Comments on: Independent 7,798 / Nimrod

By: redddevil

redddevil — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:19:03 +0000

When even a search of the Today website doesn’t reveal all of the required names I’m afraid that’s going too far for me.
I put this firmly in the ‘LAMIC’ file!

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:36:53 +0000

Not being a listener to the programme I needed plenty of help. Fortunately 2, 13 and 14d were fairly obvious and googling the three of them together came up with the rest which it was then just a case of fitting in. Finally defeated, though, by 27.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:14:10 +0000

IIRC, we once had GENERA and LABILITY as discrete elements in an Enigmatist grid. Needless to say, the pair was linked, and the clue something like

Classes ‘tendency to fluctuate’ with ‘intelligence’ (7,7).

That’s right folks, (7,7): so, the answer didn’t actually appear in the grid! IIRC …

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:58:26 +0000

Many thanks to Conrad Cork for shedding light on 15 – I would never have fathomed it out, since I am not really familiar with “bins” as an abbreviation of “binoculars” being used to mean “glasses”.

Thanks too to Eileen and Kathryn’s Dad for sketching in the background to the puzzle, and, of course, to Alan Connor for interviewing Nimrod.

By: sidey

sidey — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:14:35 +0000

I haven’t listened to Today for many years. I too much of a curmudgeonly git to start the day with it.

By: Quixote

Quixote — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:16:13 +0000

I surprised myself by doing this quite quickly, mainly because I spotted the theme and therefore didn’t always bother to get the answers through the somewhat tricky subsidiary indications. Listening to Radio 4 over a lifetime gave me an unfair advantage. I guess if this was intended as a test of cruciverbal unravelling. I am inclined to agree with K’s Dad. Were I not a wholly supportive member of the team of setters with its amazing diversity of styles (outdoing The Guardian even these days!) I might be tempted to say that I am less than happy about the one link between the left and right sides of the puzzle and to express some concern about the TODAYPRO/GRAMME split. But I couldn’t possibly comment, could I? I am sure that lots of Indy folk vastly more experienced and cleverer than I am at crosswords will have sailed through this.

By: Lenny

Lenny — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:02:39 +0000

I worked out what the theme was and then lost the will to live.

By: flashling

flashling — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:18:33 +0000

@TokyoColin it was not safe for this local either as I don’t listen to the today programme as I’m generally working. It was quite disconcerting to see in the paper that 29/1 was enumerated as 5,9 and the grid entry was 8,6 and whilst I can appreciate the hard work that went into this, I had a snowball’s chance in hell of doing it on my commute in and home.

Well done RR I don’t if I’d have the blog up even now.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:48:42 +0000

Thanks Nimrod and RatkojaRiku. This was a really tough one. Though I filled in all the squares (correctly, as it turns out), there were several where the reasoning was quite beyond me. Do I dare to find out more about N/E/E’s thought processes . . . ? Enjoyed the theme.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:32:45 +0000

Your comment, Colin, made me laugh out loud, and without the slightest trace of Schadenfreude, I assure you!

Alan’s comment and link has cleared it all up – I remember now that Nimrod was on the Today programme with Eric Westbrook a while ago, promoting the 3D crossword event in Cheltenham on behalf of the RNIB (if I’ve got that right – Nimrod or Eric will no doubt say if not). So it’s all in aid of charity, in which case I think we can forgive the setter a bit of parochialism.