Comments on: Independent 6984 by Nimrod

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:55:42 +0000

I’ll have to admit that I’ve tended to take the view that, as this site is Internet-based, there was no need to explain definitions of the actual answers, as Wikipedia, Google searches etc etc, would usually explain a mystery word such as OFFA in this case.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:18:41 +0000

Uncle Yap
Perhaps I should have added explanations. Offa was an 8th century king of Mercia (roughly, central England) and Offa’s Dyke is an earthwork built to mark the boundary with Wales; unlike Hadrian’s Wall it was probably not meant as a fortification.
The term ‘corpus’ (Latin for ‘body’) is often used to describe the complete works of an author, poet, etc.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:22:59 +0000

Uncle Yap (8 above) – I should have provided a more detailed explanation.

OFFA is a proper name so not in some dicts and would also be unfamiliar outside the UK. Cor is also very much a UK word.

By: Mick H

Mick H — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:03:31 +0000

Interesting to see Midge Ure appearing in the Guardian and Indy today. I prefer Nimrod’s indication (‘A Live Aid organiser’) to Brummie’s ‘aging rock star’. Crossword-friendly surnames like Ure and (Brian) Eno guarantee a little bit of cryptic immortality at least.
Loved ‘dolphin-friendly’, the best among a bunch of well-concealed definitions.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:29:21 +0000

Uncle Yap
13 OFFA = OF + FA (4th note of the scale)
19 COR (Cor! = my!) + PUS (= matter)

By: Uncle Yap

Uncle Yap — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 06:15:19 +0000

I normally do the Indy one day later and come to FifteenSquared to look for missing answers; of which I have two

13 A Dyke-builder of note (4)

Since I have ?F?A, this must be OFFA which is not in Chambers; so why does this blog not have the explanation?

19D My matter works (6)
I have C?R?U? and your blog said corpus but why and what’s the wordplay?

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:12:11 +0000

Thanks, Richard, for explaining PISTOL. Re 6 above tho I think the ‘now’ might be attached to Motion i.e. he’s the Poet Laureate now. I think Nimrod may have used Motion = PL before, but I’d forgotten it.

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:48:41 +0000

I suspect IS TO = “now will”, with the “be” merely connecting it all together. I suppose in some dialects “be” means “is”, but I don’t feel confident that’s how it’s meant here.

By: Richard Heald

Richard Heald — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:11:21 +0000

11 Ac: I think the wordplay is meant to be PL (= Poet Laureate, currently Andrew Motion) with IS TO (= will be) “restricted”, although I can’t think of a sentence in which ‘is to’ and ‘will be’ are interchangeable, so the syntax doesn’t seem to work. A bit of carelessness there from Nimrod, I think.

By: C.G. Rishikesh

C.G. Rishikesh — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:08:00 +0000

All that is nonsense.

If a person has a regular arm, motion is unrestricted.

If small, …