Comments on: Independent 7665 by Dac

By: Graham Pellen

Graham Pellen — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:27:06 +0000

In 15D the definition of the answer is “British monarch”. The solution is anagram of Belize and Th(ail and) welcoming “a”.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Thu, 12 May 2011 07:12:29 +0000

Nice one, Dac.

Some of the clues took a little thinking about, but nothing too obscure. ‘Piece’ in 21 put me on the wrong track initially, thinking of chess, and I thought of (the fat) knight, i.e. Falstaff, but crossing letters soon put me right.

Anyway, I came 1 finishing in under 30 minutes.

By: Sil van den Hoek

Sil van den Hoek — Wed, 11 May 2011 21:59:47 +0000

Wow, flashling, in Norse mythology FREYA is the goddess of love ….

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:26:51 +0000

At my previous job I worked with a very pretty girl called Freya (sigh!). Thanks PB for the explanation and the drummer joke – most I’ve heard are much ruder to drummers!

By: bamberger

bamberger — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:04:03 +0000

I got a good 2/3 of this out but hadn’t heard of edda, freya or dadist.
Only clue I wasn’t happy with was 21a -I would have hoped that the days of having to know Shakesperian characters had long gone. Without 22d ?i???l is hard given that piece =pistol is not the first thing that springs to mind .

By: Paul B

Paul B — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:52:42 +0000

Well, my drumsticks have battered skins, I can tell you.

Drum skins, which used to be made from calf-skin, are now called drum-heads (or just heads), and are made from mylar film. But the top head on any of the drums is still called the batter head. Got that?

Q: How many drummers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: 100: 1 to hold the light bulb and 99 to drink until the room spins.

Boom boom.

Tish.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 11 May 2011 17:32:48 +0000

OK thanks for clearing the Fats identity up, I’m no great jazz fan.

As for John H’s somewhat enigmatic comment… all will become clear.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 11 May 2011 17:27:30 +0000

Hi smiffy at no 9 and NealH at no 1. I commented a while ago about the (comparatively) large number of French expressions we get in the Indy, either in the solutions or the clues. There have been few other comments since, so I guess folk are okay with it.

flashling’s explanation is near the mark. ‘Au secours!’ is what you’d shout if you were being mugged in a back street of Paris, so it’s a call for help. But if a French pilot wanted to declare an emergency, then (because English is the language of air traffic control) he’d use ‘Mayday, Mayday’, which is the anglicisation and shortening of ‘Venez m’aider’, ‘Come and help me’.

By: walruss

walruss — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:58:05 +0000

Good analysis Mustyx! Another smooth perfoprmance from Dac, who keeps the Indy’s feet on the ground with his ‘plains’. Good stuff.

By: Mustyx

Mustyx — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:32:48 +0000

10ac Scchua is right – it’s Fats Waller who is the jazzman and probably the most famous ‘Fats’. Domino played R&B and rock n roll. There’s also Fats Navarro, another jazz legend. He played the trumpet, of course, but the ‘piano’ part of the clue merely refers to the ‘p’ so it could be him!