Comments on: Independent 7,704 by Nestor (Saturday Prize Puzzle, 25/06/11)

By: scchua

scchua — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 14:11:41 +0000

Thanks Simon and Nestor.

Really challenging, though perhaps I had a slight edge with GARUDA and NOUC MAM. Last one in was NOUGHTH, couldn’t think of a word ending ….H_H, until I thought east and Japanese drama. Lots of tough but fair clues as always with Nestor, favourites of which were 10A PALOMINO, got held up slightly trying to fit “China”=”Ming” porcelain, 5A APPLETS and 25A SWIVEL, though some might frown at the use of tradenames in the latter two. Thanks jmac for the explanation of the ninas, which I spotted but couldn’t connect.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 12:24:06 +0000

Yes, this was pretty tough, but totally fair. Seeing LUGGAGE and OF REPLY emerging helped me but I did not get the LEFT RIGHT idea till coming here. Quite a few words I’d never heard of but the clear wordplay led me to them in all cases. Favourite clues GANDHI and TILDE.
Thanks, Nestor, and Simon – programmers may start at 0 for convenience, Simon, giving 10 one-digit numbers, but I guess the rest of us will stick with 1 as our starting point for the foreseeable future…

By: Simon Harris

Simon Harris — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 09:32:13 +0000

Yes, well spotted jmac. I noticed that but didn’t understand it at all, and eventually forgot to even mention it. Thanks for the explanation!

The other thing I meant to mention relates to Allan_C’s comment: us programmers start counting at 0 (for example in the context of array indices), so the noughth of anything would be the initial, rather than the one preceding the initial item! That’s basically pedantry, though

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 09:20:44 +0000

Yes, tough but solvable. Thanks, Nestor, for the challenge, and Simon for the blog – and jmac for spotting the nina which I missed.

21a was obviously U somewhere in GARDA but I’d never heard of the airline so it was Google to the rescue, and also to confirm 17d from the wordplay. At Oxford the week before a university term is frequently referred to as ‘noughth week’ – see http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/guide/uniterms.html

NUOC MAM was also new to me, but I got it from the wordplay and then found it in Chambers.

Favourites? ESTUARIES and TILDE.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:30:58 +0000

I spend about 5 hours and only solved 8 clues. Thought that was down to my lack of ability but I see that it was tough.

Thanks for the blog

By: jmac

jmac — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:01:33 +0000

I agree it was quite tough but very good as usual from Nestor. There is also reading down the left hand column LUGGAGE i.e. [Left] luggage, and down the right hand column OF REPLY i.e. [right] of reply.