Comments on: Independent – 7517 by Nestor

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:58:16 +0000

My usual Thursday night train journey back to England gave me ample time to fail on this one. 23ac and 18dn were left unfilled. I picked up an abandoned Guardian and did the Arachne puzzle for a little light relief. I even pored over a Magpie puzzle during one break! It was, though, a great puzzle despite its difficulty.

@8 Stella, to be pedantic it is Wikipedia not Wiki. There are thousands of wikis, Wikipedia is just one example of a wiki. It’s worth looking up wiki on wikipedia!

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:40:45 +0000

Got there in the end with some wordfinder assistance, but even that didn’t know TIBIOTARSI; I was reduced to thumbing through Chambers, having guessed it started with T, for something beginning TI-I, and there it was! And that led me to ROLLO; Nestor describing him as a king put me in mind of King Rollo, a series of books and TV programmes our children enjoyed back in the 80s.

But I have to confess I’d never heard of Clara Bow (although I’d heard mention of the ‘it’ girl). For anyone still in the dark, she was a star of the silent film era – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Bow

By: Mike Laws

Mike Laws — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:10:28 +0000

This puzzle was also by way of being a tribute to the late Derek Arthur, fomerly Nestor’s colleague as co-editor of the Listener series, who used the pseudonym Viking.

I found it extremely enjoyable, but also extremely testing, with some vocabulary and clueing more appropriate for an Inquisitor, rather than a weekday Indy cryptic.

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:12:27 +0000

(peeps head back out from the covers ) thanks Anax ET AL (hmm see blog) for getting the bits I missed must admit TED is new on me (even if dictionary says archaic 15c). Pentangle annoys me as ex wife plays in a group of that name. Regarding Rollo thanks Pandean I’ve seen a few studies where people don’t see “of” but do notice it if it’s missing. Got caught by that.

Stella @#8 suspect somehow Nestor knew that!

By: scchua

scchua — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:59:16 +0000

P.S. 23A TIBIOTARSI: The definition “fused bones” itself could be a wordplay, as “Tibia” and “Tarsus” are bones respectively. Change to “Tibio-”, a prefix, and to “Tarsi” the plural, fuse them, and you’ve got the answer.

Ah well, hindsight’s a wonderful thing!

By: scchua

scchua — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:23:37 +0000

Thanks flashling for a blog under trying circumstances, and to Nestor for a puzzle that seems (so far) universally agreed to be a tough one.

It’s one of those puzzles with quite a few clues that you get by going straight for the definition and not worrying about the wordplay, at least not until after you’ve filled in the answer. But of course there is that one clue, in this case 23A for me, where nothing works and one is forced to give up, with completion short by that one.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:57:52 +0000

“Ted” means to spread out to dry – e.g. cereal crops.

I agree this was a toughie!

By: Stella

Stella — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:49:39 +0000

Thanks for the blog, flashling.

While looking for clues in Wiki, I discovered that St. Nestor wrote of the vikings in his Chronicles!

By: anax

anax — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 13:08:03 +0000

Yes, but… Pandean points out the O’=OF trick in 24d, and it’s so blindingly obvious when you see it. Nestor has always had the knack of hiding things very well and I’d be far more upset if I didn’t get an answer and then didn’t get the wordplay explanation.

Incidentally, the same blinding obviousness applies to a hidden answer in today’s Graun puzzle from Arachne; it’s staring you right in the face but it take ages to see.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 12:54:23 +0000

Quite right, Handel – I don’t feel nearly so bad about cheating now!