Comments on: Independent 7499/Klingsor

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:26:24 +0000

A late comment from me as I only did the puzzle as I travelled back down to England late last night. I thought this was an excellent puzzle, particularly good was where the definitions broke. Two many clues stood out, PENTANGLE, OCEAN, STONED, EGGHEAD right through the the simple but lovely AMBER are just a handful of many.

ANDIRON was the last to go in as it was the only word I could imagine that fitted. I quick check of the definition in Chambers (I have it on my iPod Touch!) confirmed that it was a CD, that for me didn’t quite work. The burning efficiency never quite felt like a computing term.

Colin

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:27:48 +0000

Good god what a day, good job I wasn’t blogging this or it would just be up now. great stuff thanks John for doubt and badminton’s explainations. Fantastic deceptive definitions at times esp chair. As for andiron yes it was weak but after the idea I can’t think how to improve it, but I’m a bit brain dead.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:55:36 +0000

Conrad at no 6 – thank you, another word this week that I’d never come across before.

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:55:22 +0000

I thought this was a nice challenge too. I didn’t get ANDIRON though; for me, the problem with a CD is that if you haven’t heard of the word (I can’t be the only one, surely?), you’ve no way of solving it. Apart from that, a pleasant lunchtime solve.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:52:18 +0000

Re LEGISLATE: John, I wondered what your query was re ‘boasting’, since as you say, it gives us the G. The choice of that word made the clue for me, reviving memories of the irritating swots and their ‘I don’t know a thing!’, just before going into the exam room. A really great surface!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:43:42 +0000

Thanks for the blog, John, and Klingsor for the puzzle. I too found this entertaining and towards the easy end of the Indy spectrum, esp liked SWEARWORD, LEGISLATE, AMBER. In LEGISLATE, John, as your blog says, ‘boasting’ gives one of the final letters so I think it’s fine. I quite liked ANDIRON and did think of computers first of all…

By: jmac

jmac — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:09:36 +0000

I enjoyed this a lot but didn’t find it particularly easy. SADDUCEE and SKILLET opened up their quadrants nicely, but I struggled with HYPNOS and HARMFUL even after spotting straightaway that they both began with H. I am not very experienced at cryptics and do like a few easy clues to get me started so thanks to Klingsor for having a few of these. Like Klingsor, I am also a fan of having some CD’s in a puzzle as I feel that they exercise a different part of the brain (as I see it – I’m no biologist) being a bit more lateral than some other cryptic devices. Particularly liked SWEARWORD and OCEAN. Thanks for the blog John, BADMINTON was the obvious answer but I couldn’t see why (to give just one example of your blog’s helpfulness).

By: Klingsor

Klingsor — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:31:09 +0000

Thanks for the nice comments! Just to clear up 18 down: it was indeed a simple CD and clearly not a very good one. I’m a great fan of CDs as it is this type of clue thich brought cryptic crosswords into being, and good CDs – such as the excellent ones produced by Roger Squires – can be the most satisfying clues of all to solve. The problem with them is that experienced solvers often see right through them without taking much notice of the “misleading” surface; in this case the clue was supposed to read like an advert for software to speed up making discs from computer files, but it seems nobody was fooled. CDs are often a useful device when a word (such as ANDIRON) is hard to define without being obvious or verbose, which is why I used one here. I like to think that at least it gave less experienced solvers an “in”.

Again, thanks for the feedback – it is always welcome.

By: scchua

scchua — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:53:14 +0000

Thanks for the blog, John and Klingsor for a challenging crossword, with quite some nice and tricky definitions, which I finally completed.

Favourites were 12D SWEARWORD the last but one in, one of the tricky definitions, 25A CHAIR, again another tricky definition, and of course 20D STONED, which brought back memories of another crossword where “high” was used as an anagrind.

Yes, 18D ANDIRON seemed oddly out of place, even after filling it in, I wasn’t sure it was right.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:57:47 +0000

PS: and thanks to John for the blog.