Comments on: Independent 7580/Eimi

By: Richard Pennington

Richard Pennington — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:36:51 +0000

The word association theme echoes an old Monty Python sketch on “word association football” which I think was in the mind of the setter, and made me chuckle when I spotted it in the across answers in the top half of the grid.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:05:23 +0000

A bit late posting on this one due to being away from computer, but, despite the inclusion of the needed obscure words, I managed to work it all out from the wordplay.

I did not see the full richness of the WORD ASSOCIATION (thanks, Prolixic, for that), just what was in the rows. So quite an achievement from the setter. Thanks, Eimi, and John for the blog.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 09:02:13 +0000

The theme passed me by but nevertheless a nice gentle solve with the few obscure words or meanings easily checked in the dictionary.
Good luck in the new job, flashling.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:16:04 +0000

Sorry to be in late – progness made demands – but cracking puzzle from da boss.

By: eimi

eimi — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:03:22 +0000

Thanks to all for your kind comments. The grid fill was a bit of slow process, one step forward and two steps back until I could find the associated words to fit and still produce reasonable words in the Downs. I was a bit concerned that a couple of the Down answers were obscure, but I’m very pleased to discover that solvers seem to have considered the end to justify the means. And, yes, the Monty Python sketch was my inspiration.

By: pennes

pennes — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 23:09:56 +0000

Interesting; I never realised marjoram and oregano were so closely linked in classification. Actually after looking at Wikipedia I’m confused, I found this a bit clearer
http://www.sallybernstein.com/food/columns/gilbert/oregano.htm
All marjorams are oreganos but not all oreganos are marjorams.

By: Gnomethang

Gnomethang — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:50:56 +0000

Excellent puzzle!
Glad I tackled this but the full extent of the 6a eluded me.
What I liked was the fact that I had to reach for the dictionary on a number of occasions to confirm words or synonyms that were extremely well clued but previously unknown to me.
Well done and thanks to EIMI.
I do like a thali, though!

By: flashling

flashling — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 17:03:24 +0000

Did wonder if Eimi could have made the last line pears or rooms or something.:-)

Flashling a somewhat relieved bunny as starts new job tomorrow so Friday’s blog may well be somewhat late in posting.

By: flashling

flashling — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:48:31 +0000

Rather enjoyed this – suspected a strong football theme early on but it seems to be a mini theme or my imagination. Some tricky words but spotted the word association (football) link early on which led to a rather quick solve in the end. Many thanks to John and of course Eimi.

By: scchua

scchua — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:14:47 +0000

Thanks for the blog, John, and Eimi for a comfortably-solved puzzle. Thanks also to Prolixic for pointing out the WORD ASSOCIATIONs, which make this an even more brilliant puzzle.

As often happens with Eimi, I learnt some new words/new meanings: TRONC, ORIGAN (exact same meaning as oregano?) and picture TABLE – never knew they called them that –
http://www.gizmag.com/picture-table-furniture-art/13639/
The latter is an alternative (I think) to 11A TABLE – I have doubts about table = diagram = picture.

Favourites were the long anagrams 6A WORD ASSOCIATION and 28A PRESS CONFERENCE, and 17D EMOTIVE.