Comments on: Independent 7,779 / Dac

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:04:42 +0000

unlucky Bamburger, you got closer than me on this, no complaints, just couldn’t see bits of it. Including Ruddigore. Ta RR needed this today.

By: Bamberger

Bamberger — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:56:00 +0000

You cna’t get closer to an elusive unaided Indie solve that missing out by one. I got exegete from e?e?e?e, I got dent rather than dint but I could not get ruddigore.
I had r?d?i?o?e. Probelm was I couldn’t work out if the answer was “really” e.g for sure, definitely, “really adore” e.g idolise, smutty show e.g burlesque , striptease or show e.g demonstrate.
Among the various efforts I know I pondered smutty =rude which gave me rud?i?o?e and even tried the final of actor to give me rud?i?o?re but I never thought of like=dig.
To be honest if you had included ruddigore in a list of real and fake words I would definitely have said it was a fake word. Quite simply never heard of it.

You’ve denied me again Dac.

By: eimi

eimi — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:21:17 +0000

I took the view that air should be considered with head rather than separately. Many airlines use Air as part of their name, so presumably the boss of Ryanair could be considered an airhead.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:59:11 +0000

Thanks to setter and blogger: good job, both. Amulk@4, I think “air” is legitimate if you think of it as a kind (mode) of transport – land, sea or air. Hope this helps.

By: amulk

amulk — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:53:02 +0000

nice puzzle. just a small quibble. in 1d, to my way of thinking, the use of “air” as a synonym for “transport” is inappropriate, in that i cannot think of any context in which one can be substituted for the other. yes i know we have “air transport”, but we also have “scrambled eggs”. the latter could not be used as an excuse for using “scrambled” as a synonym for “eggs”

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:08:20 +0000

Another excellent puzzle and blog. Thanks, Dac and RatkojaRiku. Not too hard, but took me a while to work RUDDIGORE out – it was vaguely in memory but I did not realise it was by G&S. As a bibliophile in life outside crosswords, it was interesting to learn about Dent (thanks Wikipedia) who I’d never linked with the Everyman series.

By: NealH

NealH — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:54:13 +0000

Lots of nice clues, as ever. I find it hard to believe no-one has done the Rasputin clue before, but I don’t recall seeing it. There was also a nice bit of unintended topicality with 26 and the recent UBS trading loss.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:05:56 +0000

Fine puzzle, fine blog; thanks to both.

The clueing in the Indy generally is good, but Dac is very easy on the eye, it’s true. When you’re solving – and as you say, particularly when you’re blogging – it’s easy to look straight past the surface in the haste of getting to the solution. But if you go back and read today’s clues, they are without exception smooth, story-telling surfaces, and that’s true every Wednesday.

I did know EXEGETE, but only from crosswords. BEDTIME STORIES was my favourite today.