Comments on: Inquisitor 140 – Alevin by Viking

By: Viking

Viking — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:19:02 +0000

Thank you for your comments and, particularly, for the hard work of compiling the clue analysis. I have just two things to add.

I was aware of potential controversy over “lager” and added a caveat in the original version of the preamble. But space is tight and it had to be excised.

I was interested to see the research about Dem/Rep. I had detected this in the 2003 edn and alerted Chambers, which is presumably why 2008 is more consistent. Hence I had no qualms about indicating R in this way.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:01:47 +0000

Looking at Azed’s book on setters, Viking is not included. Not 100% sure about this, but this may be as the guideline for inclusion (for space reasons, I think) was that those included had to be ‘professional’ setters. Viking’s regular slot in FT may have been later than that book appeared. Mike Laws is referring to the Listener series where Viking (when his puzzles appear) uses the same pseudonym.

Surprised too about Duncan’s comment on ‘tent’ as a wine – I’ve come across it so many times in puzzles but never yet in ‘real life’

By: Mike Laws

Mike Laws — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:33:32 +0000

Viking is currently co-editor of the series on which Inquisitor (then simply “Crossword”) was modelled over twenty years ago. It was meant to be co-clued with that series’ crossword statistician – a beer connoisseur – but lack of time (not beer!) got in the way.

I’m surprised that “tent” as a wine was unfamiliar to Duncan – it was already regular cryptic fodder when I started solving in the early seventies.

But no one’s said whether they enjoyed solving “Alevin” – I certainly did! Over a pint or two, of course.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:54:27 +0000

Yes, R = Republican (US) is in Chambers (2008). These slips can happen with various editions. If memory serves, o = old was missing from an edition of Chambers a while back.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:26:24 +0000

Not got it with me now, but think R = Republican is in Chambers (2008) though it’s not in 2006 edition, which does contain D = Democrat so it might have been a slip.

By: HolyGhost

HolyGhost — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:49:31 +0000

I got the same unclued entries as Duncan (with similar misgivings). More often than not, I’d have expected some indication of the unchecked letters in the unclued entries – but here it seems quite hard to make a sensible phrase from LGEHERGGML.

Didn’t find R for Republican in Chambers, but it is in the OED, so I guess that’s OK.

(And there’s a small typo in the blog: the entry at 31d has one T too many.)