Comments on: Independent 7809 by Crosophile

By: crosophile

crosophile — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:10:18 +0000

I was incommunicado yesterday so herewith my belated thanks to Flashling and all the rest of you for what I found a particularly interesting discussion. I don’t think there are now any unresolved lose ends.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:33:01 +0000

Flashling @17. My comment wasn’t a criticism of the blog – far from it, it was fine. What I meant was that in solving the crossword I got some answers because they could hardly be anything else and I needed the blog to explain them – which it did admirably. And when I saw the explanations some of them were so simple I wondered why they hadn’t occurred to me.
Not really a criticism of the crossword or the setter either; just a comment on my own slowness.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:14:49 +0000

Sorry Allan_C, the problem being, how overt do we make these blogs? It’s like explaining a joke. I tend to go for the well that’s obvious now to me without the grandmother egg sucking.

The biggest issue for bloggers though is we have to solve and then write it up, this takes some time. A question I’ve asked before but not had answered is how the lurkers want us to do this.

I’d like Gaufrid to do a poll on the level of solving we provide.

By: Allan_C

Allan_C — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:25:25 +0000

Another of those crosswords where several of the answers “can only be ….” but I need the blog to follow the wordplay (and frequently then have an “of course” moment).

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:58:30 +0000

So link words are bad unless done by Dac when it’s a great surface? (not really aimed at you Wil ).
Re PeterO’s comment about 1d being a DD aren’t most clues really – a definition and a cryptic in some way definition. Oh well now I need an earlyish night as job interview tomorrow

By: Paul B

Paul B — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:54:32 +0000

Although, to be fair, it can ‘seem’ as wrong as it likes – so long as it isn’t.

By: Wil Ransome

Wil Ransome — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:44:26 +0000

That ‘by’ in 1dn, which seems to be superfluous and is I think just a rather bad link-word made me look back at the clues, many of which have similar tiny prepositions which are used as link-words. Some people would call them padding:
‘for’ in 12ac; ‘for’ in 22ac; ‘of’ in 27ac; ‘by’ in 1dn; ‘for’ in 2dn; ‘in’ in 17dn; ‘when’ or ‘when playing’ in 20dn.

There may be others I’ve missed, and there may be a perfectly good reason for their existence which I’ve also missed; these are all acceptable I think, but arguably less than elegant.

Otherwise, a good crossword, although I agree with the criticism of ‘airs’='posing’; it may be justifiable grammatically, but it seems wrong.

By: Pelham Barton

Pelham Barton — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:11:25 +0000

Thomas99 @11:

17dn: I agree with everything you say.

15ac: If you take “set” as past tense it works with a singular subject, which is good enough for this self-styled purist.

By: Thomas99

Thomas99 — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:58:36 +0000

PeterO-
Re 17d I can see some might not think “airs” is quite the same as “posing” but I don’t see any objection on grammatical grounds. “Posing” is the gerund, the nounal form of the verb, so it can certainly stand in for another noun. It’s true you talk about “putting on airs” and probably not “putting on posing” but it is the same part of speech and means much the same thing. “What do you object to about him?” “Oh, his posing – so pretentious”/”Oh, his airs – so pretentious” – they’re very similar. Certainly a sound clue for me.
Re 15a – the question is whether “set” works in the plural. I’ve seen it used quite often though. Here the words for “provide a spur to”, i.e. “stir up”, set – provide a setting for – “r”. But some people think only “sets” makes sense in the cryptic reading. I tend to disagree but a strict Ximenean probably wouldn’t.
Re 24a – I’ve no idea what the “freezing” of a pointer has to do with it. The clue says that a Red Setter may be partly a Pointer, which from a look at wikipedia appears to be right. And the other reading is of course “Red sky at night [i.e. sun red when it sets], shepherd’s delight
[i.e. good weather tomorrow]“.

I share your concern about “by” in 1d. When I solved it I thought “by” was part of the definition, because I thought the housing of a bolt was called the escape. It seems I was imagining things. I can’t believe Crosophile would use a totally superflous word, so I’m a bit confused about that one.

By: flashling

flashling — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:40:48 +0000

Hmm doing blog late at night after a few is probably a bad idea it seems, thanks for the corrections and good spot on PATIO NMS – i missed that entirely.