Comments on: Independent 7,754/Punk

By: Peter Chambers

Peter Chambers — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:57:00 +0000

Same as nmsindy – while my heart sank at first, solving it without knowing anything about it was very satisyfing. Thanks Ali and Punk

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 05:51:43 +0000

Not the most satisfying of solves. Not being familiar with the Discworld canon I guessed 7d to be an author’s name, hence 11/23 to be THE ______ OF _____ and having solved that anagram I put it into Google. Wikipedia then provided the rest of the theme, with 14/9/8d/20 solved from the enumeration alone. After that there was so much done that the rest was easy and left me with little sense of achievement. The only thing that held me up (slightly) was looking for a non-existent Q somewhere in this “almost pangram”.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:55:17 +0000

While I doubt if I’d wish to tackle very long anagrams every day, I must say I got great pleasure from eventually working it out with the help of crossing letters, not least as it was totally unfamiliar to me with the RATS giving a confirmation when I finally saw RODENTS would fit the last bit. I liked ENDOWS a lot too. Thanks Ali and Punk.

By: Dormouse

Dormouse — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:34:06 +0000

Curiously, I got the big anagram first, having deduced that “and his” must be the start of 8d and the name of the book popping into my head. But I’m a big Pratchett fan.

By: sidey

sidey — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:49:25 +0000

Great long anagrams of book titles from niche authors are a bit of a bore, even for fans (like me and I’m ancient).

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:21:00 +0000

Thank you, Ali.

Not my cup of tea at all today. My route in was THE COLOUR OF MAGIC (guessing it would be THE something OF something), but in a daily cryptic I really am not going to spend a long time working out a 38-letter anagram for the work of an author I have heard of but certainly don’t know well. So it’s off to visit Mrs Google and then slap in the remaining non-themed clues.

The Paul in the Grauniad today was a much more enjoyable solve.

By: superkiwigirl

superkiwigirl — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:50:02 +0000

I’ve not familiar with TP either (perhaps it’s an age thing) so I also had to make a lot of use of his Wikipedia entry. As this is the second time in the last couple of days that he’s featured in a cryptic puzzle maybe he should be on every solver’s reading list?

I greatly enjoyed the non-themed clues here though – favorites included AMATEUR, SUMO and IN UTERO.

I’m with reddevil @5 regarding R.I.P. – I spent quite a lot of time trying to see how “amen” might be made to fit, with the result that BRITPOP was my last one in.

Many thanks for your usual fine blog, Ali, and for a (largely) enjoyable puzzle, PUNK.

By: redddevil

redddevil — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:57:03 +0000

I too could not have managed this without the author’s Wikipedia entry but found it fairly straightforward thereafter. Not really a fan of such a narrow theme in truth.
And am I being pedantic in not considering R.I.P. to be a word?

By: Lenny

Lenny — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:37:00 +0000

I suppose this was a bit more accessible than John H’s Spongebob Squarepants themed puzzle but, never having read anything by TP, I had to struggle to finish this without recourse to the internet. I did manage to work out the two long anagrams but it was hard graft. Last in was the granny. I had to go away for an hour to let my subconscious mull it over before I got the weather of Weatherwax. Obvious in retrospect.

By: crypticsue

crypticsue — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:30:59 +0000

Sorry, Punk but I am not a fan of “cryptics” where you have to solve one clue, in my case 2d, and then look up on Google to see who wrote it and then look up all the other themed clues. The non-themed ones were quite enjoyable but having to search the net made it more of a general knowledge than a cryptic for me. Well done Ali for working it all out.