Comments on: Independent 7528/Phi

By: Stella Heath

Stella Heath — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:09:00 +0000

I missed the theme, too, though we had one every year as a kid

I’d never heard of a Turing machine, and am probably about to forget all about it again, having looked it up. It doesn’t even seem possible, so it’s hard to understand how it could be useful, but then I’m just a linguist, no good at theoretical numbers: when my brother visited me at Leeds university he told me they were looking for the square root of -1 at his faculty, and of course, I could only answer “It doesn’t exist.”

By: NealH

NealH — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:57:20 +0000

I thought at first that this was a misprint and that only the across clues had been printed. Even after realizing that it was intended to look like that, I still found it quite off-putting and struggled to get going. The fact that there were no duplicated numbers obviously means that there were no answers which shared a first letter, so that might be one of the reasons it seemed a little harder than normal.

I guessed there must be a reason for the grid being designed like that but, not being very religious and never having even owned an advent calendar as far as I can recall, I was never really going to spot the theme.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:41:45 +0000

I think that was thematic, flashling, no across or down notification was needed as no number started two different clues. I guess Phi did this to get exactly 24 clues in with numbers 1 to 24 to fit those days of December. It was slightly disorienting when solving of course, one is so used to the other layout.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:31:55 +0000

Did anyone else do the paper edition? Clues were in number order not across/down as you’d expect, strange. Looked to see if there was a Nina there as well but found nothing expecting a Aids day link. As K’sD said I found this tougher than expected. Snowed in here.

By: beermagnet

beermagnet — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:50:13 +0000

ONE-LINER: I went on a cruise to see the 1999 eclipse.
On the first night the MD of the firm introduced the captain as the “Premier Captain of the Fleet”.
Captain, drole Norwegian, pointed out that as captain it was quite easy to be the “Premier Captain” when the fleet has only one boat.

I’m sure that firm was going up rather than going down – it was a brilliant “scientific” cruise (Tut. The things we have to do for science)

By: Ian W.

Ian W. — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:41:11 +0000

Thanks, Gaufrid. I did a search of this site for “crosswordsolver.info” before posting, but for some reason did not find that thread.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:04:31 +0000

Thanks for the blog, John, and the puzzle, Phi. I saw the Advent calendar connection all right with 24 days taking you to Christmas from today, 1 December. I too found it hard with some less familiar words but got there in the end. Favourites, PRISONER and REASON. Thanks for explaining 0NE-LINER, John, though I got it straightaway I could not see why till you did so.

By: Gaufrid

Gaufrid — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:19:26 +0000

Hi Ian W
See my comment #402 here:
http://fifteensquared.net/2009/02/17/general-crossword-discussion/

By: Ian W.

Ian W. — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 11:59:50 +0000

Has crosswordsolver.info been taken down? I used to enjoy downloading and printing Indy crossswords on its Crossword Solver app, but it hasn’t worked for days and the website seems to be down.

By: IanN14

IanN14 — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:39:50 +0000

Thanks John,
I think the fact it’s a Phi on a Wednesday is because the puzzle is a topical 4, 15, with exactly 24 clues, none of which share the same number.