Comments on: Independent 7195/Phi

By: John

John — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:05:26 +0000

Thanks for tidying me up as usual on one or two points: yes of course Mick H, he couldn’t have used the French word for department as that would indeed have made the wordplay hopeless, and yes Roger P of course it’s simply ‘send up?’ for ‘despatch a pilot’.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:52:03 +0000

Very enjoyable puzzle from Phi with MINSTREL my last answer.

By: eimi

eimi — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:37:07 +0000

In a double definition clue there may well be different enumerations for each part, but by convention only one can be given. See perse/per se yesterday.

By: Roger P

Roger P — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:13:12 +0000

Re SEND-UP. Just to split a hair or two. The straight clue must be “take-off”, a noun and synomym of the hyphenated solution “send-up”, also a noun. “Despatch a pilot” is a verb phrase, whose synonym would be “send up” with no hyphen.

By: Mick H

Mick H — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:04:23 +0000

John, if you mean the acute accent in département, I don’t think this applies, as the clue uses the English translation of it – department. Otherwise it would need two Es as well as an accent, which would’ve really wrecked the surface reading!

By: mhl

mhl — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:13:56 +0000

Thanks for the post, John, and in particular for explaining the wordplay in TWO-TIMING. Is the definition meant to be “without scruple”? A good fun puzzle as usual for Friday, anyway.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:50:19 +0000

SEND-UP has the old question-mark alert, John.

If you were to despatch a pilot, would you perhaps send her up (into the sky)? That’s what m’colleague is nudging at here methinks, thereby achieving a good match-up twixt the SI and the (slighly cryptic) def.

Nice blog, nice puzzle.