Comments on: Independent 7,803 / Dac

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:29:10 +0000

8ac MHL? didn’t get Churr new word on me, got the rest in 15 mins, gave up and read the paper, thanks RR for giving me the last one and Dac for a nice puzzle. At least after yesterday’s Anax you could get going with fairly decent definitions and normal wordplay. Not that Anax brain busters aren’t welcome.

By: mhl

mhl — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:47:39 +0000

I haven’t done a Dac puzzle for a while, so this was a real pleasure – such lovely surface readings in every clue. The only problems for us here were CHURR (a new word) and stupidly putting in CAR INSPECTOR without accounting for the I, or apparently thinking at all

My one very minor quibble here was that the “As” in 8 across broke the definition.

By: nmsindy

nmsindy — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:54:07 +0000

Many thanks, RatkojaRiku, and Dac. Maybe I was lucky but I did not find it harder than usual for a Dac puzzle. All perfect as always. If I had to pick my two favourite clues they’d be TELEVISION SHOW (super misleading anagram), and CRUSOE (esp good surface).

And, RatkojaRiku, if you’ve never heard of the WAGS, maybe I should go to wherever you are…

By: RatkojaRiku

RatkojaRiku — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:24:09 +0000

@Kathryn’s Dad – thanks for spotting that, which obviously has to be the correct reading of the clue in order for the surface to be smooth. I was sure that I had read “accountant’s” this morning, and not “account’s” – the expression “more haste, less speed” springs to mind …

By: NealH

NealH — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:07:58 +0000

I thought this was a little tricky in places and didn’t spot that 9 across was an anagram until I’d got the answer. Struth was my last entry – I was also convinced it should be strewth and eventually worked it out from the wordplay, so coming back full circle to realize it was what I’d originally thought, only spelt differently. 2 down was also quite tricky – I was convinced for ages that it must be chirp.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:01:35 +0000

I didn’t find this easy at all! I was totally fooled by 18a (STRUTH). “Strewth” was my first thought, and when it didn’t fit or parse I (eventually) stuck the “U” in completely mindlessly. I only understood the parsing when the online “Congratulations!” came up. It’s a clever dodge by Dac – as it’s meant to be a contraction of “God’s truth!” this must be the original spelling.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 08:00:46 +0000

RatkojaRiku, thank you for your helpful blog.

Exactly the same experience as you: a good bit trickier than your usual Dac (but we have been saying that a bit recently). Needed a lot of perseverance to get there, but as always with this setter, a pleasure to solve. CHINWAGS and the clever anagrams for QUESTION MASTER and TELEVISION SHOW stood out today.

I took 1ac to be just a reversal of ACS for ‘accounts’ plus the M, rather than ‘accountants’.