Comments on: Independent 7,339 by Tees (Saturday Prize Puzzle, 24/04/10)

By: Tees

Tees — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:55:07 +0000

Oh, I don’t know. It seemed to make Araucaria EASIER all those years ago!

By: flashling

flashling — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:03:58 +0000

I don’t mind tough Tees, it’s fair enough, sorry can’t remember which website, I put gled into search engine and found an entry which said archaic for a buzzard. Maybe trying to do the saturday crossword after a few pints down the pub isn’t a great idea either!

By: Tees

Tees — Sun, 02 May 2010 00:51:44 +0000

In a prize puzzle I can confirm that you may expect a higher level of difficulty. Or engagement, depending on your POV.

FYI GLED is Scot. or N Eng. (Chambers). Collins, somewhat less rigorously, asserts that it’s a ‘former Brit name for the red kite’. Neither assigns an ‘arch.’ tag. But along with SOED these are the reference works I try to stick to: I don’t know what you mean by ‘the online dictionary’.

By: flashling

flashling — Sat, 01 May 2010 23:53:30 +0000

Well not being a twitcher I found this hard, got the bird theme quickly but gled was listed in the online dictionary (ok I cheated by my own rules) as archaic and the 6th in a list of alternative spellings and a lot of the others i’d not heard of before. Still impressed PeterB finished this without aids.

Couldn’t do today’s no shop locally had a copy by 9 this morning, distribution problem in the Dartford area?

By: Tees

Tees — Sat, 01 May 2010 08:08:57 +0000

AFAIK the Indy doesn’t run preambles at the moment (can’t be done online, I believe), so themes have to be nudged at in other ways. Which is no bad thing. Change the pseudonym, maybe, use a ‘ghost theme’ a la Virgil, or create a clue that holds the key. I thought ‘of a feather’ a pretty generous hint, and hopefully ’twas slightly more fun than your (standard) Groaniad intro.

Thanks for the nice comments, and great blog.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:24:16 +0000

Maybe I was just lucky but I saw the theme within about 5 minutes (ie that the down clues were birds with no definition) so did not feel there was any need for a special instruction or introduction.

By: Fletch

Fletch — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:40:50 +0000

The standard Guardian intro would’ve been Down clues are of a kind and lack definition – hardly an Inquisitor type preamble.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:47:12 +0000

Re Duggie’s comment, if I find a cryptic with an introduction in Another Paper I tend to leave it alone as bordering on the “Inquisitorial”. And in this case I would have missed a great puzzle. Of course, an into to this one would almost have given the game away with no need to solve 11ac.

By: walruss

walruss — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:18:44 +0000

Very inventive again from Tees and The Independent, and for me a manageable level of difficulty for a weekend prize puzzle. I had the coffee, the toast and marmalade, radio four, the internet, my trusty dictionary and the cat to help me, and so I will agree that it wasn’t one for the number 12 bus! The ‘of a feather’ device I liked very much, with some great stuff as noted.

By: jmac

jmac — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:14:13 +0000

I know little about ornithology, but I thought the more obscure birds were clued very fairly (simply) so that no specialist knowledge was required – of course I needed to check some answers but for a weekend puzzle I don’t mind doing this. I thought the use of “down” in 11 across was delightful.