Comments on: Independent 7,240/Dac

By: sidey

sidey — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:43:01 +0000

I may have been a touch hyperbolic there anax…

By: anax

anax — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:11:22 +0000

Quite right Sidey, and a bit of mea culpa on my part – I really enjoyed this Dac outing but got caught up in doing other stuff for the rest of the day. I suppose the thing with Dac is that his clues are so flippin’ good there’s rarely any sort of controversy, and that tends to be the thing that engenders comment. If you read through those blogs with the most comments several of them tend to be exchanges of polarised opinion over one or two “debatable” clues.

But I’d hesitate to use the word “ghastly” when referring to any puzzle. My own experience is that any individual setter’s style appeals to one audience while leaving another cold, and that’s the way it should be; otherwise all setters end up being clones of each other, which nobody wants.

By: sidey

sidey — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:21:52 +0000

Odd, isn’t it? This really good puzzle gets one comment, the ghastly offering elsewhere has people slavering over it.

My thanks to all Indy setters and bloggers for this year (not forgetting the ed )

By: eimi

eimi — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:06:12 +0000

Me too. Thanks to Ali and his fellow bloggers for their efforts which I know are appreciated by the Indy setters and editor.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:13:39 +0000

Thanks, Ali, for this and all your other blogs in 2009.

Put TRIPLE instead of TRIPLY, but otherwise got there with a bit of effort and a few wordsearches – but you’re right, it’s a pleasure and never a chore. Several words new to me – SHAMUSES, HORSE OPERAS, TRILEMMA, MILLRACE and DOGBANE – but all succinctly clued, so now added to the memory bank (for tonight at least …)

Was interested by the use of ‘champion’ for A1 giving AI at 24ac. In the sense of ‘fine, excellent’, I’ve never heard this outside my native north-east. Typical exchange: ‘How ye doing, bonny lad?’ ‘Champion, man, champion.’ Not that it should have prevented anyone getting the answer.

Best surface today was 11d, in my humble opinion.

Looking forward to more Dac next year.