Comments on: Independent 7,731 / Crosophile

By: redddevil

redddevil — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:21:22 +0000

Didn’t enjoy this one. Not really happy with clues for 3 or 4 down (when has a trattoria ever been a trat?). Also not heard of qua and not sure where the ‘at’ fits in for 7a. Oh well just not my thng I suppose.

By: ele

ele — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:20:22 +0000

Got off to a very good start with this one and then hit the buffers, including AQUARIA, which I failed on too, but overall a very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Crosophile and RR. Liked 4d as well as others already mentioned.

One tiny peeve – what’s a colon doing after the question mark in 16d? I thought it had to be part of the wordplay at first as it’s completely wrong as punctuation.

By: Cumbrian

Cumbrian — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:39:50 +0000

Thanks RatkojaRiku for the blog, and to Crosophile for an entertaining, if tough, puzzle. I came back to this at times over the course of the day and managed to complete it without cheating, and without understanding some of the answers; I struggled with ARTEFACT, BARCELONA and AQUARIA as I missed QUA for “in capacity of” and got myself fixed on measures of volume for a while.
My favourite was FANCY THAT, and because I convinced myself it was heading for a pangram I tried valiantly (and stupidly!) to make TAX fit for LEVY in 20ac. Duh……

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:06:29 +0000

Thanks, Crosophile and scchua, for the explanation of “bar” in 11.

Thanks, dialrib and flashling, for unpicking 3 for me: I have never come across the abbreviated form of trattoria, so I would never have correctly parsed this clue unaided.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:13:41 +0000

Thanks, scchua, that makes sense of course.

By: scchua

scchua — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:08:23 +0000

Thanks RatkojaRiku and Crosophile.

This was the easiest of the Big 3 today (still struggling with Araucaria). Favourites were 25A SOLAR WIND (my scientific inclination), 16A SOLUBLE and 11A BARCELONA. Hi K’sD@4 BAR = “bank”, as in “sandbank” = “sandbar”, ie. a raised ridge of material.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:42:11 +0000

Thank you, RatkojaRiku.

Got ARTEFACT without the slightest reason why; still don’t understand where the BAR in BARCELONA is coming from ; and wasn’t mad keen on CARDINALS.

But overall this was a really enjoyable puzzle. DELIBERATE was cleverly thought out, and IBSEN too. Plenty of variety in the clueing which kept me engaged, although I noticed that there were no full anagrams, which is a bit unusual, I guess.

Good stuff from Crosophile today, thank you.

By: Crosophile

Crosophile — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:51:54 +0000

Thanks for the blog, RatkojaRiku.
“I have not yet fully fathomed how this setter’s mind works.”
Don’t worry; nor have I!

Dialrib and Flashling are right about ARTEFACT.
re 11, collateral = ‘side by side’ so is merely misleading padding to help the surface reading. So
City bank’s collateral with church before dodgy loan =
……. BAR ………….+……………. CE ……..+……. LOAN*

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:21:13 +0000

I think the Bar is just from Gold Bars that banks take as collateral, Dialrib @1 has the same idea as me for artefact. Didn’t help myself by not fully reading 6d and entering gander=garden*.

13a is quite nice, took me ages to get it but my first reacrion was that MY was the definition.

Thanks RR and Crosophile.

By: dialrib

dialrib — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:36:43 +0000

3 Reversal of CAFE TRAT(toria) with the head (now a T) moved to tthe bottom.