Comments on: Independent 7,625 – Phi

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:55:56 +0000

Many thanks, Phi, for the insight into the inner workings of the compiler’s mind – it really does seem to be a full-time job, one from which it is almost impossible to switch off!

By: Phi

Phi — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:46:53 +0000

I’m always happy to see people generally enjoying my puzzles, while realising you can’t please everyone all the time. Lenny notes the additional point that these were all notable pairs of brothers (even if there may have been other siblings), so the Marxes were never going to feature, though Miliband and Grimm would have remained contenders (had I thought of them, but Ed wouldn’t have been much use in an Independent grid, I guess, and I can’t, off the top of my head, recall the Grimms’ forenames).

The seed pair was Alberich and Mime, from watching the surtitles on the latest Metropolitan Opera Rheingold that went round the cinemas last year – I’d forgotten they were brothers. Perhaps worryingly, my mental process went rapidly through: ‘Brothers? Good theme – BROTHER across the middle – means 3-letter words either side – ah, CHANG and ENG’ before the end of the opera. I’ve also developed a habit of assessing the lengths of potential theme words to see if they’ll fit symmetrically…

By: flashling

flashling — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:39:31 +0000

I found this a struggle to get going, got andrew/simon peter then went down the wrong road looking for apostles… @K’sD I’m sure some of us bloggers can be very bad if we want to!

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:31:00 +0000

Welcome Jude at no 7. Hope you’ll continue to contribute here. I’m not always as grumpy as I have been today, and as walruss suggests, the standard of the puzzles here is invariably very good (and the bloggers aren’t bad either …)

By: Jude

Jude — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:48:30 +0000

I’m new to the Independent puzzle and to this section of the blog; although am quite familiar with others of the blogs and bloggers. I’d like to thank RatkojaRiku for clear, sensible explanations which don’t assume an in depth knowledge of the vagaries of crossword setters and clues.

By: Lenny

Lenny — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:00:36 +0000

I enjoyed this immensely and managed to solve it without aids since I knew all the disparate pairs of brothers. It took me a long time to get started, until I got Andrew, followed by Simon Peter and this gave me the gateway clue. I think I am in agreement with RR and KD about the whimsical nature of the clue. Presumably Phi did not want to give the game away too easily. He need not have worried: it was still very difficult to find the pairs of brothers even when you knew the theme.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:42:29 +0000

I’m going to dissent, I’m afraid. I didn’t really like this one, although with a lot of online help I did finally solve it. ‘Whimsical’ is one way to describe the definition for the gateway clue; mine would be ‘obscure’. ‘Member’ of order, perhaps, but ‘element’? I was in periodic table land for a long time. In addition, one of my pet niggles is when one of the crossing letters for the gateway clue comes from a clue where the answer to the gateway clue is needed, which happened today. And yes, I know there are three other crossing letters to help as well.

The theme is fine, but the pairs are so disparate that getting to 18ac from solving any of them cold proved difficult, for me anyway.

Getting Super Mario and Alberich into the same theme is praiseworthy, in a slightly left-field kind of way.

I’m a big fan of this setter, but this was just a bit of an online slog for me today. However, others have obviously enjoyed it, so I shall be happy to remain in a minority of one.

Thank you for the blog, RatkojaRiku.

By: walruss

walruss — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:58:15 +0000

Yes good stuff. I liked 16 best actually, with its clevr Bill & Ben reference, very like yesterday’s Hinge & Bracket. Sooper week in The Independent.

By: ele

ele — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:24:17 +0000

11A OENOPHILE was the first in for me, and unusually, I found this excellent puzzle comparatively easy and finished it off in one go – which doesn’t happen very often. Had to look up the brother to Luigi – with Alberich and Mime in there I was thinking opera at first, but managed to do all the others. Chang and Eng rang a bell, although couldn’t remember why until I Googled them afterwards. Found 27ac HEDGEROWS most difficult, and liked 9ac IDAHO. MIC for microphone does indeed seem to come up mostly now, probably because it’s a more useful combination of letters than MIKE. Many thanks to Phi and to RatkojaRiku.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:16:06 +0000

I thought this was one of Phi’s finest puzzles in the Indy, theme put together extremely well, and in particular I found I was able to work out the words that were new to me from the clear wordplay. Clues I esp liked IDAHO, RINSE, COMPATIBLE, STAG and OVERHEAD. Thanks, RatkojaRiku, for the blog and Phi for the puzzle.