Comments on: Independent 7,750 / Nimrod

By: amulk

amulk — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:45:11 +0000

I am a recent convert to the Independent crossword from the Times as a protest against their reptilian ownership (how long I remain happy with the owners of this journal remains a moot point, but let us wait and see). Anyway, as regards the crosswords, I find the standard of cluing in the Independent to be dodgy to say the least. Example: how can it be deemed reasonable to clue “NY” (in 2 dn) with “giants”? Would it be OK to clue “man” with “united”? Would it OK to clue “Wed” with “steel city”? No, I thought not. And “rio” = “sand dancer”? A lyric from a second rate Duran Duran song? What had the setter been smoking? And could someone provide me with a context in which one could reasonably replace “influence” by “atmosphere”? My thesaurus does not list the two as synonyms.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:16:24 +0000

My experience of this 5d seems to be typical. Started with 10a of the easier clues, then got some of the others by intuition until the 2d when I got 8d from its 8d.

I think Richard @7 is probably right as there are then two crossword references symmetically placed at 9a and 24a.

Thought 19a was a bit cheeky!

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 23:42:00 +0000

Thanks RR tried to do this in car home, failed. Bed time to sleep for a few days. Over to Eileen for her first step into the dark side tomorrow. JH ty but got half way – too tough for me err yesterday.

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 22:54:10 +0000

Thanks to one and all for shedding additional light on today’s puzzle – I have adjusted the blog accordingly.

By: redddevil

redddevil — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:13:50 +0000

When you get to the stage of needing Duran Duran lyrics to parse a clue correctly that’s a step too far for me. Only a week or so ago many people on here hadn’t even heard of Sam Cooke!
As usual with Nimrod puzzles I got lotsof the answeres quite quickly and then and spent more time trying to work out why they fitted the clues.
Bit too intricate for me really though I got all but the two 3-letter ones (albeit many unparsed).

By: Quixote

Quixote — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:45:14 +0000

I didn’t take the Don to be personal. I often solve this colleague’s puzzles by intuition, looking at definitions, rather than by deduction — as I did here. Not one of his harder ones while I watched the limited highlights of the cricket!

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:14:18 +0000

I think there’s another crossword reference in the clue for 9 across, two prolific setters being Roger Squires and Don Manley.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:37:03 +0000

I too found this pretty tough but you expect Nimrod to be tough but I got there in the end, understanding everything except RIO, tho it was the first answer I pencilled in cos of the friendly wordplay so I had no real doubts. I also agree with Paul A at #4 re demi = half which was clever. Many thanks, Nimrod and RatkojaRiku. I too was not aware of that meaning of MEZZANINE till verifying after, nor indeed had I heard of MEZZES.

By: Lenny

Lenny — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:35:04 +0000

This was very entertaining. Fortunately, I got Penny-Drop Moment quite quickly so I guessed the self-referential theme. The only obscurities for me were the two three-letter words. The sand-dancer had to be Rio but faced with I?A for the palm-tree I started checking for a pangram and considered Ija, Iqa and Ixa before I concluded that Nimrod had given up on the attempted pangram and I guessed at Ita without understanding the wordplay.Thanks for the explanation RR.

I don’t see Obdurately as an &Lit. I think the definition is just Hardly.

By: Paul A

Paul A — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:03:25 +0000

1ac – I think it’s more than just missing half the lettters. It’s missing ‘demi’, i.e. half. Too clever by half?