Comments on: Independent 7757/Phi

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 15:36:16 +0000

Allan_C @10: Thanks. I was wondering if there was any way of getting the clue to parse as THEM + E, but there clearly is not: it must be EM in THE. Chambers (2008, p. 500) gives 'em (inf) pronoun them; to them. I agree with Allan that the word order needs to be taken as a bit of licence. I find it a good deal more acceptable than indicating an anagram by an imperative verb after the anagram fodder.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:24:51 +0000

Amulk and Pelham – the clue was “Message in article about those vulgar people (5)”. I took ‘em’ to be a vulgar way of saying ‘them’, i.e. ‘those people’ and the rearrangement of the word order as a little bit of licence.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 06:56:43 +0000

amulk@8: I do not remember having any concerns with the clue for THEME when I was solving this puzzle, but the clues are no longer available on the Independent website. Can you remind us of the full clue?

By: amulk

amulk — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:45:46 +0000

12a was nonsense. ‘em cannot be used as a synonym for “those vulgar people”. For example I could say ” ‘Em crossword compilers at the Indenpendent do not know what they are talking about”. That would make ME a vulgar person, not the crossword compilers. Of course, it need not necessarily invalidate my opinion.

By: flashling

flashling — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:38:01 +0000

Found this quite easy really, got the car-boy right away liked the dominick but sure I’ve seen it done the same way before somewhere. Bit of a change from Tees yesterday. Thanks Phi/Wil

By: redddevil

redddevil — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:18:56 +0000

I’m very much in the KD camp here and didn’t get the gateway clue until quite late. I even considered ditching the whole thing having solved STANDARD and GLENGARRY and still not the gateway! My subsequent solving was badly hampered by having LADDO at 9 ac and ALGOL at 6 D both of which fitted their clues perfectly but were wrong.
Not my happiest experience!

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:51:06 +0000

Maybe I was lucky but I got the CARBOY clue straightaway, thought it was an easy enough clue. Favourite clue DOMINICK which was also my last entry. Yes, John, I agree those separate parts have themselves to be words, looking at the solution next day would be very inelegant if not IMHO. Thanks for your blog and thanks to Phi for another pleasing puzzle which I did not find too hard.

By: NealH

NealH — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:15:21 +0000

It took me a while to figure out the parsing of Dominick – I could see too many other names in there like Dom and Nick – but apart from that this was fairly straightforward once you’d cracked the car/boy clue. I thought it was quite a clever device and very much enjoyed the puzzle, even if 14 was going a bit too far for me. No clue stood out, but there was a lot of well designed wordplay that lead you very satisfactorily to the answers.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:11:56 +0000

This wasn’t my favourite ever Phi either. The theme just seemed a bit random to me – cars and boys could have millions of possible answers. I couldn’t get the gateway clue(s) for quite some time (I know, it wasn’t hard) so was excluded from solving the themed clues.

And of the four crossing letters in CARBOY, three are from clues which require you to have solved the gateway clue before you can attempt them. I know I’ve chuntered on about this before, but I do think it’s a bit unfair. CONJUGAL RIGHTS was good.

By: Handel

Handel — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:22:56 +0000

Bore = a steep-fronted wave caused by the meeting of two tides or by the constriction of a tide rushing up a narrow estuary.

I was lucky enough to see the Severn Bore once when staying with my granparents in Bristol – very impressive it was too!