Comments on: Independent 7,361/Nimrod

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 21 May 2010 06:35:35 +0000

To answer my own question, yes it was in Bannsider’s puzzle last Saturday.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 21 May 2010 06:31:01 +0000

Yes, definitely a toughie. I was pretty well defeated by the SE corner, though some of them raised the “of course!” reaction.

Re 2dn, Charles II reputedly hid in an oak tree during his flight after the battle of Worcester. Hence the common pub name the Royal Oak. Didn’t that occur as an answer in a recent crossword?

By: Uncle Yap

Uncle Yap — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:30:42 +0000

That was a tough nut to crack, especially as I was held up for a long time trying to fit in STALWART, PROPOSER and SECONDER to 1Across.

I just wonder whether Nimrod should be confined to weekend prize puzzles as it is hard to imagine the average solver being able to finish this between Welwyn Garden City and Charing Cross Station.

Nevertheless, it was a superb challenge in spite of new words (to me) like RATAFIA and TRAVOIS.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:07:29 +0000

I think Eileen’s right on that: the SI is OF plus T for time, and ‘of time’ defines ‘temporal’. And you’re right (as Raiches tend to be, of course) about the definition.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:25:57 +0000

I thought OFT just means more rather than less ie it happens often with temporal giving the link to time. Re the actors’ names, some of the fun of puzzles is working out a answer one does not know from the wordplay and both of these were fairly clearly anagrams. Like others, I found the puzzle very hard but there were some excellent clues. STAG = DOG (to follow), I think.

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:19:52 +0000

Like KD struggled with this, got more than 1 one first read but only just, having not seen Iron Man made it trickier and only got the actors from the crossing letters. Must admit my heart sinks when I see Nimrod’s name, don’t remember completing one of his yet.

By: scarpia

scarpia — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:06:23 +0000

sidey.
I also dislike soccer references,but they are, at least, part of British culture and do not contribute to the proliferation of (crass) American cultural hegemony.

By: sidey

sidey — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:54:59 +0000

“Comics are for children”

They are considerably better than soccer references

“I’d never heard of corn meaning to preserve”

Never eaten corned beef? Corns in preserving are salt grains the size of a grain of wheat.

By: jp

jp — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:44:18 +0000

Some very clever clues. I knew Robert Downey Jr but had to Google ‘Iron Man’ as Scarlet Johannsen wouldn’t fit for 8 down.Some quibbles though. I still don’t get the wordplay for ‘Oft’ in 23 across. Why ‘rather’? And I don’t really get ‘up’ as an anagrind in 11 down. (That does mean an anagram indicator, doesn’t it?) And why does ‘dog’ mean ‘stag’ in 20 across? I also got a bit messed up with ‘Troikas’ for 16 across!

By: NealH

NealH — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:21:08 +0000

I got most of the way through this fairly easily, helped by the Iron Man clues. However, I got hopelessly stuck on 1 across – it was far too vague for me and could have been anything. I only got it with the help of a word search, which confirmed that 3 down must be acorn, something that had occurred to me but I’d dismissed, as it didn’t seem to make any sense. I’d never heard of corn meaning to preserve and don’t know anything about Charles II’s hiding places. I assume there must be some legend about him hiding in an oak tree. Overall, while there was a lot of good stuff, I found some of it a bit too vague and obscure.