Comments on: Independent 7504/Dac

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 01:43:53 +0000

Hopefully there will soon be a Horizon programme that tells us how we might identify a good puzzle. Is ‘easy clued well’ the benchmark? Some other touchstone?

Um, er, well, maybe, but we’ve had Ximenean puzzles at both ends of the Difficulty Spectrum this week, and only one has deserved vilification.

Of course I am a ‘Libertarian’ and so a person who cannot know.

By: scarpia

scarpia — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:43:17 +0000

Thanks John.
Another top quality puzzle from Dac.
5 down is a brilliant anagram – best I’ve seen for a while.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 22:43:36 +0000

@walruss I’ve seen other setters who admire the “easy” compilers as they consider it to be rather harder than making a tough one. Personally I feel that a mix is good and tough all the time tends to discourage new entrants.

I prefer to be able to solve it and be a challenge too. At least the Indy setters don’t generally go in for cliched clues.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:49:45 +0000

@10 Rob it’s Ordinary Ratings, naval term for lesser than Able Seamen

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:49:17 +0000

That’s it, RobWatts, not beyond the bounds of possibility you’ll see it again. And why not?

By: RobWatts

RobWatts — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:21:03 +0000

Just for clarification, in 14 across, is OR = Other Ranks = MEN, as I don’t think I’ve seen this one before?

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:47:38 +0000

I agree with KD (at No 6 above), that, brilliant though the Indy crosswords nearly always are (and today’s is no exception), the absence of Virgilius is causing us no little distress. So please, Eimi, put us out of our misery and offer him an incentive he might find hard to refuse – how about a special 19 by 19 Saturday Prize Crossword, for example?

By: pennes

pennes — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:08:42 +0000

Have to say that I really enjoy Dac’s puzzles: clues always work well and little known words are usually not too hard to work out . I have been doing the crossword for about 2 years and find with Dac’s offerings that I don’t need access to research material: actually I make life hard for myself as I feel that if I have looked someting up, then I have been cheating.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:27:51 +0000

Very nice as ever from Dac. The Paris Hilton clue was a smile moment and pension scheme with the misleading pounds. Got stuck for a while on 1d as I’d convinced myself it was CIA around something.

Anyway thanks Dac/John from another regular obsessive.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 16:38:08 +0000

Since it’s been the regular fellow obsessives commenting today so far, I’ll just pop back to say that sometimes it seems that we get so few, brief, comments on the Indy puzzle that it looks like nobody’s interested, which if you’re a setter having a quick lurk might be discouraging.

I just think it’s that because we’ve had such a consistent run of crosswords of late that there’s nothing really much to discuss other than which clues we all enjoyed and to thank the setter for the entertainment.

In Another Place, however, there is usually plenty of commenting going on. Perhaps because folk have more to complain about over there, who can say?

And if we don’t have a guest appearance from Virgilius in the Indy soon, I’m just going to have to thcream and thcream till I’m thick.