Comments on: Independent 7,521 by Punk

By: Mike Laws

Mike Laws — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 01:32:05 +0000

An apPAULing grid – 6×7-letter words with only three checked letters, and 6×5-letter words with only two, and the ugly blackouts in the NE and SW corners. Sorry, but I care about such things, and it could have been done so much better.

It seemed to me a throw-away puzzle that should have been thrown away by the setter, rather than exploiting eimi’s good nature.

I did solve it, without having to look anything up, but the only satisfaction I got was filling in the last letter, so I could get on with something more worthwhile.

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:19:41 +0000

Seems reasonable enough to have this as a theme, but the dreadful checking (less than 50% in 15 out of 24 answers I think, including some of those dreaded 2 out of 5 ones) and my having never heard of Moon Unit Zappa, also being pretty vague about the others, meant that I never finished. And wasn’t particularly bothered about the fact, I’m afraid. The clues were pretty good as usual from Punk (although I didn’t like lit for books in 15dn).

By: flashling

flashling — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:28:33 +0000

Must admit twas a struggle and failed to complete this, Blanket Jackson?? I thought wacko jacko called all his kids Michael, doing this off line was not easy. Hmm Eimi warned yesterday of Nimrod and Bannsider to come, what’s due for S&B7 I wonder?

By: Quixote

Quixote — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:09:25 +0000

I’ve nesrly finished it, but I’m not up with the trendy culture so beloved of some of my Indy colleagues and the checking is distinctly unhelpful. A bit different form yesterday’s quasi-Rufus puzzle!

By: NealH

NealH — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:03:35 +0000

I didn’t start this until this evening and I’m afraid it was just too late to grapple with the bizarre names of celebrities’ kids, many of whom I’d never even heard of (Satchel Allen? Blanket Jackson? I thought they were all called Prince Michael something). For all I knew, 14 across could just as easily have been Sweater Jackson. I got most of the normal clues but even with half the letters checked, I still couldn’t work out some of those names. Things like beck for wave didn’t exactly help either.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:25:15 +0000

‘Fuddy-duddy’ is my middle name, despite the fact that Kathryn’s younger siblings have just discovered The Beatles on iTunes and I’m currently having wall-to-wall Lady Madonna and Yesterday pounding through from downstairs at while I’m trying to do some work upstairs.

The puzzle was fine, just not my cup of tea today. Glad that others enjoyed it, though. You don’t want vanilla every day, do you?

By: Colin Blackburn

Colin Blackburn — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:06:35 +0000

None of the CELEBs were obscure to me and I certainly wasn’t being fuddy-duddy in my comments. My problem was that I didn’t know the names of any of the offspring other than MOON UNIT. I got JACKSON from the wordplay and then googled to find the name as, as far as I knew, his children were all called Michael—I had genuinely not come across BLANKET. The two that were left intersected to a high degree and despite Punk’s otherwise fair cluing I just could not get these. If I had managed to guess ALLEN or BECKHAM then maybe I would have got the first names but as the two surname eluded me so did the rest. Perhaps it is a measure of my lack of knowledge of other people’s children that I considered SATCHEL to be an odd name for Lily’s brother!

By: jmac

jmac — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:41:17 +0000

Well I thought that this puzzle made good commuter fare. The only tricky bits were the unfortunately named offspring and whilst I failed on Satchell Allen and Blanket I still found it enjoyable. Once you have got “celeb”, then it is not too much of a leap to suppose that the Beckhams might be in there somewhere,and that a “late” celeb might be the strange one himself. Also the Zappa child would not be unfamiliar to what I imagine is a large part of the solving population by age. I though the days of high court judges and “who are the Beatles?” was long gone.

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:37:35 +0000

Each to their own, but I’m not sure I really follow the grievances. For a start, Beckham, Zappa, Jackson and Allen are hardly obscure figures that only the kids would have heard of. And clueing was precise yet fun, as is characteristic of Punk. No complaints from me.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:30:06 +0000

I was similarly glad, K’s D. These days, for me, ‘celeb[rity]‘ almost inevitably means someone I’ve never heard of. The only issue I knew was 2dn, which made me smile [again] at the thought of the old joke that he was [comparatively] lucky not to have been conceived in Peckham.