Comments on: Independent 7301 by Punk

By: Merlyn

Merlyn — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:36:38 +0000

Not being a football fan I found it quite tough – after getting back and forward, I was thinking of them as going things to words (like reversals) rather than positions. Google’s ‘fuzzy logic’ search function (“did you mean Kaka?”) was quite useful for some of the names.

Is there any kind of ‘rule’ about how soon words are repeated: Heehaw and Retract both in Independent 7,295 by Mordred on March 4th?

By: Bullfrog

Bullfrog — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:25:50 +0000

This was my first Indy crossword for some years, having only just realised that they’re available free online (The Grauniad is my regular fix). A good, challenging puzzle, and I thought it a nice touch to have Pele wearing the number 10!

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:08:47 +0000

Great site, Ian. I’m missing him already.

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:41:51 +0000

Oh thanks a lot, K's D. You've had me going back through all this again, when I should have been getting on with some work... (Probably best avoided if you're not keen on football).

By: NealH

NealH — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:51:32 +0000

I got there in the end with this one, but it wasn’t pretty. Annoyingly, I thought of back quite early on for 13 across, but didn’t see how it could mean champion. It wasn’t until much later that the idea of champion as a verb dawned on me. The main problem was that so many of the answers were names of footballers and, until you knew that was what you were looking for, it was almost impossible to work them out from the enumeration. I was also hampered by the fact that, with another Six Nations weekend coming up, I was convinced that some of the answers must be Rugby backs and forwards.

My only real objection is the clue to 20 which relied on us associating Henry with Ford. Mentally, I tend to give up when someone just gives me a first name because I reason that there have probably been several million people called Henry, quite a few of them famous, so picking out Henry Ford in particular will be close to impossible. Other than that, most of clues were basically sound and there wasn’t anything I didn’t understand.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:37:35 +0000

I wouldn’t say horrific, but certainly a tough puzzle and one for the more experienced and competent solvers, which is fair enough.

The difficulty for your Joe Average solver like me is that the two gateway clues were really tough. As nms has said, 13ac was far from obvious (though completely fair) and 20dn … well, let’s just say it was beyond me. And then the problem is that most of the other clues, to lapse into Ronglish, rely on you solving these two early doors.

So I cheated on 13 and 20, found the football theme, then being a footie fan like nms, entered most of the footballers without understanding the wordplay.

But hats off to Punk for 17dn, a great clue, and good luck with the Marathon.

By: Derrick Knight

Derrick Knight — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:32:18 +0000

I don’t normally like puzzles which hinge on the answers to one clue. Either you get it quickly and the rest is a doddle; or you don’t and are continually frustrated. Like Niall, I found 7 down a big help. Here we had 2 answers to work on, the answer to 7 making 20 fairly deducible. Unlike Niall, I know very little about football, but you can’t miss the headlines as you are making your way to the puzzle page, so I was able to get the names, with an uneducated guess at Paolo Maldini, who, probably as Niall has explained hasn’t made recent headlines. So yes, dammit, I enjoyed this one.

By: pat

pat — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:43:06 +0000

Sorry – this was horrific.

By: Punk

Punk — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:43:05 +0000

Thank you eimi, and to you ali and nmsindy.

I would love a little help with my sponsorship, and it’s for a wonderful cause. So please drop by via the link.

Thank you again.

Punk/Paul.

By: eimi

eimi — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:36:53 +0000

Incidentally, on a sporty tangent, Punk is running in this year’s London Marathon on behalf of Sense, the charity for the Deaf and Blind. If anyone wishes to sponsor him they can do so here:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=JohnHalpern