Comments on: Independent 6940/Virgilius

By: Al Streatfield

Al Streatfield — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:07:51 +0000

I must leap to the defence of Virgilius(see Timbo’s comments). In my opinion the cluing was excellent, thus giving pleasure not just to “experts” but to people who enjoy crosswords. And there were no words that were out of place in a daily puzzle, except, possibly for “Rene”, although I’m sure a lot of people have heard of this contraction of “Irene”. (E)PAULETTE was, eventually for me, derivable from EPAULET.

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:06:33 +0000

I know MICHAELMAS but as a term it is only used by a small number of older universities. Going to a redbrick university I did the “first term” before imposing on my parents for Christmas. However, according to wikipedia my university (Manchester) does have a Michaelmas term. I find this very surprising since in four years there I never came across the word once.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:04:10 +0000

Dupin_1 has my vote, too. Actually I thought it should be Occam’s Razor, but I see from Chambers that both spellings are used. Must remember that if some setter decides to use it in an Indy crossword!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:19:54 +0000

Re NealH’s comments at 8, I saw Alan just the same as he did i.e. as explained by John and being a short name (having just four letters).

I must say I thought Michaelmas would be fairly well know as a term in universities etc and it was a pleasing moment when I saw it eventually though USHERETTES was even better.

I also fully endorse everything Dupin_1 says in comment 9 though I did know the two meanings of LULU all right.

By: dupin_1

dupin_1 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:52:16 +0000

Virtuoso stuff as usual from the Big V; nothing particularly cogent to add vis-a-vis this puzzle (I didn’t think it abnormally difficult, exc. ‘lulu’ which was unco to me too) just a general appreciation of the craftsmanship, which I think gets chronically overlooked or, at least, taken for granted. The parsing is immaculate, the encryption of the clues is always imaginative but / and ‘elegantly simple’ in the Ockham’s Razor sense (a pet hate of mine is stupidly contrived difficulty) and the holistic effect is second to none.

By: NealH

NealH — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:14:26 +0000

I’m glad I’m not the only one who found this difficult. Part of the problem was that I didn’t know the biblical quote and, although 8 across was obviously a male name followed by another male name reversed, the definition of “term” was so vague I had no idea what I was looking for. The only slight criticism I have would be of the “Alan” clue. To make sense, it has to be an &literal but Alan isn’t short for anything as far as I know, although I suppose you could argue that it’s a short name in the sense that it only has 4 letters.

By: TwoPies

TwoPies — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:10:51 +0000

Lulu is also slang for an outstanding person.

By: rayfolwell

rayfolwell — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:26:50 +0000

The only one I didn’t get was Lulu. Apparently it’s an opera by Berg, but what’s the rest of the clue about?

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:34:41 +0000

I wouldn’t be discouraged, Timbo. This Virgilius both I and the other bloggers found a bit more difficult than usual by Virgilius. In the nature of things, the standard of difficulty will vary up and down from time to time.

By: timbo

timbo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:47:29 +0000

I used to enjoy Virgilius’ crosswords – but these days they’re too difficult for me. Like quite a few Independent setters he seems to be aiming at the real experts – e.g. the regular contributors to this blog, rather than those of who just enjoy crosswords.

Its hardly worth buying the indi these days – the crossword was the last thing in it that was any good!