Independent 6635/Virgilius
Posted by John on January 22nd, 2008
A tour de force from Virgilius. Somehow he has managed to get some reference to a topic that continues to increase in importance into every clue, either in the answer or in the clue itself, sometimes more than once.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CARBON (=duplicate) FOOTPRINT. This was particularly hard since I had 2D as ODORISE, thinking that somehow or = as, and the Oxford Dictionary of English. If that actually exists (OED, NODE, …?). |
| 9 | HOT AIR. I got this from the definition and numeration, but it helped with 15/19. |
| 10 | TROUSERS – user in sort rev. Lower gear is a nice definition. |
| 11/22A | WIND FARM – CD |
| 12 | If you break “heart”, i.e. HEARTBREAK, then you can get “earth”. I always think these clues are nice. |
| 13 | SO in (SOLAR E)*. Brilliant semi-&lit. |
| 15/19D | GLOBAL WARMING – (blog)* w in alarming. Easy enough in conjunction with 9/22, although I can’t quite see why “alarming” = “scare”. They seem the wrong parts of speech. |
| 16 | GALORE – Al Gore with G moved. Marvellous clue. |
| 18 | SPAR((WOR(ld))REV.)S |
| 20 | NO BEL(PR)IZE. I don’t quite understand “recent”. |
| 23 | K(yoto) I LOG RAM |
| 25 | RENEWABLE ENERGY – (green era be newly)*. I suppose one could carp and say that “new” appears in each without a different meaning, but otherwise a perfect &lit. |
| Down | |
| 2 | A TOM(IS)E. |
| 4 | NORTH POLE – (help or not)*. This took me a long time since I was fairly sure that 1A was double something. |
| 5 | OUT (= spent) L AYS ((say)*) |
| 6 | TROUT. I wasn’t sure about this, but I think it’s out (= extinct) with r (= river), then t (= temperature) rising above it all. |
| 8 | NIRVANA – van in (rain)* |
| 14 | O ZONE HOLE. This term, to my surprise, is in Chambers – I’d only ever heard about a hole in the ozone layer. |
| 15 | GRACE NOTE – C in (not eager)*. Seems a rather odd definition. |
| 17 | CO IN (AINT)* E |
| 21 | ARK in P(er) A(nnum). Reminds me of that old joke about per anum and paying through the nose. |
| 22 | oF ALS Examples |
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
15/19d – I think it’s “causing scare” for ALARMING.
Agreed, great puzzle.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Yes, thought this was brilliant. The theme made it fairly easy to guess a lot of the answers, though I found the bottom half a lot easier than the top.
16ac I liked – not the first time Al Gore’s been referenced as an environmental campaigner in crosswords lately, if I remember rightly. Sure it was in The Independent a while back…
I’d pencilled in ODORISE for 2D as well, and so got myself into a mess thinking that 1ac must be DOUBLE something… Explaining, really, my problems with the top half of the grid.
I still can’t get 7d, and have no idea where the ‘van’ in 8d comes from!
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
7d I’ve just got… The hazards of putting in SWALLOWS instead of SPARROWS for 18ac.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
8d ‘van’ is ‘leaders’ i.e.in the van(guard).
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Cheers!
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 am
This puzzle is now available online at the new Indy website
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Woohoo! That’s fantastic news!
Just a couple of questions. Is it going to be updated daily? Is it going to continue to be one day behind the printed version? Is it going to have a byline?
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 am
At present the plan is for the crosswords to run one day behind, apart from prize puzzles which will be a week behind. I’m not sure about the byline situation yet.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:43 am
Looks good. Like the Reveal Letter / Reveal Word buttons – is this part of a big push to attract novice solvers? I’d have liked to have seen the link to the crossword more prominent on the home page – ‘Extras’ wasn’t the first place I thought to look for the link. Perhaps ‘Games’ would have been better? But there again, I did find it quickly enough, so perhaps I’m just being picky?
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
That sounds fine (although I would be quite keen to know who I’m doing!). Publishing a day behind is a good compromise on the phoneline issue and the “reveal” option is helpful for beginners.
Congratulations on getting this up and running! I am definitely converting to be a regular Indy kid from now on (rather than flitting between FT, Indy, Guardian and Times).