Comments on: Independent – 7498 by Dac

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:27:26 +0000

@ Simon Can see where you got that, perhaps I was lucky to get 1ac straight away. You tomorrow? About time for an anax but he was in the ft today as loroso. If it’s Nimrod then I pity the poor sod on duty. Thought this was as gentle as the indy gets, not that I’m complaining as I’ve had a few bleeding hard ones recently. @Rishi #3 you’re quite right. @KD sorry if I didn’t make it clear enough, I’m sure black and cats will appear tomorrow!

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:02:26 +0000

Thanks, flashling. A nice puzzle, though I’m slightly aggrieved at having fluffed it. I plumped for GET ACROSS, leaving 1ac unsolvable. Never mind, maybe tomorrow I’ll break my recent streak of not-quite-finishing crosswords!

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:24:26 +0000

Thanks nms – I see it now, just had a blind spot to it before.

By: walruss

walruss — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:09:15 +0000

I agree. Favourite also COOKED UP. OCTOGENERIAN too I liked well.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:01:12 +0000

Enjoyable puzzle, quite easy I thought, favourite COOKED UP. Re RISQUE, as the blog says, the question is just QU, I think, with the E coming from English, teacher = sir. upset indicating going up (in a down clue)

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:40:10 +0000

Thanks, scchua, never come across the dope/information definition before.

That was my point about RISQUE, though: ‘about’ does suggest surrounding, in other words an insertion of QUE in RIS; but it’s just a charade of the two, so I’m still not seeing it.

By: scchua

scchua — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:06:20 +0000

Hi K’sDad, the “dope” = GEN refreshingly refers to “knowledge” or “info”.
I think for RISQUE, it’s QU(estion) + E(nglish) SIR with “upset”=reverse, and “about”=surrounding.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:30:49 +0000

Thank you, flashling.

Always a pleasure to solve a Dac – for me, he’s the perfect example of a setter ‘losing gracefully’. He rarely produces a bad clue, so it’s hard to pick out favourites, but if I had to today I’d go for RUMBLE, RECORDER and PUT ACROSS.

I have two questions, if someone could oblige. I don’t get the gen = dope connection in 5dn – is it drugs slang? Also, in RISQUE doesn’t the ‘about’ suggest an insertion of QUE in RIS? Dac’s always very precise with his clueing, so I’m sure it’s just me missing how it works.

As flashling indicated, the only disappointment today was not having a valid excuse to mention my beloved Sunderland three days in row. So I’ll just have to use an invalid one.

Sorry, Gaufrid, I’ll stop now, honest.

By: scchua

scchua — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:18:44 +0000

Thanks flashling, and Dac for another enjoyable crossword.

Kicking myself for the one fumble I made: 4A: COOKED UP. Had the answer but rejected it because I couldn’t get the parsing. “Sanction” is one of those two-faced words, and for some reason, I was fixed on the negative meaning (as in “sanctions against a rogue nation”), and didn’t latch on to the positive OK meaning, possibly also because by association with the negative “putsch”. Duh!

Favourites were 5D OCTOGENARIAN, 18A PLEASANTRIES, a clever bit of misdirection with the capital F(ields’) and 11D BILLINGSGATE.

By: Rishi

Rishi — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:35:03 +0000

I would think that 3d is a charade: PUT ACROSS from “PUT A CROSS” (“basic instruction at the ballot box”).

Nowadays in most Indian elections we have what are called EVMs (electronic voting machines) on which we are told to punch a button.