Comments on: Independent 7249 (Saturday 9 Jan) – Bannsider

By: petebiddlecombe

petebiddlecombe — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:12:58 +0000

I can see the argument for harder puzzles at the weekend because people can look things up, but I’ve also come across a few people who tell me that they only do crosswords at the weekends. For them, a “hardest on Saturday” policy seems potentially discouraging.

(The “ever increasing difficulty” has never been a publicly stated policy at the Times. 20-odd years ago there was apparently an “easy starter on a Monday” policy, but the current xwd ed claims not to follow it.)

By: anax

anax — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:47:03 +0000

I feel a poll coming on.

By: Quixote

Quixote — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:40:14 +0000

Consumer choice is great to be sure, but expectations for 15 by 15s are not generally the same as those for barred puzzles and we need to be careful. The choice is wonderful at present (never been better!) but beware of 15 by 15s finding too small a market segment! What makes me worry is seeing quite often the names of people I know (or the same names) as prizewinners of 15 by 15s. For maybe different reasons, this is a worry with The Indy on both Saturdays and Sundays!

By: anax

anax — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:45:43 +0000

I’m with Don on this although, as Paul B indicates, the tradition of harder puzzles for the weekend is less rigorously adhered to now than it used to be.

The editors with whom I’ve corresponded say their choice of Saturday puzzle has more to do with the fact that, generally, more time can be devoted to a weekend solve than a weekday one, so there’s no harm in offering more of a challenge. However, that isn’t based on out-and-out difficulty through obscurity; more, it’s based on the setter’s success in “hiding things in broad daylight” via clever and/or original wordplay and/or definitions.

My experience of Bannsider’s puzzles is that, on seeing the answers I missed, I kick myself for having not seen through his subterfuge. Very rarely is it a case of “I wouldn’t have got that in a million years”. EDUSKUNTA – no, I wouldn’t have got that, but my lack of knowledge is no yardstick by which to judge whether or not others would have known it.

As to whether a very tough puzzle has adverse effects, I don’t know. My only observation is that having an array of weekend papers whose crosswords are spread over wide levels of difficulty can only be a good thing in terms of consumer choice.

By: Quixote

Quixote — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:32:04 +0000

Actually the Saturday puzzles in The Times are not always the hardest, and the crossword editor doesn’t make difficulty the sole criteria. Nor,as you say, are the Saturday Guardian puzzles necessarily the hardest (Araucaria can be relatively easy). I would guess, however, that The Indy goes to the greatest extreme in the Saturday-is-hardest direction. While the setter’s skill may on occasion merit the graft, there is a large body of solvers (underrepresented on our rather nerdy blogs!) who won’t see it that way — do try to meet a few of them!
Market forces, alas dear chap, market forces!

By: Paul B

Paul B — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:56:51 +0000

Shhhurely the tradition – however flimsy it may be these days – is to make weekend (not to mention Bank Holiday) puzzles harder. If not just hard. Twas that way in the Grauniad (bit unpredictable now), what with That Araucaria and his wiles, and Times also is reputed to follow a line of ever-increasing difficulty through the week.

At least in some puzzles, however hard, the cluemanship will justify solvers’ hard graft.

By: Emrys Williams

Emrys Williams — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:08:36 +0000

For 18ac, I sat and thought for about ten minutes about piranhas. The “ran” looked right but I really couldn’t make the rest of the clue work. Oh, well, at least there is more to learn yet.

I found eduskunta by clicking through the category of parliaments of Europe in wikipedia. I was so shocked when it fitted the anagram! Did _anyone_ know the word without looking it up? Are there any native Finns who do the Indy crossword?

Lovely, challening, rewarding puzzle, even if I couldn’t quite finish it. Thank you very much!

By: Quixote

Quixote — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:19:33 +0000

I got through this largely through intuition based on years of experience as a solver and setter — and may have even been quicker than Peter. There are two schools of thought about Saturday puzzles. The Telegraph’s approach seems to be to make Saturday’s relatively easy and encourage entrants and hence maybe newspaper circulation. If the Indy’s policy is to make the puzzle so hard that no one buys the paper, it may be succeeding if the declining circulation figures are anything to go by! I hope I’m only being funny, dear eimi — because I for one quite like these near-impossible 15 by 15 challenges once in a while. (Besides which I also work for the Indy and like it as a paper.)

By: Duggie

Duggie — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:55:17 +0000

I felt quite proud, having finished this in about 90 mins. This was the master at his best, i.e. hardest. And nice to hear HMV explaining what I too thought was a slight liberty with PI. It’s great to see new ways of cooking old chestnuts and it’s not often you get two Finnish clues in one puzzle.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:26:33 +0000

I was one of those who, as petebiddlecombe suspects, “guessed 1/27 from word lengths and a bit of inspiration” which put me well on the way. Got there in the end with some help from google (eduskunta was almost a googlewhack on its own!) and wildcard searches, and a few clues not understood but the answers couldn’t be anything else. Great stuff, though!