.